Loading save gets stuck on ¨Preparing game¨.

[bullsx2]

Full flow of events here:

I play the game and save on Ironman like normal, with no mods.

When I next start the games through Steam I get a prompt from my computer that the game is trying to access its files and make changes, so I allow it, just a launcher update, nothing special. I have protected files on.

After I get another prompt for something called Explorer.exe trying to access %userprofile%\Favorites, which I deny since I have no clue what that's about.
So I proceed to launch the game like normal and try to load my save, but it gets stuck at ¨Preparing game¨, after waiting awhile it clearly isn't loading and I have to kill it with task.

After that, I restart the game to see if that fixes it, and then I get the explorer.exe prompt again. Wich I still deny. And again the game doesn't load.

So I try to restart my PC and the same thing, prompt and stuck.
A few attempts later and the prompt no longer appear but still can't load.



After looking around online I find others having a similar problem(although no one seems to have had the prompt appear). But no solution. So I tried to reinstall the game in case there is an issue with the launcher due to the update, but it still refuses to load, I can still make new games like normal though.

Anyone knows what's going on, is that odd prompt involved or is the save just corrupt?

 

[AndrewT]

After I get another prompt for something called Explorer.exe

That's part of Windows FYI, nothing to do with us or this game. You may have a Windows problem causing that.

But you are only getting this problem with one particular galaxy, is that right? Others load okay, you can start a new one okay?

If so was that galaxy started under the current patch, or some previous one?

 

[bullsx2]

That's part of Windows FYI, nothing to do with us or this game. You may have a Windows problem causing that.

But you are only getting this problem with one particular galaxy, is that right? Others load okay, you can start a new one okay?

If so was that galaxy started under the current patch, or some previous one?

The previous one, but I was able to save/load and play for several hours without issue. And I'm aware that it's a Windows thing, was more wondering if the game somehow uses it to read save files or something, but guess not.

In any case, thanks for the reply!

 

[ASL Veteran]

I just had this happen to me yesterday. I was playing off the same Iron Man save for a couple of weeks. I think I was in the year 2480 and there was a War in Heaven, the Unbidden had invaded between the two fallen empires, and I was just nominated to be the Galactic Custodian. It was a very fun game and I was just getting strong enough to turn the tide and boom, save stops at preparing game. I've let it run for at least ten minutes now and it won't move past - it looks to be 90 or 95% I tried it this morning after rebooting my computer but it still won't budge past that point. I don't get any messages of any type so no idea why it decided to stop loading after several weeks. The only thing I can think of is I might have done a BIOS update between sessions, but I had played earlier yesterday and I just took a dinner break before I intended to resume that evening. I'm using Windows 11.

Just for giggles I tried loading two older save games that I had abandoned and they both loaded just fine. One was a game that I started with the same galaxy settings as the game that stopped loading at preparing game (huge), but I didn't play a single turn because I had forgotten to change my initial leader's stats. The other one was also with the same galaxy settings but it was a little farther along - maybe mid game.