Save game problems.. anyone else?

[Duke_Wellington_1st]

I have been struggling past most of the bugs that have been brought up so far, but it seems now that I cannot play from save games after 2 or 3 saves into a career.
I will go to load a save game thats say, mid-way into a patrol - game goes through normal loading screen and then crashes after the "please wait" message...

I reinstalled SH4 twice now, patched, defragged, thumped my fist on my desk alot.... I havent seen the issue elsewhere yet so im ready to belive its my system. anyone else out there having the same issue?

GTX 8800
ASUS Cammando motherboard
1 gig ram
win xp sp2

Thnx!

[FAdmiral]

I've read of some more issues along those lines with saves not responding
part of the time. I don't think its your system so keep reading here at the
forums on any patches or fixes to help the problem. From my experience
with SH3, I don't recommend campaigns till the modders do their thing.

JIM

[Anachronous]

It wouldnt surprise me if there are many more hidden game protection systems than the couple the devs responded to.

I'm using the Disk (unfortunately), so I can only assume that my bugs are bugs, and there are a lot. Though I have heard of people with Nforce 3/4 boards getting false positives when it comes to protection due to the protection systems being unable to detect the controller properly on those boards, but this was a couple year back. I have no idea what its like now.

I had a crash during gameplay, and my saves would not reload from that mission. Though up until the crash they were loading fine. That is as close as I have got to your problem. I'm on my second boat now.

Im having the same bugs as everyone else. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107766

[donut]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/smartdark/post_new.gif 03-26-2007, 06:24 PM #2 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=466131&postcount=2) Schlageter-JG26 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/member.php?u=217777)
1 - "Save Games have 50/50 functionality. They get worse if you've been in the game for a long few hours. Likewise, settings on your sub and enemy ships all are RESET when you load.... which means you are entering a totally different situation from the one you saved." http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=466169 Check it out

[Schlageter-JG26]

Yeah, I'm still having issues.

Some of my saves are for my modded versions of the game. Others are for bone stock settings and the problems persist.

One way "around" it has been to Log Out of XP and back in. Maybe it's something with the ram that causes it to crash out when I load on occasion?

Haven't found much rhyme or reason to it yet, otherwise. I don't mind the game crashing out occasionally... come on, I started out with Dos and Win 3.1 back in the day. But the whole POINT of a save game is to be able to return to the game in a previous state..... and while these put you in the same place at the same time, the setting or state of things is totally changed. That's a bummer.

[malkuth74]

I name my own saves.. No problems yet.

[Schlageter-JG26]

So do I.

[Duke_Wellington_1st]

Yeah saves work fine until deeper into the patrol. then NONE of my saves work. Looks like this has already been raised. yay for my computer.

This last one really kills any enjoyment I was squeezing out of this unfinished product... I hate being yet another one of THOSE posts...

but between there being NO FEAR in the game whatsover from escorts.. Japanese traffic so thick youd think they gave birth to tramp ships - not human babies - the whole range of bugs...im going to give up.
The user following Silent Hunter 3 had, I really wonder why this product was forced to the shelves so early... no matter when it was realeased it would have sold. and sold well. very disspointed so far and am really begining to question an industry that makes more globally than the movie industry. Im pretty sure all my movies ive payed to seen have been finished... bugs i understand in any PC release...but to be so unfinished.... do I go back to downloading ISO's? I would like to think not.

Thanks for the responses.

[Harmor]

Same here, same here and it only started hitting me like yesterday. I have the game since last week, patched it to 1.01 and this savegame issue seemed not to be a problem for me until it started acting up yesterday. My game crashed to desktop mid patrol and I went to reload the savegame but lo and behold - CTD right after the "Please wait" screen disappeared.

This goes for every savegame connected to my career. I reinstalled the game, patched it again and started a new career .. eventually the game CTD's again during the patrol, and again I am unable to continue my career. I am unsure why this hasn't happened before because I DID experience several CTD's ever since running the game the first time, but now it has gotten pointless to play a career. As a message to Nubi Soft .. this is getting beyond rediculous.

Great btw .. we now have a nearly 100 % solution on how to screw up your career, it seems reproducable and in fact, unavoidable since for most players, the game DOES CTD on occasion. Lovely, just lovely ...

[Captain Nemo]

I haven't purchased SHIV yet, but from what I have read in this post and others I think I'll hold off until all the major bugs are sorted. Save game bugs are a big issue as far as I am concerned especially because I don't always get a lot of time to play my sub sims and save regularly.

Nemo

[Anachronous]

Ok I've been playing with this a little and there are two issues Ive found.

1) Saved games made on the return trip after completing the main objective usually results in a save game failing to load. Though saves before completing the main objective load fine.

2) Saving while submerged can cause lots of funny stuff to happen. Including damage to equipment and resetting of the nearby patrols.

[FIREWALL]

This is strange,all the problems everyone is haveing. Haven't had any ctd.
When I installed it didn't ask for cd key . I later put in patch. All my saves work so while i'm puzzled by everyone's problems i'm pleased I don't.
Good Luck All.

[EAF274 Johan]

I remember having similar problems with SH3. What seemed to cause it for me was that I used to overwrite my existing savegames. Once I started using separate savegames, the CTD's were gone.

Maybe it works the same in SH4.

