Save Game Corruption PC (Version 1.3) Please Help!

[SigilFey]

Next, when Geralt had dropped everything in the royal palace of Wyzima and destroyed all oils, potions and bombs, he travelled nude between White Orchard and Kaer Morhen. When the limit hit, I checked his inventory, and two very special items had reappeared... One item was a basic grapeshot bomb, and the other was enhanced draconid oil...acquired during the quest "To Bait a Forktail" and... "Following the Thread".

That's very interesting. I'm now drifting out of my depth, but I'm not certain that this would have anything to do with the bug. Rather, I assume its a flag related to the quest stage. (Out of curiosity, did you also choose the additional Swallow potions for the defense of Kaer Morhen? If so, did those reappear as well?) The only reason I suggest this is to avoid a red herring.

 

[karlblau]

That's very interesting. I'm now drifting out of my depth, but I'm not certain that this would have anything to do with the bug.

You are right, this has nothing to do with the bug corrupting savegames, its another small bug. I know for sure now, because I could reproduce the corruption bug with a savegame, which was written before Geralt entered Novigrad for the first time, before the quest "Pyres of Novigrad", when Geralt had no such object. After exactly 1797 additional save/restore cycles, this savegame reproduced the bug too.

(Out of curiosity, did you also choose the additional Swallow potions for the defense of Kaer Morhen? If so, did those reappear as well?) The only reason I suggest this is to avoid a red herring.

When I hit the bug for the first time, I had not yet done "Isle of Mists". However, I had done it earlier, but when I realized, that 10,000EP (or 9,000 / 8,000EP with a higher difficulty setting) are awarded independent of Geralts current level for "Isle of Mists" until "Bald Mountain", which equals to an increase of 5 (4.5 / 4) levels, I went back to an earlier save and started doing all available quests, especially witcher contracts, up to level 28. During "Take What You Want", while on level 27, the bug occurred and stopped any further progress. Therefore I can't test with these Swallow potions, but I'd assume, this is handled correctly like the Dimeritium bombs, because nearly everybody will have Superior Swallow already at this point of the story.

The result of the last night, these 1797 cycles left, allows to do a very interesting calculation. Let's look at the data first, I hope the table will be readable:

Savegame ________Total _______ Save/Restore __ Extrapolated
active quest _______ ingame time _ cycles left _____ total cycles
Pyres of Novigrad ___ 159.13h ____ 1797 _________ 3484
Destination: Skellige _ 239.53h _____ 950 _________ 3500
Take what you want _ 328.63h _______ 1

Assuming, that I did about the same number of save/restore operations per hour, one can do a linear extrapolation back to the start of the game, example: 328.63h - 159.13h = 169.50h to do 1797 cycles results in 10.60177 cycles/hour, which yields for all 328.63 hours until corruption 328.63h * 10.60177 cycles/h = 3484 cyles. The result for the other datapoint produces nearly the same value, and that improves confidence. In addition, a quite constant rate of save/restore cycles is reasonable, because I saved often, and I tested these saves often by reloading, before I proceeded. This is a disastrous behaviour of course, if some limitation or bug of the game engine limits the number of possible save/restore cycles plus fast travels between different maps to 3500 ± 50.

If this is true, it is a very important information for everybody, who plays TW3 GOTY 1.31 for many hours

==> Don't reload your game too often or without need, you can do this only 3500 times. <==

To test this, I need the help of some other player, to run the keyboard macro doing save/restore cycles on a different PC installation with a different game history, because I could not reproduce the bug during 4300 cycles with a savegame after doing only White Orchard mainquests in a rush. However, this was a tiny file, and if storage is overwritten, it was probably too small. Btw, 100 saves increase the size of a savegame file by 4KB.
The only alternate explanation I can think of is, that I did something, which created the bug that many hours later, quite early while I explored Velen. But what about the other gamers here with the same bug? It's far more probable, that they just played for many hours and did many reloads, than doing a rare and weird thing in Velen.

 

[SigilFey]

This is quite a theory. If I have some free time I'll try it and get back to you. Send me a link to the file via PM. I may have some time to spare over the weekend. If not...definitely after this weekend.

 

[karlblau]

This is quite a theory. If I have some free time I'll try it and get back to you. Send me a link to the file via PM. I may have some time to spare over the weekend. If not...definitely after this weekend.

Thanks for your offer to help, this is really welcome. Before I restart Geralts journey from the beginning, loosing all progress made in the free time of the last 9 months, I'd really like to know, what went wrong.

