Users Experiencing Game Save Issues Possible FIX ( DEV PLEASE READ ) Patch 1.1.3

[Quantum]

While assisting another user with their game not saving, https://steamcommunity.com/app/2665680/discussions/0/597401650324394715/ , This issue seems to have turned up as part of patch 1.1.3. The user was experiencing an error in the player.log with the GameSaveData. If we opened their savegame file with notepad, I know its encrypted but you can see junk in it still usually, their file was completely blank. When opening their settings file in the same manner they were able to see junk in it. So the game is able to save stuff to the location.

If you open the savefile while in game on a system that is working, the data is in Chinese and then gets converted to normal Unicode junk when closing.

The issue is that the users system did not have English United States Language files installed on their system since they are from Spain, so the default system language was Spanish (Spain). For some reason their are oddities with Spanish and Unicode because of some of the nonstandard characters that the language uses. Which in turn caused the Chinese Unicode to not display properly and when the game attempts to save it just cant.

To resolve the issue we were able to install English (united states) language pack on windows and then the game now was able to save the data properly. The user noted that this only happened after the 1.1.3 update, I am assuming that something was changed with how the save data is being written that changed the Unicode to Chinese for some reason. So until a fix is done dev wise, the following work around sorted the user:

[AntzinyourPantz]

I'm having this exact issue. I went to your original thread and tried everything mentioned though my default language is English new zealand. my savefile.es3 is blank and the size is 325KB but i just noticed if i click anywhere on the notepad the line for typing stays there and not going to the top left as if actually completely empty. I just manually cleared the LocalLow files and tried the first floor again (i killed myself after a couple minutes to save time) yet still didnt save. Heres the fresh player txt info

Input System module state changed to: Initialized.
[Physics::Module] Initialized fallback backend.
[Physics::Module] Id: 0xdecafbad
Initialize engine version: 6000.0.50f1 (f1ef1dca8bff)
[Subsystems] Discovering subsystems at path G:/Steam/steamapps/common/Tower of Babel/Tower Of Babel_Data/UnitySubsystems
GfxDevice: creating device client; kGfxThreadingModeThreaded
Direct3D:
Version: Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.1]
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (ID=0x2206)
Vendor: NVIDIA
VRAM: 10053 MB
Driver: 32.0.15.7602
[Physics::Module] Selected backend.
[Physics::Module] Name: PhysX
[Physics::Module] Id: 0xf2b8ea05
[Physics::Module] SDK Version: 4.1.2
[Physics::Module] Integration Version: 1.0.0
[Physics::Module] Threading Mode: Multi-Threaded
<RI> Initializing input.
Using Windows.Gaming.Input
<RI> Input initialized.
<RI> Initialized touch support.
CryptographicException: Could not decrypt file. Please ensure that you are using the same password used to encrypt the file.
at ES3Internal.ES3Stream.CreateStream (System.IO.Stream stream, ES3Settings settings, ES3Internal.ES3FileMode fileMode) [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0
at ES3File.SaveRaw (System.Byte[] bytes, ES3Settings settings) [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0
at ES3File.CacheFile (ES3Settings settings) [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0

UnloadTime: 0.284800 ms
RenderGraph is now enabled.
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:Internal_Log(LogType, LogOption, String, Object)
UnityEngine.Logger:Log(LogType, Object)
UnityEngine.Debug:Log(Object)
UnityEngine.Rendering.Universal.UniversalRenderPipeline:.ctor(UniversalRenderPipelineAsset)
UnityEngine.Rendering.Universal.UniversalRenderPipelineAsset:CreatePipeline()
UnityEngine.Rendering.RenderPipelineAsset:InternalCreatePipeline()
UnityEngine.Rendering.RenderPipelineManager:TryPrepareRenderPipeline(RenderPipelineAsset)
UnityEngine.Rendering.RenderPipelineManager:DoRenderLoop_Internal(RenderPipelineAsset, IntPtr, Object)

Could not decrypt file. Please ensure that you are using the same password used to encrypt the file.
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:Internal_Log(LogType, LogOption, String, Object)
UnityEngine.Logger:Log(LogType, Object)
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
Babel.Managers.<RunSave>d__16:MoveNext()
MEC.Timing:Update()