[Spaxspore]

Same here, same here and it only started hitting me like yesterday. I have the game since last week, patched it to 1.01 and this savegame issue seemed not to be a problem for me until it started acting up yesterday. My game crashed to desktop mid patrol and I went to reload the savegame but lo and behold - CTD right after the "Please wait" screen disappeared.

This goes for every savegame connected to my career. I reinstalled the game, patched it again and started a new career .. eventually the game CTD's again during the patrol, and again I am unable to continue my career. I am unsure why this hasn't happened before because I DID experience several CTD's ever since running the game the first time, but now it has gotten pointless to play a career. As a message to Nubi Soft .. this is getting beyond rediculous.

Great btw .. we now have a nearly 100 % solution on how to screw up your career, it seems reproducable and in fact, unavoidable since for most players, the game DOES CTD on occasion. Lovely, just lovely ...

Same here also, i posted in another thread so ill just copy paste what i said...


July 1942, USS DRUM


Headed from pearl to patrol for enemy shipping of the coast of phily islands...
About 2000nms spotted a huge task force on radar, directly in font of me coming down from the north. I changed course to intercept, after about 5min @ 128 TC ships were sighted... I then went to perscope depth due in part that it was in the middle of the day and i would have been easily sighted. I Raised my scope, and sighted 3 Carriers escorted by 2 BBS, 2 hvy Crusiers, and around 5 DDs.

I then lowered scope, set up a perfect waypoint to line up forward topredo tubes on the first carrier, waited...raised scope... perfect shot @ 1400yrds.. fired a spread of 3...lower scope turned @ flank to the left... (destroyers were out of postion cause i ran silent to get through thier shield). After about 3-5mni the first carrier capsized and sank. At this point the 2nd carrier was in my sights... fired about the same range, fast speed on the torpedos, all 3 hit..sank just like the first.. Tonnage now @ 50k+. At this point i have a perfect stern shot lined up on one of the bbs @ 600yrds... fired all 4 rears... a couple of seconds the ship explodes due to one dentonating its mag.

At this time i have only one torp that just was finished loading in the forward torpedo room, and the last carrier comes into view @ 800yrds... i fire, fast settings and prey it will at lest slow him down....the torpedo hits... he kept moving @ 10kts.

I wait for the 2nd forward tube to load...i notice he is starting to list to the starboard side... I fire again...a couple of seconds after i fire the ship starts to capsize, the 2nd torpedo hits the flgiht deck...and blows off a zero...... over 100k tons now... i have one more torpedo to go before am goin to have difficulty with escorts.... one hvy crusier comes into view... i fire.. crash dive.. i pray... I hear an explosion...yes! i thought i got him. I got to external view and see whats left of teh burning haulk.

Not believeing my luck and success of this attack i quickly save the game...

Well to make a long sotry short, i went deep and silent TC alittle (32-128)
TO get some distance... with no warning or anything.. am dead.

So i reload... game loads... No ships in external view, but they r showing up in navigation... and some how i have massive damage, i flood, i sink i die....

I restart the computer hopeing it was just a random occurance.

Load SH4 back up and load save game, CTD opon the please wait screen...

My heart sinks, I close sh4
I put in the closet...:cry:

[Spaxspore]

This is strange,all the problems everyone is haveing. Haven't had any ctd.
When I installed it didn't ask for cd key . I later put in patch. All my saves work so while i'm puzzled by everyone's problems i'm pleased I don't.
Good Luck All.


I had 0 problems w/ my saves until my 2nd carreer 5th patrol....

[codmander]

Imersion killer to be cut off deep in a patrol :doh:

[SteamWake]

Imersion killer to be cut off deep in a patrol :doh:

I dont understand this. Yea its annoying to lose your progress but how is loading a saved game "immersive" ?

[tater]

I was sure it was my machine. Great. This really stinks. They need to get hopping on a dot patch if need be to solve some critical issues like this (meaning a 1.1.1 patch). Forget any new content, just squash the bugs ASAP.

tater

[Harmor]

This is strange,all the problems everyone is haveing. Haven't had any ctd.
When I installed it didn't ask for cd key . I later put in patch. All my saves work so while i'm puzzled by everyone's problems i'm pleased I don't.
Good Luck All.

I had 0 problems w/ my saves until my 2nd carreer 5th patrol....

Interestingly enough, in my first career I managed to get to 7th patrol when the CTD occured after which I could not reload my savegame. I then reinstalled the game and began a new career where right in my first patrol the same thing happened.

[Juju]

Same problem here: loading career save=CTD (just into my 4th patrol). Re-installing didn't help. Pointless to play this game in this state. Bah.

[Galanti]

This issue has been around from the SH3 days. Can't believe it hasn't still been addressed, but it can be minimized (actually eliminated in my experience) by the following practices:

- Don't save while submerged
- Don't save while close (say within 20km) to other vessels or to ports.
- Try to save under different filenames as much as possible.
- one poster elsewhere suggested saving as close to midnight as possible.

I know it would be nice to save just after sinking the Yamato, Mushashi and all the Kongos in one salvo, right before the escorts can mount their counterattack, but all I can suggest is what NOT to do in certain circumstances. That would be one of them.

