White Screen of Death

[Skleeton]

I've already done some googling and tried different solutions. Considering the game launches and I can play an old expedition save just fine, I am convinced this has nothing to do with my hardware.

Problem: Loading my 40 hour main character puts me into a white, blank screen. I can hear the game running, and then it does nothing until my computer just outright freezes and crashes.

I have tried: Changing and outright deleting the graphics settings file in the steam files, verifying the file integrity, tried proton 9.04 and experimental (not sure this has anything to do with the problem necessarily).

What I haven't tried yet: Full reinstallation, tweaking my own computer (If this was the problem, why can I open and run an old save??????)

Does anybody know how to fix this? Losing my main save file is going to kill my desire to play anymore tbh.

[smurfy]

I would stop concentrating on the game/pc settings and start looking at the particular save file(s).
There are two files for every save, an AutoSave and a manual Restore point. When loading, the game should be loading the most recent of the two.
Open the save file directory

<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/275850/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/HelloGames/NMS/

Make backup copies of all files.

Check the timestamps on the save files for the save you can't load and delete (or just rename to *.hg.bak) the most recent of the two.
See if the game will successfully load the older save file.

If it still won't load, restore the other copy and reverse the process and load the newest of the two files (just in case it had already been trying to load the older file for some reason).

If it still has issues, I would then look at loading the save files into a 3rd party save editor like the Goatfungus java editor, re-saving it from the editor after making no changes.

[Skleeton]

Originally posted by smurfy:

Make backup copies of all files.

Check the timestamps on the save files for the save you can't load and delete (or just rename to *.hg.bak) the most recent of the two.
See if the game will successfully load the older save file.

If it still won't load, restore the other copy and reverse the process and load the newest of the two files (just in case it had already been trying to load the older file for some reason).

If it still has issues, I would then look at loading the save files into a 3rd party save editor like the Goatfungus java editor, re-saving it from the editor after making no changes.

This worked! Just renamed them.
I wouldn't have known how to fix this, so thanks for that!