Save Games Not Showing Up

[Large Father]

Hello all,

 

Let me preface this post by saying that I've combed the Steam forums and Obsidian forums to try to find a solution to this issue already. I have tried validating my cache, deleting my saves (both the AppData/Local and AppData/Local/Low folders), and reinstalling the game. A fresh installation of the game causes the saves to show up, but only on for the first time when I launch the game after installation. Subsequent launches of the game do not recognize the save files, even though they are still in the proper folder. Unfortunately, I do not seem to be permitted to upload save games; however, I have uploaded my system specs in the format requested by the "How to Report Technical Issues" thread. I would like to mention that I am running the game on the Windows 10 operating system. My copy of Pillars of Eternity is purchased through the Steam store, updated to the most recent version but without either of the expansion packs. Additionally, I have disabled the Steam Cloud synching service.

 

One of the difficulties in solving this problem has been that most of the threads dealing with this glitch that I have found are from 2015 and do not apply to the most recent version of the game. If there is another thread dealing with this issue for the most recent version, I would be happy to be directed there. If there is any other information I can provide to facilitate fixing this issue easily, I will be sure to provide it as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for reading this thread and for your assistance.

 

DxDiag.txt

[Sking]

Hey Large Father,

 

 

There have have some reports that user saves have been going missing and that you cannot load them. Have no fear, the saves are still located in your save folder. You just need to delete some temp folders to make them reappear again. 

 

Go into your AppData folder and delete the TempSaveData along with CurrentGame. You can find those folders here: 'C:/Users/Username/AppData/Local/Temp/Obsidian Entertainment/Pillars of Eternity/TempSaveData' and the folder 'CurrentGame' next to it.

 

- Sking

[Large Father]

Thank you for your response! Unfortunately, there were two issues: there was no "CurrentGame" folder in that location; deleting the files that were in that location did not solve the issue.

 

EDIT: I tried turning on and off Steam cloud synching and that did not work.

 

UPDATE: *I think the problem is that flippin' Windows 10 keeps making my save folder read only, even when I uncheck read only. Is there any way I can make the folder never read only!?*

 

UPDATE 2: Or Perhaps not. It seems like the hidden/unhidden thing might or might not be the problem. I really have no idea at this point.

 

UPDATE 3: Reinstallation of the game allows for the autosave file to be read but no other save files. No idea what that means.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Large Father

[Mr. E.S. Circumstance]

I've been having the same problem over the past week. However, the saves occasionally do show up. I have  tried the suggestions posted in thread , but it hasn't helped.

DxDiag.txt

[Large Father]

I'm sorry to post twice in a row, but I *still* have no idea what the problem could be! Could someone please help me out with this?

 

--

 

I'm starting to get very frustrated with this. I'd very much like to play this game, but I cannot without functioning saves! I have tried *everything* suggested in the forums dating back to posts made at the original release in 2015!

Edited July 9, 2016 by Large Father

[Mr. E.S. Circumstance]

I was able to fix the issue and restore all save games. Steps are as follows:

 

 

Delete the folder C:\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\Obsidian Entertainment

 Delete the folder C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\Obsidian Entertainment

Run the game as admin, load the most recent save

Move your char to new area (one that requires a a load screen) and save a new save.  

reload that new save (don't exit game)

Save the game over the same save.

Exit the game.

Restart the game

 

I haven't had any further problems after that.

 

[Maigus]

I am having the same exact issue and none of these steps have caused me to be able to load a single save.  The only thing I haven't tried yet is a complete reinstall, but I am hoping it won't come to that.  Other than that the only difference I am seeing is that I am using GOG not Steam.

DxDiag.txt

[Sking]

Hey Maigus, 

 

Can you give MR E.S.'s steps a try? I'm curious to see if it works for anyone else. I think our official tips are outdated and would like to update them.

 

Let me know

-Sking

[Mr. E.S. Circumstance]

FWIW, I tried completely reinstalling the game before I deleted both of the local save folders, but it didn't fix anything. When the problem first occurred, it was intermittent, and would usually go away if i rebooted. However, after a few days the saves wouldn't appear at all no matter how many times I restarted. 

[Loren Tyr]

Hmm, I'm not sure how informative this is on its own, but I have found two ways of inducing the problem. Though I can only reproduce one of them, frustratingly. Either one manifests in the same way though, with the Continue and Load buttons greyed out in the main menu as if there were no previous saves => is this what happened to you guys? Or could you open the Load menu, but there were just no saved games listed?

 

Anyway, my first successful attempt to induce this was simply by removing one of the save games from the save game folder. It was from the most recently loaded play through though not one that I had itself recently loaded. When starting the game after this Load and Continue were greyed out. Deleting the Obsidian folders from Local/Temp (and LocalLow, but that seems irrelevant to this) and restarting restored it again. However, no subsequent combination of removing save games managed to recreate this again, with Steam sync on or off (oddly, it was on initially; it should have actually just replaced the save I removed when starting PoE, but apparently didn't).

