CS: game won't save anymore

[Kalinik]

Hi all,

I've been playing Cities Skylines for a while now and gotten back to it the week after a somewhat longer absence. Seems like there's a problem however: the game doesn't save anymore. Not in a new city and not in my existing cities... When I press Save and name my file, on the top right it says saving, but I can't find the savegame anywhere. Not in the Content Manager and I can't load it either...

I play it through Steam, tried to un-install all my Mods and even un- and re-installed the game: NOTHING!

Anyone have an idea (or even better: a solution)?

Janik

 

[AndrewT]

Are these local or Steam cloud saves?

Local save game files go here:
...\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\saves\
(To see the AppData folder you'll need to enable View Hidden Items in File Explorer)

Cloud saves are visible here:

Sign In

store.steampowered.com

 

[co_avanya]

Does it get stuck on "Saving" in the top right corner? Or does it also move on to say "Packaging" (this is the last step of the saving process, only when that's done is the file saved)?

 

[PyramidTalgia]

I have exactly the same bug, so I won't open a new bug case.

Unable to save a new game. The saving process is visible for a short time, but I can't see the new savegame in the loading section. Not even on the hard disk. I recognized that the new game is only saving, but NOT packaging(!). So it's a packagingbug for unknown reasons.
Same in the main menue of the content manager. Different settings (enabling/disabling) won't get saved either.

What I already tried (like Kalinik):
#re-installing the game
#opening the game without any mods
#whitelisting in the Windows 10 Firewall
#exclusioning of steam and C:S related processes
#deleting the save folder in AppData directory
#unsubscribing possible mods in conflict
#changing the pagefile to 300000 on all disks
#updating steam, NVIDIA driver
#etc.

 

[AndrewT]

Access to the path "C:\Users\Robert\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\WG_CitizenEdit.xml" is denied.

What antivirus app do you use? Some need extra steps.

 

[co_avanya]

@PyramidTalgia I see mods in use in that log, so please add the launch options -noWorkshop and -disableMods to Steam, then test on a new city if it will save and attach the log from that attempt. Excluding mods and mod related errors makes it easier for us to narrow down the cause of the problem.

How To Set Launch Options

• Right-click on the game title under the Library in Steam and select Properties.
• Enter the launch options you wish to apply in the box (be sure to separate each code with a space). Should look like this:
  

  -noWorkshop -disableMods

• Close the game's Properties window and launch the game.

I also noticed some old mods on your list, so I recommend you go through them and compare them to this list of known broken mods before enabling them all again.

[Cities Skylines] Broken & Incompatible Mods - Patch 1.17.1-f4

docs.google.com

 

[PyramidTalgia]

Here it is @co_avanya

 

[co_avanya]

Looks like a permission issue. Please add cities.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app(s), especially if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.

 

[PyramidTalgia]

Looks like a permission issue. Please add cities.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app(s), especially if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.

Unfortunately it's still not working properly and I can't save anything. I did what you said in hindsight to firewalls and defender. Whenever saving a new game / or old game the saving circle blinks about more fast than usual and does not package.
I would love to play Cities:Skylines, soon. But with this bug I can't do anything and I could not play it anymore. And I still don't know why.

 

[AndrewT]

I did what you said in hindsight to firewalls and defender.

Firewalls have nothing to do with file system access:

System.UnauthorizedAccessException Access to the path "C:\Users\Robert\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\gameSettings.cgs.bck" is denied.

This is specifically done in the Ransomware part of WD, unless you use some other antivirus app.

 

[PyramidTalgia]

I did add the cities-files to the ransomware section of WD and it's still not working. Any other possible reasons?

 

[AndrewT]

Well, it's not impossible there is some Windows file system problem or those files got corrupted or flagged read-only, say. But 99.99% of the time this is an AV app issue.

Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here, thanks.

 

[PyramidTalgia]

I found a solution for this bug. So keep notes if another one might have this bug again.

The bug is all around read-only permission. I opened the output log and identified the "denied" files first and did disable the read-only tickles.
But after this operation, the save still did not work.
So the solution is to go to C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Local\Colossal Order and right-click on Cities_Skylines, then disabling read-only and hidden.
It's still a windows issue that windows want to keep the folder on "read-only". So instead of clicking on disabling read-only, I keep settings of the folder open, read-only without a click.

Now I'm able to save games again. Thank you Avanya and Andrew for the support!

 

[Vasenka88]

I knew that is tread old and closed, but I hope my reply maybe useful for someone.
I faced the same problem on Windows 11. The solution for me was using the mod ccs savegame recoverer by Klyte45.

Step-by-step solution:
Subscribe on this mod in workshop and activate it. Now, after game is given this error, reload game on start screen, go to mods setting, find Ccs recoverer, and click to restore button. After this, load you previous save (not recovered, it’s broken and won’t load). And now you can save you game (if the problem repeats, repeat this solution).

I knew that is tread old and closed, but I hope my reply maybe useful for someone.