Just had power outage - very short 2/3 seconds - unfortunately game was in process of saving – AAARRRGGGHHH ! Corrupted save !! Re-start game !! I see no reason why a rolling save system isn’t used - first in last out - possible 3 saves. Even 2 consecutive saves (last 2 safe houses !!! - therefore corrupted save can be deleted) would alleviate the “rage quit” attitude of having to restart with a new character.
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Yeah, the saving system in this game is a joke for sure, especially since the so called backup of the save also gets corrupted when things like this happens. Really, really bad implementation.
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I’ve had the occasional bad save.
Solution:
Back up save game regularly.
Yes, not fun… but DARN useful.
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Yeah, which I do (posted about that in another thread). Still doesn’t change the fact that the current implementation of saving in this game is crap, especially since the built in “backup system” fails as well.
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@OGDH
Yep, I support that statement.
As I said, I too had the occasional bad save.
Thankfully I backed up a LOT…
Night every hour.
5 saves (copies), I always overwrote the last one so that would be the first copy, and the 4th would become the last which was to be overwritten… 
Even better solution:
Use an UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), so that the few second blackouts doesn’t screw up your game or any other task you’re currently doing and haven’t saved your progress recently.
IMHO, every PC should be backed up by UPS. Our 2x PCs are.
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That wont save you if the game hard crashes for whatever reason, so no, an ups is not a substitution for backups. This is generally speaking. In the OP case, sure it could most likely have saved the game.
I agree ups is nice to have, I have it myself.
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Windows for some reason does not enable “previous versions” of files on the C: drive even if “system pretection” is enabled for the drive. I found a way to enable this via a scheduled talk. Snapshots (a file history) is maintained at logon now, I believe, allowing you to go back in time to healthy save files for all games that store saves on your C: drive. This is basically fire-and-forget for a certain Windows installation.
If anyone is interested in this method, I could put together a how-to.
On the other hand, there are scripts published in this forum which create backups MUCH more frequently. The only downside to them is that they are specific for certain files/locations.
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Why not just create .bat that copies files and run that when you need to backup the saves between gameplay sessions? 
Edit: And to play safe, create another .bat that copies the data from backup to backup_2 to keep the progress extra safe if you manage to accidentally copy corrupted save to the backup directory.
Because my solution is done once, and for all games with save files on this drive. And because you don’t need to remember to run it.
I use both methods, lol! I have an external usb drive that have taken care of my file history and image backup needs. Also using a nas placed at my work that runs a complete backup of everything every week over the internet.
I guess the reason for file history not being enabled is that many (most?) only runs with a single harddrive (partition) , and you usually dont backup things when the source and destination are one and the same.
Also, file history by default (if enabled) backs up every hour. If you have it to run only once on logon, you can still loose hours of progress.
You can change that, but I still find that writing your own backup script has its uses for sure, especially since you have even more control then. Also in my case, I start the game with the script, so no, I dont forget to run it 
@Palle, take a look at my bat file, posted in another thread. Now I dont remember the thread, but that bat file keeps three backups going continously as you play.
We are not talking about the same thing. I talk about “System protection” which enables the creation of restore points. These restore points are sometimes created on driver installs and usually in the context of Windows updates. Plus there is a regular snapshot (restore point) once every week now, I believe (was more frequent before). On non-system partitions this goes along with “previous versions” of arbitrary files. On the system (C:) drive, it does not. Not anymore. But you can re-enable this functionality if you create a Shadow Copy (a snapshot, the basis of a restore point) with a custom command. That is what I am doing via Windows task planner.
You could, of course, also create more triggers for this command to run, such as a time interval, if needed.
I myself did not have a save file corruption, yet. My PC as well as my power line seem to be stable enough. And to loose a couple of hours of gameplay in case of a desaster recovery would be totally acceptable. A couple of missions, maybe an item lost fine by me.
The sad part is that you basically need to re-enable something that was once part of Windows default behavior, and still works on other drives.
The good part is that you do it once, and it works for the whole drive, and thus all games.
And it did not get disabled because of a potential lack of a backup strategy. This is not for backups but for system and file roll-back purposes in case of software or user error. As such it works really well for a long time. I can’t really understand why it got disabled other than Windows - as with every other OS manufacturer - trying to push you aggressively into their cloud solutions (see per-default auto start of One Drive).
File History might use the same technology, Shadow Copies, but apparently is not the same thing.
I am also categorically not using built in backup solutions of Windows. If I make backups, I use third party tools. You don’t want to comprimise your backups by a software issue that may be common to your OS and your backup software, potentially corrupting both primary and backup data. That is usally a dangerous strategy.