Here is a detailed description, how I created the keyboard macro, and how to use it:
I used two well-known tools, PuloversMacroCreator to measure the time while I manually pressed keys, and AutoHotkey to execute macro code made with this timing info. You will need at least AutoHotkey to execute the macro, and for both tools no installation is required, it is sufficient to use the portable versions. Here are the links
https://github.com/Pulover/PuloversMacroCreator/releases/download/v4.1.3/PuloversMacroCreator-Portable.zip
https://www.autohotkey.com/download/ahk.zip
I had to do it with both tools, because I didn't find a way in Pulovers tool to control how long a key is pressed, and TW3 requires to hold down a key for some time, as a real human does (30 ms did it for me).

1. Unpack the AutoHotkey stuff into any directory (keep the internal subdirectory structure) and create a shortcut to the executable AutoHotkeyU64.exe onto your desktop. Copy the file with the macro code into the same directory, and name this file AutoHotkeyU64.ahk for easiest use.

2. Rename the directory with your TW3 settings and savegames (under %USERPROFILE%\Documents) to something like "RealWitcher 3" and make a new directory "The Witcher 3". Copy your settings there, make a subdirectory \gamesaves, and copy the selected savegame for testing there (don't forget, drag and drop on the same disk does not copy but move, and move deletes the original file, use the right mousekey therefore - sorry if I'm too detailed, just to be safe).

3. Doubleclick AutoHotkeyU64.exe on the desktop and a green icon with H will appear in your taskbar tray area (customize it to show always for convenience) . Rightclick on this icon, select "Edit This Script" and set all loop counters like "Loop, 20" to "Loop, 2", to test whether all works fine on your PC, save the script. Rightclick on the green H icon again and select "Reload This Script". The macro / script will do only 2*2*2 = 8 iterations with these loop variables.

4. Start TW3, load your single selected savegame for the test, and fast travel to the royal palace in Wyzima, then go into Yennefers Lab and go to the left room, my Geralt always stared at the window between the two columns. This place is best, because you need a very small map which loads fast, and a stable environment without changes or other triggers for stable timings. In Geralts inventory should be some junk items under the "Other" tab, because the macro displays this inventory every 10 saves, and when black invisible items appear there, the bug did occur - this way it is immediately visible. Make a first hard save.

5. Now hit F8, this starts the macro, and don't move the mouse. The game will do automatic saves and reloads. With the original loop counters the macro shows the inventory and then does 10 quicksaves with F5 (inner loop), repeats this 10 times (middle loop) and after 10*10 = 100 quicksaves it will do a hardsave. The outer loop variable gives the number of hardsaves, and when all is done, the macro shows the questlog with J, to signal that the macro stopped.

It is possible, that you need to adjust the timings (see comment "; Wait until Loaded"), if your PC does not load fast enough; if it is faster than my PC, you can optimize and reduce that time, currently it is 4800ms. I could do 250 save/restore cycles per hour, therefore an outer loop variable 30 = 3000 iterations will require 12 hours to finish, but this should be sufficient for every advanced game state. Of course, if you see the corruption, you can exit the game immediately, but don't forget to pause and exit the macro with the green H icon.
If you are ready for a long run, set the loop variables to 30,10,10 again, and hopefully all will work fine and you can reproduce the bug. After some time, I always turned off my screen and speakers and the PC played Witcher 3 silently.

If you can reproduce the bug, your special reward for your help is, that you are the first gamer in the universe, who knows for sure, that there is a limit and how many save/reload cycles are left for his Geralt.

Here is code for the macro, use cut and paste, a blank after the Send, is required (even the advanced editor removed all blanks except one from text in the CourierNew Font -crazy-, the macro should work as is, but I sent an additional PM):

F8::
SetKeyDelay, 0,30
Loop, 30 ; Loop to do hardsaves
{
Loop, 10 ; Loop to show inventory
{
Send, I ; open inventory
Sleep 400
Send, {Left} ; move left
Sleep 400
Send, {Left} ; move left
Sleep 400
Send, {Left} ; now we see the "Other" items
Sleep 2000 ; show inventory 2 seconds
Send, I ; close inventory
Sleep 1500
Loop ,10 ; Loop to do quicksaves
{
Send, {F5} ; Quicksave
Sleep 1700
Send, {Escape}
Sleep 500
Send, {Down}
Sleep 500
Send, {Down}
Sleep 500
Send, {Enter} ; Load latest Save
Sleep 500
Send, {Enter} ; Confirm
Sleep 500
Send, {Enter}
Sleep 4800 ; Wait until Loaded
Send, {Space}
Sleep 400
Send, {Space} ; Stop loading video
Sleep 4000 ; wait until controls are ready
}
Sleep 1500
}
Send, {Escape}
Sleep 500
Send, {Down} ; Select Hardsave
Sleep 500
Send, {Enter} ; Confirm Hardsave
Sleep 500
Send, {Enter} ; Confirm free slot
Sleep 500
Send, {Escape} ; Return to game
Sleep 1500
}
Send, J ; open quest journal to signal end of loops
Sleep 500
Return

I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks in Austria, in the mountains, without any access to the internet, but tomorrow I can look here again. Perhaps, when I'm back, there is an answer from CD project red support; I uploaded two savegames before the corruption, but I don't think, that anything substantial will happen. The guys there are busy with their next game.

