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Vitor_Goncalves1
New Member
November 13, 2023
Question

One of my Collection of Variables disappeared

  • November 13, 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 878 views

On Friday I spent a great deal of care creating a system of variables and applying it to new frames. When I open the file today I can see the created frames, and the correct values applied to an object’s properties, but it’s not referring the variable. The value is greyed out, and when I open the variables panel, there’s one collection of variables I had from before, but not the one I created on Friday.
I tried restoring older versions, but the issue remains.
I tried opening it in the browser, but the issue remains.
Any help to shed a light on this will be so appreciated!

This topic has been closed for replies.

7 replies

Ellu
November 13, 2023

Is everything in the same file? What you’re seeing is what is shown when you delete a variable. The good thing is that it’s easy to replace missing variables, but the bad thing is that I haven’t found a good way to document them for exactly this case. My files are really big and sometimes I have to quit and restart for some things to behave. I hope there will be improvements on tooling for theming.

Vitor_Goncalves1
New Member
November 14, 2023

Yes, and the file is actually not that complex. How do you mean replacing a missing variable? Going one by one?
I wish I had looked for a plugin to export variables for safe keeping 🙂

Vitor_Goncalves1
New Member
November 14, 2023

I also tried re-creating a deleted variable with the same name and structure, but Figma won’t fetch it…

Phillip1
March 18, 2024

I have also just started experiencing this. Has anyone heard anything from Figma support or seen anything in the release notes? I haven’t, but I can’t say I’ve seen everything they’ve released notes on. Thanks!

Celine_
Figmate
Community Support
March 20, 2024

Hey Phillip,
Sorry to hear you are having issue with the collection of variables.
As a first workaround, can you first check your file’s version history, the collection can be restored from there.

If not, please reach out directly to the support team by filling a form here: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Be sure to use your Figma account email, include links to the file, and share it with support-share@figma.com so they can take a closer look. They may be able to restore it. Thank you

Product_Indaboski
May 6, 2024

Can’t believe I just experienced this too. After hours of painstakingly creating tokens with the Figma variables, everything just disappeared unexplainably 😭

Restoring older versions doesn’t work, I restored several. The variables and all the work are simply missing.

Figma, please now 😞

Sebastián Mejía Giraldo OFIMA
New Member
March 25, 2025

I basically have the same problem. I created my variable collections, including Primitive:Color, which contains all the primitive colors used in the Semantic:Color collection. When I export my library or publish it, it automatically discards all the colors in the Primitive: Color collection, leaving only four of them.