Game crashes when loading saved game!!!

[The Kurgan]

My game crashed about 9 hours into the game to desktop back in the main city near beginning of game. Now whenever I try to continue my game it goes to the loading screen then crashes to desktop before loading the game. Anyone have any help?

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Grokh:

Also id like to add if steam is selling games that have this kind of problems they should either push for a fix or stop selling it. i was towards the end of the game when this happened to me and almost gave up since whats the point of starting again if it can happen again.

This all-or-nothing-mentality may suit you well, but not others. Example: My sister gladly bought this game. Sure, I sent you the fix (it's sitting on my OneDrive for such occasions) but if you had you way, she wouldn't have been able to buy it at all.
It's better to have access to a game needs fixing and the fix than not have access to the game (if the game is good, that is).

[Ron AF Greve]

But steam could at least put a warning on the page instead of selling a defective product and preferably the patch.

[ReBoot]

That we can agree on. A warning, something in the lines of "Manual patching needed" would be fair.

[contrivable]

There are some reasonable (possibly opposed to agreeable) arguments why Steam wouldn't include or we should not expect such warnings - most of which you can probably think up yourself. Anyway, here are a few of them.

1. By comparison: At least in the past you could buy games that didn't even come with a working executable. When Steam does not even check whether a title is playable at all (something that should be closest to automatable) there can be no reasonable expectation they would check for a problem hours and hours into playtime - even where save states can be provided.
   
2. By probability: Most likely the problem does not occur for every user so as such a patch would not actually be needed.
   
3. By law: There are no provisions that make Steam liable for not disclosing such problems.
   
4. By economy 1: I'm pretty sure even having a convenience warning that a controller is highly recommended for a game negatively affects sales.
   
5. By economy 2: Adding such a warning would require a process, i. e. a number of steps an actual person would have to follow, while no warning requires no process which is cheaper by default.

Imagine something like a histogram next to a game's rating that tells potential customers how deep in the game did how many players report a game breaker that was not yet addressed by any developer patch - where possible compared to how many players made it past that point.
Basically that would make Steam (which is supposed to make money) spend money on a process that will potentially reduce sales and likely lead to the next thing users want to see which again means more work and so on. So that would mean Steam committing to reducing their bottomline.

That being said, I believe the Steam bottomline is probably very surreal. So asking for what is essentially customer protection shouldn't be out of the question. If someone really wanted it they'd need to get supporting numbers - how many users were affected, how much harm was done - and then get those number together with some analysis published. Leaving out any one of numbers, analysis or publishing will make the efforts fall flat.
As for harm one could argue, when a user agrees to whatever price of the full game but then can only play 70% of that game the user was effectively paying 30% too much, or put in another way is still owed 30% of game or price. Pinning down that number of "70%" should already be complicated.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by contrivable:

• By probability: Most likely the problem does not occur for every user so as such a patch would not actually be needed.

That's actuall wrong. The bug is a 1 guarantee to crash the game. Sure, there's a tiny probability for the user to play the whole area at once, but it's rather large. And the bug is, as I said, a 1 guarantee.

[Yannemo]

Thanks ReBoot. Your hosted file fixed the game for me as well.

[HelgemoFamily]

Had the same problem (93% completion, saved at the first big town, would crash to desktop upon attempting to continue).
Fixed by substituting a web-archived copy of GameData-000001000.gg.
Details at (and credit to) "contrivable" post in Steam forums:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/18050/discussions/0/864978762506418220/?insideModal=1&ctp=2#c364043054112168445

[PELUXA1]

Originally posted by contrivable:

...

Thanks mate!

[Madurite]

Originally posted by contrivable:

archive.org is a project storing old versions of websites. Fortunately, it holds a version of GameData-000001000.gg that helped me with the described problem.

Note, the newest version, i.e. from 2015-Apr-20, did not work for me, it just made the application start but then never opened a window. The second newest version, i.e. from 2011-Aug-28, worked for me - I can finally continue my game without the application crashing.