Once again, thanks for your help!

 

[Salvatore80]

karlblau, if you're interested, I have full history of my first playthrough in over 100+ saves until bug has occurred, I can upload it somewhere. I don't think I'll be able to achieve decent save/load per minute ratio on my gaming laptop for testing like you did, but let me know if you'd like do them yourself.

Assuming, that I did about the same number of save/restore operations per hour

Now you don't need to assume anything! Please check https://github.com/Salvatore80/W3SavegameEditor, as I mentioned before a savegame file contains complete history of save/load events and I updated this tool to show the numbers.

Btw. my numbers before the bug are: saves: 8208, loads: 2106 (so I load every fourth save).
Not too much comparing to your 3500...

 

[Margal666]

Any news on this, I'm having the exact same issue with all the same symptoms?

 

[SigilFey]

I honestly think he's narrowed it down. I still haven't had an opportunity to try out the macro-save tool, but I will. I haven't been able to game at all for the last two weeks. (Stupid, dumb, real life! Always interfering with my make-believe adventures! )

 

[karlblau]

Any news on this, I'm having the exact same issue with all the same symptoms?

Welcome to the club, Margal666. The club of those gamers, who are running a doomed witcher.

Yes, there are news, but not exactly good news, as you'll see below. If you like, you could do some things:
- Submit a support request / bug report to CD project red and upload a saved game shortly before corruption occurs.
Here is the link: http://en.cdprojektred.com/contact-support/
- Tell us the exact version and installation history of your game; e.g. TW3 GOTY 1.31 downloaded from Steam/GOG,
date of installation and if known, name of installation .exe file.
- Tell us the size of your last savefile
- Compile and run the W3SavegameEditor modified by Salvatore80, run it with your last intact savegame,
and tell us the number of loads before the bug. I can try to send you an exe of the program as PM, if you prefer.
(The program will crash, if there is no Witcher 3 savegame in your documents folder.)

karlblau, if you're interested, I have full history of my first playthrough in over 100+ saves until bug has occurred, I can upload it somewhere. I don't think I'll be able to achieve decent save/load per minute ratio on my gaming laptop for testing like you did, but let me know if you'd like do them yourself.

My gaming PC is not a powerful system, it was designed to be silent and efficient. It is a 5 year old i5-3570K cpu on a Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H mainboard with 16GB RAM and currently a MSI GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X card, system is Win 10 professional 1607. The only recommendation to run the keyboard macro is a SSD instead of a conventional harddisk.

Currently I run tests on saves selected by the method of nested intervals to find the oldest save with the bug in a collection of more than 300 saves, but the results are not encouraging: Every save tested so far can be driven into corruption, if I'm patient enough. Every save has the bug already. And I'm nearly at the start of the game.
It is like looking into an abyss: I realize, TW3 is a best in class AAA game sold several million times, and GOTY 1.31 is the final version. The probability is nearly zero, that such a disastrous bug is still in the game, it should have been reported by thousands of gamers and been fixed long ago. But all data available to me indicate: The bug is there, and it is worse, than initially anticipated.

Maybe every GOTY 1.31 user on every PC has this bug lurking in the background. I await eagerly the results of an independent test by SigilFey.

If I can find a last good save / first buggy save, I'll locate it in your saves too. For 128 saves, this will take about 7 test runs and I would ask you for these 7 files one by one.

Now you don't need to assume anything! Please check https://github.com/Salvatore80/W3SavegameEditor, as I mentioned before a savegame file contains complete history of save/load events and I updated this tool to show the numbers.

Great, simply great. This was very helpful, therefore with a thousand thanks one of my favorites suitable for the situation especially for you: 'Here's to the Bard' song from "The Bard's Tale" (2004) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbsNlHANRbI
(The Bard, kind of an anti-hero in a rpg parody driving the story by crazy actions, freed the dangerous Orkney dragon, who burned Finstown, and is celebrated by conquering Vikings.)

To build the modified W3SavegameEditor.exe with Visual Studio Community 2017 v15.3.2 I had to update the packages Costura.Fody 1.3.3.0 to 1.6.2 and Fody 1.28.3 to 2.1.2, if not I got errors like https://github.com/Fody/Fody/issues/277. I'd propose, to test this with your version of MSVC and then change to current packages on github. Could you publish/release an executable version for the gamers out there, who are not used to such things? I myself am not a developer and never did anything actively with github.