I had the case once that a friend asked me to restore her Windows-created backups after her laptop came back from repairs. They had re-freshed the OS and changed it from Legacy to UEFI in the progress. I spent a whole day, but the backups were unrecoverably gone due to the restore software (also part of Windows) simply being unwilling or unable to extract even a single file from the “Image” it had taken before the UEFI conversion. Never again.
PS: We probably don’t want to re-iterate the “which strategy is best” discussion from another thread. I just posted an offer here. If no-one is interested, no problem.
(Oh, and just two more reasons why the File History on an external USB connected drive is no good backup solution: 1. USB under Windows was never among the most stable interface, and USB drives are much less reliable than internal Sata or PCIe drives; 2. A permanently connected external drive will be encrypted by malware just as the system will as access and access rights are given at any point of time; - not saying it won’t be a proper target for a low priority file history, even if the functionality can be achieved without any external drive and it is not understandable why this got removed from Windows default behavior once system protection is enabled)
Ah ok, gotcha!
Yes, what’s acceptable to one person might not be that to another, depending on what we’re talking about. In this game for example, if someone had grinded away for weeks, even months for that golden KVM59 and it finally dropped, only to get lost because of a corrupt save due to whatever reason, well, that’s up to each person the steps they want to take to be as safe as possible, and how much it means to each one of us.
Which is good, of course. I never even thought so much about this whole subject since I’m well covered when it comes to backups anyway, and have had file history (or similar), amongs other backup solutions, enabled for years. I got into this when my son started to play this game on his computer, and had two hard crashes that forced him to start from scratch since the save got corrupted. There were no older version of the files saved, and the so called built in backup solution in the game failed hard.
Quite possible that’s the reason. Saving disk space might be another, I don’t know.
I use a combination. For my home computer, File history, a weekly backup to an offsite NAS (third party tool) as well as monthly image backup (third party tool) is good enough for me for personal use.
At work, same thing, but replace Windows file history for Windows server backup, and daily backups (even hourly).
While valid points about USB drives (in general), I just want to say this:
First of all, it’s better than nothing, so when you say that USB connected drives aren’t a good backup solution, you really can’t say that without context. Compared to a computer with a single HD in it?
I for sure can say that it’s a better backup solution than to rely on shadowcopy on the same drive (meaning source and destination are one and the same).
Of course there are a number of solutions for this - how deep do you want us to go on this subject?
Secondly, this is my day-to-day backup solution. If I lose the the backups on there, it doesn’t matter (see above). I never claimed it to be the “be all end all” solution for backups.
As will your internal SATA and PCIe drives - point being?
Look. I only said that in my case, I use the external USB for File History and image backups. If we need to go deep, I can say I also use one of my internal drives for image backups, as well as online services and off site backup solutions.
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My point is that we are not talking about backups here. Most casual users confuse this term. We are talking about a file history. And your method for a file history seems to work fine. As does mine.
But that is not a backup as to the reasons I pointed out. Like a raid system is not a backup. What you are telling about your offsite backups actually sounds very good, like a real backup. Just make sure the target site is not always connected and the user account used for the file transfer is not your local user account. Because if that is compromised, your offsite backups are suddenly encrypted/gone, too.
But let’s not talk about backups here, as it is entirely off-topic.
Let’s talk file history solutions. I think we both have good solutions. And we also don’t have to agree on anything. You are very happy about your solution as it solves your problem. And you probably had fun/satisfaction during developing it (as I had with re-enabling Shadow Copies, as Microsoft had kicked me in the you-know-whats before when I was so sure I had previous versions of another game’s save files because I knew I had enabled System Protection; with the twist that MS had silently decided to disable a critical feature: the inclusion of the user files in to the Shadow Copies on the system drive).
I am just pointing out that my solution is set up once (even on more frequent intervals, if you like; and of course you can define max disk space for shadow copies) and works with every game that stores save files on the local hard drive (not just in the user profile as is covered by File History, as far as I have quickly researched) without creating a custom script or at least a custom launcher shortcut each time you decide that a new game needs special care. And that my solution does not rely on my PC reliably recognizing my USB-Stick on every boot (and giving the same drive letter) and on my USB stick actually being fine hardware and file-system wise so that I am not accidentally of the false believe that my save files are fine while they actually are not.
Yours on the other hand, is rather direct and fine grained in time (be it your script or File History), you even save space by being able to define exclusions with File History (such as the web browser cache, which can get enormously large), and it only runs when it has to in case of your script. Great.
Now let’s stop this discussion as we only reiterate what we already extensively stated in another thread. It’s ok to choose different solutions.