Please send us your corrupted save files (PC)

acknowledged
#1

EDIT: There is no need to send us more corrupted save files as we have gotten plenty and since the fix is almost done being tested and verified we don’t require any more files. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide us with copies of your corrupted saves :pray: we appreciate it.

Hello everyone :wave:

First of all I just want to say that we are very sad to see that so many are getting their save files corrupted. This is a huge bummer and know that we are doing our best to prevent this from happening.

We are currently at the point in the investigation where we need corrupted save files from users that haven’t clicked “OK” when the “corrupt save game - restoring of save file failed - do you want to delete your save” message is shown.

Clicking “OK” deletes your save and creates a new, blank save, and a save in that state unfortunately does not tell us anything. However, a save file which is in the state where you get this message on booting the game would be very useful for us in our effort to identify the issue and prevent it from happening.

IF anyone get’s this issue on PC please consider closing the game (via e.g. ALT + F4, via task manager or right-click and close application via taskbar) when the message is shown instead of clicking “OK”, and then sending us a copy of your corrupted save file.

  1. Your save file can be found here: Documents\Avalanche Studios\GenerationZero\Saves
  2. Right-click the save folder (containing “savegame” and “savegame.bac”) > send to > compressed (zipped) folder
  3. Go to https://wetransfer.com/ (No account required)
  4. Click the “…” button and select “get transfer link”
  5. Add/attach the .zip archive with the save file(s)
  6. Upload and copy the link
  7. Send me a DM here on the forum and include the link from wetransfer

Sorry for the inconvenience, thank you for your patience and thanks for reporting! :pray:

Note: This is a re-post of my reply in the Corrupted Save File topic. This new topic was created so that my message with instructions would be shown on top rather than at the bottom of a lengthy thread of replies.

Anyone willing to help out?
Game Crashed lost all save files
Corrupted Save File
pinned #2
#3

:floppy_disk: UPDATE:

At this point in time we have received ONE corrupted save file which we’ll make use of for our investigation and efforts to fix the issues we’ve seen related to save data corruption and loss of progress.

That said, if anyone is unfortunate enough to end up with a corrupted save, we’ll gladly receive more corrupted saves files (Note: save files that haven’t been wiped/deleted by clicking “OK”).

#4

:floppy_disk: UPDATE 2:

I have received a few corrupted save files at this point, and I want you to know that we are very grateful that you are sending them to us! We’ll make good use of them in our investigation of this issue.

Unfortunately, I feel obliged to inform you that we are unlikely to be able to restore save files that already have been corrupted and sending them back to you fixed. However, what we can hopefully achieve (with the help from your corrupted saves) is a fix for this issue and preventing the save corruption from occurring in the first place, or at least greatly reduce how frequently it occurs.

It won’t bring your corrupted save file back, but hopefully it gives you some consolation knowing that it’s helping us address this issue and prevent others from experiencing this in the future.

:open_file_folder: TIP:
As we have yet to commit a fix for this, IF you are concerned about getting your save file corrupted I recommend backing up your save manually on a regular basis, e.g. at the start or start+end of each play session copying your save file and putting it in dated folders and keeping a couple of those around at all time. That way, in case save corruption occurs at least you can backtrack to one of your backup saves from earlier.

#5

Isn’t it possible to implement this into the game itself? :thinking:

#6

It’s a possibility, we are currently looking at various options for handling this :slight_smile:

#7

Well I believe there are two different approaches here - one complex and one very simple.

In the current situation, I would prefer going the simple way, i.e. just simply copy the existing savegame.sav file to savegame.sav.TIMESTAMP before you load the game and do exactly same thing after you closing the game process.

Possible even some sauce around pre-game and post-game file extension, if you deem it necessary but we can live without it…
I believe users can live with multiple saves in their home directories, I have couple games which save and autosave all my progress and I have 100+ directories with timestamps and it is just fine.

