!!! Bug - Save Files not backing up / Steam Cloud not working !!!

[Romkslrqusz ツ]

One of my friends just lost all of their progress after having to reinstall Windows without capturing a backup image first, despite having both Steam Cloud and OneDrive enabled.
Through this experience I have discovered a pretty critical bug in how Oblivion Remastered is handling pathing for game saves.
If you're playing on multiple devices, this issue might also explain why Steam Cloud is not working to sync them.

The Problem:

The game is not respecting Windows' environment variable for the "Documents" folder. Regardless of where you have your Documents folder mapped (common examples being "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive" or to a secondary disk), the game puts the save files in the absolute path "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames"

Conversely, Steam Cloud is respecting the environment variable. If you use OneDrive or have a secondary disk, you'll find "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames\" contains the file "steam_autocloud.vdf" and no actual game saves - meaning that Steam Cloud is backing up NOTHING

The Workaround:

Until this can be addressed in an update, you can use a simple workaround to both fix the problem and prevent it from happening with any other app/game in the future by using symbolic links

1. Move all of your data from the source location to the intended destination (e.g. from "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents" to "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Documents" or "D:\Documents" or wherever your "Documents" folder is.

2. Delete C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents

3. Open Terminal, PowerShell, or Command Prompt and create a symbolic link to route the system to the intended location. The command structure is:

mklink /j "X:\path\to\source" "X:\path\to\destination"

The source folder must not exist or you will get an error.

Here are a few example commands, adjust them based on your drive letter, username, and actual Documents folder location:

OneDrive:

mklink /j "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Documents\"

Secondary Disk:

mklink /j "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\" "X:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\"

Something else:

mklink /j "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\" "X:\Documents"

mklink /j "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\" "X:\OneDrive\Documents"

mklink /j "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\" "X:\why\would\anyone\do\this\to\themselves\OneDrive\Desktop\Documents"

Side note, I've seen quite a few comments / posts recommending to disable OneDrive as a "solution". I generally discourage disabling any kind of backup solution unless you know what you're doing and have something else in place. I'm an IT professional and many of my clients have saved hundreds of dollars in data recovery fees just by having OneDrive enabled without even realizing it. I have been able to use the "Version History" feature to roll back corrupted files for people, some of which has included corrupt game saves with hundreds of hours.

[Exillix3]

Thanks for doing this!

[Kaito]

Thank you!
I also found a reddit post with people having the same problem. Maybe it gives additional info to anybody that gets this problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oblivion/comments/1k5muga/remasteredsteam_where_are_save_games_stored/

[Scar]

Do you do the sym link on both pcs? os is it only needed on the OG pc where you started the game?

[WaveyGrady]

I didn't have to do all that... I stopped Onedrive from backing up Documents folder (you can re-enable) on gf's laptop. I dont use OneDrive (cause it blows and I backup normally) on my pc but my steam account is on both. Once stopped I quick saved in game and let Steam upload that cloud save that I transferred from the Onedrive>Documents>Mygame it will say uploading... when complete I shut down laptop went to my PC it will say conflict click on that and select the correct save (will have time stamp)

[Scar]

Also, I have one drive pointed to save ON the secondary disk. So my path is something like D:\OneDrive\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames
THAT is where the game WAS saving just fine.

C:\Users\ME\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames
THIS is where the save files SHOULD be? As this was the folder that was empty.

So is my prompt:

Option 1:

mklink /j "C:\Users\ME\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames" "D:\OneDrive\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames"

OR
-----------------------------

Option 2:

mklink /j "D:\OneDrive\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames" "C:\Users\ME\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames"

I ask because both of your examples have secondary drive or one drive as the destination, but for me I guess it is my source?

I apologize, I know you are being thorough with your explanation/walkthrough... I guess ELI5 please. I am good with computers just not in this instance what logic to use lol

and again also, do I do this also for my laptop, because that is completely different without an extra drive its all in c, but not sure where to tell it to look for the saves there correctly.

edit: lol sorry and one more question, how am I pointing to a file that doesn't exist if I am deleting it? I have no clue why this is so confusing to me, it shouldn't be.

[Butt Stallion]

Originally posted by Scar:

Do you do the sym link on both pcs? os is it only needed on the OG pc where you started the game?

You only need to do it on the PC(s) that is/are using OneDrive. It's because when Windows sets up OneDrive, it actually moves your default Documents folder from /{USERNAME}/Documents to /{USERNAME}/OneDrive/Documents. So Oblivion is saving to the former, while Steam is using the latter for cloud backups. But on a Steam Deck, this isn't an issue because it doesn't natively use OneDrive, nor does it automatically change your default Documents folder location.