If you look at the SH3 boards, you'll see this has been around for years, and the steps I've proposed have been gleaned from the bitter experiences of many, many others.

[-Pv-]

How many of you guys with reload crashes are using default filenames or overwriting existing ones? Any problems Vista Vs XP? How about systems specs? Running minimum as opposed to generous margins?

Saving within 10 minutes of a crew change is NOT a good idea (midnight) as your crew health gets reduced when you restore the game moments prior to the new crew going on duty (which happens between zero seconds after the hour and up to 11 minutes.)

I have saved in proximity to objects and submerged so I don't think those are the important issue in this particular problem.

The saves are in My Documents which can get corrupted when the user profile gets damaged. Anyone having trouble who has had a lot of crashes to blue screen or stop errors?

When you get these reload crashes, can you then reload an earlier save OK? Just the last one in your current campaign that norks?
-Pv-

[Rykaird]

I'm in mission 1, get CTD whenever I attempt to load any of my more recent saves (Win XP, name my own saves). I assumed it was because I saved while submerged, and even SHIII was sensitive to that sometimes.

I would go and test this, but for some reason I've picked up a German accent and I seem to be in the North Atlantic fighting the British while SHIV bakes a bit more.

[tater]

I make my own mission names up. Still have this issue. Amazing that they elected to add, well, anything at all to the game with this issue outstanding.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have not had any CTD with exception of the infamous 'A' key. All my saves load fine. What I do is name the save with what is happening at the time of save....like surfaced, stopped, enroute,....my games still load fine. I can not understand why yours would be any different than mine:hmm:. Try naming each save and see what happens.

Also, I go to the map screen and then save. Maybe you should try that???

[AVGWarhawk]

Imersion killer to be cut off deep in a patrol :doh:
I dont understand this. Yea its annoying to lose your progress but how is loading a saved game "immersive" ?

Uhmmm....how else do you save a game to play later on?:hmm:

[Galanti]

Also, I go to the map screen and then save. Maybe you should try that???

Very good tip (well, it can't hurt at least). I have always done that (over a year of SH3 included), and have never had a corrupted save, once I started following the advice above.

[Rykaird]

I have not had any CTD with exception of the infamous 'A' key. All my saves load fine. What I do is name the save with what is happening at the time of save....like surfaced, stopped, enroute,....my games still load fine. I can not understand why yours would be any different than mine:hmm:. Try naming each save and see what happens.

Also, I go to the map screen and then save. Maybe you should try that???

I do all of these things. I never save while in TC. I name my own saves. I do them from the map screen because frankly almost the entire game is played from the map screen.

Like I said, I am saving while submerged and that may be the reason.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have not had any CTD with exception of the infamous 'A' key. All my saves load fine. What I do is name the save with what is happening at the time of save....like surfaced, stopped, enroute,....my games still load fine. I can not understand why yours would be any different than mine:hmm:. Try naming each save and see what happens.

Also, I go to the map screen and then save. Maybe you should try that???
I do all of these things. I never save while in TC. I name my own saves. I do them from the map screen because frankly almost the entire game is played from the map screen.

Like I said, I am saving while submerged and that may be the reason.

Saved submerged was a bad bug in SH3. Since most of SH3 has carried over it sounds like the same deal. Save outside port, surfaced and away from ships:up:

[Galanti]

How's this for coincidence? I'm wearing my spring jacket for the first time (hey it's Ottawa) and just five minutes ago while emptying my pocket I found a print out from last year with tips gathered from the SH3 boards on how to avoid bad savegames!

In addition to the others, here's a key one I'd forgotten about. Do not start a patrol unless all other career patrols are in port. Christ, play it safe and only use one career at a time.

[tater]

All these do this do that to save a game properly are BS. If the game connot be fixed to save under conditions X, Y, and Z, then they need to have a simple dialog that warns the player "savinging is not possible under time compression," or "saving is not possible while submerged, please pick a point when you can safely surface to save game."

It's not rocket science, but people need to be warned.

[Rykaird]

All these do this do that to save a game properly are BS. If the game connot be fixed to save under conditions X, Y, and Z, then they need to have a simple dialog that warns the player "savinging is not possible under time compression," or "saving is not possible while submerged, please pick a point when you can safely surface to save game."

It's not rocket science, but people need to be warned.

Yeah, this idea of "only save on on the first Tuesday after St. Swithin's Day unless the groundhog spots his shadow" does get a bit tiresome.

[AVGWarhawk]

All these do this do that to save a game properly are BS. If the game connot be fixed to save under conditions X, Y, and Z, then they need to have a simple dialog that warns the player "savinging is not possible under time compression," or "saving is not possible while submerged, please pick a point when you can safely surface to save game."

It's not rocket science, but people need to be warned.
Yeah, this idea of "only save on on the first Tuesday after St. Swithin's Day unless the groundhog spots his shadow" does get a bit tiresome.

Don't forget about the full moon that is required as well.;)

[donut]

All these do this do that to save a game properly are BS. If the game connot be fixed to save under conditions X, Y, and Z, then they need to have a simple dialog that warns the player "savinging is not possible under time compression," or "saving is not possible while submerged, please pick a point when you can safely surface to save game."

It's not rocket science, but people need to be warned.

