Jump to content

Game Save/Load Error


Recommended Posts

Has anyone else run into a weird situation, where you save your game and exit just fine, but when you try to load the save file, it starts to load, but the screen stays black and eventually the game CTD's? I've had it happen a few times (only on Seraphim, Dryad, and High Elf Mage, oddly, played all the way to Niobi on my DM, Inquisitor, and TG without this happening), and my workaround (and the only way I've found so far) of keeping that "character", is to change to any other difficulty than what you were playing. Of course you lose all progress you had made on your save, which is annoying.

 

If you have, and have found a better "fix" than I have, please feel free to share, heh.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, thejynxed said:

Has anyone else run into a weird situation, where you save your game and exit just fine, but when you try to load the save file, it starts to load, but the screen stays black and eventually the game CTD's? I've had it happen a few times (only on Seraphim, Dryad, and High Elf Mage, oddly, played all the way to Niobi on my DM, Inquisitor, and TG without this happening), and my workaround (and the only way I've found so far) of keeping that "character", is to change to any other difficulty than what you were playing. Of course you lose all progress you had made on your save, which is annoying.

 

If you have, and have found a better "fix" than I have, please feel free to share, heh.

I have never encountered this issue either. However, one "fix" would be creating a new folder and inside it a text file describing your character, name, level, etc. then placing a copy of your character's save file at regular intervals. Perhaps every five to ten levels would suffice. You could name the primary folder with your characters' name and the folders inside holding the save and text files could be named for the level at which the characters game was saved and other details such as the point to which main quest progress was completed. A backup copy could be stored on an external drive for safe-keeping.

Link to comment
On 4/6/2019 at 10:50 AM, Hooyaah said:

I have never encountered this issue either. However, one "fix" would be creating a new folder and inside it a text file describing your character, name, level, etc. then placing a copy of your character's save file at regular intervals. Perhaps every five to ten levels would suffice. You could name the primary folder with your characters' name and the folders inside holding the save and text files could be named for the level at which the characters game was saved and other details such as the point to which main quest progress was completed. A backup copy could be stored on an external drive for safe-keeping.

Yeah, I've been thinking of doing that, it seems like a good idea in general to back up the save folder period. I think I've tracked the issue down to being a missing/corrupted/incomplete texture being saved from the stored game state in RAM to the save file.

One other thing I've considered doing, is creating a "clone" of these characters using the character editor, and transferring over their gear and stash (via the common stash), because this bug doesn't affect loading the save into a multiplayer game, just singleplayer on whatever difficulty the bug occurred on.

Something I have yet to try: Starting in multiplayer on the difficulty I get "stuck" in when this happens, progressing on some quests and seeing if that can sort of reset the save in some fashion back in singleplayer. Usually I just go into multiplayer for easy access to the vendor and whatnot on Niobium.

Edited by thejynxed
Link to comment
1 hour ago, thejynxed said:

One other thing I've considered doing, is creating a "clone" of these characters using the character editor, and transferring over their gear and stash (via the common stash), because this bug doesn't affect loading the save into a multiplayer game, just singleplayer on whatever difficulty the bug occurred on.

Sadly that will only grant you a "blank" toon in terms of progress, even if you place the same gear/gold/CAs/etc., and it'll be devoid of SB and quest progression. I don't think that's a great idea in the long run.

Link to comment

This is the first report of a glitch such as this, at least to my knowledge. I am aware of similar issues that stem from player characters having been used from an earlier Community Patch sometime after the latest one is installed. If your PC is failing to save the game due to a memory related issue or a drive error then it could be a bit of a bother to track down. Are you running the game from a Solid State Drive or SETA? You may want to check the integrity of your RAM with MemTest86 or Memory Diagnostic Tool built into Windows (just go to Start and search) and then run a Disk Check. Otherwise, it couldn't hurt to de-fragment your drive. Glary Utilities has some handy tools and I strongly recommend John Koshy's Disk Max, both of which are freeware.

One more thing, it is best to run the game on a separate drive from the one on which your Windows OS is running.

Link to comment

My RAM is fine (I run MEMTest86 overnight every 6 months). Running it from a Samsung EVO Solid State drive (It has TRIM and all of the goodies). It's definitely a texture issue, not sure exactly which. What I should do, is copy my saves out, and just reinstall the game.

8 hours ago, Androdion said:

Sadly that will only grant you a "blank" toon in terms of progress, even if you place the same gear/gold/CAs/etc., and it'll be devoid of SB and quest progression. I don't think that's a great idea in the long run.

I'd rather have it blank in terms of progress than being locked out from a difficulty entirely because it's partway through and refuses to load.

Link to comment
19 hours ago, thejynxed said:

My RAM is fine (I run MEMTest86 overnight every 6 months). Running it from a Samsung EVO Solid State drive (It has TRIM and all of the goodies). It's definitely a texture issue, not sure exactly which. What I should do, is copy my saves out, and just reinstall the game.

I'd rather have it blank in terms of progress than being locked out from a difficulty entirely because it's partway through and refuses to load.

Indeed, a clean reinstall should be efficacious. Do let us know if your issue is resolved, please.

Link to comment

Ok, what I did was a complete revalidation of the game in Steam. It replaced 88 files totaling 145 MB. Reinstalled the Community Patch & Elite Trimmed, so far I've been able to play my Seraphim without issue for the last ten hours.

 

Edit: I tracked it down to a missing particle effect for Warding Energy (and similar Shield buffs). How I tested before I redid the above: Copied out my saves, ran with Warding Energy until I hit the issue (I could reliably get it to happen within a single 2-4 hr play session), then copied my saves back over after I ALT-F4'd the game, ran without Warding Energy for 8 hrs, never had the issue. After I did the above "reinstall", I have not had the issue repeat after this even with Warding Energy or similar running. Note: This also happened with other characters that had any sort of activated Shield, such as Barkskin, which is why it affected my Dryad too.

Note to self: Do not hit the attack, run, and casting speed caps ever again.

Edited by thejynxed
  • Thanks! 1
Link to comment
21 hours ago, Hooyaah said:

Thank you for the update!

You're welcome. Something else I found out during this testing and it should probably be stickied as a warning (as it's something I've seen people mess with in various posts): It should be strongly discouraged to change the line SpeedMax = 2500 in balance.txt to anything higher than the 2500 default. I had it set to 3500 (because Blender Seraphim is hilarious) and while yes, you do run and attack wayyyyyyyyyy faster, it can and does interfere with animations (including texture loading/unloading) and NPC movement scripting in a very negative fashion. The NPC issue is most noticeable in town areas with a high concentration of NPCs scripted to spawn on area load and then disburse according to their pathing programming. What happens is, when this number is set beyond 2500, this can and will fail to happen when you are loading a saved game at any tower that has NPC spawn points packed around it, such as every town in the swamps, so the NPCs (AND you) will be stuck in place. You can still cast spells, etc, but you can't move at all from where you spawn, and they can't either because the scripts fail to process properly, and the game engine chokes waiting for a script to execute that isn't executing. Exiting the game and setting the number back to 2500, then reloading fixes the issue instantly. Out in the wilderness of the game world itself (provided you have your max zoom modified to zoom way out), you can see it happen to NPCs that spawn in groups - they remain frozen in place even after you run up to them, allowing you to blast them into despawning particle loot pinatas.

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up