GameDataSave Error
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:Internal_Log(LogType, LogOption, String, Object)
UnityEngine.Logger:Log(LogType, Object)
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
Babel.Managers.<RunSave>d__16:MoveNext()
MEC.Timing:Update()

Unloading 6 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 3)
UnloadTime: 0.723500 ms
Unloading 16 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 20496.
Total: 17.286900 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.863900 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.780300 ms MarkObjects: 15.588100 ms DeleteObjects: 0.051100 ms)

Unloading 3 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 3)
UnloadTime: 2.044900 ms
Unloading 57 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 16856.
Total: 15.591500 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.448700 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.474800 ms MarkObjects: 14.371700 ms DeleteObjects: 0.296000 ms)

Unloading 6 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 3)
UnloadTime: 0.189900 ms
Unloading 537 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 67342.
Total: 30.061500 ms (FindLiveObjects: 3.927800 ms CreateObjectMapping: 2.093800 ms MarkObjects: 23.742300 ms DeleteObjects: 0.297400 ms)

Could not decrypt file. Please ensure that you are using the same password used to encrypt the file.
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:Internal_Log(LogType, LogOption, String, Object)
UnityEngine.Logger:Log(LogType, Object)
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
Babel.Managers.<RunSave>d__16:MoveNext()
MEC.Timing:Update()

GameDataSave Error
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:Internal_Log(LogType, LogOption, String, Object)
UnityEngine.Logger:Log(LogType, Object)
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
Babel.Managers.<RunSave>d__16:MoveNext()
MEC.Timing:Update()

Unloading 5 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 3)
UnloadTime: 30.440900 ms
Unloading 790 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 20570.
Total: 17.294700 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.914700 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.895300 ms MarkObjects: 14.913200 ms DeleteObjects: 0.571200 ms)

[Physics::Module] Cleanup current backned.
[Physics::Module] Id: 0xf2b8ea05
Input System module state changed to: ShutdownInProgress.
Input System polling thread exited.
Input System module state changed to: Shutdown.

[AntzinyourPantz]

Comparing my player log to that of the guy you helped i just noticed he didnt have the could not decrypt file errors. Any idea what thats about? Any help will be much appreciated.

[Quantum]

Originally posted by AntzinyourPantz:

Comparing my player log to that of the guy you helped i just noticed he didnt have the could not decrypt file errors. Any idea what thats about? Any help will be much appreciated.

Quick question, i know you mentioned that you tried the steps for the issue that was able to work for the user, but did you try and leave the default language to English united states and try the game or did you install the english united states and then swap back to English New Zealand?

If it still is acting up after doing that and still giving this decryption error message, than unfortunately this might be more of something that the dev is going to have to deal with.

Unless there is an app on the system causing this, did this problem just start happening? Did it just start happening after a recent update? Are you running any other apps in the background? Do you use the built in windows anti-virus or a 3rd party one like Norton or McAfee?

When looking around a bit on the googles there are some mentions of an easysavefile editor, are you using that?

[AntzinyourPantz]

Thanks for getting back to me. I left it set as English united states.

I had 20+ hours in game with no issues until about 4 days ago when this bug started happening. No other apps running in background that are different to before the issue, I use totalav anti virus and have set extra permission for the folder the save file is in just in case that had started effecting it. I havent used easysavefile either.

I just had a go doing the save edit thing thats also in the discussions because it decrypted the save file but it says the password is different to that in the discussion which everyone is using. I did notice however if i open the SaveFile.es3.tmp it has the chinese characters visible and if i use the save decryptor on the tmp file it opens and translates it no worries. I even just tried renaming that file to SaveFile.es3 but then it is blank again.

[Quantum]

Originally posted by AntzinyourPantz:

Thanks for getting back to me. I left it set as English united states.

I had 20+ hours in game with no issues until about 4 days ago when this bug started happening. No other apps running in background that are different to before the issue, I use totalav anti virus and have set extra permission for the folder the save file is in just in case that had started effecting it. I havent used easysavefile either.

I just had a go doing the save edit thing thats also in the discussions because it decrypted the save file but it says the password is different to that in the discussion which everyone is using. I did notice however if i open the SaveFile.es3.tmp it has the chinese characters visible and if i use the save decryptor on the tmp file it opens and translates it no worries. I even just tried renaming that file to SaveFile.es3 but then it is blank again.

