Saved game cannot be loaded

[szakib]

Hi,

I tried:
- Loading my last save
- Loading all the backups
- Loading all the checkpoints from the current save file.
All of these result in the game crashing (progress indicator freezes and nothing else happens) while loading the save.

Please see my save directory and logs here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!Au1Bcfj3QyccsFLd_jT0Ue-yNrhI?e=jG132z

Thanks in advance for your help.

[THE LAW]

Can you try verifying game files? We managed to boot up your save file. If you make a new save file does it work?

[szakib]

Thank you for your reply.
- Game files verified without issues.
- I can load an earlier save from near the beginning of the game.
- I can start a new game.
- I still cannot load the most recent save.

I created you a new .zip to help diagnose the issue. It has one save that does load (the one I used to test) and another that does not (my main save, same as in the previous .zip), and a log file that contains nothing but one attempt of loading the unloadable save on my machine. To me it seems that it just stops loading objects at a certain point. (I killed the program a few minutes after the last timestamp in the log.) You will know what the next thing to load would be. Why doesn't it load that?

Here is the .zip: https://1drv.ms/f/s!Au1Bcfj3QyccsHKzH8-HzvBKBNpY?e=MFZfQR

PS.: This is at least the 8th time that this has happened, but so far I have always been able to use one of the older files from the backup folder. If you want, I can share 6 more saves that did not load, 3 of them also have the then-current state of the backup folder. (All my logs are in the previous .zip already.)
[Edit: I replaced the links, now they point to the right places.]

[THE LAW]

There is nothing wrong in the log files and the save plays just fine :(. Long shot is trying to reinstall the game and see if that helps. Worst case we can re-create identical save file for you to play on.

[szakib]

Now I did this:
- Uninstalled the game
- Rebooted the machine
- Installed the game again
- Attempted to load the same (latest) save

And it just stops at a certain point the same way as before.

My hunch without a debugger is that while loading a certain object (something that is not present in every save; whatever would have to appear next in the log but does not), it waits infinitely for some resource.

If there is a setting to make the log more verbose, I could try again with that and see if it logs something more useful.

[szakib]

Hi, could you please get back to me?

[THE LAW]

Hey again. I checked with the team and sadly there is not much we can do here, this is most likely something very specific for your system. The best I can do is provide you with a new save file :(

[szakib]

Thanks for the reply. Please do provide the new save file. If there is some kind of sysinfo/diagnostic tool I can run for you to try to figure out which detail of my system might be the culprit, I would be happy to help try to figure this out.

[THE LAW]

Here is a save file please give it a check
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RvE2onax-fQwzPuDG3sSUF7w1VecFNBT/view?usp=sharing

I'll check again with the Team, but without being able to repro it I don't think any tool will come helpful in this case here.

[szakib]

Thanks for the save file! This one also doesn't load. => Whatever the difference is between your version and mine can be excluded from the list of possible causes.

I understand that this is hard to reproduce on another computer, this is why I am offering to help debug on my computer where the problem reliably appears. If there is a way to increase the log verbosity, I still think that would be useful. It looks like everything is working, but at a certain point during loading, it starts waiting for something that never happens. (And a timeout is missing, because it never crashes or continues.) If we can figure out what it is waiting for, we would be very close to the solution.

[NSKuber]

Hi szakib!

Sorry about the issue and slow replies. I haven't see this discussed this here yet, but can you pinpoint some specific levels/story moments where the bug happens?
Does the bug happen on levels which could previously be loaded but then suddenly they aren't?

As for the log verbosity, please try this:
(1) Go to Options -> Gameplay, scroll to the end and set "Enable developer console" to "On".
(2) Open console with tilde (~), type in (hitting Enter after each line)

Log LogStreaming VeryVerbose

Log LogWorldPartition VeryVerbose

(3) Try loading the problematic save, after some time stop the game and quit it
(4) Send the "Talos2.log" from "...\AppData\Local\Talos2\Saved\Logs\".

Hope that can help us pinpoint the actual problem.

[szakib]

Hi NSKuber,

I haven't been able to find a pattern. Now that I am thinking about it, _maybe_ it correlates with having already done quite much in the zone where I currently am. I usually stop the game after completing a puzzle and exiting it, sometimes after entering a puzzle, but before starting to solve it. All of the save files either always load, or never do. I think I have had both working and unworking saves in all zones I have done so far (East123, North1).

I'll send you the log in a bit.

[szakib]

Hi again,

Here is the link: https://1drv.ms/f/s!Au1Bcfj3QyccsQdnBr6BlzugVf_m?e=ZsaD9F
I hope this will help, there is way more detail.

What I did:
- start the game
- enable dev console + run the two commands
- try to load the save I got from THE LAW on 6 March
- wait 5 minutes after things stop moving on the screen
- kill the process

[NSKuber]

Hm, cannot see anything useful in the log so far, it just stops amidst a normal loading process on a generic world partition streaming action :/

One last thing I have in mind for you to try is to open the level directly from the console. This is not an intended way to open them and will damage your save, but if you have it backed up it's ok.

While having your save file set at that problematic N1 point, in the main menu open the console again and type

open N1_WP

then hit enter. Tell us if the level loads that way.

[szakib]

Hi NSKuber,

This works!

What's different when it loads it like this? How does it damage the save file?

[NSKuber]

Hmm, interesting. Has the game also continued from where you left off in the save properly?

The difference is that by using console like I suggested you have loaded the level directly, bypassing a system used for switching between levels, so level transition (e.g. travel on a capsule between clusters) may either not work at all or be buggy if you continue playing after loading a level like that.

Could you please try putting in the broken save again, enabling "VeryVerbose" logging (like I suggested a few posts earlier), then loading the level again from console - once it succeeds, close the game and provide the log. Hopefully the difference between broken and successful load can help us.

I'm sorry this is taking such a long time and to be honest I cannot be sure we will get to success since the issue is hard to debug only being reproducible on your machine, but the chance is there with your great cooperation :)