There is something really strange with X4 and GOG???

[spankahontis]

I'm getting really annoyed at this.. But today, thought I'd play some X4 on GOG Galaxy, only to find that it had uninstalled X4 without my permission.
I was only playing it the other night and have a playthrough already so no reason to uninstall the game and yet it happened!!

So I had to reinstall X4 on GOG, needing to resync my game and so I did, I then start the game to find out that I'd LOST over 8 Hours of game saves.
Had I not sent a Bug report to Egosoft that same day, retrieving 6 of those lost game hours by sheer luck? I'd be really friggin p*****d off right now.
I'm not getting this with any other GOG game I have? What the hell is wrong with this platform and GOG?? Had I of known this kept happening? (Not the first time this has happened)
I'd of bought X4 via Steam instead.

GOG or Egosoft? There is nothing more demoralizing in grinding away 8 hours of progression to then lose all that progression through a bug of some kind.
Needs to be better communication between the 2 platforms as playing in offline mode isn't a perfect solution and would probably make this situation worse??

[Alan Phipps]

GoG removing your game (if that is really what happened) would be something to take up with GoG.

However, if GoG X game saves are in your Documents folder then, were I in your shoes, I would be really upset if anyone else had access to and permissions to mess with those personal folders and files. It doesn't really sound much like things that collectively could/should happen and so my first thought is to look for a misunderstanding and/or interference such as renaming/moving files/folders by a 3rd party app such as a gaming profiler or backup system getting itself in a twist.

The only other thing I can think of is an antivirus or other protection app seeing false positives and quarantining game exe file and saves. That might be worth a quick check.

This is all my personal opinion and not any sort of official reply from Egosoft. Good luck though!

[spankahontis]

GoG removing your game (if that is really what happened) would be something to take up with GoG.

However, if GoG X game saves are in your Documents folder then, were I in your shoes, I would be really upset if anyone else had access to and permissions to mess with those personal folders and files. It doesn't really sound like things that collectively could/should happen and so my first thought is to look for a misunderstanding and/or interference such as renaming/moving files/folders by a 3rd party app such as a gaming profiler or backup system getting itself in a twist.

The only other thing I can think of is an antivirus or other protection app seeing false positives and quarantining game exe file and saves. That might be worth a quick check.

I'll try those solutions.
But it's a mystery?? How does 8 Hours of autosaves suddenly vanish off my computer? I've not had any updates from Avast in the time being? No notifications of false positives from them. And I'm sure (But don't quote me on that) that X4 is in my Avast exemptions folder. ::UPDATE:: It wasn't, but I fixed that.

Not sure what you mean by Back up system? I use apps like CCleaner, Driver Booster and Advanced SystemCare? to clean my PC of dead files and registry; I never allow them to back up my files when prompted.

I'm trying to check C: drive incase my missing autosave are hiding in there? No luck so far.
My GOG and games (X4) is on my E: Drive. But the autosaves are in documents folder on my C: Drive.

[Alan Phipps]

I don't know GoG but Steam uses a Steam ID number folder in Documents in which the saves etc folders are kept. If your Steam account details change significantly or you use a different Steam account to play this time, that number is different and so it appears as if those older save etc folders have just vanished. In fact they are still there under the old ID number while the game is looking under the new ID. Does GoG do similar?

[Midnitewolf]

It isn't only GOG. I have weird issues with it on Steam. For me, often when I try to save or load a game and on rare occasion, it will actually crash steam. I mean I have had games crash before, but never one actually take out steam while doing it, sometimes locking steam up as not responding. I also turned off the sync so I have nothing being saved in the Steam Cloud either with this game so I can't understand why it crashes steam so often.

[spankahontis]

I don't know GoG but Steam uses a Steam ID number folder in Documents in which the saves etc folders are kept. If your Steam account details change significantly or you use a different Steam account to play this time, that number is different and so it appears as if those older save etc folders have just vanished. In fact they are still there under the old ID number while the game is looking under the new ID. Does GoG do similar?

Not that I know of, mate. I only have the one GOG Account, I've exempted all files in my GOG account from Avasts Scans, still haven't been able to find the old saves.
Maybe if I desynced from my Computer instead of GOG's servers? Probably wouldn't of helped.
I don't know how GOG records your ID?

But I certainly lost the saves as I found a bug report I made on the Beta forums the same day. I downloaded that report and replaced the older autosave so I managed to recover some of my lost time.
I'm still lost for ideas what could be conflicting with GOG Galaxy?

It isn't only GOG. I have weird issues with it on Steam. For me, often when I try to save or load a game and on rare occasion, it will actually crash steam. I mean I have had games crash before, but never one actually take out steam while doing it, sometimes locking steam up as not responding. I also turned off the sync so I have nothing being saved in the Steam Cloud either with this game so I can't understand why it crashes steam so often.

I don't get crashes, but this is the second time that GOG has classed X4 as Uninstalled and I had to reinstall the game, it then asks whether I need to Sync from my Computer or their servers?
I can only suspect that GOG has difficulty tracking a game if it isn't installed in it's default C: Folder, mines a custom folder on my E: Drive where I installed GOG. So my theory is it has something to do with that? And that my lost save files are somewhere there?

[Matthew94]

I don't get crashes, but this is the second time that GOG has classed X4 as Uninstalled and I had to reinstall the game, it then asks whether I need to Sync from my Computer or their servers?
I can only suspect that GOG has difficulty tracking a game if it isn't installed in it's default C: Folder, mines a custom folder on my E: Drive where I installed GOG. So my theory is it has something to do with that? And that my lost save files are somewhere there?

