[4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay - In-game warning coming in a future build.

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[4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay - In-game warning coming in a future build.

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 09:14

This is a pretty serious but also mysterious issue that seems to be affecting many people recently. Randomly while playing X4, the application will "modify" itself causing any subsequent save game to be classed as modified despite the player not having any third party mods installed.

The symptoms are as follows.
  1. Start X4. At the title screen menu it will report that X4 is not modified (the modified tag not visible).
  2. Load up a not modified save. The escape menu will report that X4 is not modified (the modified tag is not visible).
  3. Play normally. Do something that triggers the issue (currently unknown).
  4. The escape menu will report that X4 is modified in orange.
  5. Any saves made from now on will be marked as modified, with the modified tag showing in the menu on load.
  6. Exit to the title screen menu. A warning dialog will appear informing you that X4 has been modified with the modified tag showing in the menu.
  7. Restarting X4 reverts to step 1, reporting that it is not modified.
I currently have not found the exact cause to trigger this. So far for myself it has always happened while flying and fighting using an L destroyer such as Osaka or Syn.

To try and find the cause it would be useful to know what can trigger the "modified" tag during gameplay. Starting X4 with third party mods installed obviously triggers the tag, but this modified tag is being added during gameplay. Could it be due to some accidental key combination, possibly used for debugging, since when flying the destroyers I am pressing more keys than normal to change camera, reposition, e.t.c.? Could it be due to a debug or command console like feature that runs on some event accidently leaking into the live build? Or is this caused by some sort of tamper/cheat protection being triggered erroneously?

If the cause cannot be found I would recommend expanding the title screen menu warning dialog feature so that it is also shown during gameplay the instant X4 switches to being "modified" since that would make discovering the cause much easier.

CBJ
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by CBJ » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 09:35

There is nothing you can do in-game that will "trigger" the game becoming modified. Aside from actually installing mods, causes for this are invariably external, the most common being file corruption or AV software delaying the reading of signature files. Since file corruption is relatively unlikely during play, try setting the game folder as an exclusion for your AV software.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 11:20

CBJ wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 09:35
AV software delaying the reading of signature files
Would file reads being delayed due to another drive spinning up from sleep (which I think can freeze all file I/O in Windows until the drive is up to speed) cause enough delay to cause it to time out? If this is the case the a more preferable behaviour would be to stutter/freeze the game until the signature files can be read rather than mark the game as modified after some timeout.

This issue is new with 4.10. I have not experienced it in the 1,200 hours played before then. I use the same Windows Defender and OneDrive (for documents folder only) as I have before without issue, although I cannot rule out updates to those recently changing their behaviour. X4 is also installed on a PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive capable of read speeds of up to 4 GB/sec, with a Zen2 Ryzen 9 3900X processor so tasks like AV scans should be trivial. I will try adding X4's program data folder to exclusions however this would be the only game I have had to do that for to work. I also find it more than a coincidence that all the times this has happened so far it has been when specifically flying an L destroyer in combat.

At the very least it would be useful if X4 could alert the player when it considers itself "modified", like it does on the title screen menu, so that players do not waste as much time. Currently the first time you know about it is when you check the Esc menu which might be a considerable time after it happened. So far lost 4 hours of play due to this, and at least 1-2 hours recovering save files from it. Players may not even notice the modified tag having appeared and so spoil their not modified play-through by overwriting the not modified saves, especially if they do not have an older cloud backup to restore to. I am certainly not alone, with seemingly many people having experienced this.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Falcrack » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 15:57

I would be highly displeased if an unmodified game of hundreds of hours, made specifically for ventures, were to be marked modified because of some antivirus software. The devs really need to consider some backdoor method to change the save game back to unmodified in cases like this.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by humility925 » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 18:27

