Corrupted save Honour Mode file. I am burning in helpless anger.

[Airerusco]

Well... I was in the middle of Act 3. The electricity went out. The save file got corrupted. Recoverit and Windows restoration tools didn't help. Is there any hope? Or do I need to find a lonely meadow in the woods and scream my frustration out?

[KingOfFriedChicken]

There is a mod to allow you saves for honor mode, i know its not ideal but if you stick to the premise of keeping all actions and commit just using the backups as well backups lol its one of the only reasons i wont play one save modes on any game, i simply do not trust my game to that 1 save. At the very least they should have a backup incase of corruption.

[Airerusco]

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

There is a mod to allow you saves for honor mode, i know its not ideal but if you stick to the premise of keeping all actions and commit just using the backups as well backups lol its one of the only reasons i won't play one save modes on any game, i simply do not trust my game to that 1 save. At the very least they should have a backup incase of corruption.

...I accidentally fixed my save file and I am not sure how it happened.
I was reinstalling Windows and removed all my saves to the external drive anyway. So when I imported saves, the broken Honour run was among them. Initially, it was still broken, but after playing for several hours in the new Honour campaign, I checked the save game menu and saw that it was fixed. O.o
With the correct time, dates, and everything! It looked like a cyber horror when corrupted: the template image in artefacts, the time showed 21361376218(example) instead of 215 hours, and the dates were all wrong.

[Brian_the_Brute]

Glad to hear you were able to recover.

The mod for honor mode saves is still susceptible to corruption. I lost my last honor mode run from a out of VRAM crash using it, I was playing with 4K upscale textures and should have known better.

It wouldn't allow me to load any of the saves past the point of where the game crash happened. I have had that happen twice with that mod, so note the honor mode mod isn't a fix for the issue.

[Gungnir]

Pro tip: manually back up your save. I had a crash and also almost lost my honor run, fortunately my laptop had the old save like 4 hours back but I learned to manually save a back up just in case.

I like the challenge but these types of modes should allow for 2 saves to help prevent an unfortunate accident from ruining a run.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Brian_the_Brute(beep/bop/boop):

Glad to hear you were able to recover.

The mod for honor mode saves is still susceptible to corruption. I lost my last honor mode run from a out of VRAM crash using it, I was playing with 4K upscale textures and should have known better.

It wouldn't allow me to load any of the saves past the point of where the game crash happened. I have had that happen twice with that mod, so note the honor mode mod isn't a fix for the issue.

really all of your saves? thats crazy normally when i see a corruption its to a recent or a few of the recent files, then again i save a decent amount and dont overwrite any saves so my saves consist of 100s of saves.

[Airerusco]

It seems like there was an issue with the connection to Steam after my PC was shut down so suddenly. The game couldn't read it properly anymore. If I could load a corrupted save as an imported one, then the file itself was intact. Although before reinstalling Windows Steam didn't fix the connection even with several checks for the integrity of game files. I also used various utilities to fix corrupted files but to no avail. I'm wondering if I could have solved the problem by simply deleting the save and moving it back into the game folder without having to reinstall the entire operating system. I'm not entirely sure though.

I would always copy my saves to an external drive in case of such... disasters. The challenge of Honour Mode is delicious but in the face of potential risks, it doesn't seem so appealing anymore. Pity.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by talaruhar:

It seems like there was an issue with connection to Steam after PC was shut down so suddenly. The game couldn't read it properly anymore. If I could load a corrupted save as an imported one, then the file itself was intact. Although before reinstalling Windows Steam didn't fix the connection even with several checks for the integrity of game files. I also used various utilities to fix corrupted files but to no avail. I'm wondering if I could have solved the problem by simply deleting the save and moving it back into the game folder without having to reinstall the entire operating system. I'm not entirely sure though.

As in you were using Cloud Saves? If so you were one of the lucky ones to whom it helped.
Personally i would suggest to backup your saves manually every now and then. Because it is ridiculous what can happen.
For me with other games Steam updated a few games and every single one got corrupted to the point they were hung on loading screen. (Not just one game. All of them that steam updated.) Verify files did not work, had to reinstall every single one of them.

[Airerusco]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Originally posted by talaruhar:

It seems like there was an issue with connection to Steam after PC was shut down so suddenly. The game couldn't read it properly anymore. If I could load a corrupted save as an imported one, then the file itself was intact. Although before reinstalling Windows Steam didn't fix the connection even with several checks for the integrity of game files. I also used various utilities to fix corrupted files but to no avail. I'm wondering if I could have solved the problem by simply deleting the save and moving it back into the game folder without having to reinstall the entire operating system. I'm not entirely sure though.

As in you were using Cloud Saves? If so you were one of the lucky ones to whom it helped.
Personally i would suggest to backup your saves manually every now and then. Because it is ridiculous what can happen.
For me with other games Steam updated a few games and every single one got corrupted to the point they were hung on loading screen. (Not just one game. All of them that steam updated.) Verify files did not work, had to reinstall every single one of them.

Yes, I was using Cloud Saves. I didn't know that it could destroy someone's progress. O.o
Oh, dear.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by talaruhar:

It seems like there was an issue with connection to Steam after PC was shut down so suddenly. The game couldn't read it properly anymore. If I could load a corrupted save as an imported one, then the file itself was intact. Although before reinstalling Windows Steam didn't fix the connection even with several checks for the integrity of game files. I also used various utilities to fix corrupted files but to no avail. I'm wondering if I could have solved the problem by simply deleting the save and moving it back into the game folder without having to reinstall the entire operating system. I'm not entirely sure though.

