Game is Vanilla but marked modified

[CBJ]

Could you please clarify, Solok? Are you talking about your game showing as modified or your savegame showing as modified. Once again, once a savegame is modified, that cannot be undone. But the game itself showing as modified can be (and hence any subsequent savegames that were not previously modified, becoming modified) if it is restored to its original state.

[Spiralrazor]

It's a wild guess, but it's not your antivirus or similar software opening your file and doing some checks on it? If that is the case you may try to exclude that folder from the Antivirus.

This should have nothing to do with it.

[CBJ]

It shouldn't, but it could. For example if it prevented access to the information used to verify the game installation.

[XGamer]

Once again, once a savegame is modified, that cannot be undone.

With all due respect, that is simply not an acceptable answer.

Games (not savegames) got marked as modified through random bugs with the game itself due to no fault of my own, failing to properly detect its unmodified state, doing fail-over into modified without properly communicating this state.
Let's be honest here, a tiny tiny marker in some inconspicuous place as a result of failing to detect the status properly (for whatever reason) which then causes save games worth several hundreds of hours (for every single person, just imagine the cumulative damage here) to be permanently marked modified is neither okay nor acceptable.

If the game fails to detect it's modification state, it should display a warning dialog that needs to be confirmed, make the menu button background red, or make the entire background red, or display a huge watermark in the center of the screen or something.

If you're attempting to load a savegame that is not modified while the game state is modified, then it should display a huge warning box, explaining that if you proceed to load this save game the save game will be permanently marked as modified and won't be eligible for online features, achievements and whatever else gets disabled.
If you're attempting to save a game that was loaded from an unmodified save in a modified game state, or attempt to overwrite an existing unmodified savegame in a modified game state, the game should also throw the same huge warning again.
In both these circumstances you would have to explicitly confirm the action, otherwise abort the operation leaving the file untouched.

Regardless of cause or circumstances, it either needs to be immediately and blatantly obvious that you're in a modified game state, or the game needs to warn you about causing irreparable damage to your savegame, as described in the previous paragraph (ie. display warnings on load / save / overwrite of an unmodified save game while the game is in a modified state).

This is especially bad because for some obscure reason we still (in 2019!) only have 10 slots we can save to at any point in time, rather than unlimited saves as long as disk space allows. As such we're forced to overwrite other save games, which ultimately will cause all unmodified savegames to be marked as modified.

Again, I fully expect Egosoft to restore my current savegame (that I haven't touched since this bug caused it to become modified) to an unmodified state.

[ardias]

Once again, once a savegame is modified, that cannot be undone.

With all due respect, that is simply not an acceptable answer.

Games (not savegames) got marked as modified through random bugs with the game itself due to no fault of my own, failing to properly detect its unmodified state, doing fail-over into modified without properly communicating this state.
Let's be honest here, a tiny tiny marker in some inconspicuous place as a result of failing to detect the status properly (for whatever reason) which then causes save games worth several hundreds of hours (for every single person, just imagine the cumulative damage here) to be permanently marked modified is neither okay nor acceptable.

If the game fails to detect it's modification state, it should display a warning dialog that needs to be confirmed, make the menu button background red, or make the entire background red, or display a huge watermark in the center of the screen or something.

If you're attempting to load a savegame that is not modified while the game state is modified, then it should display a huge warning box, explaining that if you proceed to load this save game the save game will be permanently marked as modified and won't be eligible for online features, achievements and whatever else gets disabled.
If you're attempting to save a game that was loaded from an unmodified save in a modified game state, or attempt to overwrite an existing unmodified savegame in a modified game state, the game should also throw the same huge warning again.
In both these circumstances you would have to explicitly confirm the action, otherwise abort the operation leaving the file untouched.

Regardless of cause or circumstances, it either needs to be immediately and blatantly obvious that you're in a modified game state, or the game needs to warn you about causing irreparable damage to your savegame, as described in the previous paragraph (ie. display warnings on load / save / overwrite of an unmodified save game while the game is in a modified state).