If it isn't covered in this Forum,Or addressed. Knowone would play this game for long ! Keep up the good work.:sunny:

[Harmor]

1. How many of you guys with reload crashes are using default filenames or overwriting existing ones? Any problems Vista Vs XP? How about systems specs? Running minimum as opposed to generous margins?

2. Saving within 10 minutes of a crew change is NOT a good idea (midnight) as your crew health gets reduced when you restore the game moments prior to the new crew going on duty (which happens between zero seconds after the hour and up to 11 minutes.)

3. I have saved in proximity to objects and submerged so I don't think those are the important issue in this particular problem.

4. The saves are in My Documents which can get corrupted when the user profile gets damaged. Anyone having trouble who has had a lot of crashes to blue screen or stop errors?

5. When you get these reload crashes, can you then reload an earlier save OK? Just the last one in your current campaign that norks?
-Pv-

1. I have indeed overwritten savefiles but I don't use default filenames, ever. I am on Windows XP SP2; Pentium 4 3.6 Ghz, 2 GB Ram, ATI 1900 XTX, game runs fine no stutters etc

2. I see .. I have not paid attention to that so far so it is likely that I did what you suggested not to do.

3. I have too but it doesn't seem to be the issue since none of my savegames can be loaded because the whole career becomes corrupt.

4. My user file is ok, I have no bluescreen or freezes etc and other games work just fine.

5. I can and I can not, it depends. Let me explain. As long as my career is not corrupted, the savegames usually load up fine - except for when I try to reload an old save from earlier in the patrol while I am on patrol which sometimes causes the game to CTD (but upon restarting the game it usually works). But if I load it up from the main menu it works (1 CTD while doing so so far only and it wasn't fatal to my career).
However - I am getting to the "can NOT reload" part now. I have noticed that when my game CTD's while on patrol, none of the savegames I have from that patrol work anymore as they all crash the game to desktop right after the "Please wait" screen disappears (named differently according to what is going on too - Combat, Patrol 1, 2, 3 and so on but it doesn't help it). I can however reload any save I have before going out of the port from that career.

The gut feeling I have (let's call it semi-educated guess ^^) is that this problem is somehow related to the fact that after loading a savegame the game is a little quirky - engine on stop, crew losing health etc .. but that doesn't explain why it will still work if the game has not crashed during the patrol.

[Faamecanic]

Ok I've been playing with this a little and there are two issues Ive found.

1) Saved games made on the return trip after completing the main objective usually results in a save game failing to load. Though saves before completing the main objective load fine.


At least you can complete the main objective. The only time I have completed the main objective was on my 1st patrol out of Pearl. It was to patrol off the South coast of Honshu.... Im on patrol 5 and havent been able to complete the main objective yet. Even after sitting smack in the middle of the marker (star) for 48 hrs.

I also keep getting the same mission .... all 5 patrols.....

This unfinished state is an insult and slap in the face of us subsim fans....

[Faamecanic]

Also, I go to the map screen and then save. Maybe you should try that???

Very good tip (well, it can't hurt at least). I have always done that (over a year of SH3 included), and have never had a corrupted save, once I started following the advice above.

I do the same after corrupted saves with SHIII. I save at map screen and since then have never had a bad save.

[tater]

If TC is a problem, is paused better?

tater

[Kromus]

Same problem here...
Lost about 40 hours of gameplay, all because of this tarded bug. Started happening after applying 1.1 patch. GJ ubisoft.
Btw, never encountered it in SH3 .

[Grunt]

This issue has been around from the SH3 days. Can't believe it hasn't still been addressed, but it can be minimized (actually eliminated in my experience) by the following practices:

- Don't save while submerged
- Don't save while close (say within 20km) to other vessels or to ports.
- Try to save under different filenames as much as possible.
- one poster elsewhere suggested saving as close to midnight as possible.

I know it would be nice to save just after sinking the Yamato, Mushashi and all the Kongos in one salvo, right before the escorts can mount their counterattack, but all I can suggest is what NOT to do in certain circumstances. That would be one of them.

If you look at the SH3 boards, you'll see this has been around for years, and the steps I've proposed have been gleaned from the bitter experiences of many, many others.

Conversely, you could try not saving at all. Or, to be as safe as possible, avoid playing SH4 alltogether. SH4 dev's should be proud of themselves. :rotfl:

[Spaxspore]

This issue has been around from the SH3 days. Can't believe it hasn't still been addressed, but it can be minimized (actually eliminated in my experience) by the following practices:

- Don't save while submerged
- Don't save while close (say within 20km) to other vessels or to ports.
- Try to save under different filenames as much as possible.
- one poster elsewhere suggested saving as close to midnight as possible.

I know it would be nice to save just after sinking the Yamato, Mushashi and all the Kongos in one salvo, right before the escorts can mount their counterattack, but all I can suggest is what NOT to do in certain circumstances. That would be one of them.

If you look at the SH3 boards, you'll see this has been around for years, and the steps I've proposed have been gleaned from the bitter experiences of many, many others.
Conversely, you could try not saving at all. Or, to be as safe as possible, avoid playing SH4 alltogether. SH4 dev's should be proud of themselves. :rotfl:


Am just sayin if u r goin to use the pervious games file structure/engine... FIX THE BUGS FIRST!! THen start building your dream pacific getaway

[drewsbu]

Ok I've been playing with this a little and there are two issues Ive found.