But just do anything and do it quickly please, I was very frustrated because of the loss of my L31 savegame twice just because I forgot the pre-game saving woodoo trick :frowning:

Thanks for the game and all the effort, we are happy for GZ :pray:

#8

MY game crash while I was login out of it
and i had it crash several times while playing the game
I finally got back into it from dealing with irl

PLese figure out why this is happening

#9

Hi @Gr8azz :wave:

This thread is for corrupted save files that result in a “corrupted save game” message shown when booting the game. You can not play with a corrupted save file. See image below for reference.

screenshot%2001%20-%20Copy
screenshot 01 - Copy.png931×244 35.2 KB

What you are experiencing appears to be CTD’s, crashes to desktop. Please consider searching the forum and looking for a more appropriate topic to post in, OR possibly creating a new report if you can’t find one that fits the issue that you are having/describing.

PS. Also please try to be a bit more descriptive in your report, e.g. when do the crashes occur? What are you doing right before the crash happens? Do they have anything in common or is it seemingly at random? What are your specs (GPU, processor, etc), etc. Ideally use the following template: READ BEFORE POSTING - How to Make a Bug Report

Thank you for your time! :pray:

#10

I just created a corrupt savegame for you - all I did was enter the game, and turn off the power of my computer while in game. Afterwards, save was corrupted - maybe you could try this yourself a couple of times???

Anyway, I’ve sent the savegame file with wetransfer as stated (you got PM).

#13

ameinild isn’t too far off the mark. It seems quite easy to replicate the problem. My comp BSOD’ed and, well, that was that - an almost 100% maxed game with 500 hours gone.

I tried several things to recover my saves, but had no luck. Out of curiosity, I checked the corrupted save/backup save files in a hex editor to see if I could compare the data with a much older manual save, and noticed that although the filesize of the corrupted saves were larger, every bit of data was wiped to 00’s (completely blank!). With that, I’m not sure what my save files will do to help, but I’ll shoot them through anyway.

That said, since this bug is the absolute definition of GAME BREAKING -and for some, a deal breaker for ever playing the game again- it seems obvious to me that the most responsible thing to do would be to mention it in every dev update until it’s fixed. I’ve been playing GZ for months now and have carefully read every recent dev update, and yet I still had no idea that this bug was a thing. A simple disclaimer recommending manual backups would have been a lifesaver and still could be a lifesaver for any newcomers, 'cause I doubt they’ll find this thread otherwise! Never in over 25 years of gaming have I ever had to Google ‘save file breaking bug’ for any game…

Perhaps a simple solution could be made by creating a 3rd tier to the save system that doesn’t dramatically change what’s already implemented:

  1. savegame updates, and backup updates in turn
  2. upon successful relaunch of game and load of savegame, a 2nd backup is created

From then on, the 2nd backup is ONLY ever updated upon successfully loading the most recent savegame. Therefore it acts as a ‘last working version’ that will only load up if both the main save and 1st backup have both become corrupted.

That’s my 2 cents anyway.

split this topic #14

A post was merged into an existing topic: Savegame Corruption, Transparency and Solutions

#15

Very true, and that’s a non-argument for this whole discussion.

#16

It’s not a discussion topic, though. This thread was specifically created for the purpose of sending corrupted save files. So let’s keep the thread clean, discussions can be had in the appropriately named #general-discussion section.

//Mod

#17

Hello everyone :wave:

We have some good news to share with ya’ll regarding the issue of save data getting corrupted.

We are currently testing a fix for this and it is looking promising. Although I can’t make any promises at this time it should hopefully go out with the next patch (OR the patch after that) so keep an eye out for this fix in the patch notes (I’ll try to remember to confirm this and share with you as soon as we know).

:floppy_disk: The fix is for PC and XB1 and basically means that…

  • The backup save file (titled savegame.bac on PC) only copies the last successfully loaded save
  • IF save data corruption occurs with the default save file (savegame) the last successfully loaded save (savegame.bac) will be loaded instead

EDIT: Since PS4 is able to restore corrupted save data it will not be affected by this new fix but rather keep the old behavior and functionality of restoring corrupted save data.

Also, there’s no need to send us more corrupted save files as we have gotten plenty and since the fix is almost done being tested and verified we don’t require any more files. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide us with copies of your corrupted saves :pray: we appreciate it.

Corrupted Save File