Did you find a way, to scroll down in a list of Children? I just could look at the start and the end (by changing the index from ascending to decending).

Btw. my numbers before the bug are: saves: 8208, loads: 2106 (so I load every fourth save).
Not too much comparing to your 3500...

What is the size of your last savefile?

Here are my numbers, always in this sequence (can't make a table here):
date/time, quest to start/end, saves, loads, total loads until corruption, size of savefile, remarks
18.02.2017 22:28, The Nilfgaardian Connection _____, 977,135, >3500, 985KB ___ 1st save in Velen, test running
04.03.2017 01:55, An Invitation from Keira Metz ____, 1715, 308, 2950, 1271KB __ only mainquest in Velen done
14.03.2017 02:45, Sunken Chest _______________, 2466, 473, 2505, 1401KB __ all of Velen is explored
19.03.2017 02:09, Pyres of Novigrad ____________, 2751, 556, 2353, 1463KB __ Novigrad not yet entered
29.04.2017 00:23, Destination: Skellige__________, 4509, 1105, 2055, 2097KB __ before first trip to Skellige
05.08.2017 01:39, The Isle of Mists (ready to go)____, 6660, 1779, 1780, 3005KB _ doing quests up to level 27

My last assumption, that there is a fixed limit around 3500 for the number of possible loads / fast travels between different maps was wrong. Instead, the limit depends - in a first approximation - on the cumulated size of all savefiles loaded or better something related to it, and therefore goes down, when the player explores more and more of the game, and the size of the savefile increases.

The equivalence of loads and fast travels shows, that the bug is not related to reading from a savefile, but instead something goes wrong in the game engine each time, when a map is loaded and adjusted to the current state of the game. I'd really like to get some attention from CD project red support for this problem, if it materializes further. I don't dream of a fix, but I'm afraid to encounter this ugly bug in their next game again. Until now, no reaction from support since 06.08.2017

 

[DrDeathhand]

Dear KarlBlau,

I am responding to your post regarding the corruption of one's savegames / Inventory while playing the Witcher 3.
A couple of weeks ago I began to experience this problem to. Since then I have been stuck in playing the Witcher3.
Contacting tech support did not do anything for me.

Let me first tell you where I am in the game, what version of the game I am playing and all that kind of stuff.
1. I am playing version 1.31 of the game via GOG. I have been playing for 1883 hours and 19 minutes.
The game was installed when first released in 2015 (I preordered 2 collector editions of the game) and updated the game after that.
Concerning this bug I have done complete reinstalls of the game but concerning this bug it doesnt matter at all.

2. In the Main story line I have finished all side quests (except the soldier Statuette) and in the main quest I am at the point where I need to sail
to the Isle of Mists. I finished the Heart of Stone expansion. When I was about to finish the main story I stopped playing the game because I knew Blood and Wine was about to be released
so then I began playing some other games like Fallout 4 and stuff and thus on June 17th 2017 I began playing the game again. So right now I am playing the Blood and Wine expansion. When
continuing playing the Witcher 3 on the 17th of June 2017 I had accumulated an experience level of 52.

3. I dont know of this is important but for most of the game I have not used any mods. For these last months I have used two / three mods on and off. One is a graphics mod (Ultimate graphics mod)
which allows one to tinker with graphics settings otherwise hidden or unchangeable, one is an XP mod (alwaysFullXP) which always gives you full quest XP no matter what level you are (I lost HUGE amounts of XP because I found out really late in the game that quests are level related and thus I had tons of grey quests in my journal and had done TONS of grey quests which gave me like 2 XP) and one is another XP mod (FullMonsterExperience) which allowed me to regain the XP I lost because of the XP problem I just described)
Right now I am only using the Graphics Mod and the AlwaysFullXP mod (because of my high level)
Also I use a program called Cheat Engine to 1. at moments increase my carry weight (this because sometimes when in the middle of a forest or something you get encrumbled and then its a damn pain to stop exploring, go back to a city, sell or dissemble those items and then continue exploring. So I have kept up with my inventory, I stored some items, most other items I have sold or dissembled so my carry weight is always normal within the game limits with about 20 or 30 carry weight left but when that is gone and I am not near a town / city then I will use that to continue exploring before going to a town / city and sell / dissemble those items. 2. to increase gold

I did find out that the Mods I have been using dont have to do anything with this whole savegame corruption because I played the entire game for about 1800 hours without any corruption occuring)

4. I did send an email to tech support but they did not know what to do with this problem. They said because of me using mods they cant / do anything with my savegame because its to much effort trying to search out the problem. They said I have to much inventory items etc to go through it all. I do have ALOT of inventory items like alchemy ingredients and crafting materials, books, food etc but all has been gathered, bought normally without cheating or changing anything.

