An entire day's worth of saves corrupted.

A few weeks back, on my 12th mission, I had to drop some spies off in Malaysia, then got a mission to do tourist stuff (picture-taking) at Singapore harbor.

The next chance I had to play was about two weeks after that (the weekend before Valentine's Day). Spent most of Saturday heading from Singapore harbor to the next harbor on the western side of Borneo. I took my time, hiding from aircraft, trying to intercept a couple of warships that zigged away from me, so I continued on. Finally managed to get to the next harbor, snuck in just at P-depth (with only 4-5 feet under my tummy!), got in, took pictures, turned, headed out, managed to get into deep waters (just over 300 feet deep), no other ships around, and did my final save there.

Fired it up last night to pick up where I left off, and guess what? The saved file was corrupted - started to load, crashed, sent report to M$, hello desktop.

Ok, I had made at least 3 saves in deep waters after the last photo session, so let's try one of those (I know about 'don't save in shallow water', etc).

Corrupted.....and another.....and another.
Six corrupted save games in a row. Got to the 7th one back, and guess what? It was right back out of Singapore Harbor again - an entire day's worth of sweat, down the electronic drain.

I did manage to re-do the last photo mission, got in and out of the harbor alive, made at least 6 saves in deep water after getting out of the area, tested the last one, and it loaded just fine, so at least I don't have to dump the entire mission.

I've been reading about corrupted saves here for a while now, so I am pretty familiar with the procedures, ie, deep water, surfaced, looking at the map, no other ships around (at least, none that I know of), so this is pretty frustrating to me. I know that there has to be something I'm missing to cause THAT many corrupted saves in a row. Maybe it's just a 'Bermuda Triangle' type of area between the two harbors that does it.

I did notice one thing last night that wasn't noticed before: When on the bridge, I would click the weather report and get wind speed and direction. Last night, I noticed it is now giving precepitation, fog density, i.e., the whole 9 yards of weather.

I'm using the 4 patch, TMO, ocean sounds, not much else (radio mods).

Any ideas why so many corrupted saves in a row?

[Rockin Robbins]

The moon was in Sagittarius. That has as much to do with corrupted saves as shallow water, looking at the map, no ships around, etc. I've done hundreds of saves in all conditions including in combat and not had a bad save.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The moon was in Sagittarius. That has as much to do with corrupted saves as shallow water, looking at the map, no ships around, etc. I've done hundreds of saves in all conditions including in combat and not had a bad save.

That's what's frustrating about it. I had always tried to save under the same conditions, all the time. Some corrupt, some don't, which is why I have a large number of saved games now for just this one mission - last night, I went back to save #36 (the last good save), and finally ended up with #52, which turned out to be a good one as well. Good thing I have a 4 gig thumb drive to store all these saves on.

Maybe coming out of time compression too fast? I just donno.

[banjo]

What Rockin' says. Also, make sure you always keep your most recent AutoSave_LeavingPort save. That way if all your saves get corrupted (has happened to me many, many times) you can reload that save and not lose your entire carear. Corrupted saves usually happen to me when I add a mod(s). If the mod is of any consequence at all wait until you are back in port to install. Installing mods while your captain is at sea is asking for trouble.

[peabody]

100% agree with Banjo. Sometimes when doing mods the least little change will cause a mission not to load. Depends what it is, but if it is information that the save game file is keeping track of, and it changes......CTD. So ANY change to a mod, either adding a new one, uninstalling one or updating one can make the save game files useless.

Peabody

[NEON DEON]

I have old hardware. My hard drive is small and when I push close to the limit of the drive bad things happen. One thing I have noticed is that SH IV saved games are big! Start of patrol around 300 mb. They go up from there and can get up to 1 gig apiece if the patrol goes on for a long time. I cant imagine a 4 gig thumb drive to have much more than 8 saves. If it starts taking a long time to save a game, Its a good sign that you are running out of room.

Originally Posted by banjo

What Rockin' says. Also, make sure you always keep your most recent AutoSave_LeavingPort save. That way if all your saves get corrupted (has happened to me many, many times) you can reload that save and not lose your entire carear. Corrupted saves usually happen to me when I add a mod(s). If the mod is of any consequence at all wait until you are back in port to install. Installing mods while your captain is at sea is asking for trouble.

He he, I read this form for about 8 months before I was able to install the game on the new PC - I knew all about not changing mods in the middle of a mission.

Based on what I had read here, my standard save set-up involves 'save on entering port' and 'save on departing port' as well as the last mission save just prior to entering port, so I can go back to just before ending the last mission, if needed.

No mods were added/deleted during a mission, and didn't do anything differently than had been done before.

BTW, I checked the SH4 icon on the desktop and it points to SH4.EXE and not that new one (I think it was gu.exe) that had been mentioned in other places, where it checks 'home base' for info. I thought that might have been the cause of it (because some people mentioned that it was), but this was not the case.

My guess it was just a "bad luck Saturday afternoon" as far as saves are concerned.

BTW, this mission has been going for quite a while, and is in the 7 meg range - think that might have something to do with it? I'm not doing the "save replay" thing, either - heard that it doubles the size of your save file.

[eljeffo41]

My expierience has been the same as Rockinrobin,I save whenever I need to stop playing REGARDLESS of my game play situation and I have never had a bad save.The game does act a little odd when I first start playing again,usually makes the torp launch sound and shows leaks and such but this all goes away in about 2 seconds and everything is fine.It doesn't actually launch a torp or take any damage but it certainly startled me the first time it happened! Rockinrobin does this happen to you when you load a save?

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The moon was in Sagittarius. That has as much to do with corrupted saves as shallow water, looking at the map, no ships around, etc. I've done hundreds of saves in all conditions including in combat and not had a bad save.

Ditto and overwrite files quite often.

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Ditto and overwrite files quite often.

He he, see post #8:

Originally Posted by Zayphod

My guess it was just a "bad luck Saturday afternoon" as far as saves are concerned.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what caused such a rash of bad saves (that many in a row????), and no problem (that I've encountered) since.

Gremlins. Gotta be a gremlin under my desk somewhere.

HEY! Don't step on that gremlin!!! Go get me a hammer.

[neosnk35]

a lot of that corrupted save files happen to me before... just now it does not happen to me again... i just dont overwrite my saves.. i save anywhere submerged\ with multiple contacts near port... just make new saves again and again.. after an a patrol just delete those misc saves...