1) Saved games made on the return trip after completing the main objective usually results in a save game failing to load. Though saves before completing the main objective load fine.

2) Saving while submerged can cause lots of funny stuff to happen. Including damage to equipment and resetting of the nearby patrols.



both of them happen to me!

[dleuen]

Does anyone know if saves worked ok in 1.0? When I bought the game I immediately patched to 1.1. But the crashes in loading saved games has me ready to put this on the shelf. I don't mind some bugs so going back to 1.0 may not be too bad. But not being able to load a saved game is a show stopper.

Don

[Harmor]

I did so too, never played 1.0. I would assume however that the savegame issue is present in the release version too, seeing how at least for me, it is related to CTD's like .. when I am ingame and SH 4 CTD's, it won't let me load any savegame connected to that career. I sure hope this will get addressed, but I am not sure just yet since when I contacted UBI's support about it, they didn't bother acknowledging this problem but were very random about it. I then replied to them and gave them the link to this thread (and a similar one on UBI.com) and right now the status is "In testing" when I check back with the UBI Soft support center. I guess I'll know more about this tomorrow or so ... hopefully.

[boatfull]

I name my own saves like "Last Patrol 1,2 etc." . The only problem I
had when loading a saved game is that you have to hit the return to
course button to have the sub follow your saved waypoints.I'm using
patch 1.1 and have no other problems as yet.:hmm:

[Harmor]

Oh, I do name my saves kinda like that as well. I usually can load them too but the problem is that once SH 4 CTD's during patrol, next time I want to load a savegame from that career it will CTD - no matter how I call them, no matter what went down on the seas before I saved etc .. and this goes for ALL saves, even ones I made hours before the particular crash. I just hope they will fix all the reasons for CTD's which may be the needed workaround for the savegame woes that quite a bunch of ppl encounter.

[Tobowsi]

I also have a problem with CTD's at the "please wait" message when I load a game.

However, it appears I may have found a workaround. It's been working so far, anyway.

The problem seemed to show up much more consistently this last patrol. I could load the first couple saves alright but any saves after that and I'd get "please wait", then crash, and the "do you want to send an error report to Microsoft?" box.

What I've found that's been working, though, is if I load a save game that DOES work, then when the internal view pops up and I hear "all stop", I go into the menu and tell it to load the latest save. It usually works. The only stipulation is that everytime I want to load a later save, I have to completely exit out of SH4. If I've already loaded one of the problem saves and try to go back through the main menu (exit to main menu and not exit to Windows), and haven't completely restarted the game, when I get to the save I want to use, I hear "torpedo in the water" several times and when I can start playing there are no ships around (if they were there when I saved the game, that is).

So try this and see if it works:
1. Exit completely out of SH4
2. Restart SH4 (it's a pain to rather than just use the menu, I know)
3. In the main menu, "load game" and choose a save that you know works. (I don't know if it can be a different patrol or not. Haven't tried it.)
4. When that saved game comes up, go to the ESC menu and "load game" for the save you want to use (but crashes when you go directly to it from the main menu).

No guarantees, but that method seems to have been working for me so far. Just remember that if you need to load another save, use the "exit to Windows" option and start all over. (Ugh)

[StandingCow]

Having the same issue, crash on most saves.

[meatball]

No save game issue for me so far but I only did 1 career, first patrol before the kamakazi's got me (I'm a noob). I was playing on easy even. I was manning AA guns the whole time until I got down to about 100 ammo left. Then I switched it over to an AI gunner. I can't remember but I may have reloaded a save game because the next time I switched in to man the AA gun there was 350 ammo in it. It was either the save game resetting the ammo or Bernard had pocketfull's of ammo before I put him in the gunner seat :D

[tycho102]

I name my own saves.. No problems yet.

Wait a minute. You don't have to name each save game? I never received the memo on that one. How do you do automatic save names? Do you just hit return or something?

Oh, and I've had no problems with save loads. Obviously have been naming each one. I tend to use short names like "p5a" and "p5aa1" -- I've got a system.

[Greentimbers]

Had a problem with a saved game last night, upon reloading my sub was not moving, "All Stop" for some reason. I ordered "ahead 1/3 and I get "Cannot comply":huh:

Check my crew and they are all sleeping, not the way I left them when I saved this patrol. So there I am moving crew around to get the engines going and out of the sun comes a enemy AC....

Destroyed my scopes, deck gun, flak gun etc:damn:

Why does the crew always say "all stop every time I start, either at dock or outside of dock?

BTW, I really like the new start options in SHIV, at dock or outside:sunny:
I hope they fix the rest of it though....

[-Pv-]

"...Had a problem with a saved game last night, upon reloading my sub was not moving, "All Stop" for some reason. I ordered "ahead 1/3 and I get "Cannot comply":huh:..."

This is the only real bug I had with game saves (done about 25 of them so far in all different cirmunstances.) If you save within 10 minutes of an IMPENDING crew shift change, the crew's health will get dimished. If it was low before the save, it will get near zero after the restore. I'm careful to save now AFTER a shift change and more than 10 minutes before the next one. Other than setting speed to zero and your course to straight ahead (negating your waypoints) on a restore this is the only bug that affects game play for me.
-Pv-

[Greentimbers]

"...Had a problem with a saved game last night, upon reloading my sub was not moving, "All Stop" for some reason. I ordered "ahead 1/3 and I get "Cannot comply":huh:..."