This is especially bad because for some obscure reason we still (in 2019!) only have 10 slots we can save to at any point in time, rather than unlimited saves as long as disk space allows. As such we're forced to overwrite other save games, which ultimately will cause all unmodified savegames to be marked as modified.

Again, I fully expect Egosoft to restore my current savegame (that I haven't touched since this bug caused it to become modified) to an unmodified state.

This. If You can't fix it at least inform the player about it before its too late.

It's been some years since TC and I started with X4 again. Played vanilla and wanted to try ventures. Now all my savegames are modified due to some bug.

I waited 2 years from the release of X4 and started playing with v3.3 because I know egosoft. Well to be honest the modding community is what made the x games what they are and playing vanilla was allways frustrating in many ways. Some things never change I guess.

[CBJ]

We do. The information that the game is modified is clearly shown on the start menu screen, and for savegames in the savegame list.

[LennStar]

We do. The information that the game is modified is clearly shown on the start menu screen, and for savegames in the savegame list.

As far as I remember it's a rather small word in a menu you don't look around at because you have done everything a hundred times before.

What about an option "warn if modified (deselct if using mods)" that screams a big "modified" popup at you whenever you try to save or load if the game things it's modified?

[ardias]

Yes thats what i meant, it is there but not so easy to see as it could be.

So then my game is somehow modified when it shows it in the top right corner in the menu screen? Thats what I see in my game.
My savegames are not marked modified.
The thing is it only shows after loading a savegame and not right at the start of the game.

I play vanilla over steam, deactivated auto save and steam cloud. steam isn't showing any errors when validating.
Don't know what else to do. Even started a new game and it worked for a while. Now that i have the money to do ventures I can't, again Somehow this kills the fun for me.

edit: I tested starting a new game and saved it, no modified so far. then loaded my old save and got the modified. Then loaded the new game save and the modified was gone again.
Obviously it is somehow tied to the save game. So what is the difference when the game is marked modified and when the savegame is marked modified?
I had savegame compression enabled, it's just a wild guess but maybe others who encountered the bug did that too.

[LennStar]

If your game is saved as modified once, it doesn't change back.

Did you make an exception for the game folder in your virus scanner (and the save game folder, as he said, stupid of me to forget it, actually I think the game folder does not make a difference, but I am not going to make a 200 hour test )? That reduced the amonts of faulty or modified games for me dramatically. It still happens, but not often.

[Alan Phipps]

... and the save folder in Documents.

[CBJ]

So what is the difference when the game is marked modified and when the savegame is marked modified?

When the game is marked as modified, it means that your game is currently modified. Normally this means that you have mods installed, but it can also mean that files have become corrupted, e.g. because of a disk error. Removing the mods or correcting the corrupted files removes the modified marker from the game.

When a save is marked as modified, it means that at some point during that save's history (the load - save - load - save cycle) it was loaded into your game while your game was modified as above. Once that's happened, we can't tell what effect the modifications have had on your save, so that save remains marked as modified permanently and this cannot be reversed.

[ardias]

thanks for the information, i've now done all that's possible to prevent further corruption. I can't tell if it's working because I won't start a new third new game to test it. on the bright side I now can use all the mods I want to.

@CBJ: so a savegame saved by a modified game becomes modified. why is it that I can't see any indication that my savegames are modified? (other than viewing the 400MB-xml and search for it?) I've only seen the v.3.3-modified tag in the top right corner which should indicate that the game is modified but instead is also showing when loading modified savegames. I mean if loading a save makes the game modified shouldn't that save not also be marked modified? that's the reason I did not noticed the change when it first occurred.

[Alan Phipps]

A modified game *installation* is marked as such when you first run the game.

A modified *save* is marked as such in the list of saves even if your game installation is vanilla.

When you load a modified save into a vanilla game installation, the game *installation* itself is not modified but any saves that you make after loading that modified save will also be modified. That will continue to be the case until you load a vanilla save into an unmodified game installation and when you should be back to making vanilla saves from that situation onwards.

