Saved files too often get corrupted...

[Pkunzipper]

Hi all,

I have a problem, I don't know if it is happening only to me or others are experiencing this too.

Autosaves and save files get corrupted too often.
I investigted a little and here's what I noticed.

Usually when the first autosave fails it is unnoticeable (untill you try to load it...) and if you look on the file system the file appears to be empty (0 KB). Then it comes the second autosave, the game keeps playing fine, but the first is being renamed as Old_autosave file and another emtpy autosave file is added (both of them can't be reloaded anymore). When it comes the third autosave after the first failure the game crashes to desktop and I'm not able to reload any of the autosaves. If I manually saved the game, it could be resumed deleting the 2 autosave files (else it crashes again at the first autosave attempt) else I have to restart with a new game.

In addition I also noticed that seldom when I manually save a game, the save file gets corrupted too... it has "regular" size, but when I'm on the load screen can see that some informations on the game aren't restored (ie. one time all the countries had no governor, another one there was no country but only barbarian land!). When I try to load such a save file, the game crashes durin the load process.

I still have a manually saved corrupted file and if it can be of help I will attach it here.

 

[Silktrader]

It sounds as if You might have hard disc issues: check space availability and run a "scandisk". Does Your hard drive "click" (as in noise) when saving, or accessing save games.

Are You running WinXP or Vista (the two may store save games in different directories).

It'd be helpful if You posted the corrupted savegame, so we can check whether it has been truncated or otherwise.

 

[Pkunzipper]

Thanks for your reply.

I use Windows XP with SP2.
I have enough space (more than 7 GB free on the EU:R partition) and I don't think I have HD problems. The only strange thing that recently happened is, when once the game froze, I had to shut down manually the PC and during the boot phase a scan of the EU:R partition was automatically launched (and successfully completed).
However I started getting these problem before this, even with the demo.

Here's 2 attachments.
The first contains the manually saved game (it was made using the latest version of "TheLand + Numahr" mods, but I had similar issues with vanilla EU:R, even if I don't have the save files anymore) so I'd say it isn't a mod fault.

The second contains the 2 autosaves from the vanilla game, but they aren't much of help because they are completely empty. However if you copy them into the save games folder, the CTD could be hopefully replicated at the first autosave attempt.

 

[Pkunzipper]

Hello again,

FYI I'm posting here the link to this thread opened on the bugs sub-forum by another member who has similar issues.

 

[unmerged(87093)]

I got the same error also. I just delete the autosave file and the oldautosave. I save manually so at least i was able to continue my game.

 

[Hephaistion]

Same issue

I'm having the same problem with my game. I thought: "So it crashes every time I play, I'll just autosave more frequently!" I changed the autosave from yearly to half-yearly, but then when the crash happened again, both my autosaves were corrupt and I lost about 15 years of game time! I left Rome behind in a huff, but I feel the time for healing has begun ...

Anyway, I'm also running XP SP2, on an Athlon 64 3200+ 2.1 GHz and 1 GB RAM. My graphics card is ATI Radeon x700 with the most recent drivers installed.

When my game crashes, though, it doesn't usually CTD. What I usually get first is a graphics interface where a pop-up window or menu page will be blacked out or the background will disappear (leaving only text stranded on the game map). Saving at this point always results in a corrupt saved game file.

 

[Dr Rasta]

"So it crashes every time I play, I'll just autosave more frequently!" I changed the autosave from yearly to half-yearly, but then when the crash happened again, both my autosaves were corrupt and I lost about 15 years of game time! I left Rome behind in a huff, but I feel the time for healing has begun ...

That just happened to me today. The nation for the autosave is listed as barbarian.

Lost a good deal of time, so I won't play that game for a few days. =D

 

[Pkunzipper]

A possible work around, for now...

As posted by Hephaistion, I noticed too the connection between the black graphics issue and the save / autosave corruption, so I tried to play with options a little and I've found that lowering multisample level to 0 will almost solve the issue...

After I did it I was able to play almost a century without losing any single autosave and having the black graphic issue only once and that time the game crashed to desktop before 1st january, thus not affecting the save process.

 

[Dr Rasta]

As posted by Hephaistion, I noticed too the connection between the black graphics issue and the save / autosave corruption, so I tried to play with options a little and I've found that lowering multisample level to 0 will almost solve the issue...

After I did it I was able to play almost a century without losing any single autosave and having the black graphic issue only once and that time the game crashed to desktop before 1st january, thus not affecting the save process.

Thanks for the tip!

I'll give it a go next time I load up.

 

[Hephaistion]

Thanks, Pkunzipper ... I'm going to try changing the multisample level (whatever that is) to 0 as well. I updated to 1.2, and this was apparently NOT one of the issues they addressed, 'cause it happened to me again last night!

 

[Lord Canterbury]

As posted by Hephaistion, I noticed too the connection between the black graphics issue and the save / autosave corruption, so I tried to play with options a little and I've found that lowering multisample level to 0 will almost solve the issue....

I've also noticed the same link between the black graphics and the corrupt files. Thanks for the tip - I'll try it out

 

[Lord Canterbury]

Yup - Changing multismapling level to 0 works... yay...