Giving template results in blank project

Hello all

NB This refers to version 3.5 with LDAP authentication.

One of our users left the institution (without transferring ownership of her Xerte project) and another person would like to edit the project that the former created. When we used the 'Give template' option in the admin interface, however, the project lost all of its content. Giving it back to the original creator fixed this problem, but now it cannot be edited. (We also tried downloading it, but nothing happens when we go to Properties > Export > Get Archive Zip. The rest of the usual sharing options are for the Creator only.) Our database administrator tried changing the username in the database, but the same thing happened.

Is there another option that we can try from the management.php section to get this project to someone else? Or is there something that our database admin can do from the back end?

Thanks for your help

Candace