This is the only real bug I had with game saves (done about 25 of them so far in all different cirmunstances.) If you save within 10 minutes of an IMPENDING crew shift change, the crew's health will get dimished. If it was low before the save, it will get near zero after the restore. I'm careful to save now AFTER a shift change and more than 10 minutes before the next one. Other than setting speed to zero and your course to straight ahead (negating your waypoints) on a restore this is the only bug that affects game play for me.
-Pv-

Thanks for the info, I did not know that, will try it out:up:

[7Enigma]

Hello all,

This is my first post after being a LONGGGG time lurker of this fantastic board. I've been around since the original silent hunter, and played every one in between, and have to say this is the most unfinished release of the series IMO.

The fan base on this side for mods is absolutely incredible, and I had thought my savegame issues were due to the 10-15 mods I have applied in the last week but my symptoms are identical to what's being posted in this thread.

Here's what I'm experiencing. After playing a good 20-30hours on my first campaign I applied the 1.1 patch and was unable to load my career. I was quite bummed, but knew it had to be done after all the crashes/freezes/glitches of the initial release version. So I was willing to accept a restart.

I'm now about 20 hours into my next campaign and the savegame problems have started. I have discovered that if I can complete a mission, everything is fine. I then save back in the "office" and it loads fine. I can also (and this one makes me :damn:) load a previous save mid-mission as long as the mission I'm loading is from this game session. I can get sunk, shot at, or just accidentially hit the enter key instead of the TC (this one really steams me), and simply reload from 10minutes back. If, however, I exit the game (either on my own terms or due to a crash) I cannot reload the save games. Everything is great until it goes to the Please Wait screen, and then it crashes out with the "we're sorry for the inconvienence" message.:down:


So at this point I have to scrap the game. I've had 2 incredible missions now, 1 where I was able to take on a enemy fleet with Yamato, and another where the weather was horrible and I was able to tear a convoy to shreds. I played yesterday about 4 hours on this particular mission, and had completed my objectives and was heading for home when GREED got the better of me.

I recieved a PAC news update that the one group of islands were about to be raided and to expect a large battle. Since it was somewhat ;) on my way home I decided to stop by since I had just refit off the southern coast of Australia (previously had no ammo). I set my course, made it a day late to the islands, but as a consolation price was able to steal into the harbor for some mayhem. This was the first port that had extremely deep water until you get close to the shore so I was able to come it deep, and stay outside the shallows. I used up about 12 torpedos and destroyed several small/medium sized ships before deciding to leave. I had one ship that was on its last leg and I waited until the patrols loosened a bit. I wanted this ship sunk! I rose out of the water at night and quickly sunk with 4 HE rounds. Someone saw this and started firing on me, when the mother of all slowdowns occurred (never had this happen before). The game audio started stuttering, ALL controls were non-responsive, and even the mouse took about 3 minutes to move a little.

I freaked out. I knew if I couldn't get back to base this whole 4 hour ordeal would be for nothing. I tried everything. Tried to Esc out, widows-keyed to the desktop and shut down other processes to get a bit more ram (literally disconnected from the net and shutdown all antivirus/ip blocker/firewall :shifty:, and still no luck. After 25minutes of cursing and depression at the thought of losing this whole mission, I had to shut it down. With my last shred of sanity I rebooted the computer and loaded up my game. "SH4 has generated errors and needs to be closed. We are sorry for the inconvienence". :down:

I'm done until this is fixed.

[Quillan]

I just had this savegame issue pop up as well. I had no problems prior; I could load saves from earlier sessions, saves made underwater, saves made near enemy convoys, etc. A couple of nights ago, I'd just made it into the Sea of Japan when I decided to stop play for the evening, so I made a completely new save. Game time was near midnight, I was surfaced, no ships were near, but the next day I got the CTD during the "Please Wait" message. In addition, I got the same CTD reloading all saves from that career, even with a reboot.

As it was my first patrol after upgrading to a Gato, I just deleted all the saves and started a new career in 1942 with a Gato, but it was quite frustrating.

[ATR-42]

We're onto something here, like Galanti said...

- Don't save while submerged
- Don't save while close (say within 20km) to other vessels or to ports.
- Try to save under different filenames as much as possible.
- one poster elsewhere suggested saving as close to midnight as possible.
===

my case was similar, many missions (18+) and two careers. The Saved game loading CTD happend when i had loaded a saved game that was saved to an over-written file while submerged, in the middle of mutliple torpedo attacks, there was stuff sinking around me, fish in the water, and i was computing another firing order. That being said, we need to save carefully until this gets worked out. i had to load that patrol from a saved file before the most recent one that kept crashing. it was a huge set back.:damn: and now im saving at a almost rediculous rate to avoid it happening again.

I always use my own file names now and always create a NEW file when saving "career 2_a...Career_2_b" ect ect ect so incase i get jammed up a "last saved" file is pretty close to my most recent saved file. a back up of a back up so to speak? then i clean up all the saved files later.

when you reload the game everything does get reset you can tell, i typically try and save before launching the first solution. You can tell the AI is reset cause initially the ship your firing at may do action "A" (zig zag) in your played game, then you relaod the saved file and that same ship will react in mannor "B" (no zig zag).