A corrupted save may not itself be shown as modified in the save list, but any saves made after loading that corrupted save may well be.

Is that more clear?

[ardias]

A modified game *installation* is marked as such when you first run the game.

A modified *save* is marked as such in the list of saves even if your game installation is vanilla.

When you load a modified save into a vanilla game installation, the game *installation* itself is not modified but any saves that you make after loading that modified save will also be modified. That will continue to be the case until you load a vanilla save into an unmodified game installation and when you should be back to making vanilla saves from that situation onwards.

A corrupted save may not itself be shown as modified in the save list, but any saves made after loading that corrupted save may well be.

Is that more clear?

Yes but none of my saves is marked modified in the list regardless if I make new saves although all of them have the modfied=1 in the xml. Only the game shows a modified if I load one.

And I still have visitors in my game although I've opted out of the online feature.

[Alan Phipps]

How are you seeing the game installation is modified? That indicator is for when you start the game, not for while in progress.

Visitors are in your saves and will take time to disappear from natural expiry causes after disabling online functions. You just shouldn't get any new ones after that.

[ardias]

as i understood it there are supposed to be savegame markers shown or not shown for each savegame showing if it's modified. all i'm saying is that's not the case for me.

well then thank you visitor 81, i'll make good use of that m ship of yours. pirate controlled sectors aren't save places even in parallel universes, i can tell for sure.

[Bartna]

I just got this same issue and have been trying to find out at what point it's happening as i had a save near the time.

The issue for me seems to be when asking a cerberus to surrender and he bails (i'm an opportunist) from fighting a pirate ship they attacked.
before that happens it's considered normal but changes during play when do the action

Save information.
Was created during 3.0 not 3.3.
No steam workshop items installed or subscribed to.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Bartna: "he bails (i'm an opportunist) from fighting a pirate ship they attacked" That is not a feature of vanilla play in the release version where NPC ships cannot cause others to bail.

Moving on using the assumption that you didn't mean the pirate caused the bail (and which would mean a modified game anyway):

I don't really understand how you 'just got this issue' when the save it happens with is from 3.00. We have had release versions 3.10 and later since 08 April 2020. You should be playing 3.30 now. Have you verified your game installation recently?

Is it your game that shows as modified when you first run it, or the save that shows as modified in the loading list?

Any normal gameplay action you take in-game (vanilla) will not modify your game or save. Editing a save will, as will editing or replacing a gamefile. Corruption of files (eg from power spikes or non-normal game exit, etc) can occur with either gamefiles or saves for a variety of relatively rare reasons but the modified tag will be differently placed as stated above.

Other system actions and conditions external to the game can affect the modified tag (such as real-time virus checking of files on loading from disk to RAM, using 3rd party compression or encryption on hard drives, or moving or copying files via temporary drives and memory sticks that may change how the files are handled.

[Bartna]

He bails due to me hailing and using the surrender option it as he's low on health due to the pirate thus being an opportunist.
The save was made during 3.0 but i had not played for a while and when i played again when it was 3.30 is what i meant just encase it could be issue with the save during updates.
The version number in the main menu itself does not say modified and nor does the save when i play it and press ESC at the top in the beginning but when i made the ship bail it changed to modified after. If i go out of the save when it changes to modified onto the main menu it looks normal with no (modified) under the number.
A new game seemed fine but never checked for long.
I did the act of making it bail again a few times with a few differant actions but with the same result. Oddly on one of the attempts it seems to have sorted it self out and did not change to modified i may have asked the wrong ship but same type to bail instead.
If going by what i read on the topic it should be strange for it to turn to modified during play and as for possible external changes i can only think of steam cloud.
I do see a couple of other peoples venture ships in the game which i assume was from when i last played which are not showing up as yellow any more and just staying in one spot if that may cause it.

[CBJ]

We can't really tell from just a brief description what might be happening. Can you upload your savegame somewhere and provide a link (instructions are in the sticky thread at the top of the forum) so that someone can take a look?