GUIDE: How to restore your world. Applicable to patch 0.210.6

[electricdawn]

Here's how to restore your world if it got reset to day 1.

Edit: If you have difficulties following my instructions, feel free to post here and ask me for help! I'll be glad to assist.

1. Necessary preliminaries

There's two locations on your computer to search for your Valheim save games:

Windows

1.

%userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim

2.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\YOURSTEAMID\892970\remote

...where YOURSTEAMID is a string of eight numbers resembling your Steam ID.

Linux

1.

~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim

2.

~/.steam/steam/userdata/YOURSTEAMID/892970/remote

If you had Steam Cloud turned OFF (HIGHLY recommended as it is mostly responsible for these world resets), you can find your worlds and its older copies at the location indicated in location #1 inside the folder "worlds_local". Your character(s) will reside in the "characters_local" folder.

If you had Steam Cloud still turned ON, these files will be at the location indicated in #2 inside the folder "worlds". Your character(s) will reside in the "characters" folder. IF you turned Steam Cloud off AFTER the reset happened, your older world/character copies will still be at location #2!

Just make sure to check BOTH locations to not miss your older world copy.

Steam Cloud

In the extreme case you can't seem to find your world in either location you can check the Steam Cloud for your saves:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=892970

2. Show all extensions

Windows

For the next steps to work, we need to make sure that we can actually see all extensions. If you already have this turned on, you can directly move to step 3. "Restoring your world".

1. Open a file explorer window by clicking on the yellow folder icon with the blue bracket beneath it shown in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
2. Open the "File" menu in that window.
3. Select "Change folder and search options". Window "Folder Options" will open.
4. In the "Folder Options" window, select the "View" tab.
5. In the list of options UNCHECK "Hide extensions for known file types". You may have to scroll down to see it.
6. Click OK to accept the change and close the window.

You can leave the file explorer window open or close it.

Linux

Usually not necessary, as Linux file managers properly display the extension.

3. Restoring your world

The older copies of your world files should have a name like:

YOURWORLD_backup_auto-20220817150973.db

and

YOURWORLD_backup_auto-20220817150973.fwl

You will need BOTH these files.

YOURWORLD is the name of your actual world.
The long string of numbers is the date and (I guess) a serial timestamp when the world was saved. In the example above Aug, 17th, 2022, at some later time.

So what you need to do now is:
1. Go into Steam.
2.a. If Steam Cloud is still ON, go into Valheim, select your character, and then click the "Move to Local" button. Do NOT enter the world! IMPORTANT!
2.b. Then make sure that Steam Cloud is turned OFF in the global Steam settings. IMPORTANT!
3. Exit Steam (close the program, not just the window, make sure Steam is NOT running).
4. Create a COPY of both folders listed at loc. #1 and #2 and put them somewhere save, preferably on an external drive.
5.a. If you have been using Steam Cloud before your little "accident", you need to check inside the "worlds" folder at location #2.
5.b. If you have NOT been using Steam Cloud, you need to check inside the "worlds_local" folder at location #1.
6. No matter where you are now, you should find older copies of your world files as indicated above.
7. Make a COPY of both the most recent .db and .fwl file (check your modified date) and put them on your desktop.
8. Rename both files, so they just resemble "YOURWORLD.db" and "YOURWORLD.fwl". Again, YOURWORLD is your actual world name.
9. Move these files into the "worlds_local" folder (create it, if not present) at location #1, overwriting what is already there (if there is).
10. Go back into Steam, start Valheim, check if everything is ok.
11. IF your world is restored (slightly older version), you are HIGHLY advised to start making periodic backups of this folder to an external harddrive! Keep multiple copies and add a date/time stamp to the folder name!

External harddrives are cheap. Your personal data is priceless! Make periodic backups!

[Veseljko]

I never had any issues with steam cloud. But i will save this text and make a backup. Better safe than sorry.
Thanks for detailed explanation! 🤜🤛

[electricdawn]

You are very welcome!

Issues with Steam Cloud are highly dependant on your internet connection and sometimes your computer itself. So, most people are probably good.

But I must say that I did encounter this myself, even though I'm on a pretty fast connection. But that was with the prior patch, where a lot of users seemingly had this issue, so it was probably more Valheim's fault.

But Steam Cloud and Valheim are probably never going to be the biggest friends. ;)

[Benzo Bobby]

After running through all the steps, I opened up Valheim to an empty world. My map was as expected, but the world was empty and started on Day 1.

[Benzo Bobby]

Originally posted by Zyl:

After running through all the steps, I opened up Valheim to an empty world. My map was as expected, but the world was empty and started on Day 1.

It seems that saving your .db file as [WORLD].db prevents the game from recognizing it, resulting in a new file being created. So, just save the .db file as [WORLD].

[electricdawn]

Thank you for pointing this out to me. I've changed the instructions to now guide users on how to make all extensions visible, so this doesn't happen to them.

Pretty much what happened to you was that you renamed your world to resemble:

World.db.db

instead of just

World.db

You didn't see the extension, as Windows initially hides them from you, unless you tell Windows not to do that.