I had happen game itselfs become modified unauthorized, it's happen when I ride (not flying ship but command ship fly and dock wait while I ride in that ship) Kukri, Terran Cabet gamestart, it's seem other thing bug is assist flight disable all the time even I walked on station, that was happen when I press Esc trying to get rid of assist flight disable or try to turn on while walking on station, then I noticed opition showing game is modified and I think that is can't be because I don't install any mod at all, then I check how long my flie is, and safely quick save, I check by loader old game like 20 min ago and noticed there is no modified, then load latest and found file had been modified, then I quit to game meus then find this warning message let me know game will be modified since it's already on, but I don't personal turn modififed on at all, and discover that steam workshop download turn on, but I knew that I did turn off long ago because I want clean saved game legal, but for some reason it's turn on by itself, so I turn it off again, then I double check and steam save cloud is off already. then I set steam offline, and since then, no modified come up and same thing no bug assist flight disable while walking on station or ride on ship I commnd to move or dock here and there.

I don't had any AV or any software, it's just basic window 10 upgrade and security. So I'm thinking maybe it's steam did this or bug that mess up assist flight disable while walking in the station. (because steam keep "upgrade" on X4 often even unofficial patch, but there is no official patch since 4.10 patch as far as I am aware of.

PS. I'm sorry CBJ, my bad, I just delete evidence saved game quicker without careful thinking helping, I should spent 2 file saved for you guys look over, one 20 min ago no modified and other save game that had been moodified, unless that is not helping case.

I already delete whole saved game and start new saved game with steam offline and no issues so far. but it's could problem when you guy turn back on for Online Venture Feature, is it possible to had online feature with steam offline or something?

Please noticed, that is very rare case, this is not first time, I recall it's did happen before 4.10 patch, so I think it's happen 2 to 3 time ever since game come out, out of many hours playing, I think rare case, I guess it's harder to track down.

I think it's may be steam upgrade unofficial patch that might cause this (not always, very few, I guess)
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 21:34

Falcrack wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 15:57
The devs really need to consider some backdoor method to change the save game back to unmodified in cases like this.
Unfortunately this would be used by people to make actually modified games unmodified.
humility925 wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 18:27
I think it's may be steam upgrade unofficial patch that might cause this (not always, very few, I guess)
Steam cannot update a running game as far as I am aware. However most of your symptoms match mine which is useful to know since it means the issue is likely quite wide spread, and it is possible many people are not even aware it has happened to them already.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Tempest » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:37

my educated guess the corruption occurs while it is saving, the cause should be external, ofcourse noone will immediatly spot a modified tag whilst playing, possibly worsening the "hours lost" issue.

- AV is an obvious suspect (whitelisting x4 directories might help)
- some kind of steam cloud-synching issue (disable cloud saving for X4)

- an actual hardware issue, possibly memory related. (mine was)
- properly test your system (AIDA64/memtest etc.) "but it works fine with AAA-game xxxxx" does not help.

- i would reckon to bet i'm one of the handfull System Integrators here, i literally see 1000's of machines each year, and i am offcourse heavily biased towards "it's your system" replies, but hey, what did i know, i had XMP issues with my brand new 5800X + 3800MHz ram kit.
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:08

@ Tempest: "my educated guess the corruption occurs while it is saving"

Look at the OP's steps 1-4; at the time of them noting that the issue has happened on using Esc while playing, they have not saved or reloaded.
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Imperial Good » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:13

Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:37
my educated guess the corruption occurs while it is saving
It is unrelated to saving, with saving functioning perfectly even with OneDrive and Steam cloud backups. If X4 is not modified then it always produces a not modified save which will load as not modified as long as X4 is also not modified. Logically if X4 has modified itself, then it will generate modified saves which will always load as modified, even if X4 is restarted to be not modified. The trigger is not due to saving.
Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:37
- AV is an obvious suspect (whitelisting x4 directories might help)
So far it is seeming this way. After adding X4 to exclusions of Windows Defender X4 has not modified itself, so far. If this is the solution then it is not really a good solution though given that most games do not have this problem (this is the first time I have had to add an application to exclusions for it to work, and that includes DRM or anti-cheat heavy games).

