Could not extract GUID in text file projectsettings 5.5.0f1

yeah this error has plagued my 5.5 project and its still not fixed....

Could not extract GUID in text file projectsettings/projectsettings.asset at line 45.

projectsettings.asset ... line 45 is the m_SplashScreenBackgroundLandscape... doesn't matter what image i set it too.. after saving project and opening up again I always get the above error.. and it wipes the fileId guuid to the background image that was set.. weirdly the player settings will still have the old image selected, and preview build will work with the image.

Thie file will look like this after loading the project...
m_SplashScreenLogos:
- logo: {fileID: 21300000, guid: 748320616e4341a4f8d51085a08688a6, type: 3}
duration: 2
m_SplashScreenBackgroundLandscape: {fileID: 1, guid: 00000000000000000000000000000000,
type: 0}
m_SplashScreenBackgroundPortrait: {fileID: 0}
m_VirtualRealitySplashScreen: {fileID: 0}
m_HolographicTrackingLossScreen: {fileID: 0}
defaultScreenWidth: 1024

If I don't have an image set for SplashScreenBackgroundLandscape then save it then I won't get the startup error... otherwise it will happen everytime I load the project.

 

yeh I get around to stripping the project down next week

 

the good news is I tried stripping down a duplicate of the project today instead.

the bad news is that the backup I made of the project before doing this didn't happen until I had moved a bunch of files out of the asset folder to reduce the backup size.. one being the image that was referenced in the background splash.. and in the duplicated project that I was stripping down, when I added the same the splash screen back in the player settings, saved, closed, re-opened project.. I did not get this "Could not extract GUID in text file projectsettings/projectsettings.asset at line 45." error anymore :S And when I put that same spash image back on the backed up project that was getting this error originally. Well that didn't get the error on starting either. ..So I can't replicate the error now.

the really bad news is the stripped down project has a whole bunch of prefabs that have missing scripts I didn't want anyway. But it looks like I'll have to remove all the components I don't want on those prefabs from the backup project, as doing the same thing from the stripped down project where I've already deleted much of the assets no longer being used or wanted ( no script or compile errors either) seems to cause the entire editor to crash. It seems I can't just do the things the easy way. So maybe I will have an stripped down project to send in, that just crashes should you try remove anything (an object in scene hierarchy or component) or add anything into the scene. https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/so-project-cleanup-and-other-annoyances.442858/