Save Files Lost?

[Endovior]

My save files just all disappeared. :(

Everything just vanished, apparently on its own, leaving a completely empty save folder, with no evidence of my 30 hours of play time.

I'm *quite* certain I didn't ask the game to delete them, and I'm confused as to why that would've happened. I'm aware that this is a problematic issue to resolve, as there's all kinds of things that can happen to poor innocent savefiles, and nothing you can do to recover missing data.

Looking into things, I suspect that the problem might have something to do with the fact that Stellar Monarch saves to a subdirectory of it's own within Program Files, which is likely to attract malicious attention from sources like Windows' User Account Control, or my antivirus program (most such programs look unkindly at any modifications to stuff in Program Files, really). I don't have evidence pointing at any specific culprit, but I do note that most games save to subfolders in AppData, which is considered far more permissable, and less likely to provoke nasty responses from automated processes (and I haven't had this problem with other games; when I've lost data in the past, it's been because something happened to my whole system, not one program).

That said... have you considered Steam Cloud integration? Random computer issues can occaisionally cause all kinds of data loss, but cloud-based saves are far more reliable. Quite a handy feature to have, in a long-running game.

[Chris Koźmik]

Strange... very strange...

A quick fix, go to the game folder and find "launch.ini" then set SaveFilesInRootFolder=0. Saves will be saved to the system users/ folder.

You will need to change after each update.


BTW, try checking your users/admin(or username)/appdata/roaming/ (the path might be a bit different on your system) forlder for "Stellar Monarch", maybe somehow your saves ended up there?

Anyway, please make sure to let me know if you notice/get to know something more about this issue.

[Endovior]

The save files definitely didn't go to AppData/Roaming, alas.

I'm reasonably confident that my antivirus would tell me if it ate a file, and if it was just stopping the file from being saved, I would've noticed the problem earlier... but I did notice that my preferences (ie: volume, resolution) were also reset. Additionally, Steam claims it needed to do an update for Stellar Monarch (shortly before I noticed the files missing, in fact). That seems wrong, since I installed the game post-1.09, but my suspicions are pointing at Steam, now.

Unless you did, in fact, quietly push out some kind of hotfix recently?

[Chris Koźmik]

No, nothing released in the meantime.


It seems as Steam deleted the whole folder instead of updating it (which does by default). That's very strange since many games (especially old ones) have save files in their game directory and it always work...

But wait... if you say also your resolution was reset then it makes no sense... config.ini is in the users folder... So, have you lost both the content from the Steam folder and users folder!?
You lost files from both folders?

Can you copy/paste your launch.ini file (from the Steam's game folder)?

[Endovior]

I assume you mean "launchsettings.ini" as there is no "launch.ini" in my copy of the game (and since it has the flag you mentioned earlier). Here you go; I didn't touch it before grabbing it just now:

[files]
LogsFileInRootFolder=1
ConfigFileInRootFolder=0
SaveFilesInRootFolder=1

[run]
safemode=0
#note: safemode can be also triggered via command line (application argument "safemode")

[Chris Koźmik]

Hmm, so that's what it bothers me. In your setup (which is correct) saves are sove in the game folder (Steam folder) and configuration (resolution change) in the system user folder. So, you lost BOTH of those. How it could happened? I understand Steam rewriting the folder (in such case you would lose only saves but no configuration) I understand some Windows version messing with users folder. But both?! At the same time?

At this moment I have no clue...

[Dray Prescot]

Sometimes, when I could not figure out where my saved games where, I would save a game just after local midnight on my computer, and then have Windows search for any files that were changed today. It is one way of finding something when you are not even sure of the approximate name and location it is being saved as. This strategy works best when there will only be a small number of files that Windows would show you as being changed that day, which is why I would do it when I had not done much that day on that computer, i.e. after midnight.

Things have gotten a little more uniform on where you can find saved games in more recent Windows versions (and Steam versions). Back when I got many of my games on a CD disk it was more of a problem.