My Save data is gone??

[Konokken]

Before patch 7.2 maintiance, I logged out like I usually do, today I woke up extra early to download and play the new patch, after the patch downloaded the game loaded up but one problem, my character wasn't there, the home screen had ARR title and when I clicked on "start" it had me select a data center as if this was the first time I ever booted up the game, a quick google search told me I should redownload the game, so I waited about 2 hours for the game to reinstall, but nothing changed, does anyone know what happened and how I can fix it?

[Picothea]

Wild guess, but do you know if the data center you logged into may have somehow been changed, and if so, can you return to your normal center? It's the only thing that comes to mind.
Since your character is still displayed on the site, it's hopefully still intact. The question is just where.

[Konokken]

My home server is primal, and I logged out on aether(hoped to snag me a spot for some raiding LMAO). When I clicked "data centers" on the home menu, it allowed me to select a data center, I clicked on aether and it immedietly started the opening cutscene for ARR

[AshtonCrowe]

My home server is primal, and I logged out on aether(hoped to snag me a spot for some raiding LMAO). When I clicked "data centers" on the home menu, it allowed me to select a data center, I clicked on aether and it immedietly started the opening cutscene for ARR

Check every DC / World

I've had them shuffle my character elsewhere in the past, Try looking on Dynamis.

Either look at your Mogstation account and see if the character still exists, IF it exists as an option to receive character bound items then he wasn't deleted. Or ask SE Support to track the character, Much as i'm upset with SE their support is SSS Tier.

[Titania40]

My home server is primal, and I logged out on aether(hoped to snag me a spot for some raiding LMAO). When I clicked "data centers" on the home menu, it allowed me to select a data center, I clicked on aether and it immedietly started the opening cutscene for ARR

The maintenance notice specifically said that if you were Traveling to a different world or data cluster, your char would be returned home. So... Check your Primal data cluster home for the character.

[Jeeqbit]

As others said, sometimes you don't see your character if it's set to a data center your character isn't on.

It will help to establish if you can find your character on the lodestone. I can in fact find your character there, so that is a good sign.

If you are unable to find your character, you could ask the GMs to investigate. If you need to grab your character ID, you can go to Document\My Games\Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn, find your CHAR folder, and you will notice it has an ID number in hexadecimal. If you copy the folder name and put it in the ticket then you're also giving them what (I assume the game sees) as your character ID so they can look for it.

In the worst case, if it's been deleted somehow, they have backups they can restore, and that's where having ID numbers may assist them.

[Konokken]

UPDATE: I got it working! Thank you all so much for the help, truly

[Exmo]

UPDATE: I got it working! Thank you all so much for the help, truly

Can you share how you got it working in case it happens to someone else and they come looking here please

[Konokken]

Just have them log on to their home server, even though there is a cutscene from arr, at least for me, I was just chucked back onto my home world

[Xactly]

Thought the cutscene when you click on start or Datacenter usually only happens whenever you reinstall the game or install it on a new platform.