PSA: DO NOT USE THE "CONTINUE GAME" BUTTOM FROM THE MAIN MENU

[Jarvin]

Hey, jut wanted to give a quick PSA


One of the main causes of saves breaking after the recent hotfix seems to be directly tied to using the "continue game" button from the main menu. As seen on the screenshot below, loading a corrupted savefile( but corrupted in a recoverable way) from it causes a new literally blank save to be created in your savefiles folder as a "backup", but once you try leaving the game in an intended way, the original save will be overwritten by the blank save aswell.

This will cause your entire savefile to be unrecoverably corrupted.



The main bug causing the savefile corruptions seems to be bound to this:

From what I can tell, in 1.31 EU4 tries to write the version of the gamestate it has in the memory to a savefile while using incorrect keys. As such, sometimes it will try to output a key that doesn't actually exist, causing a syntax error and the game to be unable to read the savefile. (none of the fields from the cooldowns={} object should actually be there)


Such savefiles are still recoverable by simply removing the missing keys from the savefile.

Hope I can manage to save one campaign or two with this PSA. Thanks to @grotaclas and others for figuring it out the cause of the corruptions.

 

[Stiopa866]

Nice find!

Hopefully this will help shed some light on the issue and allow for recovery of some savegames. Perhaps it will allow the developers to fix the issue more quickly as well? (If they have not done so by now.)

 

[Aybara978NE]

Is there a way for this post to be stickied?

 

[grotaclas]

Nice find!

Hopefully this will help shed some light on the issue and allow for recovery of some savegames. Perhaps it will allow the developers to fix the issue more quickly as well? (If they have not done so by now.)

It seems they already identified the problem

 

[Borgio]

So the playerbase is now doing the job that the devs should have done, because nobody actually trusts the devs to find the source of the problem?

 

[Jarvin]

In reference to the PSA I wrote a mini-tool that could help recover the saves where it's still possible
read more here: link

 

[Mayonass]

So the playerbase is now doing the job that the devs should have done, because nobody actually trusts the devs to find the source of the problem?

Its not that we don't trust them to fix the problem, its just that by the time they do too much time has passed and the game is currently unplayable in the current patch. Since paradox won't do anything for the next few days to address the issue, this is the best we can make do.

 

[synkius]

I didint used 'continue game' after that, but still got this bug. none of these methods helped to recover

 

[Icyjove]

Also, I first encountered this bug from the Load game button while in the middle of another game.

 

[PedroVargas]

It's not just the "continue" button. I go to the main menu, chose the second to last save - and instantly get the "empty world" bug. It's currently a gamble whether you will be able to play a save or not. The further the game progresses, I feel, the smaller the chance. I have four different runs in the late 1500's and early 1600's that are corrupted now

(BTW I tried recovering them with the tool a nice user provided - not working. At least all my saves are over 8MB so they seem to be salvagable, perhaps in 1.31.2 ....)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Good advice...and past history has taught me that said button doesn't exist/functions more as a trap than something anybody should click on.

How many times over the years has clicking on it broken saves? This isn't the first, and I wouldn't be surprised if we're at 5+.

 

[Jarvin]

It's not just the "continue" button. I go to the main menu, chose the second to last save - and instantly get the "empty world" bug. It's currently a gamble whether you will be able to play a save or not. The further the game progresses, I feel, the smaller the chance. I have four different runs in the late 1500's and early 1600's that are corrupted now

(BTW I tried recovering them with the tool a nice user provided - not working. At least all my saves are over 8MB so they seem to be salvagable, perhaps in 1.31.2 ....)

hey
Continue game button is not what causes the bug, but what causes the savefiles to be irreparable.
If you still have those 8mb saves, please post them here, will do my best to rescue them.

 

[super.ray]

Hi, I have the same problem. I have a backup of my savegame, but if I try to load it, the game ens and the save file drop from a few MB to 229KB.

Is there any way to repair the backed up file without loosing Ironman ?

Should I wait an official patch ?

 

[Jarvin]

Hi, I have the same problem. I have a backup of my savegame, but if I try to load it, the game ens and the save file drop from a few MB to 229KB.

Is there any way to repair the backed up file without loosing Ironman ?

Should I wait an official patch ?

There's no way to fix it without losing ironman. I think it's extremely unlikely that whatever Paradox does in 1.31.2 will make you able to load that save without losing ironman(although not impossible, we'll see)

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Such savefiles are still recoverable by simply removing the missing keys from the savefile.

@Jarvin

Thank you many times over for your work and your help in saving people's campaigns, and time.

Is there a way we can recover the saves ourselves? I'm struggling to get the links to work for me. I just want to finish my Switzerlake campaign lol.

 

[PedroVargas]

hey
Continue game button is not what causes the bug, but what causes the savefiles to be irreparable.
If you still have those 8mb saves, please post them here, will do my best to rescue them.

Thanks for the offer. I'll wait for 1.31.2, because I want to continue them as ironman. If it won't work, bad luck. But again thank you for your help!

 

[Jarvin]

@Jarvin

Thank you many times over for your work and your help in saving people's campaigns, and time.

Is there a way we can recover the saves ourselves? I'm struggling to get the links to work for me. I just want to finish my Switzerlake campaign lol.

Hey
On paper it's very simple:
Once you have a plaintext version of an ironman save or a save that wasn't an ironman one to begin with, you can open it in notepad
then do Ctrl+F for "map_area_data", this is the part of the savefile that seems to get corrupted. Then the fixing really is just about finding all unnecessary cooldowns={} objects and removing them.

Though if my tool didn't work for you I'd appreciate if you could drop your save here so I could have a look and, well, fix my tool so it works better

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Hey
On paper it's very simple:
Once you have a plaintext version of an ironman save or a save that wasn't an ironman one to begin with, you can open it in notepad
then do Ctrl+F for "map_area_data", this is the part of the savefile that seems to get corrupted. Then the fixing really is just about finding all unnecessary cooldowns={} objects and removing them.

Though if my tool didn't work for you I'd appreciate if you could drop your save here so I could have a look and, well, fix my tool so it works better

Will send you a message. Thanks again for your work.

 

[holyvigil]

Do you know how to fix the click on something bug? My game is around 1592 and I clicked on convert a province and it crashed. Now if I click on anything it crashes but if I just let time go by it is fine.

 

[Jarvin]

Do you know how to fix the click on something bug? My game is around 1592 and I clicked on convert a province and it crashed. Now if I click on anything it crashes but if I just let time go by it is fine.

First time I hear of this honestly.
If you drop the save here I can have a look at it and see if this can be fixable from our(user's) side. No promises thogh