Can't load Save
 

:Kaleun_Salute:

Ahoy Commanders!

Returned to SH3 yesterday after a few years away. Vanilla Game (Steam) + Fifi's NYGM + SH3 Commander.

Started a patrol, had to finally call a break and head to bed so saved mid patrol. Have come back today and can load the game, enter the saved career and see my save but when I click "Load Save" and confirm that it will delete any following save games, it crashes to desktop.

Can't seem to find any log files, does anyone have any cunning plans to resolve?

Thanks in advance!

Welcome back to Subsim phoenixegmh!

Usually save games can break if you add/remove/change mods or files mid-patrol, that's why is best to only do that when your back in base before mission.

If you didn't do any of the above, then sadly i'm not sure. I know in the past I have encountered a bad save that refused to load... that's why I make up to 5 different saves per patrol. If one is bugged, I can load a previous one (lose a bit of progress) to see if it hopefully works, which has actually happened to me before. If its not your first patrol of your career you should have more than one save, you might lose the progress of your current patrol by going back to in base before/after mission, but it's better than losing your entire career. You can backup your entire save folder first, if you want to "test" loading an earlier save which will delete your current saves... that way you have an option to get them back.

Browse to your save folder (mine is located here)

C:\Users\(USERNAME)\Documents\SH3\data\

Make a copy of the "cfg" folder and keep it in a safe location.

It's not a bad idea to keep backups of your saves especially if you have a serious career you want to keep continuing, or even if you want to load it on another computer, just keep in mind for the saves to work you need to have all the required mods etc when you made those saves. This is why I actually take a screenshot of my JSGME mod list before each patrol, and keep it with my saves that I backup after each patrol.

Also if you are running on Windows 10, it can sometimes crash when loading saves... You can fix this by finding the "SH3.exe" then going to properties, and setting "Run As Administrator" & "Run In Capatibility Mode for "Windows 7".

Hope this helps.

It was a problem with SH3 and continues with SH5.


Over the years I remember advise never to save when there were a lot of ships around, such as being near a harbor or near a convoy.


I wish there was a way to know what caused the crash. Like would throwing more memory at the computer help?

Corrupted Mission File
 

I have a similar problem. I've been playing the game for years. And I know how to back up files mission file, career, and .cfg files. . I'm playing the vanilla game with no mods.

In my most recent mission, #25, the game crashed. I had a very long mission with with lousy weather that took forever. However,I had a really good mission- in the end I did well. The game crashed / mission ended on my return the port.

I have determined that mission is corrupted because every time I try to load my career with that most recent mission folder, the game crashes.If I delete that mission, Mission 25 folder,I can go back to my career. I resume to the time in port before the mission.I hate to walk away from several hours to play. Is there anyway to look for corrupted files in a mission folder that's giving me problems?

I'm thinking of selectively taking a copy of my mission files and selectively deleting the saves thinking about one of them is somehow corrupted. I built a dummy career and added "mission 25" to its career data changing the folder name to the next sequenced career. It crashes that career right away so I'm thinking I'm on something.

Thanks for help/suggestions...

Hi russman are you using the Commander mod if not in patrol 25 did you
save your patrol while at periscope depth or near land or planes ships near
or you have just sunk something these are all reasons your SH3 Career game crashes can you launch your patrol 25 in base before mission but if you have saves after that like in Grid Sinkings-1 Sinkings-2 ect you will loose those saves but if in base save before patrol 25 works you just replaying that patrol.
If your using commander mod and it keeps crashing just load your SH3 Campaign game install and see if it runs patrol 25 if so do the entire patrol return to base come out of game then restart commander mod and see if you can start patrol 26.

When you do a save on open seas it is best to do a hydrophone check to make sure you don't have anything in range. Just do not save submerged. I also move outside of hydrophone range of any contact I know of if I need to save before I can attack. It's annoying to do that trouble. But rather that than botched saves after the hours spend attacking the convoy.

Save often with different names. Fall back on the last save if it ends up being corrupt. Keep going back in previous saves until it works. There is no definite known cause to the crashing saves. So there is no way to look into them and identify what makes them bad to remove them. It might even break your entire patrol save hierarchy. Well, you are not gonna figure it out unless you are a programmer with knowhow and plenty time to hunt that bug. Others failed in that attempt so far.

Welcome back!