Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Technical Problems What the heck happened to my save games?

ok. the only thing i can think that MIGHT have somehow caused this is that i had to just do a system restore to a save point from yesterday because i had a problem with the computer, and it fixed it btw

so anyway when i went to go load my save games, they are all screwed up. they got changed names, like instead of my quicksave1 now i have somethin like quicksave1(1).tmp and instead of quicksave2 i have somethin like quicksave2(1).tmp, and instead of my "justincase" save, i have justincase(1).tmp...and, well, you get the idea. these folders seemed to keep all the files in them...i guess i cant be sure, though. but also what was weird was that there WERE still the regular save folders in their previous names except the only file they have in them is "inv.b0"

i also notice that the folders are now read-only...which im pretty sure i remember hearing was a bad thing for DD saves...so i tried just temporarily moving the folders that had maintained the real names of my saves, changed the names of the weird folders that still had all the files in them to their names i had named them, and i took off read-only. tried loading, it crashed when trying to load again. =/ i didnt think it would be so easily fixed, but, well, it was worth a shot <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />


help =[

edit:

i just tried another idea, and it had limited success...

i tried taking the "inv.b0" file from the folder of my quicksave.1 folder that had maintained its name but only had that file, and copied it in to my quicksave folder with the messed up name. then i temporarily moved the quicksave.1 folder, then changed the name of the one with the messed up name back to its regular name...then i tried loading

it DID load, however it seems im missing some of my items...at LEAST my helmet that i loved so dearly, that thing was awesome =[

"these folders seemed to keep all the files in them..."

A new game should have 22 files, after going to either Verdistis or the Dark Forest it should have 27, after going to both it should have 32, after getting to the wastelands it should have 37, and after getting to the Black Ring dungeon it should have 42.


"what was weird was that there WERE still the regular save folders in their previous names except the only file they have in them is 'inv.b0'"

Since the hotfix, the game saves to a temporary folder first before overwriting a save (in case there are problems during the save), but does not use the '(1).tmp' notation. I 'watched' the process once with FileMon, and IIRC it either renamed or created a folder with a .tmp extension to the original name.


"the folders are now read-only"

If the files are marked as read-only, Divinity will crash trying to open them when loading, but I'm not sure if the folder will cause problems.

ok, WITH the "inv.b0" file thrown in with the mass, i get 32 files. which makes sense, because in this save i am not in the wastelands yet, but i have been to dark wood and verdistis.

im not sure what you were trying to suggest in that second part...i havent gotten any hotfix, unless it is included in the 1.34 patch

The game does save to a temporary folder first, but from what I recall (I think I checked under version 1.33/1.34) the game does not use '(1).tmp' as the extension. Unless the game really screwed up, there is something else involved in, or responsible for, the problem with the saves.
Sorry; I don't have any useful advice, I was just commenting on your post. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" />

oh ok

well i guess its not a big deal, ill just go with losing my helmet...im about to go and find the dragon armor set anyway, ill just use the dragon helmet and use one of my spare helmets till then <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

but anyway i was thinking about what the (1) could have come from. ive seen it before...it seems to be what windows does sometimes when it tries to write something that is the same name as something else in the folder

for example one time i downloaded something from kazaa, only i forgot i already had it in my shared folder...so when it finished, it was the same file name only with a (1) at the end

Windows adds a '(1)' before the extension copying files from the temporary internet folder. Maybe XP's system restore (or something) does the same thing?

If you can't (or don't want to) reload to get a good dragon helm, you could always use DAD's item editor to recreate the lost one. There is also a mirror site {DDIE.exe is the executable (112KB), DDIE_ZIPPED.exe is the installer (2.4MB)}.

heh thanks

i was just about to say, it turns out i ALSO lost my dragon breastplate, and i think i even lost the silver breastplate...

and i also lost a couple spare helmets i had, that i would occasionally wear because one had +1 to lockpick and another with +1 to repair...id wear it for a second if i needed to do one of those things =/

You can download the inventory files to get the silver/dragon armour back. They will morph, but everything gets reset when you upgrade them anyway.
Lost Items - guide and directory of inventory files

You could use iZakaroN's SaveEditor to give yourself skill points to make up for the lost bonus spells. I had a a three items with Repair, one with Identify, three with Trader's Tongue and a couple with PickPocket.