Like the guys are saying here i guess the idea is to save when there is 'as little going on around you as possible' to play it safe.

I love this game, first sub sim and im completly hooked. the bugs while annoying are sometimes funny. (the inflatable life raft collsions still crack me up) ;)

[fin1979]

hello

First post here and maybe the last if I cannot get the saves to work. :damn:

I'm now in 8th patrol at year 1942 and in Tokyo Bay. I had four different saves in the mission one at the very beginning. None of the saves work which means that I have to start a new career.

Though I wont be starting a new career untill this save game CTD issue gets solved and patched. I have the latest 1.1 patch installed. Its no use if we arent able to continue a saved game...

Here's one captain who is putting SH4 into shelf............ great game but no use playing with so many bugs.

S.S. Vetehinen

[hector]

I am also getting these ctd's and have lost three or four careers so far.I have tried mot of the suggestions in this thread but with out any luck.I do hpe the devs will fix this.

Hector.

[MaxT.dk]

I have something to say regarding this issue...
I'M SO F*CKING TIRED OF THAT F*CKING BUG F*CK! F*CK!
Oh man... I feel better now...
And yes, I had the same situation as most of you guys have described... Pain in the ass... :down:


All these do this do that to save a game properly are BS. If the game connot be fixed to save under conditions X, Y, and Z, then they need to have a simple dialog that warns the player "savinging is not possible under time compression," or "saving is not possible while submerged, please pick a point when you can safely surface to save game."

It's not rocket science, but people need to be warned.
Yeah, this idea of "only save on on the first Tuesday after St. Swithin's Day unless the groundhog spots his shadow" does get a bit tiresome.
Don't forget about the full moon that is required as well.;) Couldn't be agree more with you, guys :stare:


This issue has been around from the SH3 days. Can't believe it hasn't still been addressed, but it can be minimized (actually eliminated in my experience) by the following practices:

- Don't save while submerged
- Don't save while close (say within 20km) to other vessels or to ports.
- Try to save under different filenames as much as possible.
- one poster elsewhere suggested saving as close to midnight as possible.

I know it would be nice to save just after sinking the Yamato, Mushashi and all the Kongos in one salvo, right before the escorts can mount their counterattack, but all I can suggest is what NOT to do in certain circumstances. That would be one of them.

If you look at the SH3 boards, you'll see this has been around for years, and the steps I've proposed have been gleaned from the bitter experiences of many, many others.
Conversely, you could try not saving at all. Or, to be as safe as possible, avoid playing SH4 alltogether. SH4 dev's should be proud of themselves. :rotfl: I'm thinking of letting my SH4 collect the dust... I feel soooo bad about it :|


I also have a problem with CTD's at the "please wait" message when I load a game.

However, it appears I may have found a workaround. It's been working so far, anyway.

The problem seemed to show up much more consistently this last patrol. I could load the first couple saves alright but any saves after that and I'd get "please wait", then crash, and the "do you want to send an error report to Microsoft?" box.

What I've found that's been working, though, is if I load a save game that DOES work, then when the internal view pops up and I hear "all stop", I go into the menu and tell it to load the latest save. It usually works. The only stipulation is that everytime I want to load a later save, I have to completely exit out of SH4. If I've already loaded one of the problem saves and try to go back through the main menu (exit to main menu and not exit to Windows), and haven't completely restarted the game, when I get to the save I want to use, I hear "torpedo in the water" several times and when I can start playing there are no ships around (if they were there when I saved the game, that is).

So try this and see if it works:
1. Exit completely out of SH4
2. Restart SH4 (it's a pain to rather than just use the menu, I know)
3. In the main menu, "load game" and choose a save that you know works. (I don't know if it can be a different patrol or not. Haven't tried it.)
4. When that saved game comes up, go to the ESC menu and "load game" for the save you want to use (but crashes when you go directly to it from the main menu).

No guarantees, but that method seems to have been working for me so far. Just remember that if you need to load another save, use the "exit to Windows" option and start all over. (Ugh) I've come to the same solution myself, but it doesn't work each time (worked once twice tho')... That's just unusable...


Oh boy... I think nearly everyone who had this problem thinks "F*CK!" when SH4 crashes after waiting for ages for "Please wait" screen...

I'm getting stress from SH4... And I bought it for enjoyment... :dead:

[gAiNiAc]

Is their a fix for this bug? I just ran into it.

[LtAirForce]

I know i'm kinda reviving a dead thread, but eh.... I just started having this problem. Funny thing is that it didnt happen untill i added my first mods (Natural Sinking Mechanichs and Pacific enviroments) I was in office when i enabled them, but was halfway threw my carrer. maybe this had someithng to do with it? I'm just gonna try starting a new carrer and see what happens, after deleting all saves and a disk cleanup.

[Fearless]

I know i'm kinda reviving a dead thread, but eh.... I just started having this problem. Funny thing is that it didnt happen untill i added my first mods (Natural Sinking Mechanichs and Pacific enviroments) I was in office when i enabled them, but was halfway threw my carrer. maybe this had someithng to do with it? I'm just gonna try starting a new carrer and see what happens, after deleting all saves and a disk cleanup.