 

A vastly more reproducible way is to simply try to open the loadedSave.zip file in Local/Temp/Obs... in Word. Which is admittedly somewhat random, but the point of this is that it locks the file as long as the subsequent Word error dialog is open, meaning it cannot be opened or deleted by other programs. Starting PoE now will also grey out Load and Continue and prevent loading. Looking in the code, when looping through the .savegame files it actually deletes the current loadedSave.zip and then copies the .savegame file to a new instance of loadedSave.zip (turns out the .savegame files are just zip files without the extension), then reads them in. And if loadedSave.zip is locked, this can't happen and it fails to load that savegame's info (which repeats for each savegame unless the lock is removed in the meantime, but that loop isn't going to take long if it keeps failing in each iteration before it does much of anything).

 

Anyway, as to why this happens by itself I'm not quite sure. But an obvious culprit is of course our good friend the virus scanner. This should see the .zip file being created and is liable to want to take a peek at it, almost certainly locking or otherwise containing it until it is satisfied it is safe. If this stops PoE from manipulating the loadedSave.zip file, the savegame info cannot be loaded. Perhaps this is also why Mr. E.S. Circumstance's solution worked, running PoE in admin mode may have altered the virus scanner's behaviour. 

 

Obviously I don't know whether this is the true explanation, but if someone who has this problem could try running the game with the virus scanner (temporarily) turned off, that might answer that. 

[Loren Tyr]

Oh, in my experiments this also leaves a massive trace of IO Exceptions and "ZIP FILE WAS CORRUPT" messages in the output_log.txt file. If someone could post a copy of his/her output_log.txt file? Just start the game to the main menu and observe the greyed out Load / Continue buttons, then exit the game. This should generate a nice new output log. By default it will be in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternity_Data folder. 

 

Also, I'm operating under the assumption that the problem indeed manifests for people as greyed out Load / Continue buttons, can someone confirm? It's likely to be similar even if not quite that, but still useful to know for sure either way.

[rogash33]

Hi everybody,

 

I wonder if you solved this problem, because I've the same problem (button load and continue are grey) and I tried Mr E.S's solution but it didn't work. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game but it didn't work either. I tried starting new games and save, but everytime the save is corrupted (ZIP FILE WAS CORRUPT in the outpout_log.txt). I don't know what to do, so do you have any other solutions to deal with this problem ?

[Finstairn]

Hello,

 

I am also facing this issue on Linux. My saved games have been automatically imported from Windows to Linux by Steam but the game does not show any of them... I cannot even click on "Continue".

I have seen that there are some manipulations for fixing it but they are only available for Windows as the locations to remove do not exist on Linux.

 

Is there somewhere an help for linux users about this issue?

 

Cheers,

[Finstairn]

Re,

 

Okay, I have found the explanation for my bug... It was all because of the directory name.

See below:

drwxr-xr-x  3 home home 4.0K Jan  7 22:41 PillarsofEternity
drwxr-xr-x  3 home home 4.0K Jan  8 14:01 PillarsOfEternity

 

Steam placed my saved games in the repertory PillarsofEternity while Pillars Of Eternity was looking for saves in PillarsOfEternity location. So this was just a story about uppercase. :/

 

[rogash33]

Thanks for your solution. I'm on Windows and I find another way to load savegames : savegame files are in fact zip file, so I opened them with 7zip and deleted picure files (.png) and it worked ! Of course it's a temporary solution because you have to do it each time you create a new save but it's better than nothing. I hope it will help people in the same situation. If someone finds a better solution tell me.

[Lordgorzul]

On 7/6/2016 at 2:36 AM, Large Father said:

Hello all,

 

Let me preface this post by saying that I've combed the Steam forums and Obsidian forums to try to find a solution to this issue already. I have tried validating my cache, deleting my saves (both the AppData/Local and AppData/Local/Low folders), and reinstalling the game. A fresh installation of the game causes the saves to show up, but only on for the first time when I launch the game after installation. Subsequent launches of the game do not recognize the save files, even though they are still in the proper folder. Unfortunately, I do not seem to be permitted to upload save games; however, I have uploaded my system specs in the format requested by the "How to Report Technical Issues" thread. I would like to mention that I am running the game on the Windows 10 operating system. My copy of Pillars of Eternity is purchased through the Steam store, updated to the most recent version but without either of the expansion packs. Additionally, I have disabled the Steam Cloud synching service.

 

One of the difficulties in solving this problem has been that most of the threads dealing with this glitch that I have found are from 2015 and do not apply to the most recent version of the game. If there is another thread dealing with this issue for the most recent version, I would be happy to be directed there. If there is any other information I can provide to facilitate fixing this issue easily, I will be sure to provide it as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for reading this thread and for your assistance.

 

DxDiag.txt 60.99 kB · 3 downloads

Hi everyone, its now late 2024. Wit Avowed coming, I felt like continuing POE II as I reached about half way back in 2021. 

However Im having exactly the same issue as Large Father, to the T.

Only autosave works but you cannot make a new save. 

And none of the proposed solutions work for me. 

Has this been solved somehow by now?

[Lordgorzul]

I have 4 different questions on this forum many days later there are zero responses. What is the point of the forums?

[Chaospread]

Hi, I don't have your problem and many players haven't been still playing PoE nowadays, anyway, have you tried to launch the game without steam launcher?

The problem could be also the platform, what OS, CPU and GPU are you playing on?

Do you have any other system for trying out the game?

And finally: what are the others questions without answers?