Why is MAX deleting a maxpat that are needed for the project?

I was working in Max for Live where my AMXD uses bpatcher objects. I did a lot of work on 2 bpatchers, saved all my work in Max (the version opened through Ableton), closed Max, and the AMXD had all the updates and worked great. Did a 'collect all and save' and closed Ableton. Next day I open up the Ableton file and while the changes I had made to the AMXD are there, the area where the bpatchers go is empty and I get a bpatcher: bpatcher: error loading patcher error. So i go and search my file system and it is indeed gone.

I am sick of Max deleting files from the project folder that I still need. I know it likes to remove files are aren't being active used (which is freaking annoying), but now it removes files being used as well? Is there a way to turn this off and/or recover the files? I lost a day of tedious work here