There's hardly any magic, but what you'll never know is perhaps you was needing change some other files.

I don't remind for BG3, but some games have save file or files and a meta file for all saves, this can generate troubles with synch lost between both, but on another way all accept you copy a save from elsewhere then add it. So for such games, backup and delete the meta file can solve problems with a save not in synch with the meta save.

[Airerusco]

Originally posted by Jarsonne:

Originally posted by talaruhar:

It seems like there was an issue with connection to Steam after PC was shut down so suddenly. The game couldn't read it properly anymore. If I could load a corrupted save as an imported one, then the file itself was intact. Although before reinstalling Windows Steam didn't fix the connection even with several checks for the integrity of game files. I also used various utilities to fix corrupted files but to no avail. I'm wondering if I could have solved the problem by simply deleting the save and moving it back into the game folder without having to reinstall the entire operating system. I'm not entirely sure though.

There's hardly any magic, but what you'll never know is perhaps you was needing change some other files.

I don't remind for BG3, but some games have save file or files and a meta file for all saves, this can generate troubles with synch lost between both, but on another way all accept you copy a save from elsewhere then add it. So for such games, backup and delete the meta file can solve problems with a save not in synch with the meta save.

Wow! Good to know. It's useful. I wonder why I couldn't find similar information about it when surfing the internet for solutions and causes for corrupted/unsynchronized saves. I was so terrified for my progress.

[xposethedarkside]

Ouch. That's rough man. glad you were able to get it working. That's one reason I won't do honour mode, kind of the same reason I won't play Diablo on hardcore.
My PlayStation would go right out the window.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by talaruhar:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

As in you were using Cloud Saves? If so you were one of the lucky ones to whom it helped.
Personally i would suggest to backup your saves manually every now and then. Because it is ridiculous what can happen.
For me with other games Steam updated a few games and every single one got corrupted to the point they were hung on loading screen. (Not just one game. All of them that steam updated.) Verify files did not work, had to reinstall every single one of them.

Yes, I was using Cloud Saves. I didn't know that it could destroy someone's progress. O.o
Oh, dear.

The problem is complicate, but Steam cloud also never been the best.

The problem is complicate because:
- Timestamp synch between local and cloud isn't a so basic problem,
- a file missing in local can be either an error or a choice,
- no game want refuse save in local in case the cloud is impossible to use.
- The save cloiud/local system needs be able use checksum to compare local and cloud that said in theory it's possible make a checksum and ignore meta aspects as exact timestamp of a file. But also it's complicate when a save is plenty files, or at least less instant to check.

So you can't be confident with any cloud save system, they aren't backup of anything. You still need backup if you want backup.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by talaruhar:

Originally posted by Jarsonne:

There's hardly any magic, but what you'll never know is perhaps you was needing change some other files.

I don't remind for BG3, but some games have save file or files and a meta file for all saves, this can generate troubles with synch lost between both, but on another way all accept you copy a save from elsewhere then add it. So for such games, backup and delete the meta file can solve problems with a save not in synch with the meta save.

Wow! Good to know. It's useful. I wonder why I couldn't find similar information about it when surfing the internet for solutions and causes for corrupted/unsynchronized saves. I was so terrified for my progress.

So it's probably because BG3 doesn't use such meta file, saw it for some games but don't remind what games. And had weird problems with it with some games.

The best bet is what Nordii quoted so linked to cloud:
- either ultra luck from not having cloud working when you got the problem, so didn't touch saves in cloud, And later after your total reset on local, cloud saw no saves and just restored saves with right state.
- Either Steam api was improved and BG3 managed fine, so BG3 and steam cloud detected local save wasn't right so not an updated version of the cloud but local, so skipped override the cloud save.

In any case the point remains that no cloud system is a backup, for backup you need use a backup solution.

[Airerusco]

There are two types of people:
Those who are making backups, and those who are not making backups... yet.

Considering the amount of backups I do for my work not saving my saves somewhere else was a bit too naive.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by talaruhar:

There are two types of people:
Those who are making backups, and those who are not making backups... yet.

Considering the amount of backups I do for my work not saving my saves somewhere else was a bit too naive.

It's what kept me use Mac a long long time, Time Machine is an incredible transparent, efficient, safe backup free tool with any Mac since long.

If OP was playing on Mac I would suggest him just check Time Machine saved versions of the file and problem solved, if it activated it which requires use an extra drive for backup but it makes sense it's a requirement for backup.

But the tip of the top is Time Machine also allows fully restore a computer with all OS. And if you are worry of it's not a recent enough save, its default logic is very smart, like very very frequent for last hours, a bit less for last day, less for last week, less for last month, and so on. And it keeps the snapshots despite it's fully incremental, so if you have s save of a folder at a precise timestamp you can have all its content at this exact timestamp.

Last time i checked Windows was still far, and the base reason is it's in core of OS to have a very special event manager of any file change, no other OS has that. Alas if BG3 is on Mac, past that Mac involve a higher buy expense, they are clearly just a secondary option for playing.