I was trying to create a new project but Sponge insists that the project already exists.
If it says so…
If a project is created, and then either deleted by the plug-in author, or not set to visible it might be causing this.
When a project is deleted by a user (last I checked), It is a soft deletion and not a permanent deletion - therefore the name is still locked in the system.
I would reach out in the Ore channel on Discord for visibility to the Ore dev team.