5. The last savegame with an uncorrupted inventory thatI can load / save then reload without immediately getting corrupted is from the 25th of August at 12:16:54 size: 4.099KB
The last savegame with an uncorrupted inventory that I CANT load / save then reload because of the inventory getting corrupted is from the 25th of August at 23:00:29 size: 4.095KB
The last savegame I saved when I eventually found out I have a corrupt inventory (the savegame in which I was the furthest with exploring and stuff) is from 26th of August at 21:28:43 size: 4.097KB

6. Concerning the total amount of savegames. Right now I have a total of 6902 savegames. All these savegames are from this same playthrough (which is my first)


7. I want to run the W3SavegameEditor modified by Salvatore80. I have downloaded it but I do not have the .EXE file to run it. Can you please send it to me???

8. Let me describe what happened when I first encountered the bug / corruption.
For me it apparently happened on the 25th of August 2017 after playing the game for about 1800 hours.
I only noticed this problem about a day later when I went into my inventory to change my Trophies.
On the 25th of August and the days before that and the one after that I was exploring the city of Beauclair in Toussaint
and because of that did not do much in my Inventory. Then when exploring the last part of the Palace I encountered some wolves
which I wanted to battle, so I went to my inventory to chose the grave hag trophy (which I carry around with a wyvern trophy)
for the 5% extra experience bonus) I noticed the grave hag trophy was gone!
After that I noticed exactly the same things you all experienced with your inventory. Empty spots but in those empty spots are items with
descriptions like Item_name_body_torso_II or items that disappear and or change into other items. For example when I switch
trophies sometimes they disappear or change into crafting items etc.


9. I dont know of my sys specs are of any use for you but here they are.
CAse = Coolermaster Cosmos 2
PSU = Corsair AX1200I
Motherboard = Gigabyte Z77x-UP7
Processor = Intel I7 3770K
CPU Cooler = Corsair H100i
RAM = 32 GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 2133hz
Graphics card = MSI GTX 1080TI Lightning
Soundcard = Creative Labs XFI XtremeGamer Fatal1ty pro
Optical drive = 1x LG Blueray Writer.
Monitor = Samsung Syncmaster P2450
network card= 2x onboard
Harddisk = 5x Western Digital Caviar Black 6TB WD6001FAEX (7200rpm, SATA III, 64MB)
1x Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB (7200rpm, SATA III, 32MB)
1x SSD Samsung 850 Pro 512GB (SATA III) OS
2x SSD Samsung 850 Pro 512GB (SATA III) Game drive plus documents/savegame drive
Internet connection = Glassfiber 600Mbps up and down.
OS = Windows 7 Enterprise 64 Bits (fresh install) and all recent patches and updates from windows update
DirectX version = 11
Anti Virus program = Kasperski Anti Virus 2016
Vid card drivers = Detonator latest version
Soundcard drivers = latest version
Internet explorer version = 10 with all the latest patches
Mail program used = Outlook ( Office 2010)

Alright I hope that with this information we can do something about this stupid corruption bug because right now I am totally stuck with the Witcher3.
I am really sad about this because I really do want to continue exploring Toussaint and then finally finish the main quest.
I really hope you or others can help find out what this problem is all about and maybe finally solve this stupid problem. I really do not
want to completely start over a complete new Witcher game....

Awaiting your response,

DrDeathhand

 

[DrDeathhand]

I honestly think he's narrowed it down. I still haven't had an opportunity to try out the macro-save tool, but I will. I haven't been able to game at all for the last two weeks. (Stupid, dumb, real life! Always interfering with my make-believe adventures! )

Dear SigiFey,

Any updates regarding testing for this savegame corruption bug?
I am also experiencing it and because of it I cant continue playing the Witcher.
So pleassseee pretty please try it out / test it out and give us an update

 

[SigilFey]

Dear SigiFey,

Any updates regarding testing for this savegame corruption bug?
I am also experiencing it and because of it I cant continue playing the Witcher.
So pleassseee pretty please try it out / test it out and give us an update

Sorry! Not yet. I teach -- busy time of year. If I do get a minute (and I'm not moderating ), I'm most likely seeking chocolate.

Not sure if I misrepresented my intent above. I think it's possible that the save system might be part of the problem...but even if it can be confirmed, it likely won't be easy or quick to discover a fix or workaround. It may not even be possible, given the complexity of the engine. Not trying to be a pessimist, just don't want anyone to get too excited.

 

[DrDeathhand]

Sorry! Not yet. I teach -- busy time of year. If I do get a minute (and I'm not moderating ), I'm most likely seeking chocolate.

