Accidentally hit the 'trim comp to work area'. Now I can't get my files back into comp timeline.

Question

I'm using After Effects CC on my macpro. When going to add a shot to the render queue, I accidentally hit the 'trim comp to work area' and didn't notice what had happened until I went to go back to work on other shots. I tried to hit Control Z but it was too late it seemed and it wouldn't go back to how it was. i tried resetting the length of the comp and putting the files back, but no use. Tried making a new comp and copy and pasting all the files in the side panel of my orig comp, but nothing. Tried re-adding the same file from the project window and copying and pasting the effects keyframes from the orig shot to the new one but they didn't line up properly.
I still have all the files in the comp side panel but can't seem to get them back into the now extended timeline. I still have all the effects I've been doing for the past 3 weeks, but can't do anything to get them into a position where I can continue to manipulate them.
I've searched a bunch of forums and can't find this problem anywhere.
Have I lost all my work? Please help.

Answer 1

It appears that you've pushed those layers into negative time, which you can't view in the Timeline. To get the layers back into the Timeline view, you'll need to move the layers in time with keyboard shortcuts. I assume that you've got your layers arranged in an edit, and you want to preserve their relationships, so do the following:
Select all of the layers.
Hold down Alt/Option+Shift and press Page Down until the layers are visible. This shortcut moves layers 10 frames later in time. Removing Shift moves them 1 frame at a time. Using Page Up instead of Page Down will move them earlier in time.
Another useful pair of shortcuts is [ and ], which set the in or out points of the select layer(s) to the current time. But you probably don't want to use those shortcuts in this case because you'll lose the time relationships of your edit.