Who stole my saved games..

[JohnnyBlaze]

sorry about the topic, not really accusing anyone lol

In a previous post of mine in another thread I reported that I was engaging on a large convoy.
After my first attack, evading the DD's and plotting a new end round for my second attack I decided to save the game and exit patrol.

Now I was going to continue the pursuit, but I cant find the saves anymore.
I open my career and there's none of my saved games left. :damn:

I wonder what happenend? I havent changed any configs since.

I'm using the NYGM 2.0

any help would be appreciated

[Immelman]

Did you accidentally load an earlier patrol save? I actually did that ones and lost all my progress. I can't think of anything else

[Warden]

This has happened to me twice.

[Warden]

Correction, it has now happened to me three times.

[Warden]

I have now made a fascinating discovery, if I enter the my documents folder and then the SH3\data\cfg\Careers\ folders and rename the folder named for my career name my save games magically reappear. (Though of course my career name also changes)
Does anyone have any idea as to what is going on?

[JohnnyBlaze]

I have now made a fascinating discovery, if I enter the my documents folder and then the SH3\data\cfg\Careers\ folders and rename the folder named for my career name my save games magically reappear. (Though of course my career name also changes)
Does anyone have any idea as to what is going on?

So you're saying that If I rename my career folder inside my documents I can get my saves back?
And so you didnt make any changes for the game when you lost your saved games?

and for the other question, no I did not load a previous save game. I know that if you load a save game then the saves after that game are lost which is not the case here.
thanks for the thought anyway.

Think I need some help from the HARC CORE sub Kaleuns..

[JScones]

Think I need some help from the HARC CORE sub Kaleuns..
While you are waiting, try a search of this forum. There are MANY threads lamenting SH3's save game problems. It now seems to be one of the biggest frustrations to players. No fix for it, just player "workarounds".

Of course, going back a step, you did receive confirmation that the game had been saved? That is, did you see the "Game successfully saved" message? There's a little "quirk" in the save game process which requires you to press the SAVE button twice.

[Warden]

I can't speak for JohnnyBlaze, but the last time I temporarily lost about 30 save games, so yes I'm pretty sure I really did save. Given the fact that I've now discovered a method to recover my saves this problem has (for me) gone from being problem number one to being utterly unimportant.

[Warden]

So you're saying that If I rename my career folder inside my documents I can get my saves back?

All I can say with certainty is that renaming the first subfolder in the My Documents\SH3\Data\cfg\Careers\ folder worked for me. Please let me know if it works for you as well.

[JohnnyBlaze]

While you are waiting, try a search of this forum. There are MANY threads lamenting SH3's save game problems. It now seems to be one of the biggest frustrations to players. No fix for it, just player "workarounds".

I did try the search, but came up with too many unrelated threads.

Of course, going back a step, you did receive confirmation that the game had been saved? That is, did you see the "Game successfully saved" message? There's a little "quirk" in the save game process which requires you to press the SAVE button twice.
Yes I had the confirmation message sayin "game succesfully saved".

I would undestand that one of my saves got broken or lost, but all of them..?

All I can say with certainty is that renaming the first subfolder in the My Documents\SH3\Data\cfg\Careers\ folder worked for me. Please let me know if it works for you as well.
Thanks Warden, for giving me some hope here. I'm definetly going to try out this method.

[Seminole]

ALAAAAAAARRRRRRRMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!

Yep...it happened to me to ...yesterday.

I was all set and primed to continue on a very enjoyable career I was beginning to become deeply involved in.

Much to my shock and chagrin my saves were all gone? I was too upset to even consider attempting to continue playing.

Could there be a virus in one of the mods that IS deleting them?

Hell's bells...I'm afraid to start another career now and feel that if I do it must be back to the out of the box version.


I figured it was something I had done...but then I come here and this is the first post I see....what is up with this?


...and no....I did not mistakenly load the very first save...I think I would have noticed that I had gone back in time....and I would have at least had one save left ....they are all gone...the saved patrols screen is a total blank.