Not sure if I misrepresented my intent above. I think it's possible that the save system might be part of the problem...but even if it can be confirmed, it likely won't be easy or quick to discover a fix or workaround. It may not even be possible, given the complexity of the engine. Not trying to be a pessimist, just don't want anyone to get too excited.

Dear SigilFey,

Thank you very much for your response.
I would like to reply to that. We all understand the issue of time. I also work full time (at least 50 / 60 hours a week) and besides that have a lot of other real life things going on.
So we totally understand if you do not have the time to deal with this. But if you do not have the time to do something with this problem like testing out and stuff then can you please forward this problems to the developers of the game??

I have contacted them before but I was probably not clear enough about the problem and thus my problem was brushed aside with the excuse "you are using mods so we cant do anything"
So If you please contact them as a Modarator then you can explain the problem more clearly and encourage them to dive into this problem.

This way something hopefully will be done with this corruption problem.

Can you please do that??

 

[SigilFey]

So we totally understand if you do not have the time to deal with this. But if you do not have the time to do something with this problem like testing out and stuff then can you please forward this problems to the developers of the game??

Unfortunately, work on TW3 was ended a good while ago. Tech Support is available to assist with any known fixes, but any remaining issues either a.) cannot be fixed as the solution would potentially cause more serious issues elsewhere in the game or b.) the actual source of the problem simply could not be found.

I have contacted them before but I was probably not clear enough about the problem and thus my problem was brushed aside with the excuse "you are using mods so we cant do anything" So If you please contact them as a Modarator then you can explain the problem more clearly and encourage them to dive into this problem.

And that's always been the case with modded games. Mods simply introduce too many variables; it makes troubleshooting the default game-state virtually impossible. No way of telling where the issue actually arises. If testing this save corruption thing, be sure you're using a vanilla installation with an unmodded saved game. If mods have been used at any point during the playthrough, it may invalidate any "official" results.

Right now, this isn't something that I can raise with Tech Support. Best bet is to just plug away and see what we can find. As I stated earlier in the thread, if it's a "problem of large numbers", there isn't anything to be done except prevent it from happening. Such "bugs" are actually the engine hitting an upper limit for assigned values. Only way to fix that is not assign such values, seriously modify the core engine, or build a new engine from the ground up.

(Draws his marshmallow stick with a flourish. Holds it aloft.) We must forge our own way!

My primary interest at this point is finding a preventative step.

 

[DrDeathhand]

Unfortunately, work on TW3 was ended a good while ago. Tech Support is available to assist with any known fixes, but any remaining issues either a.) cannot be fixed as the solution would potentially cause more serious issues elsewhere in the game or b.) the actual source of the problem simply could not be found.




And that's always been the case with modded games. Mods simply introduce too many variables; it makes troubleshooting the default game-state virtually impossible. No way of telling where the issue actually arises. If testing this save corruption thing, be sure you're using a vanilla installation with an unmodded saved game. If mods have been used at any point during the playthrough, it may invalidate any "official" results.

Right now, this isn't something that I can raise with Tech Support. Best bet is to just plug away and see what we can find. As I stated earlier in the thread, if it's a "problem of large numbers", there isn't anything to be done except prevent it from happening. Such "bugs" are actually the engine hitting an upper limit for assigned values. Only way to fix that is not assign such values, seriously modify the core engine, or build a new engine from the ground up.

(Draws his marshmallow stick with a flourish. Holds it aloft.) We must forge our own way!

My primary interest at this point is finding a preventative step.

Dear SigilFey,

Thank you for your response.

I have to say one thing, from reading back you have been monitoring this forum topic / post for quite a while now and by now multiple people have responded with this problem and within these list of people there are persons that have not used any mods, for instance a person named ManPerson responded and said that he does not use any mods and also got this problem.
So it looks like this most deff is not a MOD issue or something.

Anyways, I do really hope you can help us to find the problem and find a solution to this problem.
Right now I am busy emptying my inventory completely which takes a LONGGG time (maby there should be an option to select all items and drop them all at once or create a drop all items button or something) and then trying to save / load / reload my game to see if the bug comes back

 

[DrDeathhand]

I've run into a game breaking issue in my current NG+ playthrough where my save games are repeatedly becoming corrupted after a certain number of saves. The symptoms are: glitchy invisible items appearing in inventory, normal items disappearing from inventory, non-ammo items loaded into crossbow as items, and occasionally Geralt's face vanishing altogether. The attached screenshot shows several of the inventory bugs.

These issues started appearing near the end of the main storyline, and through self diagnosis I've discovered that no matter which earlier save (hours or even days before the bug appears) I reload to prior to the appearance of the save game corruption, and no matter what I do in the game (including just standing in one spot and saving several times) after a certain amount of time or certain number of saves the same problem pops up every single time. The problem only appears after saving and loading, or less commonly after fast traveling.