Here's what I did:
1. Backup the original file (program files)\Steam\steamapps\common\DeathSpankTOV\GameData-000001000.gg, e.g. rename (F2) it by appending ".bak"
2. Visit https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.hotheadgames.com/deathspank/GameData-000001000.gg
3. In the year selector on top click 2011
4. Click the right-most blue circle - circling Aug-28 - or the time link in its tooltip
5. Save the page (bytecode) to a file named GameData-000001000.gg
6. Move the downloaded file into (program files)\Steam\steamapps\common\DeathSpankTOV\
7. Start the game and continue your save

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Guys, I'd like to offer you an a bit less convoluted solution. That is, I have a copy of the file that the game developers uploaded back then right here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlN7g8lbRD78kp1wWft1VEq4kBja5Q
Ready-to-use ZIP archive, no need to pick bytes.

thanks a lot guys, this solution worked for me

[Gordo]

Thanks man!

[Viktorius[MW]]

Originally posted by MaybeImaLeo:

Originally posted by contrivable:

archive.org is a project storing old versions of websites. Fortunately, it holds a version of GameData-000001000.gg that helped me with the described problem.

Note, the newest version, i.e. from 2015-Apr-20, did not work for me, it just made the application start but then never opened a window. The second newest version, i.e. from 2011-Aug-28, worked for me - I can finally continue my game without the application crashing.

Here's what I did:
1. Backup the original file (program files)\Steam\steamapps\common\DeathSpankTOV\GameData-000001000.gg, e.g. rename (F2) it by appending ".bak"
2. Visit https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.hotheadgames.com/deathspank/GameData-000001000.gg
3. In the year selector on top click 2011
4. Click the right-most blue circle - circling Aug-28 - or the time link in its tooltip
5. Save the page (bytecode) to a file named GameData-000001000.gg
6. Move the downloaded file into (program files)\Steam\steamapps\common\DeathSpankTOV\
7. Start the game and continue your save

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Guys, I'd like to offer you an a bit less convoluted solution. That is, I have a copy of the file that the game developers uploaded back then right here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlN7g8lbRD78kp1wWft1VEq4kBja5Q
Ready-to-use ZIP archive, no need to pick bytes.

thanks a lot guys, this solution worked for me

Thanks a lot everyone! I've just had the game crashing and this seems to have solved it.

[Eugomphodus]

Originally posted by contrivable:

archive.org is a project storing old versions of websites. Fortunately, it holds a version of GameData-000001000.gg that helped me with the described problem.

Note, the newest version, i.e. from 2015-Apr-20, did not work for me, it just made the application start but then never opened a window. The second newest version, i.e. from 2011-Aug-28, worked for me - I can finally continue my game without the application crashing.

Here's what I did:
1. Backup the original file (program files)\Steam\steamapps\common\DeathSpankTOV\GameData-000001000.gg, e.g. rename (F2) it by appending ".bak"
2. Visit https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.hotheadgames.com/deathspank/GameData-000001000.gg
3. In the year selector on top click 2011
4. Click the right-most blue circle - circling Aug-28 - or the time link in its tooltip
5. Save the page (bytecode) to a file named GameData-000001000.gg
6. Move the downloaded file into (program files)\Steam\steamapps\common\DeathSpankTOV\
7. Start the game and continue your save

Wish this fix would've helped for me, but it gave me blue screen of death instead. Could just be Win 10 being crappy as always, but I tried it twice and got same result both attempts after successfully loading my save for a few seconds.

[ReBoot]

A BSOD is a kernel crash. Upload your crash dump(s) for someone, i. e. me to analyze or analyze it yourself with WinDbg.

[ReBoot]

What do you mean by "it won't let me"?

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Eugomphodus:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

What do you mean by "it won't let me"?

I tried uploading the minidump to google drive but it says I don't have the rights to open it.

Copy it someplace else and upload it then.