[JohnnyBlaze]

oh I feel your pain Seminole, but have the cure for it.

as Warden said earlier you can get your saves back.

I did what he said and I got all my saves back. Thanks to Warden dont have to start all over again. Thanks mate :up:

just rename the first subfolder in the My Documents\SH3\Data\cfg\Careers\ folder to whatever you want and it should work.

Good luck buddy!

[JScones]

Hell's bells...I'm afraid to start another career now and feel that if I do it must be back to the out of the box version.
Actually, that wouldn't fix it. The problem exists in stock SH3.

The rename-career-folder approach is the well documented/common fix for the problem.

[Sailor Steve]

Who stole my saved games..
I did.

And if you want to see them alive, meet me at the north-by-northwest corner of the park at midnight with a half-million in unmarked bills.

No cops, no press, or the Saves never see the light of day again.

[JohnnyBlaze]

Who stole my saved games.. I did.

And if you want to see them alive, meet me at the north-by-northwest corner of the park at midnight with a half-million in unmarked bills.

No cops, no press, or the Saves never see the light of day again.\


Nooo it was you!

Hey dude no funny business okay..
give em back to me now or I'm sure going to tip the british DD's about your position.
umm which park we where talking about?

[Seminole]

oh I feel your pain Seminole, but have the cure for it.

as Warden said earlier you can get your saves back.

I did what he said and I got all my saves back. Thanks to Warden dont have to start all over again. Thanks mate :up:

just rename the first subfolder in the My Documents\SH3\Data\cfg\Careers\ folder to whatever you want and it should work.

Good luck buddy!


:nope: ....I found my saved games....but that isn't the end of the story.

There were quarantined in the quarantined section of my anti-virus program....:shifty: . I leave my system on every Friday night and let all the routine maintenance programs do their thing in the wee small hours. Disk cleaner, spy ware scanner, virus detection scan, disk defragmentation and so forth. I have been doing it this way for years these programs update and then perform their functions. Never had a problem before.

Well...I restored the all the saved game files back to the CAREERS folder in my current Keulen's folder....and thought all would be peachy.

I opened SH3 commander and checked the Personnel file and all is correct..number of sinkings..patrol grid...patrol number all that.

I launch SH3...accept active career....and bamo.....the Load Saves Screen is still a total blank....:shifty:


To say the least I am mystified.

I think I am through with SH3 for now at least. Though none of this can be said to be the "game's fault." I just don't have a real keen motivation right now to invest all that time and effort into building up another career just to see it go poof, for reasons unfathomable, just as it is getting interesting.

Maybe SH4.

[JohnnyBlaze]

:nope: ....I found my saved games....but that isn't the end of the story.

Well...I restored the all the saved game files back to the CAREERS folder in my current Keulen's folder....and thought all would be peachy.

But did you rename the folder? That trick did it for me and got the saves back.

Sorry to hear that you're leaving SH3, but I agree sometimes it's just better to walk away for a while.

Take care

[Seminole]

Ok...tried doing that...no soap....thanks anyway....:up:

[JScones]

Have you tried sans A/v, Firewall and other system monitoring software?

Many A/v and Firewalls interfere with the accessing and saving of files. It's a common side effect of trying to maintain a fully secure system.

For example, some players' systems have become upset when SH3Cmdr trys to update SH3 files - the file accesses are flagged as unauthorised, even though SH3Cmdr identifies itself to the system. Extremely slow speed when launching SH3 via SH3Cmdr? Again, a result of over zealous A/v and/or Firewalls interrogating every action undertaken.

Generally, when the players turn their A/v or Firewall off, everything is back to normal. It's just then simply a matter of determining what setting is causing the "issue" and adjusting, or not adjusting depending on your risk perception, accordingly.

Add to this the well documented bug with a recent release of ZoneAlarm. It "broke" the updating of timestamps when saving files of certain types. BIG problem in circumstances where unrelated programmes query timestamps.

Anyway, just something else for players to ponder if they are having file type problems.

[JohnnyBlaze]

Well seems that now I have to rename my career everytime I play.. Gets a bit frustrating tho