130+ Hours will not load

[CoyoteKassie]

Usually when problems pop up I just submit a crash form and restart the game. And move on.

However, my computer died while letting my dogs out and before I went to let them out I saved my game. It has an autosave from 2 minutes prior to the manual saved game I did before letting them out. Neither game will load.

Everything loads just fine with no issues besides my main zoo. Other previous saved zoos, other downloaded zoos from the workshop, new zoos, all modes... expect my zoo that I have spent 130 hours on...

I have read and read and read many discussions on here, I have tried googling many methods, I tried to save my zoo to the community, shut off certain stream controls, restarting, computer settings, installing the game and re-installing, and whatever else you can think of.

I have tried several ways to start the zoo and none have worked. I always end up on the green screen with the bear walking. The bear never freezes and all "tips" still load and display while loading.

Can someone please help me solve this issue? I will try anything that will keep me from losing my zoo.

[Scentofrain]

Unfortunately this has happened to me multiple times. I've submitted the issue a few times, I've contacted support with all my computer specs and screenshots. I was told it is unlikely that any of my zoos can be salvaged- however, sometimes they'll come back to life after a patch or bug fix. Wish I could be more helpful, but as someone who's been there a few times, I know waiting without feedback sucks even more than not knowing. I am sorry, pal.

[Schildkroetin]

Same problem here...

[marcnesiumHH]

Iit's a wide spread issue with no fix so far. Please follow the two steps here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/my-franchise-saves-will-not-load.533507/page-2#post-8226838

[Tiberius]

How big is your main zoo? Sadly this seems to be an issue with any large zoo with many visitors

[Scentofrain]

5th Zoo just died today. Tragic, 300 animals, 7300 guests and 400k. #FeelsBadMan

[Crankenstein]

My 2nd zoo died on Saturday, none of the recovery steps helped.
178 animals, 4.5k visitors....12m in the bank....

[CoyoteKassie]

What a terrible glitch. Hopefully it gets fixed in the future and soon. It makes me not want to play because I hate starting over but I have been waiting for a game like this since Zoo Tycoon 2 for the PC in 2004 lol so wish me luck, off to making zoo number 2 tonight!

[bajettte fromaje]

Really frightening indeed, as I’m getting close to the volumes mentioned above...
2 questions to push the thread further :
- does that happen in any game mode ?
- are there testimonials of Xtra large zoos which run good and do not end up in this load failure ?

[XrystalBelle]

Originally posted by Tiberius:

How big is your main zoo? Sadly this seems to be an issue with any large zoo with many visitors

This could be the case as the quantity of visitors is what causes most computers to slow down and ultimately crash depending on specs. I usually stop my visitors before they hit 3000 knowing that the game starts slowing down at 2,500. That said, outside of pathing crashing on scenarios and beta cashing problems I haven't had any crashes .. but then stopping the slow down scenario may have ensured it doesn't happen.

[marcnesiumHH]

There's no real pattern so far (at least what you can derive from what details people really share). And for me it was no problem to run a zoo with 6-7k visitors and 8-9k worked as well with FPS dropping. And saves files not been loadable any more from one moment to another has nothing to do with crashes. Today I saw someone talking about his 400 animals and 9k visitors zoo properly running as well. It seems to solely affect Franchise mode zoos, but that's no for sure. Because way less people play Sandbox mode.

[Crankenstein]

I think there is no real pattern....heaven knows which line of code houses the gremlins who produce this mess....

My first one got corrupt on DLC day with 300+ animals and close to 9k visitors, but it was possible to recover it and it still works. Whereas performancewise isn't played that much anymore, as it is slideshow meanwhile.

The zoo that got corrupt on Saturday, could also be recovered, but then obviously produced only corrupt savefiles, had 170 animals and 4,5k visitors....and 12m in the bank

I don't see any pattern here...

[marcnesiumHH]

Today, I received a reply from the support team. There working on a fix, was not able to give an exact time when it will be released

[jorganne1019]

My sandbox zoo with 150+ hours and around 4,200 visitors just did this today. I've been trying for hours to get back in and I'm super disappointed. I was 5 species away from getting every single animal in my zoo with interesting/creative habitats that I've spent so much time on and it makes me not want to play the game anymore.

[marcnesiumHH]

Originally posted by jorganne1019:

My sandbox zoo with 150+ hours and around 4,200 visitors just did this today. I've been trying for hours to get back in and I'm super disappointed. I was 5 species away from getting every single animal in my zoo with interesting/creative habitats that I've spent so much time on and it makes me not want to play the game anymore.

ooof. damn. Is it also stuck in an endless load screen or what does happen when you try to load it?

[CoyoteKassie]

I do not see a pattern with the zoos crashing so far. I was in sandbox mode when this happened. I had my guest limit set at 2,000 because my zoo was having a hard time keeping up when I reached 7,000. I did notice that the bigger the zoo got the worst my animals looked. I could not see any detail in the animals. I did believe my computer was having a hard drive problem but noticed other people having issues with seeing details on animals too. My computer runs at the highest graphic levels and does just fine until the zoo or guest t limit is too much.

As far as the size of my zoo, I never checked to see how many animals I had but it had to be over 300 as well. I had all the tropical animals and exhibits place, all arctic animals, all temperate animals, most of the african animals and all african exhibits and was working on placing the rest of the animals. When my zoo crashed I was in year 213 and I play mostly on pause due to having to always fix the ration of breeding animals.

I did get a reply back today and an attempt for them to help me fix my zoo. It did not work but I have copied and posted below to hopefully help someone. Again, it did not work for me but it may for work for some of you.




"Hello there Kassie,

Thanks for getting back in touch with us, although I am extremely sorry for you having to experience this. I can totally how frustrating and disheartening this must be for you. However, I just want to assure you, that we are determined to get this resolved as soon as possible, although I am unable to guarantee that we will be able to get you back into that particular zoo file.

We have recently found that ASUS and MSI machines tend to come with certain software, proving to be problematic and conflicting with Planet Zoo. Please check whether or not you have any of the following services running on your system and disable them: A-Volute / Sonic Suite/Radar/Studio/ Nahimic

If you are unable to spot any of these, then I would like to advise you remove and disable any 3rd party devices or software and then try a clean boot of your PC to work out if any 3rd parties are causing the issue.

The following guide will help you with this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

Once under clean boot conditions try running the game again and see if the issue still occurs. Hopefully, this will allow us to get somewhere!

I look forward to your response and ask that if you have any additional questions or issues, to please not hesitate to ask as we are here and always happy to help :)

Best regards,

Zookeeper Georgina Sweet
Customer & Technical Support Representative
Frontier Developments PLC"