Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Patch 2 broke my saved games

70 hours in, have 6 saves, none of them will load, get to 60% and crash. Can create a new game, it saves and loads properly.
Tried all the usual:
* Stripped out any mods
* Verified files
* Cleared Larian and Steam caches
* DXDIAG says I am good
* Reloaded NVidia drivers
* Rebooted PC multiple times

Not very happy, spent hours yesterday doing the above list. Don't really feel like replaying all of act one because of a patch.

Prolly your mod configuration changed. Or your modsetting.lsx changed.
You updated the game without thinking about your modlist.
You can be unhappy all you want, but i don't think Larian should shoulder mod support on top of patches... You chose this.

If you are going to mod a game first learn about modding that game.

'Stripping' out mods mid-game can and often does result in the game or saves refusing to load. Depends on the game and depends on the mod. The solution to this is not to do all sorts of irrelevant actions such as verifying files and the rest of your list.

Okay so you download Patch 2 and your saves refuse to load. Lesson 1 - correlation is not causation. Lesson 2 - here is what I would have done if I had downloaded Patch 2 (I run mods but I never download patches or anything until I am convinced it works).

I would try a new game with the Patch installed. If a new game wont have it then it could be the patch.
I'd first try removing the Mod Fixer mod in case Larian had made it redundant (as they tried to do with Patch 1). If the save wont load without Mod Fixer then it is the long road.
I would have removed the Patch 2 .pak file from the Data folder and tried the save.
I'd visit Nexus to see if any of the mods I use have been updated (I have tracking activated for the mods I use). Downloading any that have been updated.
At this point, depending on how long Patch 2 has been out, I might decide to wait a day or so to let more mods get updated.
If not I would uninstall one mod at a time (still without the Patch 2 pak file) a try loading the save. If the save loads then leave the mod uninstalled; if it doesn't load then re-install it.
Once I'd worked my way through the mods I would place the Patch 2 pak file back in Data and try the save (probably wont work but you never know).
If it doesn't work then remove the pak file again.
Now I would try installing any updated mods after first uninstalling the previous version. I'd do this one at a time checking whether the save loads.

If I end up with a save that only loads with some or all of my mods but not mods and patch then I have a decision to make.

First thing to understand is the constant crashes are happening to ALL players not just those who have modded the game. I didn't even play yesterday (patch day) and can't play at this point, no mods ever installed. I've even done a complete wipe including registry entries and re-install and crash crash crash.

Do not assume that a crashing game is caused by mods, sometimes this is the case but not Always. This time it is NOT mods. Un-modded people are crashing just a bad as modded players. Larian broke their game with patch 2. I just hope they fix it today or all the great reviews they've been getting are going to be getting less great. A weekend with a broken FOTM game will hurt them on the reviews. It needs to be fixed ASAP before the weekenders start playing tonight/tomorrow. The forums are already having issues with certain threads related to this issue as it is.

Agree with Ashvins, these problems aren’t all related to mods. I have none installed, also didn’t play when the patch was initially released, when I tried to play the following day (after it had been re-released), all of a sudden none of my saves will load, (even old ones)—they only get to 60%. I’ve been playing since release day and I was almost finished my play through, so pretty frustrated.

Same issue here. About 150 hours not a single issue, wanted to play today and the launcher crashes. Can click continue but then the crash happens. I don't have any mods either.

Ok guys, just in case this helps any of you I am going to post this from my own thread:

"Playing" on GOG. Downloaded patch 2 last night (I guess it was patch 2, it was not annaounced anywhere, but it was 2,5 GB of data) and the game is not running. After I try to run the game I get three possible outcomes: 1) CTD on startup 2) The game loads but with no audio 3) The game takes around 15 min to load.

EDIT: Was able to "solve" this issue by uninstalling the game, completely removing any files connected to it from my PC, and then installing the game to a completely different location on a completely different HDD (which is not SSD unfortunately unlike the previous one). Veryfing game data nor reinstalling the game to the same location did not help.

P.S.: I had remove even my local saves luckily the ones that got downloaded from cloud worked. Hope this helps.

First: Nobody is saying that the problems are all mod-related. Basic trouble-shooting principles say that the first thing you do is eliminate non-essential elements - that's why we look at mods first.
Second: If your game has problems after a hotfix or patch remove the patch.
Third: Or you could try running the game directly from the exe. bg3.exe for Vulkan and bg3_dx11.exe for DX11.

Pro tip #1: Turn off any automatic updating of anything on your computer. That way when you manually download stuff you have a better idea of what is happening on your machine. It also means that others are being the guinea pigs for hotfixes and patches.

Pro tip #2: Learn how to do things. Stop relying on Steam and GOG and Nexus and wabbajack and the rest to hold your hand and do everything for you. They don't do it for you, they do it for them.