After several hours of experimentation the corruption appears to be related to the count of number of loads accumulated in a given save. I have several unbugged save game files prior to the appearance of the glitches, all of which eventually become bugged. Save game #1 from several hours before the bug becomes bugged every time after the following: save, reload, save, reload. Save game #2 from the day before the bug requires 10 saves and reloads before the bug appears. Save game #3 from 2 days before the bug requires 17 saves and reloads before the bug appears. The number of saves and reloads before the save becomes corrupted is the same no matter what I do in the game.

While I did play with the FriendlyHud mod, I don't believe it is the source of the problem because even after removing the mod and replaying from an earlier point prior to the save game becoming corrupt, the problem still appeared as usual. I own the game through Steam and have both reverified my files numerous times and done a clean reinstall, with no impact.

I've put over 650 hours into this game and I've never run into this issue before, so please help me diagnose the problem! If there's any way to prevent this problem appearing, that would be enough since I have plenty of unbugged saves to restart from. Right now, I'm running into this problem every single time and I cannot progress in the game. I am happy to attach a save game, but the file exceeds the allowable attachment size limit.

Dear Molossos,

Are you still experiencing this bug? Have you found a solution for it??

 

[DrDeathhand]

I use several mods (screenshot of them attached below), most of them are graphical tweaks or bug fixes. The bugs occur even after completely removing all mods. I used a few tweaks from the compendium on these forums to fix/enhance shadows, but reverted to the default values for "High" shadow quality. The tweaked values fixed the ambient occlusion issues with some shadows, but made all shadows in game very low-res. I also played around with some console commands (spawning monsters, changing weather) but never saved the game after using it. I have all DLC installed and only had to re-install the free DLC pack one time after accidentally removing it in GoG Galaxy. This was months ago and the only issue it caused was being unable to load any saves where Geralt was using one of the DLC hair/beard styles. Re-installing the DLC remedied that.

I've put dozens of hours into the game after the above "tweaks" with no issues. All of the bugs I've been experiencing have been a recent occurrence after starting the "Open Sesame" quest chain in Hearts of Stone.

Dear Austin26423,

Did you find a solution for this problem? I have played for about 1850 hours before encountering this problem.
I have almost finished the main game (only need to do the isle of mist part) and finished the heart of stone expansion.
Right now I am playing.. or well stopped playing.. Blood and Wine and first Encountered this error while starting / playing the Paperchase quest.

 

[karlblau]

1. I am playing version 1.31 of the game via GOG. I have been playing for 1883 hours and 19 minutes.
...
5. The last savegame with an uncorrupted inventory that I can load / save then reload without immediately getting corrupted is from the 25th of August at 12:16:54 size: 4.099KB

This is the highest number of hours ever seen, before the bug occurred (sigh!) and a very large savegame, expecially for a point in the main story before the isle of mists and without Blood and Wine done. Therefore I expect, you'll have the lowest number of loads ever seen too.

7. I want to run the W3SavegameEditor modified by Salvatore80. I have downloaded it but I do not have the .EXE file to run it. Can you please send it to me???

I'll try to append a compiled .EXE file to this post. If this does not work, I'll try to send it to you by PM or I might even need your email address (by PM). Please tell me the number of loads in your last uncorrupted savegame.
OK, the .exe is an invalid attachment. I'll try a PM.

3. I dont know of this is important but for most of the game I have not used any mods.

This kind of savegame corruption is not caused by mods, or anything you do ingame. I never used any mod, and there are others here, who did not use mods too.

4. I did send an email to tech support but they did not know what to do with this problem. They said ...

You got a response? In August 2017? Lucky you! I never saw any reaction, waiting for a month. Which email address did you use to contact support? But, to be honest, there is no hope, that CDPR will fix this bug, and probably neither CDPR nor anybody out there will find a workaround. But if the message reaches the team doing the next version of engine, chances are, we won't see this problem / engine limitation in their next game again. But ... I'm warned now anyway ;-)

9. I dont know of my sys specs are of any use for you but here they are.

Hmm ... I use a Gigabyte Z77 mainboard and Kaspersky Endpoint security - anything else is different. Most probably, the problem is not hardware or Windows related. It is in the game engine.

My primary interest at this point is finding a preventative step.

There is a cure. But like in real life, the medicine is bitter, and it will not save a Geralt, who has neglected the basic principles of healty lifestyle for too long - ignorance is no excuse.
Thou shalt not
- reload your game without need, this is the 1st commandment,
- grind.
Especially, don't
- fight enemies above your level, because Geralt might die,
- kill mosters and bandits only for experience or loot, this will bloat your savegame,
- collect too many plants and crafting materials, this will bloat your savegame.
Instead,
- go through the game with a poor Geralt, as described in "the books",
- do quests (all quests) in a correct order with ascending level requirements.

