Oh... if planning version is deleted, what else is left :-(
In my case I have rebuilt the planning area again from the backup cubes and files, reloaded the entire data from source again.. history etc. If COM error 40,020 does not go away and your consistency check programs all look green, you are probably in trouble. In such situations, you rely on your back up data. If you do not have upto date back up data (back up of planning area), you can ask your demand planners if they have some future data (e.g. forecast, adjustments, demand plan.. whatever they call it). If your demand planners are sincere girls, they may have stored some future data in excel files to show it to their managers who do not use SAP. If you still can't get it, then I do not know what to do. Perhaps blame SAP and claim for damages caused.
Alternatively you can ask your BASIS guys to do a system/DB restore to a time when your system was working fine. This way you will loose all changes done recently and will have a system wide impact.
Thanks
BS