Of course more time is needed to know if this has definitely solved the issue. If it has I have theories as to why...
Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:37
- some kind of steam cloud-synching issue (disable cloud saving for X4)
Again, this has nothing to do with saves becoming modified. They are either saved as not modified and so will load as not modified, or they are saved with a modified client (that randomly happened during gameplay) and then they are modified.
Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:37
- an actual hardware issue, possibly memory related. (mine was)
- properly test your system (AIDA64/memtest etc.) "but it works fine with AAA-game xxxxx" does not help.
Ran memory test. Not a problem.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Tempest » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:24

Imperial Good wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:13
Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:37
my educated guess the corruption occurs while it is saving
It is unrelated to saving, with saving functioning perfectly even with OneDrive and Steam cloud backups. If X4 is not modified then it always produces a not modified save which will load as not modified as long as X4 is also not modified. Logically if X4 has modified itself, then it will generate modified saves which will always load as modified, even if X4 is restarted to be not modified. The trigger is not due to saving.
Apologies, i'm having a hard time following your train of thought. are you loading a previously unmodified save then turning off saving, and then seeing a modified tag whilst pressing ESC after playing for a while? i would have thought that actual saving is the ONLY time it is vulnerable to corruption>modified tags.
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Imperial Good » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 17:35

CBJ wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 09:35
try setting the game folder as an exclusion for your AV software.
Anti virus exclusion did not fix it. Just had X4 modify itself again... This is almost 100% a game bug at this point. It seems to happen when in combat flying an L destroyer, but not always.

There really needs to be some sort of log as to why X4 has detected it has been modified. It could be something like a malformed asset or incorrect signature of a specific file such as an explosion asset (or something combat related).
Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:24
Apologies, i'm having a hard time following your train of thought. are you loading a previously unmodified save then turning off saving, and then seeing a modified tag whilst pressing ESC after playing for a while? i would have thought that actual saving is the ONLY time it is vulnerable to corruption>modified tags.
No the game is modifying itself during gameplay, nothing to do with saving. I suggest reading the initial posts and the dev response.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by CBJ » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 17:53

With all due respect, the game is not modifying itself during play. Every case of this that we have investigated to date has turned out to have an external cause. Logging the reason for this is pretty much impossible; all the game knows is that the files no longer match what they should be - it has no information about how or why this has happened.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Imperial Good » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 18:44

CBJ wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 17:53
all the game knows is that the files no longer match what they should be - it has no information about how or why this has happened.
Does X4 log the specific game file, and source archive file, which does not match what was expected? Knowing if it is the same files each time, or random files might help diagnose the cause.

Currently the only external influence that X4 should have is One Drive in the documents folder, which has been the case for over a year without this being a problem (unless something changed with 4.10 to make this now a problem? Such as the custom start files?). Neither OneDrive or Windows Defender are touching the install directory for X4, which have been verified by steam (and I will do so again later to make sure).

EDIT: Steam validation run again and no problems were detected. It seems unlikely to be due to corrupt files at least.
CBJ wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 17:53
With all due respect, the game is not modifying itself during play.
From the user perspective it seems that way. Which is where having a notification popup window, similar to that on the title screen menu, for in game would be useful. At least then the user would know when something went wrong and that it might be due to external causes rather than playing like they normally do to find that suddenly X4, and possibly saves they made accidently since then, are considered modified while they are not using any mods.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Incinerator » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 18:52

I had this happen a day or so ago, I just noticed it said modified, but I just quit the game and restarted it, no longer modified. I had started a new playthrough with the non beta 4.10 after backing up and deleting the saves, so I was still in starter ships. Might have happened after I alt-tabbed to look at the X4 map. I'm on GOG version, so steam or gog is probably not causing it.