But what about the sinners out there, who already experienced final damnation? Salvatore80, what an appropriate username here, has enhanced Atvaark's unfinished W3SavegameEditor and now it shows the total number of reloads already done. If older savegames before corruption are available, select one with a sufficiently lower number of reloads, and go on according to the above principles. Take into consideration, that savegames will increase in size while advancing in the game. See the diagram I've added for explanation - this is work in progress. Probably 50 - 200 remaining loads are sufficient to complete (not only beat!) the whole game this way - based on the experience with my 2nd playthrough. And this is a special challenge and fun.

Right now I am busy emptying my inventory completely which takes a LONGGG time (maby there should be an option to select all items and drop them all at once or create a drop all items button or something) and then trying to save / load / reload my game to see if the bug comes back

This is a waste of time. Others, including me, tried that several times. You'll end up with a Geralt without face or other vital parts of his body, and/or crashes during fast travel between maps. The bug will persist in every case.

 

[SigilFey]

I know I'm not being much help here, but the graph alone is highlighting what I feared. It's a matter of the engine being able to accurately record steadily increasing values over time. 1800+ hours is massive amount of game time. I never had a playthrough of the main quest take me more than 100 hours. (Usually about 80, here.) I've also never played NG+, which may exacerbate the corruption issue, as reaching high experience levels stretches many of the game mechanics as it is. (I'm very curious now to find a night when I can run the save macro and see where mine bugs out.)

Trying to clarify the "modded save-game issue" -- it may be clear to you, me, and Harvey the Invisible Rabbit here that mods are not causing the issue, but there are two things to consider that CDPR would have to take into account:

1.) Many (dedicated and talented!) people often believe they understand how something works...but they don't. Only the people that actually built the engine can say for sure.

2.) Having a modded saved game (most often) makes it impossible to compare or 100% verify that something is happening in vanilla. This isn't a matter of believing or being convinced one way or another; it's literally not possible to look at the vanilla system because it has been completely changed in places. Think of it as taking a photo and putting the original into perfect preservation. Then, 100 years later, you take an identical photo using old-fashioned film on modern equipment. Both are placed in front of a judge. One of them was torn a bit by the camera. Which one? How would you ever be able to tell which one was the original without knowing exactly what the conditions were when each were taken? They're both in perfect condition, identical, and completely different. The judge would have to take apart both cameras to figure out which one caused the tear.

Therefore, it's best to try to re-create a few results on different vanilla installations. That's the only way to be 100% sure it's not somehow mod-related. Any evidence coming from modded saves may complicate the issue.

As for the whole venture, I don't have an enormous amount of hope for a fix. Playing TW3 the way that people play Dark Souls, Bethesda games, or MMOs was never what the game was intended for. (Even one playthrough of NG+ without a glitch or weirdness is a stretch!) It sounds more like the engine was simply pushed the to its absolute limit, like running a car for 45,000 miles with no maintenance -- something is going to break, dang it!

 

[karlblau]

Here is a zipped version of the compiled W3SavegameEditor.exe modified by Salvatore80, this format can be uploaded here. I have added a screenshot, how the GUI looks like. If you click on Variables, you will see the full power of this unfinished piece of work - but be warned, lists of variables with thousands of members may take a long time to be displayed. It is required to have a directory with The Witcher 3 savegames at the usual location, else the program will crash without further messages.

I have uploaded and checked the program with www.virustotal.com, you can do the same to be safe.



Note: You need to be logged in to be able to see and download the attached file.

 

[DrDeathhand]

No Title

Here is a zipped version of the compiled W3SavegameEditor.exe modified by Salvatore80, this format can be uploaded here. I have added a screenshot, how the GUI looks like. If you click on Variables, you will see the full power of this unfinished piece of work - but be warned, lists of variables with thousands of members may take a long time to be displayed. It is required to have a directory with The Witcher 3 savegames at the usual location, else the program will crash without further messages.

I have uploaded and checked the program with www.virustotal.com, you can do the same to be safe.



Note: You need to be logged in to be able to see and download the attached file.

Dear Karlblau,

Alright, I got the EXE file and ran the savegameeditor thing. Here are the results. I added screenshots. One made from the last savegame where the inventory is still intact.
As soon as I save that game and reload it I get a corrupted inventory with empty items and the face if Gerald which is gone.
The other screenshot is from a savegame where I can at least save and load and save and load the game two or three times before it gets corrupted.

I hope you can see or do something with the screenshots I have send.