Welcome aboard :up:

When you added the mods did you start off in port? If not, return to port first before adding mods. That is the safest way and it doesn't matter if you are halfway in your career.

[banjo]

I am not going to read all the above so if this is duplicate info, sorry.

Here's the deal on corrupted saves, at least in part--corrupted saves happens to a lot of us, modded and unmodded, for apparently a lot of different reasons. I don't know of a single all-encompasing fix. So--here is what you do to protect yourself. First of all, name your saves somthing--tmo1, tmo2, tmo3. Like that. Only keep three saves and just overwrite the oldest one each time you save. Second, and this is important, do not delete your most recent 'When_leavingPort' save. That's not exactly the right spelling but you get the idea. By always keeping that save if you get a corrupted career that won't reload all you can do is reload the "When_leavingPort' save. That way you do not lose your whole career, just the last patrol. Each time you start a patrol delete the previous ones but not the one for the patrol you are now in. Hope this is clear.

[LtAirForce]

@ Fearless: Yeah, i was in port when i enabled the mods. I was following a tutorial and thats what it said to do.

I already save my games under different names, a habit i have had after i lost a save file from a different game thati had put countless hours into. I guess we are all just gonna have to grit our teeth and bear it and hope for a patch.


LtAirForce

[neilbyrne]

I had this problem so bad that I did a clean install, destroying a career in which I already had two CMOH and it was only the end of '42.
I have subsequently tried to stay within the guidelines above altho I don't think it's that necessary.
What I have seen work best is that you have to let the program run until it's happy to stop. What I mean is if something big is happening, like you're taking damage/sinking, and you just want to abort and re-load, don't do it. Let it run out and then re-load. Also don't try to switch screens fast if something complex is happening. It seems to stay more stable under these conditions. No need to reinstall either. When the problem does occur, it appears to clear at the end of that patrol.
I just completed a patrol in which I torpedoed eleven ships and saved the approaches to same multiple times with no problems holding to the above guidelines.

[Capt_Bergen]

Just got done reading the last 4 pages as it is happening to me now on patch 1.4, the crash after the please wait screen. As a few posts back have stated, you can reload usually from the leaving port save, you bet. That is back at the beginning as none of the saves during the patrol will load. Going to try different versions of the above mentioned ideas, but man, you would think somehow, somewhere, someone (Ubisoft or a modder) that has the amazing ability to read these games files and makes adjustments would find a way to make save work. Even if I had to run a program in the background to save and load from it would be better then loosing an entire morning of work.
Yet, Here I go back into the game to do the patrol over again..... I swear we are sheep lol:damn:

[Webster]

Just got done reading the last 4 pages as it is happening to me now on patch 1.4, the crash after the please wait screen. As a few posts back have stated, you can reload usually from the leaving port save, you bet. That is back at the beginning as none of the saves during the patrol will load. Going to try different versions of the above mentioned ideas, but man, you would think somehow, somewhere, someone (Ubisoft or a modder) that has the amazing ability to read these games files and makes adjustments would find a way to make save work. Even if I had to run a program in the background to save and load from it would be better then loosing an entire morning of work.
Yet, Here I go back into the game to do the patrol over again..... I swear we are sheep lol:damn:

the main problem is the "random" part of the AI, the fact that it is random means the game doesnt have the ability to regenerate a random AI event like a ship traveling at the same spot, speed, and direction. if this were changed then every single event would have to be planned and scripted which would ruin the whole feeling of the game. to save the kind of data to recreate everything would fill your hard drive.

[SteamWake]

Strangely I havent had any of these issues and I have alot of saved games.

I use this scheme... I have the usual autosave on entering / leaving base.

Then I have a series of 'named' saves x1, x2, x3, x4 I step through and over wright those saves 'in order' as I go. I save every half hour or so. When I reach x4 I start overwrighting x1 etc.

I did notice that when I first loaded RFB it took a looooooong time to save, in the order of 5 minutes or so. I dont know if this is actually related to the mod or not but the first time I passed it off as froze up and rebooted. The second time I went to the bathroom, got something to eat etc. basically 'waited it out' and the save would finish and return to the game. But after two or three of those looooong save times its back to 'normal' and only takes a few seconds.

Now... I sure hope I havent cursed myself.... at least I have a 'recent' save game to go back to :up:

[Arclight]

I think the reason these issues haven't been fixed yet is because the cause hasn't been pinpointed. Some peolpe have issues, others don't. I, for one, never have these issues. I save whenever, wherever and it's all good. Others stick to specific rules (no saving underwater or near contacts, for example) with mixed results.

To me, it is the most illogical and puzzling issue with SH4. :-?

Hold on... :hmm: yes, once. RFB was generating insanely large save files. Figured out it was because of the replay data always getting saved. Ran out of discspace, so I opened up the folders with the save-games and deleted the replay data. All save-games got corrupted, even the ones I didn't mess with. (deleted the temporary replay data as well, in an effort to make it impossible for the game to save it) :shifty:

I loaded a war patrol, let it finish loading till I was standing in the control room, facing my XO. Then I tried loading a save-game I hadn't messed with (but wouldn't load before) and it worked!

Maybe it can be of some use to someone in the future. :hmm: