Corrupt Save Game?

[Dumbo Octopus]

I just tried to load on of my Auto save games and it said "The save game is corrupt and cannot be loaded."

Skyrim then stops responding and I have to force close it. When I load any other save it works fine. I'm just concerned about what this means. As far as I know it's only this one save game in Whiterun.

[Dumbo Octopus]

Anybody? I'm too afraid to continue in Skyrim if it's going to risk corrupting more saves :(

[Belanos]

Bethesda games are known for their save files occasionally becoming corrupted. Some players will suggest that you never use auto save or quick save because of it, and always make a clean manual one. That's overkill as far as I'm concerned though, a save file becoming corrupted is a pretty rare occurrence. But you don't have to worry about your other saves, it will only affect that particular one. Just delete it and load up one from before.

[Dumbo Octopus]

Originally posted by Belanos:

Bethesda games are known for their save files occasionally becoming corrupted. Some players will suggest that you never use auto save or quick save because of it, and always make a clean manual one. That's overkill as far as I'm concerned though, a save file becoming corrupted is a pretty rare occurrence. But you don't have to worry about your other saves, it will only affect that particular one. Just delete it and load up one from before.

Thanks a lot for replying!

Are you sure that having one of my saves become corrupted won't affect save files in the future?

Do you know what might have happened? I'm hoping to find as many details as possible so that it can be somewhat avoidable in the future.

There was one recent, noteworthy thing I did: I downloaded a mod, then continued a bit in the game and then found out there was a mod conflict. I followed the mod page's instructions to safely uninstall the mod, but my most recent save was one with the mod installed. I found a way to resolve the mod conflict, so I installed the mod again and loaded up that save with what I expected were the same mod files.

Other than that, there's really nothing recent I have done.

[Nazenn]

If you have any mods installed can you please post your load order.
VERY VERY rarely, corrupt saves can be caused by mod conflicts of a sort, so I can check your mods and see if thats an issue, but if not, just ignore it, its just Skyrim being Skyrim.

Edit: You posted just because I did.
You CANNOT uninstall mods mid save. It is not safe and definitely can lead to save corruption. If you install a mod into your save game your only options are to continue playing with that mod, or to revert to a save before you EVER installed it

[Dumbo Octopus]

Originally posted by Nazenn:

If you have any mods installed can you please post your load order.
VERY VERY rarely, corrupt saves can be caused by mod conflicts of a sort, so I can check your mods and see if thats an issue, but if not, just ignore it, its just Skyrim being Skyrim.

Edit: You posted just because I did.
You CANNOT uninstall mods mid save. It is not safe and definitely can lead to save corruption. If you install a mod into your save game your only options are to continue playing with that mod, or to revert to a save before you EVER installed it

So...even if I reinstalled the mod and went to a save game when I first installed it, it won't be enough? I'll have to go back to a save game before I ever installed it?

[Nazenn]

If you reinstalled it and it has the same load order and its assets (if they are loose and not in a bsa) are overwriting and being overwritten in the exact same order then yes you can go back to a save from before you uninstalled it.
But just in future be aware that removing mods mid game really isn't safe

[Dumbo Octopus]

Originally posted by Nazenn:

If you reinstalled it and it has the same load order and its assets (if they are loose and not in a bsa) are overwriting and being overwritten in the exact same order then yes you can go back to a save from before you uninstalled it.
But just in future be aware that removing mods mid game really isn't safe

Oh..hm
I'm not sure if my memory is correct, but I might have forgotten to use LOOT to sort the mods the second time I installed the mod. Do I have to revert then?

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Nazenn:

You CANNOT uninstall mods mid save. It is not safe and definitely can lead to save corruption.

That all depends on the mod. Most mods can be safely removed during a game. The only ones you need to be concerned about are those that use scripts to make things work, as the script actions can get locked into the save files. Anything that just adds or makes a change to an object should be fine though. The object, or the changes that are made to it, will simply cease to exist.

Originally posted by Dididoo:

I'll have to go back to a save game before I ever installed it?

That would be your safest option, yes.

Originally posted by Dididoo:

I'm not sure if my memory is correct, but I might have forgotten to use LOOT to sort the mods the second time I installed the mod. Do I have to revert then?

No, you can sort your mods with LOOT at any time.

[Dumbo Octopus]

Originally posted by Belanos:

Originally posted by Nazenn:

You CANNOT uninstall mods mid save. It is not safe and definitely can lead to save corruption.

That all depends on the mod. Most mods can be safely removed during a game. The only ones you need to be concerned about are those that use scripts to make things work, as the script actions can get locked into the save files. Anything that just adds or makes a change to an object should be fine though. The object, or the changes that are made to it, will simply cease to exist.

