Beta to Stable Horror Story

[moCronik]

I just went back to the stable branch, my gaming and dedicated server, so that a friend on Xbox could join the multiplayer and lost all my characters! I did back up using the option in steam after right clicking on Valheim and going to the files tab before going to the beta branch AND making a copy of them from my characters_local folder. But when I tried to restore with the steam tool, nothing!

I deleted my local character files and replaced with the backups I made, still no characters. Uninstalled, reinstalled, moved to cloud and back, moved to cloud, nothing has worked plus it says my worlds are now "Bad Version" even the ones that didn't have world modifiers.

So did I just lose all my work?

[MagicHp]

Did you went back to beta?
I would guess that characters created or maybe even just used on beta worlds can't get back to stable.
After all, those beta worlds have a higher version number than the stable ones, which would fit the "Bad version" error message.

I'd guess that retuning to the beta branch and restoring your characters should work.

[FissionChips]

Originally posted by MagicHp:

I would guess that characters created or maybe even just used on beta worlds can't get back to stable.

That was my first thought, but, OP did say they created backups before moving to beta and that those are the backups they're trying to restore - which should work, and is exactly what Iron Gate tells you to do.

I'm less clear what OP did to backup and restore world files on their dedicated server, which I believe is an entirely different set of files to those on their client side.

[Brew]

Unclear whether he lost beta characters or "normal" characters. I think @MagicHip was thinking beta characters, and I thought that too, but your post suggests maybe he meant normal characters created before going to beta? Although "bad version" also suggested to me that they were beta (later) versions which were incompatible with the normal (earlier) version. Old chars, new maps? Old chars, old maps? New chars, new maps?

[Mharr]

That sounds like you did everything right with backups, have you tried a complete deletion and reinstall of the game?

[moCronik]

Before I went to the beta branch I moved all my characters and worlds to local and copied the characters_local and worlds_local folders completely to another drive then did the recommended backup game via steam.

The characters (and worlds I care about on my gaming PC) were created on stable but did use after the beta branch install. Old character and old map was used on beta branch but both lost when went back to stable. I hope that clears it up.

I did see a post where I can just copy folder to use as beta branch and swap between with a simple .bat file. That might work for my needs as the dedicated server is working as needed, just want to do a dual install on it also beta and stable.

Thank you and will post results on both.

[Shaken_Widow]

Originally posted by moCronik:

Before I went to the beta branch I moved all my characters and worlds to local and copied the characters_local and worlds_local folders completely to another drive then did the recommended backup game via steam.

The characters (and worlds I care about on my gaming PC) were created on stable but did use after the beta branch install. Old character and old map was used on beta branch but both lost when went back to stable. I hope that clears it up.

I did see a post where I can just copy folder to use as beta branch and swap between with a simple .bat file. That might work for my needs as the dedicated server is working as needed, just want to do a dual install on it also beta and stable.

Thank you and will post results on both.

the devs stated when they first created the beta branch that trying to go back to stable will corrupt the files and that you shouldn't try to do so.

by bringing stable characters into the beta, you doomed them to never return to stable, there is no way around that.

backing up is specifically only for saving the characters BEFORE you change from stable to beta, and if you do so before a version change the corruption still has the ability to be triggered.

sounds like you used stable characters from a while back before a version change and brought them into beta worlds which forever cursed them to remain there and never to return to the stable world ever again, the reason for it not working even though you backed them up is likely due to the fact that you backed them up before a version change, which would mean they have errors in their version files which will corrupt them.

[Mharr]

At least all you probably need do to fix this is a week or two of absolutely nothing.

[moCronik]

Everything came back after the Hilder's update👍

[Mharr]

\o/