For some reason every time I save a scenet poser doesn't save a content file with it. What's happening is when I try to reopen the scene all figures are reset to default and no props or figures show up in navigation menu.

Did you checked all animation frames?

Hm. Do you have Poser on an external drive? 

I don't really understand what's happening here. You say all figures are reset to default and at the same time you say they don't show up?

Could you show an example? With a pic of a scene before and after saving and reopening it?

And then finally I can't even find the figures or props in the drop down list to repose them.

What version of Poser are you using and verify that you are saving as a pz3 file.
Under Edit/GeneralPreferences/Misc is UseExternalBinaryMorphTargets checked or unchecked?

I'm using poser 8, yes I am saving as pz3. and UseExternalBinaryMorphTargets is unchecked. I have noticed that when I save Most of the time there are two files a scene file and a content file?

A poser scene saved from Poser is a .pz3 or pzz file. Its a single file unless you use external binary morphs. (not suggested)

That is saved from the poser File menu , save or save as.

anything else like figure,pose, material is a subset of the scene file.

The scene file should be complete in itself, only referencing geometry or image files , everything else should be in the pz3.

What Darkedge asked too.

Hmmm, that content file doesn't show up when I save a scene...not sure what it is.

Still trying to eliminate possibilities, do you have an older version of Poser installed on the same computer and are you trying to open a saved scene from that version with P8?
Or...did you make and save the scene fresh within P8?

Have you installed the SR2 for P8?

I do have an older version (7) installed, but it is a new scene. Save with poser 8. I do not have SR2 which I am downloading now.

Poser 8 needs it's SR's.
There is one niggle I have noticed w/Poser8 (at least on my rig) that affects/involves other versions. I have PoserPro installed on the same computer and have noticed that the FBM for Simon cease to work in PP but they will work in P8.
I don't know if maybe you are experiencing something akin to this.

Sorry that I can't be of more help.

I appreciate all you have done. It has become very frustrating to me as I have had this same thing happen now with 6 different scenes. I don't get while my figures are in my window but not in my figure list. Thank you again.

I also am mystified by this talk of a "content file". What file extension do these content files have? Is this a static scene or an animation?

I use P6 and when I save a scene I only get a pz3 file, unless "Use external binary morph targets" is used, and I recommend  not using that option.

The problem sounds a lot like the pz3 files are getting corrupted on save. I have had that happen on the very odd occasion, but it should not happen on a regular basis. Perhaps the cr2 for figure you are using (or some other item in the scene) is corrupt, and this is causing a problem with any scenes it is used in. That is the only thing I can think of of the top of my head.

Well, that it's probably because, Explorer shows "PoserScene" as type for pz3 files and "PoserContent" for pmd files. So PMDs seem to be turned on, explaining what happens to the scenes.

PMD files are the BinaryMorphs I was talking about earlier. Edit/Preferences/Misc to turn them off.

A lot of peps don't like the PMD files but they do work for me in character creation, but that is the only time I turn them on, otherwise they are turned off.