So if you have multiple Windows PC's you're trying to sync, it'll likely need to be done on all of them. But if you're only trying to sync between a single PC and a Steam Deck, you only need to do it on the PC.

[Que]

YO THIS WORKED THANK YOU SO MUCH

[Romkslrqusz ツ]

Originally posted by Scar:

Do you do the sym link on both pcs? os is it only needed on the OG pc where you started the game?

Originally posted by Scar:

do I do this also for my laptop, because that is completely different without an extra drive its all in c, but not sure where to tell it to look for the saves there correctly.

My assessment is that symlinks are necessary on any PC where your actual Documents library is not mapped to C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents

Originally posted by Scar:

Also, I have one drive pointed to save ON the secondary disk. So my path is something like D:\OneDrive\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames
THAT is where the game WAS saving just fine.
C:\Users\ME\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames
THIS is where the save files SHOULD be? As this was the folder that was empty.

As far as I can tell, on my system and others, the game is putting the files in C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames

That is not desirable when you have your Documents folder in OneDrive or mapped to a second drive.

If you are already seeing your save files at D:\OneDrive\Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered\Saved\SaveGames then you probably don't need to implement this adjustment, though I am left curious as to why that ended up being different in your case. Maybe they patched it already but those of us who started the game before that patch wound up with our saves in the absolute path?
Regardless, if you save files are actually in that location / being backed up by OneDrive, setting up the symlinks won't hurt but also isn't necessary.

I use OneDrive AND have my folders mapped to a secondary drive on both my laptop and my desktop. I used the following command:

mklink /j "C:\Users\romkslrqusz\Documents" "D:\Users\Romkslrqusz\OneDrive\Documents"

The examples I provided were intended to allow the reader to piece together the appropriate command for their unique configuration. Different people have different letter assignments or folder paths for their stuff.

Also worth noting that there is no need to use this tweak on Linux / Steam Deck because the virtual file system already uses the default location C:\Users\Username\Documents

Originally posted by Scar:

edit: lol sorry and one more question, how am I pointing to a file that doesn't exist if I am deleting it? I have no clue why this is so confusing to me, it shouldn't be.

When you run the

mklink /j source destination

command, the system is creating something that looks and acts like a folder in the "source" location and making a "secret tunnel" that routes to the destination. If there is already an object by the same name in the source location, the command will fail because it's trying to create something that already exists.
Deleting C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents allows the symlink to be created in that location
With the symlink in place, any program that tries to interact with the filepath C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents is "tricked" into working out of the destination location (in your case it sounds like that would be D:\OneDrive\Documents)

[Romkslrqusz ツ]

Originally posted by WaveyGrady:

I don't use OneDrive (cause it blows and I backup normally)

You do you, hopefully "normally" means that you follow the 3-2-1 backup rule and have disaster events (fire, tornado, Oblivion gate in your living room) accounted for.

I've only found that OneDrive "blows" for people who don't understand the underlying mechanics of how it works. It certainly hasn't "blown" for my clients who saved $300+ after I asked them to check OneDrive.com for their files before paying me for data recovery services (some of those clients provided me with an external hard drive that was also in poor / failing condition).

[BennettBrawler]

All I am getting is the error: mklink: The term 'mklink' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

[short.sheath]

posting for future reference so i can find this page again
thank you for the work around tip

[Meat Muppet]

Originally posted by Scar:

Do you do the sym link on both pcs? os is it only needed on the OG pc where you started the game?

Yes

[MorthriL]

Posting this for Linux gamers and my future self:
On Bazzite, the location I found my saves were "/var/home/insert_username_here/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2623190/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Documents/My Games/Oblivion Remastered/Saved/SaveGames". Or on an external drive "/run/media/drive_name_here/SteamLibrary/steamapps/compatdata/2623190/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Documents/My Games/Oblivion Remastered/Saved/SaveGames".

Basically ".../steamapps/compatdata/2623190/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Documents/My Games/Oblivion Remastered/Saved/SaveGames" is the main take-away here.

Also, different Linux distros like to put their external drives in different folders. Others may have it on /mnt/drive_name_here or /media/insert_username_here/drive_name_here. I wouldn't know as I'm no Linux expert and others more qualified to answer as to why that is and to why Linux does symlinks differently than Windows. *shrug* I'm avoiding the terminal as much as I can.

[Angar]

Hey, i did this symlink and it worked for my steamdeck( i see saves from my pc progression), but new problem emerged for me - after symlinkin my PC does not see saves.

[Dovahkitten]

Worked like a charm. Thank you so much for figuring this out. Crazy that Microsoft doesn't even know how to manage their own systems.