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 19:34

Random idea but you are not both using any sort of smart or interactive map for X4 are you? There was a case in X3 where a 3rd party interactive map was polling game state and conditions in-game and was triggering a modified flag in doing so.
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Imperial Good » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 21:57

Alan Phipps wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 19:34
Random idea but you are not both using any sort of smart or interactive map for X4 are you? There was a case in X3 where a 3rd party interactive map was polling game state and conditions in-game and was triggering a modified flag in doing so.
No I do not use any such third party tool. I do have the extractor tools to look at game data files but I do not run that while playing (usually run it once every patch or so to look for changes).

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by furirkeeper » Wed, 22. Sep 21, 08:26

I have around 1000 hours logged in steam for X4 and this has happened once for me in v4.0. I posted about it in this forum. I was never able to conclude why it happened and in the end I made no changes to my system settings.
Bugs/events of this kind which has the potential to destroy everything you have done in the game so far is enough to make me stop playing. I am right now playing other games but am keeping an eye on this forum.

Since this is such a major event, which logically should be very rare. I mean how often does a player decide to go from unmodded to modded, I propose the following.

"In the function that marks the current game play as modified":
prev_state = state;
state = check_if_game_is_modded();
if (prev_state != state)
{
pause_game();
display_full_screen_splash_state_chance();
wait_for_user_confirmation();
}

Finally I would like to note two things, correct me if I am wrong:
1) File corruption is a quite serious error on a system, which could break the whole OS, or particular programs completely.
2) Why is X4 so prone to corruption when no other files for system or other games suffer from this? I mean, if I have a system unstable enough to corrupt X4 files, why am I not seeing the same thing for other programs?

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 22. Sep 21, 13:59

It has to be 'situational' or else it would be happening to everyone. It isn't happening to my vanilla 4.10 used online with Steam, for example.
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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by furirkeeper » Wed, 22. Sep 21, 14:22

Alan Phipps wrote:
Wed, 22. Sep 21, 13:59
It has to be 'situational' or else it would be happening to everyone. It isn't happening to my vanilla 4.10 used online with Steam, for example.
Like most unintended behaivor, I suspect this happens when A_1, A_2, ..., A_N is true. It is only that if N is larger than 1 then it can be quite tricky to figure out. I suspect this is what you mean by "situational"?

Since Egosoft quite boldly state that this is not a bug on their part then it is up to each and every one of us users to try and figure out why this happens. I don't really see that happening anytime soon. So in the mean time perhaps Egosoft could be kind and make it super clear exactly when the state change so that users don't waste their time. Also, such a detection could help alot when trying to figure out why this happens since we will know exactly what we did at that time, flying this or that or alt-tabbing, saving etc...

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Re: [4.10] X4 "Modifying" Itself During Gameplay.

Post by Tempest » Wed, 22. Sep 21, 14:37

furirkeeper wrote:
Wed, 22. Sep 21, 14:22
Alan Phipps wrote:
Wed, 22. Sep 21, 13:59
It has to be 'situational' or else it would be happening to everyone. It isn't happening to my vanilla 4.10 used online with Steam, for example.
Like most unintended behaivor, I suspect this happens when A_1, A_2, ..., A_N is true. It is only that if N is larger than 1 then it can be quite tricky to figure out. I suspect this is what you mean by "situational"?

Since Egosoft quite boldly state that this is not a bug on their part then it is up to each and every one of us users to try and figure out why this happens. I don't really see that happening anytime soon. So in the mean time perhaps Egosoft could be kind and make it super clear exactly when the state change so that users don't waste their time. Also, such a detection could help alot when trying to figure out why this happens since we will know exactly what we did at that time, flying this or that or alt-tabbing, saving etc...
an early warning system would be helpful, we have a small safety-net with our 3 autosave slots only. (in my case i lost ~3 hours once over a 2500+ hour steam total, i had manual backups, but i don't think you can expect regular users to be vigilant to this degree imo)

not really in X4's defense, but you must admit it IS a very special case for X4, i love my steam achievements, 29/30 into trade-rank, noone will EVER care, but i do. can't really think of any game this relgious about it's savegame integrity (non MMO's or server-stored client profiles that is)
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