I am coming back to some analysis I did a few months ago and tried to load the .mat file for that project.  I get the following error:

ERROR DESCRIPTION:

Error using conn_jobmanager (line 316)
Unknown project. Load a conn project first (or cd to the folder containing your conn*.qlog project file)
Error in conn (line 1121)
conn_jobmanager ispending;
Error in conn (line 4690)
conn gui_ispending;
Error in conn_menumanager (line 121)
feval(CONN_MM.MENU{n0}.callback{n1}{1},CONN_MM.MENU{n0}.callback{n1}{2:end});
CONN20.b
SPM12 + DAiSS DEM FieldMap MEEGtools
Matlab v.2020b
project: CONN20.b
spm @ C:\Users\karl3\Work\spm12
conn @ C:\Users\karl3\Work\conn

if I try to load it into Matlab I get:
Warning: Unable to read some of the variables due to unknown MAT-file error.

> In matfinfo (line 9)
In finfo (line 118)
In uiimport/gatherFilePreviewData (line 454)
In uiimport (line 297)
Error using load
Unknown text on line number 1 of ASCII file C:\Users\karl3\Work\fMRI_Music_conn\conn_project_improv1.mat
"".

All the files for the analysis and QA steps are in the data and results folders. 
I saw an answer to the same question saying "sometimes if you run the program from a different directory, it might show an error. Are you in the same directory where all your data are present?" But I don't know what that means. First is the problem with the file fixable and if not, is there a way to use the existing results files to essentially reconstruct the .mat file or at least not to have to start from scratch?

thanks,
Karl