Webots opens empty.wbt instead of my world

[devrnkt]

When I try to open my project world, Webots doesn not load it and instead opens empty.wbt from the Webots resources folder. This has happened twice. I still have my original project files, but opening the world always redirects to empty.wbt in a different directory.

Environment
OS: Windows 10 (x64)
Webots version: R2025a
Install type: standard installer

D:\my_project
controllers
libraries
models
plugins
protos
worlds
Chess robot.wbt

Expected behavior
Opening D:\my_project\worlds\Chess robot.wbt (via File → Open world…, or double-click in Explorer) should load my scene.

Actual behavior
Webots does not load my world. Instead, it opens empty.wbt from the Webots resources directory. The title bar shows the resources path and the scene is empty. This has now happened twice. My original project files are still present.

What I’ve already tried
Verified the world files exist and are not 0 bytes (chessproject.wbt and chess_backup.wbt).
Opened the world via File → Open World… and by double-click from Explorer — both redirect to empty.wbt.
Reinstalled Webots.
Created a new world successfully; problem is specific to opening my existing world.
Checked that my project tree has the standard worlds/, protos/, controllers/, etc.

protos\  (local protos for this world)

[ShuffleWire]

PS : does it happend each time you open your world now ?

It occurs often when webots find in your world an error so bad that i can't open it, then default to empty.wbt

Without more detail, it's hard to say more.
One thing you can try is to trim down your wbt manually, to the point that you can open it again, then try iteratively to bissect your way to the problematic part by adding piece by piece stuff into your file

PS : in your screenshot of your directory, it look like you have a folder "proto1" but not "proto", is that normal ?