Game just destroyed every single save

[glittma]

My machine overheated and shut down. Now every save is labelled "unknown save" and will not load.

Have I really just lost everything I've ever done in this game?

[GIJoe597]

I am guessing you are using a form of cloud save?

[lordpooky]

how did the game destroy your saves when you let your computer overheat? maybe the saves are still good and i can understand being mad but Christ. in this 1 pgi is actually innocent

[glittma]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

I am guessing you are using a form of cloud save?

I just used the automatic saves the game makes, with a manual save now and then.

[glittma]

The only listed campaign is "Unknown Campaign", which it says has been going on for negative one million days and has a reputation of 1 (instead of my 8).

[atempi52]

I guess you really should have invested in Double Heat Sinks!




SORRY I couldn't resist! Yeah that sucks. Any idea why your computer overheated?

[-GK- Paladin]

Sounds like a hardware/cooling problem. Possibly overclocked. My one came overclocked, so immediately disabled it in bios. My advice would be to get a better cooling system. Chances are good your cpu was running too hot and emergency shut down to prevent it blowing. If overclocking was involved, then you are going to need liquid cooled. If not and just dust or poor cooling system, then you will be fine with air cooled. I'm using a Gamdias air cooler and it works fine (one of the most affordable air coolers around). You also need 2-4 fans in the PC case to circulate air, so hot gets taken out and cool gets pulled in. Highest temperature I ever get is 60 - 80 degrees °C (or 140 - 176 °F)

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by glittma:

My machine overheated and shut down. Now every save is labelled "unknown save" and will not load.

Have I really just lost everything I've ever done in this game?

possibly. if the shutdown happened when the game was writing to the save file, it's probably corrupted beyond repair.

[GIJoe597]

Originally posted by glittma:

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

I am guessing you are using a form of cloud save?

I just used the automatic saves the game makes, with a manual save now and then.

Roger.

[Dalinar917]

Originally posted by lordpooky:

how did the game destroy your saves when you let your computer overheat? maybe the saves are still good and i can understand being mad but Christ. in this 1 pgi is actually innocent

I believe this is the real question here. Trust me I'm no fan of PGI, but at the same time I don't condemn them. They and the game are innocent here. I am seriously sorry that you lost your save data OP. My recommendations are to make sure your PC is in a place where it can breathe, clean out any dust from the machine, and make sure whatever you are using for cooling is properly mounted and installed. This is a hardware issue, not a game or PGI issue.

[glittma]

What the heck are saves for if they let them all be corrupted? I could understand losing my last save, but losing every save ever?

[Dalinar917]

Your computer shut off in an unintended manner from OVER HEATING OP. That isn't how a PC is intended to turn off. Over heating can cause serious if not MAJOR damage to your PC's internals including data corruption on your drives. You learned a valuable lesson the hard way. Yes it is a shame it happened but take better care of your PC.

[Insano-Man]

Track down this path on your PC:

...\AppData\Local\MW5Mercs\Saved\SaveGames

You should see a bunch of folders with random letters and numbers on them, corresponding to the amount of campaigns and careers you had.

Now, I'm going to admit fully and freely that I don't know much about how saves are handled in MW5. A more senior modder or tinkerer might be able to speak on this better. So, that said, all I can do is suggest basic troubleshooting.

In order:

• 1. Are there actually folders in there?
  
• 2. Do the folders have anything in them?
  
• 3. Do you see a "Campaign.json" file in those folders?
  
• 4. On opening Campaign.json in Notepad, does it have anything in it, and is it legible?
  
• 5. Here's one of mine.[pastebin.com] If your Campaign.json is legible, does it look like that?

Probably, this is all useless flailing. I'm pulling ideas square out of my ass here. Still, if nothing more, it might be food for thought.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by glittma:

What the heck are saves for if they let them all be corrupted? I could understand losing my last save, but losing every save ever?

it's not that PGI "let" anything happen: this is how reading and writing data on a computer works.

if your computer unexpectedly shuts off while writing to any file, the file being written to will be hopelessly corrupted. you have to program in /extensive/ failsafes to prevent this, and most failsafes cannot be implemented by any program without OS level control.

therefore, you'll have some OS files protected from this kind of corruption, but not really a lot. rarely anything that involves any third party outside of the OS's publisher.

this is because these things are gaping security risks, giving this level of access to any old program, especially a game with online functionality.


now, there IS an OS level solution for this problem in windows. the thing is, is it requires a bunch of disk space, and the option is off by default. it's the "previous file version" tool.

aside form that, you can start to manually back up all data you consider to be critical, preferably on a separate drive.

[glittma]

Originally posted by Insano-Man:

Track down this path on your PC:

...\AppData\Local\MW5Mercs\Saved\SaveGames

In order:

• 1. Are there actually folders in there?
  
• 2. Do the folders have anything in them?
  
• 3. Do you see a "Campaign.json" file in those folders?
  
• 4. On opening Campaign.json in Notepad, does it have anything in it, and is it legible?
  
• 5. Here's one of mine.[pastebin.com] If your Campaign.json is legible, does it look like that?

I opened it in Notepad and there was nothing in it at all. I guess that's that.

Thanks very much for the trouble you went to to try to help though. :)

[MjKorz]

Happened to me as well years ago. The problem with this game is that save files are associated with an archive file of some sort and once that archive file gets corrupted, your save files are all essentially destroyed. The problem is that this archive file can get corrupted at the drop of the hat if the game crashes or your PC shuts down unexpectedly. Quality game design as expected of the PIG.