Is the writing on the wall for my PhD? Should I switch supervisors?

Before the lockdown I had expressed a few proteins I was working on and it generated low yields, to me and my supervisor's surprise. When I returned I continued working to optimize expression, although my time was limited due to uni rules. Today my supervisor and I had a long horrendous meeting. He was upset by the speed my project was progressing in the last couple months and he's not sure if I will be able to get a PhD time or at all. He then said that while he likes me as a person and appreciates the fact that I'm tenacious and work everyday, but he would absolutely not recommend I go into research at all because I suck at it. I admit that some experiments, like cloning, could have been done faster but some experiments do take time. He urged me to think carefully about whether I should continue or not. He then tried to be friendly and asked me to consider other career choices in which he thought I had potential to do well in, just listing things off randomly. He suggested I should go exercise more to relieve stress and improve my productivity. Truthfully, how can I even relax if my status as a doctoral student is in jeopardy?

His words were hurtful. A similar conversation took place for my upgrade viva, which he thought I’d fail. My assessors were happy with the quality and quantity of work, my understanding of literature. He said the only reason I passed was with the understanding that he had to constantly monitor my work for one year, which was not documented. I was only asked me to do was to submit a three questions my thesis will answer and they were satisfied with my ideas. Do you think the writing on the wall is for me in this lab? If I’m given a choice to change advisors, should I? Does anyone have experience here changing supervisors? How does that work and how do you adapt knowing that if things go wrong here, its over?

Oh dear...

So as far as you were aware your first year report was fine, but in fact your supervisor only kept you on the proviso that you'd be watched like a hawk over the next year?

What's the set-up like in your group? Do you have a postdoc who's mentoring you at all? Your supervisor is clearly worried that you're not going to get enough data in time, so what plans (if any) have been put in place to support your bench work? Have you been meeting your supervisor regularly with updates, or is this the first time the progress of your work has been discussed in detail?

Thanks for your response. My advisor only told me that I'd be watched over the next year today. I'm not sure if this was a deal that the examiners stuck with him under the table but it wasn't made clear to me in writing at all.

I had a postdoc who mentored me but she left. The one who replaced her has his own experiments to run and is only available to discuss ideas in passing or for brief consultations. I thought that was fair because I'm capable of doing my own experiments. I don't know what he is going to do or if will support my bench work. I meet with my supervisor every fortnight for updates but sometimes he doesn't communicate his concerns well. He doesn't like answering questions directly and responds with silence at times, which often times I don't know what it means. So for instance if an experiment failed I would explain what I did, what I think went wrong and he would be silent in response. Only many weeks later would he complain that he thought I was taking far too long then. Sometimes his silence may not mean the same thing either. He did say today that he has tried to stay positive for the last few months but I think I mistook his "positivity" as a sign of the fact that he thought things were going fine and I wasn't in too much trouble then.

Leaving aside your supervisor's unhappiness, how do you feel about your project? Clearly you're going to feel a bit defeated and unwanted after something like this, but do you think that you even could continue now, given that your supervisor has essentially asked you to leave? Are you the sort of person to dig your heels in?

From a practical point of view, what is the funding situation? Is it a fully-funded studentship, or a scholarship?