Why did Arcdesktop wipe my shapefiles from my .mxd when I re-open it?

[MatthewElbert1]

The past several days, after I save a session in a map I had regularly been updating, upon re-opening the .mxd the next morning, I've found that my .shp files are missing from under the group layer in the TOC.  I am attempting to uninstall/reinstall of ArcMap, try the edit/save, reopen on another computer, among other things to see what the issue is.  This is very strange and I've never encountered it before (I've moved the local version of a shapefile to another file location before and had the 'red check mark-broken link' error before, but never shapefiles completely wiped from the TOC).  This is an annoyance if I have to re-upload all of my .shp files to my maps I had just edited the day before.  Any ideas of what the issue is/how to fix would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,

-Matt

[Katie_Clark]

Very strange, I just experienced the same thing for the first time today! No idea what could be causing it but would love to find out!

[MatthewElbert1 · Accepted solution]

Katherine,

I tried a few things, but I think what solved it was doing a 'program repair' then uninstall/reinstall of Arcdesktop.  So far, it seems to have worked.

-Matt

[Katie_Clark]

Thanks for the update, Matt! If it happens to me again, I'll give that a shot.