Originally posted by Dididoo:

I'll have to go back to a save game before I ever installed it?

That would be your safest option, yes.

Originally posted by Dididoo:

I'm not sure if my memory is correct, but I might have forgotten to use LOOT to sort the mods the second time I installed the mod. Do I have to revert then?

No, you can sort your mods with LOOT at any time.

Wait, so if I:
1. Reinstalled the same mod
2. Did not use LOOT this time to sort the mod order
3. Loaded a save created with the mod installed

Should I still revert to a save made before I first installed the mod? Sorry for another question after your explanation, just want to get things straight so I don't mess up anything.

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by Belanos:

That all depends on the mod. Most mods can be safely removed during a game. The only ones you need to be concerned about are those that use scripts to make things work, as the script actions can get locked into the save files. Anything that just adds or makes a change to an object should be fine though. The object, or the changes that are made to it, will simply cease to exist

Mods that edit NPCs also dont uninstall properly, nor do mods that edit quests, the civil war, encounter zones and some other minor things like certain global game settings etc.
Scripts cause the most risk when uninstalling mods, but there are other things that can also cause issues so the safest bet is to just not uninstall mods.

[windriderforlife]

Originally posted by Dididoo:

I just tried to load on of my Auto save games and it said "The save game is corrupt and cannot be loaded."

Skyrim then stops responding and I have to force close it. When I load any other save it works fine. I'm just concerned about what this means. As far as I know it's only this one save game in Whiterun.

my system is doing same thing but know my game is not in library and on my quick hot key line. and it wont load at all.... ah HHHHMMM new problem for steam to figure out.

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Dididoo:

Wait, so if I:
1. Reinstalled the same mod
2. Did not use LOOT this time to sort the mod order
3. Loaded a save created with the mod installed

Should I still revert to a save made before I first installed the mod? Sorry for another question after your explanation, just want to get things straight so I don't mess up anything.

If you have a save where you already have the mod installed, then turn it back on again, you'll be fine. Whether or not you used LOOT then is not important, you can sort your mods at any time. The majority of mods aren't going to conflict with each other anyway, so they can be placed anywhere in your load order. LOOT just makes sure that mods which will conflict are loaded up properly.

There's really no need to get so paranoid about a corrupt save. As I mentioned, it's a pretty rare occurrence, though it can happen occasionally. Just delete it and go back to something earlier. At least Skyrim keeps 3 autosaves, the previous games had only one. So some players would lose hours of game time on the off-chance it happened to them. I've been playing all the Bethesda games since the days of Oblivion, and I can probably count the number of times I've had a save file become corrupted on my fingers. It really doesn't happen as much as some people seem to think it does. You just got unlucky.

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Nazenn:

Mods that edit NPCs also dont uninstall properly, nor do mods that edit quests, the civil war, encounter zones and some other minor things like certain global game settings etc.

That's because all those things are using scripts. We may not have full access to things like NPC or quest behaviour etc. but that doesn't mean they aren't being used by the game. The only difference is that things like that are using hardcoded scripting, not the kind that we can change.

[Dumbo Octopus]

Originally posted by Belanos:

Originally posted by Dididoo:

Wait, so if I:
1. Reinstalled the same mod
2. Did not use LOOT this time to sort the mod order
3. Loaded a save created with the mod installed

Should I still revert to a save made before I first installed the mod? Sorry for another question after your explanation, just want to get things straight so I don't mess up anything.

If you have a save where you already have the mod installed, then turn it back on again, you'll be fine. Whether or not you used LOOT then is not important, you can sort your mods at any time. The majority of mods aren't going to conflict with each other anyway, so they can be placed anywhere in your load order. LOOT just makes sure that mods which will conflict are loaded up properly.

There's really no need to get so paranoid about a corrupt save. As I mentioned, it's a pretty rare occurrence, though it can happen occasionally. Just delete it and go back to something earlier. At least Skyrim keeps 3 autosaves, the previous games had only one. So some players would lose hours of game time on the off-chance it happened to them. I've been playing all the Bethesda games since the days of Oblivion, and I can probably count the number of times I've had a save file become corrupted on my fingers. It really doesn't happen as much as some people seem to think it does. You just got unlucky.

This:

"If you reinstalled it and it has the same load order and its assets"

from Nazenn is why I'm concerned about whether I used LOOT or not. I thought maybe he meant something when mentioning load order.

[Dumbo Octopus]

Not sure if Nazenn thinks I should revert or not, he did mention having the same load order so I'm a bit confused whether LOOT is really important or not in this.