I have X4 installed on the F: drive and haven't experienced your issue. Are you using GOG Galaxy 1 or 2? I'm still on 1.2.67 so it could be a bug with 2.0.

Regarding the save game loss, are you sure that your save always uploads to the cloud? X4's saves are massive and often take a few minutes to synchronise. If you quit the game and then shut off your PC quickly then GOG Galaxy may not have had time to sync your files. When you reinstalled the game, it may have then downloaded your old saves, causing the loss of progress. X4 being randomly uninstalled is very strange. I can't offer any input on that.

[chew-ie]

I don't get crashes, but this is the second time that GOG has classed X4 as Uninstalled and I had to reinstall the game, it then asks whether I need to Sync from my Computer or their servers?
I can only suspect that GOG has difficulty tracking a game if it isn't installed in it's default C: Folder, mines a custom folder on my E: Drive where I installed GOG. So my theory is it has something to do with that? And that my lost save files are somewhere there?

I'm using GOG for the majority of my gaming activity and I never encountered a behaviour like that of the Galaxy 2.0 client. I'm using multiple drives for my GOG library, the client is the only part installed on the Windows 10 drive (C:).

There is a sqlite database in the Galaxy install folder - maybe your OS / hardware / third party applications caused corruption in that file? Even if so - the game files aren't touched by a defective Galaxy installation.

[spankahontis]

I don't get crashes, but this is the second time that GOG has classed X4 as Uninstalled and I had to reinstall the game, it then asks whether I need to Sync from my Computer or their servers?
I can only suspect that GOG has difficulty tracking a game if it isn't installed in it's default C: Folder, mines a custom folder on my E: Drive where I installed GOG. So my theory is it has something to do with that? And that my lost save files are somewhere there?

I have X4 installed on the F: drive and haven't experienced your issue. Are you using GOG Galaxy 1 or 2? I'm still on 1.2.67 so it could be a bug with 2.0.

Regarding the save game loss, are you sure that your save always uploads to the cloud? X4's saves are massive and often take a few minutes to synchronise. If you quit the game and then shut off your PC quickly then GOG Galaxy may not have had time to sync your files. When you reinstalled the game, it may have then downloaded your old saves, causing the loss of progress. X4 being randomly uninstalled is very strange. I can't offer any input on that.

I'm using the latest version of Galaxy 2.0.
The sync problem with saves might be a possibility? they're over 119,000 KB in size and it takes 20-30 seconds to save a game now.
And Syncs are taking a good 5 minutes. That is a real good point.
But the Game suddenly uninstalling itself? I'm still trying to figure out what could of done that?

This is the second time it's Happened, first time was during the beginning of the 4.0 Beta. Same issue with the Game Uninstalling itself as I just started beta testing and a new playthrough.

But like I said, I found a Bug report that was of my playthrough and used that instead as I reported an incident with the Xenon not fixing their stations. So the reinstallation may of been the trigger?

I don't get crashes, but this is the second time that GOG has classed X4 as Uninstalled and I had to reinstall the game, it then asks whether I need to Sync from my Computer or their servers?
I can only suspect that GOG has difficulty tracking a game if it isn't installed in it's default C: Folder, mines a custom folder on my E: Drive where I installed GOG. So my theory is it has something to do with that? And that my lost save files are somewhere there?

I'm using GOG for the majority of my gaming activity and I never encountered a behaviour like that of the Galaxy 2.0 client. I'm using multiple drives for my GOG library, the client is the only part installed on the Windows 10 drive (C:).

There is a sqlite database in the Galaxy install folder - maybe your OS / hardware / third party applications caused corruption in that file? Even if so - the game files aren't touched by a defective Galaxy installation.

Shouldn't a corrupted game just need it's cache verified like with Steam? Why would it need a full reinstall?
I noticed it didn't download the game, as it was already on my PC and it reinstalled from there which took 5 minutes.

[chew-ie]

Shouldn't a corrupted game just need it's cache verified like with Steam? Why would it need a full reinstall?
I noticed it didn't download the game, as it was already on my PC and it reinstalled from there which took 5 minutes.

This guess wasn't about a corrupted game but a corrupted sqlite-database utilised by the GOG client to store metadata. If your OS / Hardware / antivirus-software messes with that it could explain your problems.

About the "savegame syncing stuff" (with the cloud?) - you should really deactivate that. No matter if you use Steam or GOG - the cloud saving stuff is a real trouble maker from what I've read here at the forums. The X savefiles are too big / unique / whatever in order to be savely handeled by the cloud-saving-implementations out there.

[spankahontis]

Shouldn't a corrupted game just need it's cache verified like with Steam? Why would it need a full reinstall?
I noticed it didn't download the game, as it was already on my PC and it reinstalled from there which took 5 minutes.

This guess wasn't about a corrupted game but a corrupted sqlite-database utilised by the GOG client to store metadata. If your OS / Hardware / antivirus-software messes with that it could explain your problems.

About the "savegame syncing stuff" (with the cloud?) - you should really deactivate that. No matter if you use Steam or GOG - the cloud saving stuff is a real trouble maker from what I've read here at the forums. The X savefiles are too big / unique / whatever in order to be savely handeled by the cloud-saving-implementations out there.

You might of nailed it here. I'll make a shortcut and run the game outside of GOG.
See if that remedies it?