2.8 and ironman broke file for 2.7 rollback

[Urdanes]

I launched the game today, directly into my latest save, only to notice some strange things, like Corsica and Sardinia being partially uncolonised. Realising there had been an update, I selected quit without having made any actions. Ironman seems to have saved anyway, as one should expect, in a 2.8 format.

Rollback to 2.7 resulted in file loading errors, so my question is simple: How do I roll the save back to 2.7 compatibility?

 

[AndrewT]

I am sorry to have to tell you that, unless you kept a copy, there is no way to revert an Ironman 2.8 save to be a 2.7.x one.

Did the game not alert you as you went to load it that the game had been started with an older version? It really should have ...

 

[Urdanes]

I don't think there was a warning, since I'm pretty sure the word "incompatible" would have caught my attention. I had a similar experience with an impossible rollback for my "obsolete" save file when CKII was updated to 1.6, which put me off the game until now. What's that, four-five years?

Is this warning supposed to be triggered before the game is loaded? If it's after the fact, does it say "you just messed up, because you can't quit without ironman corrupting your file"? Why would it load at all, if there's already implemented a system to warn of incompatible saves/patches?

Either way, I don't care at all about achievements, so it doesn't matter that the save can't be reverted to an earlier ironman. I would just like it back, playable. Could you please tell me how I go about that?

 

[AndrewT]

Is this warning supposed to be triggered before the game is loaded?

I've just tested this and you are right; a 2.7.2 IM save does not trigger an "old version" warning when loaded with 2.8 . I guess I was thinking of EU4 or something.

I'd suggest you post this in the Bug Reports forum.

Sorry about that!

Either way, I don't care at all about achievements, so it doesn't matter that the save can't be reverted to an earlier ironman. I would just like it back, playable. Could you please tell me how I go about that?

Ironman saves are encrypted, and so cannot be edited or rescued in any way, I'm sorry to say.

I don't know how reliable it is but there us a utility to change an IM game to a non-IM one, maybe that will help somehow?
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/ironmelt-decoding-binary-savegames.873647/