Teleporter base pictures corrupted

[Grimmslayer73]

I have been going through one of my old saves and taking new pictures from the base computer to replace the old corrupted pictures. The new pictures stuck for around 3 days. I load up the game this morning and find all the new pictures are corrupted again. Anyone know of a fix for this?
Screenshot Of what I'm talking about
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3254208441

[Mr. Bufferlow]

The only way I am aware of is to just take a new photo using your base computer and upload it to server.
I am not sure what causes the problem. It reminds me of the related issue of some of the discovery thumbnails becoming static or failing to update - so it may be just an artifact related to how much data has been allocated for that functionality. It would not surprise me if there is a limit similar to all the other game limits.

[wkitty42]

i see this, too... no idea how to fix it but i do note that older (DDS) images of these are (still) in my AppData/Roaming/HelloGames/NMS/st_76561198864120443/cache directory... i have not tried removing the older ones... i suspect the image name text part for the base name should be the same as that base's name specified in the save... i have several for multiple bases where i was changing the base's name as i progressed it...

if i were to remove any of these images files, it would only be those matching this filename mask...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.difficulty.base_name.my_nms_account_number.DDS

the leading 16 character hex(?) numbers are some id number for the base, i think... all of the images i have with different names for the same base start with the same 16 character sequence number... it may be a UUID generated or possibly an index into the database... idk but each base's images start with the same sequence...

all of my base DDS files are "Normal" difficulty except for one save from the expedition we did that was modified "Permadeath" and converted to "Survival" afterward... each of my bases in for that save have "Survival" in the 2nd ""field"" portion of the filename...

then there's the name that that base had when the image was taken...

the NMS account number is the numbers after the "st_" part in the directory name... mine is "st_" because it indicates the Steam platform...

outside the box: it may be possible to fix these ""damaged"" images... i suspect they are not really damaged but simply in a different DDS format than previously used and NMS doesn't have a way to fix them properly... if new images were taken (and uploaded?), there may be some sort of problem detecting the newest image and its name... also possible the older name is still referenced in the save file's JSON hierarchy... i haven't looked...

[Captain.Jartyk]

The images of the bases in the teleport are stored as DDS files in the cache folder in the game's save folder.
You can empty that folder without risk, the only thing that happens is that the images disappear in the teleport.
If the pictures are already on the HG server, I think they will be loaded from there, but not sure about that.
You can always visit the base and take a new picture if it doesn't work.

Regarding the file name of the image files
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.difficulty.base_name.my_nms_account_number.DDS

(xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) is actually the glyph address to the base, in hex format.

first 2 are always 00
the next 4 is the first part of the portal address
then 2 characters showing which galaxy the base is in.
and the following 8 characters are the rest of the portal address

this is how you read it 00PPPPGGPPPPPPPPP
P-Portal glyph in hex
G-Galaxy number in hex (Euclid is 00, Hilbert is 01, etc.)

note:
One thing that can cause problems is if you have strange characters in the base name.
Because if there are characters in the name that are invalid in filenames for windows, the game cannot save the image for that base.

Invalid characters are for example / : * ? " < > | ~

[wkitty42]

Originally posted by Captain.Jartyk:

The images of the bases in the teleport are stored as DDS files in the cache folder in the game's save folder.
You can empty that folder without risk, the only thing that happens is that the images disappear in the teleport.
If the pictures are already on the HG server, I think they will be loaded from there, but not sure about that.
You can always visit the base and take a new picture if it doesn't work.

this is true... in my case i have 15 saves with a few bases in some and others having at least a dozen... if i were to wipe my cache directory, i would have quite a number of bases to visit to restore the images...

Originally posted by Captain.Jartyk:

Regarding the file name of the image files
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.difficulty.base_name.my_nms_account_number.DDS

(xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) is actually the glyph address to the base, in hex format.

this makes perfect sense... i'll have to look closer and see what i can see for the planets where i have more than one base... thanks for this clarification!

Originally posted by Captain.Jartyk:

note:
One thing that can cause problems is if you have strange characters in the base name.
Because if there are characters in the name that are invalid in filenames for windows, the game cannot save the image for that base.

Invalid characters are for example / : * ? " < > | ~

the same is true for players on Linux Steam setups, too... especially since NMS (and other windows games) are run from dedicated windows emulation "bottles" via Proton...

[Grimmslayer73]

Thanks for the replies. I may try deleting a few of the image files and see if they hold this time. If that works I will delete them all and just start again. What's weird is I took new pictures and they stayed in the teleport menu for a few days before they got messed up again. Not sure if my new pictures were replaced by the old ones or why they only held for a few days.... I will experiment and see what happens.

[cogvos]

This corruption occurred 4-ish updates back for me. I don't know what format the pictures are stored in, it isn't anything obvious like a jpg, gif, png etc. However just retaking the picture appears to fix it. Not great if you have a lot of bases.

[Grimmslayer73]

Originally posted by cogvos:

However just retaking the picture appears to fix it. Not great if you have a lot of bases.

Not for me since taking new pictures reverts after a few days.... and yes have a lot of bases!

[cogvos]

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

Originally posted by cogvos:

However just retaking the picture appears to fix it. Not great if you have a lot of bases.

Not for me since taking new pictures reverts after a few days.... and yes have a lot of bases!

OK scrub what I said. I've just done a test as I did not take new pictures of all my bases as some are just shacks near useful resources. Having tried to do so, the pictures do not update at all.

I've already posted a report on the zen desk, from when this started around 3/4 updates ago. Here's the desk link in case anyone else wishes to. > https://hellogames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

[wkitty42]

Originally posted by cogvos:

This corruption occurred 4-ish updates back for me. I don't know what format the pictures are stored in, it isn't anything obvious like a jpg, gif, png etc. However just retaking the picture appears to fix it. Not great if you have a lot of bases.

quoting from somewhere else...

DDS is a container format. Like how WAV or AVI can contain lots of different formats, so can DDS. All 3 of those can hold completely uncompressed data, for example. The compressed formats inside of a DDS can be BC1 through BC7.

http://www.reedbeta.com/blog/understanding-bcn-texture-compression-formats/

with that said, i suspect HG switched formats within their DDS containers to try to help with stuttering complaints and to try to order the images in the GPUs better so they are more easily and smoothly operated on...

[Grimmslayer73]

Originally posted by cogvos:

I've just done a test as I did not take new pictures of all my bases as some are just shacks near useful resources. Having tried to do so, the pictures do not update at all.

For me they update after a reload. I'm not sure if they are reverting back to the corrupted picture or the new picture becomes corrupted though.