Save Game Problem

[Sirus5]

Sorry to be a nuisance, but having some problem with X3AP saves.

Not used for a while and I moved my "MyDocuments" from my C drive to S: drive....

Dug out AP for a quick flight after a few months, and found there were no save games -
Okay, maybe I messed up moving "My Documents" - I moved from C:\ to a new S:\ 4tb

So - I went into X3AP and created a NEW game "Terran Commander Venus" and then came back out and checked - There it was in "MY Documents" - with all my other save games in File Explorer, so I loaded X3AP and it could only see the new start I had just saved....
When I copied an older save game over this X01.SAV - then that disappeared and I have again no save games! -

It's a steam version and I turned synch off just to be sure - but still no joy.


This doesn't ring true to me - can anyone advise please?

Thanks

[Nanook]

How did you make the move, and what version of Windows?

Also, I'm a little confused (probably just me) but did you say the game successfully saved to the new My Documents location, but you couldn't then see it to load it back into the game? And when you said the save disappeared, do you mean it no longer shows up in the My Documents folder, or just not in the save game list inside the game?

[Alan Phipps]

An old post of mine that may possibly help.

Also have you disabled Steam cloud backup which may mess with your save register? (ie: Was that what you meant by synch?)

[Sirus5]

Thanks for the replies guys - Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Here's the steps I went through.

1. I stopped playing X3AP (Steam) a couple of months ago

2. I moved "MyDocuments" from C:\....... - to S:\...... - Using Set Location
and then when it asked if I wanted to move files and folders I agreed

3. Today I thought I would play some AP - for a change and
went in and could find NO save games (IN AP) but they were there
in Windows Explorer under S:\....... (MyDocuments new location)

4. To check if I had the right location, I did a NEW start and checked
where it had put the file - and it had put it in the new "S:\.... MyDocuments

5. This was strange because in file explorer I could see the new game
with the date and time correct and all my old save games there in file explorer - but go into AP and I could only see the new one.

6. I deleted the new save game in Explorer and put another old save game in X01.sav - and when I went into X3AP, no save games at all.....

Very strange

Thanks for listening guys

Oh, Alan, It said Synchronisation in Steam, how do I disable backup?
I thought that was synchronisation... it was in Properties\Updates\Cloud Synchronization

Edit: - After looking at Alan's post, I did reinstall through steam and did previously have the bonus pack installed so that may make a difference - I Will try that

Edit: Edit: - Installed the bonus pack and still no change - can see the new saves but not the old ones which are in the same directory as the new ones

I have X01.sav as a new save and X11.sav as the new autosave - all others (x02.sav to X10.sav) are the old ones in the same directory which is not seen by AP but seen in the file manager


Thanks

[Alan Phipps]

On checking, yes Steam cloud synch is what I thought was also called Steam cloud backup.

One idea, please ensure that you uncheck 'Hide extensions for known file types' in Control Panel\Appearance and Personalisation\File Explorer Options\View. It is *possible* that without you knowing or seeing, your transferred saves are being stored as example formats x02.sav.txt, x02.sav.sav, x02.sav.bak or something similarly odd.

Also did you check that they were not marked as 'read only' files or somehow compressed or encrypted before or by the transfer process (eg: if you once had the OS/BIOS hard drive 'rarely-used file compression' option selected)?

It might be an idea to temporarily disable any real-time file checking (only) by your AV whilst you are investigating a solution to this. Such checking can sometimes slightly modify a file as loaded into RAM compared with what is actually on the hard drive.

Lastly, check that your AV and/or other system protection software is not blocking the loading of the transferred files. It *should* (!) report so in its 'activity history' if it does do that. Windows Defender (for example) can occasionally do some very strange things on loading of file transfers or copy-and-paste actions!

Good luck!

[Nanook]

As a final check, you could temporarily return your My Documents folder to the C drive and see if both your new and old saves will load. That might give a clue as to what's going on.

[Sirus5]

Thanks for all the help guys.

Still trying things...

I wonder if it's because I reinstalled Steam and X3AP as well....

I have maybe 3 or 4 copies of X3TC and X3AP (wanted to have some spares so I could always find one to play)

It's really weird as I can see them in the same directory, file types exactly the same, not .sav.txt but just plain old .sav - and when I resave, it does save a new one in the same place.. really strange.

Will let you know if I get any joy but currently still wondering what could be.

Thanks again for your help

[X2-Illuminatus]

Maybe you could upload one of those not working savegames somewhere and post the link here. That way someone else would be able to test, whether the savegame works at all.