There is a settings file in the same directory, while the game is closed if you open that file with notepad does it show junk text? In regards to the totalAV are you able to turn off the real-time protection temporarily, just to see if that makes a difference. I know that you added exceptions, but there might be issues where it's blocking stuff from the app that it "thinks" are malicious. Just trying to eliminate different things. Otherwise unfortunately there may be something more tied to this, especially since you are getting the specific error. If turning the AV real-time protection off still causes issues. Write up a bug report thats fresh, List ALL the steps that you have tried and things you saw while trying them also provide the contents of the player.log like you did, just so the dev has a clean post to look through. Cause this one I am not sure I can figure out mainly cause of the actual error itself. I will keep pokin around a bit to see if something comes up, but i only found somethings tied to another game and no one provided any useful info on how it got sorted, but maybe its out there., just gotta go deeper.

Hopefully this gets sorted soon for you, sorry I don't have a clear answer.

[AntzinyourPantz]

The settings file show junk text and settings are saved just not character progression.

okay im not sure what ive done different but after using the save file decryptor which wouldnt open the save file but would the tmp save, then renaming the tmp save to replace the save file, then deleted the NANOO COMPANY inc folder, opened the game again progressed a little then closed then tried opening the savefile.es3 with notepad again and its showing junk text so i went back into the game and it seems to of saved character progress this time. I had done a lot of these steps multiple times so im baffled why its all of a sudden working. i didnt disable totalav either

[Quantum]

Originally posted by AntzinyourPantz:

The settings file show junk text and settings are saved just not character progression.

okay im not sure what ive done different but after using the save file decryptor which wouldnt open the save file but would the tmp save, then renaming the tmp save to replace the save file, then deleted the NANOO COMPANY inc folder, opened the game again progressed a little then closed then tried opening the savefile.es3 with notepad again and its showing junk text so i went back into the game and it seems to of saved character progress this time. I had done a lot of these steps multiple times so im baffled why its all of a sudden working. i didnt disable totalav either

Well, gonna be honest I have been doing support for a long time and computers just be weird. I would do the following, ( make sure the game is closed ) make a copy of your current save file, restart your machine, then just launch the game and hopefully everything stays working. If it does, gonna be honest it might have been the AV exception that you added didnt take until you deleted that whole folder and upon creation it took.

I think you had two issues goin on, first adding the english united states sorted out seeing the data in the files and adding the AV exception to the folder also let things work. Lemme know how it turns out. If things stay working, I will probably edit my original fix with the language files and add the steps with the anti-virus exception and deleting the folder as additional steps for others to try.

Hopefully it stays working after the reboot and you are all squared away. Keep me updated so that I can update the fix post.

[AntzinyourPantz]

Can confirm after copying the save and restarting that its keeping progress. Whats odd though is I added the antivirus exemption and did the language thing and they seemed to have no effect, i had tried the game multiple times and deleted the folder multiple times. Another weird thing now is its no longer making a savefile.es3.tmp, just the savefile.es3 and the size of the save file is only 63 KB despite doing a full run when id load into the game, start and run and die with no gear or anything collected yet the save file would be 2-300 KB

[Quantum]

Originally posted by AntzinyourPantz:

Can confirm after copying the save and restarting that its keeping progress. Whats odd though is I added the antivirus exemption and did the language thing and they seemed to have no effect, i had tried the game multiple times and deleted the folder multiple times. Another weird thing now is its no longer making a savefile.es3.tmp, just the savefile.es3 and the size of the save file is only 63 KB despite doing a full run when id load into the game, start and run and die with no gear or anything collected yet the save file would be 2-300 KB

ok, now that you mention the tmp file again, something was most likely stopping it from finishing its job with converting the file or something was renaming the original file to a .tmp cause I have never seen a .tmp file at all while working on these issue. Well at least its working now. Keep an eye on things and I will just add the AV thing as another maybe.

Take care and glad that you were able to get to playing normally again.

[AntzinyourPantz]

Yeah its very weird but im glad i can actually play again, now to gain back 20+ hours of progress haha.

Thanks again for trying to help.

[Quantum]

No problem!! Take care!