Need Help - Inventory / Loot system broken

[FakeJack]

Greetings,
i played the witcher enhanced edition several times since i first downloaded it but this time i am facing a game breaking problem that i never experienced before.

After hours of gaming, suddenly all my items in inventory disappear and i can't loot any monster / crate as their loot seems to be empty. The game is mod-free, tried to re-install many times but nothing to do.

I tried to open my last savefile with TWeditor (enhanced version of course) and it seems that all items are actually listed in inventory tab; also savefile appear not to be corrupt. If i try to start a new game, there's even a chance i won't get the two potions from vesemir during prologue. If i receive any item, it will obviously be some random items with a random template (i.e. a club, a random potion, a sapphire...)

So i tried to open the game through djinnii adventure editor and looking at logs, it seems like there is some sort of texture problem showing when i try to loot / dragging any items.

Please, anyone can tell me how to fix this?

 

[SigilFey]

Probably something about the way your system is handling legacy software.

1.) Ensure the game is not installed anywhere under Program Files or Program Files(x86). These are protected directories, and will likely result in problems for games. Install directly to the root of your drive or a folder of your own creation: e.g. C:\The Witcher\... or C:\MyRPGgames\The Witcher\...

2.) If using Windows 10, ensure that any game-related files found in your ...\[UserName]\Documents\... folder has its Permissions set to "Everyone".

3.) Always configure game .EXEs to "Run as administrator". Another good trick for older games is to tick "Disable desktop composition," and "Disable display scaling on high DPI resolutions."

4.) Ensure you have DirectX 9.0c (June 2010 standalone installer) installed.

5.) Try setting the game to run in compatibility mode with Windows 7. If that doesn't work, try the Windows XP settings.

6.) Ensure the game's installation folder is added to the exceptions list of any anti-virus or firewall you may be using.

Let us know how that goes!

 

[FakeJack]

Thanks for your kind reply.

I switched compatibility mode from windows 7 to XP and installed Directx 9.0c (from standalone installer you indicated). It seems it worked like a charm!

Also, for everyone else out there experiencing same problem, i made a backup copy of my incriminated saves, then deleted them from local AND cloud, and did a fresh reinstall, then i re-uploaded back old saves and it seems all went fine.

Thanks for your help, have a splendid day!

 

[SigilFey]

I switched compatibility mode from windows 7 to XP and installed Directx 9.0c (from standalone installer you indicated). It seems it worked like a charm!

Hoorays! Easy fixes are my favorite kind.

 

[FakeJack]

Unfortunately after few hours of game it seems the problem has occurred again

Same story: open the game, load last save, and inventory empty.
So i tried again to start a new game but this time i went deeper launching the game through the adventure editor and looked closer at the log, i found this error:

"

Object template it_potion_001 [type 2025 - UTI ] doesn't exist.

That was right after Vesemir gave me Swallow and Thunder potions.
If i try to open the inventory instead i get this error from logs:

DragSlot Empty Item Update - zglosic Danielowi

If i try to drag any item from the inventory slot (and i can't actually) i get this:

ERROR in CDragSlot:ChangeTexture()

I can't honestly understand why i got all this problem after years of linear, bug-free gaming on the witcher 1 ...

UPDATE:
i also bought this game on steam, same problem. I think maybe the problem is with windows 10, but again, this is the first time i am experiencing this

 

[SigilFey]

Hm. Maybe disable cloud saving and see if that has any effect.

Have you tried verifying / repairing through Steam? Also, which of the #1-6 I posted above have you done. Seems like a weird issue, so I'm still leaning towards Windows as the culprit.

Alternatively, it's possible that it's the save-state of those particular files. Have you ever used any mods, now or in the past?

 

[FakeJack]

I tried all 6 step you told, plus i already tried to disable cloud saving and repairing through steam.

No mods installed right now...

I also tried to grant all access to steam folder, the witcher folder and disabled windows folder access control; for the first 3-4 times it worked (all inventory restored, both in old game and in new game) but after a couple of starts the inventory started to have item tooltip problem, then in the next load all disappered again.

Seems to be a system-related problem, but i don't know what to try anymore lol!

 

[SigilFey]

This is certainly strange. Can you tell more about your system? When did you buy it and where? Custom built or off the shelf? Was Windows 10 installed from the start, or did you start with an older version of Windows and upgrade to 10? What anti-virus are you using? What are your UAC settings?

If there were a problem with the item data itself, the issue would occur the same way every time. The only thing I can think of is that it affects a potion in a specific state. For example, the data for Swallow 3/3 is fine. The data for Swallow 1/3 is fine. But the data for Swallow 2/3 was corrupted. (However, if so, a verify / repair would have found and fixed it.)

That leads me directly to:

No mods installed right now...

That's only half the consideration. Have you ever used mods for this playthrough at any point in the past, even if they're uninstalled now? Especially when you use then remove mods, it may still leave resident data in your save-state that can't be removed. This is the cause of strange issues the vast majority of the time.

 

[FakeJack]

Ok, i have some interesting news.
But first:

This is certainly strange. Can you tell more about your system

I bought this pc years ago, off the shelf (ASUS M51AC) Intel core i7-4770, 8GB RAM, the only upgrade i made is an asus ROG strix GTX 980; a clean version of windows 8 was already installed, then i updated to windows 10.

What anti-virus are you using?

I have no antivirus installed except windows defender / firewall

Now, the interesting part came when i tried to switch off some security options through Settings -> Update and Security -> App and browser control -> Exploit protection settings: there, i switched off all security settings.

This is actually the first time the problem disappered WITHOUT reinstalling the game but simply disabling these options. After a game or two, i started to notice a weird inventory tooltip problem (which i would briefly describe as the impossibility to select an item in certain areas of inventory because its missing tooltip) but i managed to solve this simply by switching game resolution from 1920x1080 to a lower resolution. Ok, tooltip problem gone, exit game, a day has passed, start the game, load last save and tooltip problem again: this time, i switched resolution back to 1920x1080 and it solved itstelf, but after i re-launched the game, all items disappeared again.

An even more interesting part came when, after disabling all security options, i tried to disable UAC control on file and folders and here we are: now it works again, however i don't think for long, because i noticed the weird tooltip problem again (the one i mentioned before).

Before i switched off UAC settings, i even tried to change ownership of steam and the witcher folder to "Everyone" and grant "full control", but nothing changed, so i may be wrong but i'm pretty sure the problem is not related to Folders / Files permissions.

That's still an inconclusive workaround, but at least i'm pretty sure this issue is not mods-related, as it kinda solved by changing system settings.

Anyway,

That's only half the consideration. Have you ever used mods for this playthrough at any point in the past, even if they're uninstalled now? Especially when you use then remove mods, it may still leave resident data in your save-state that can't be removed. This is the cause of strange issues the vast majority of the time.

i did use some mods in the past, but nothing to do with this "saveline" or playthrough and nothing related to texture replacements etc, just movement speed mods that affected only 2 scriptfiles (creaturespeed.d2a and moverates.d2a)

 

[SigilFey]

The way you're describing it now sounds more like you've hit the inventory bug, although that's usually accompanied by slow-down and crashing within the inventory menu itself. Are you seeing anything like that?

How much stuff is in your inventory (meaning Geralt's inventory -- the stash doesn't matter), and how long has it been there?

You can try using this utility, created by @ssdany and @karlblau. You'll have to read up in the thread about exactly how to use it, but it's possible this may solve the issue. However, this will likely only affect your game if you're experiencing this issue.

i did use some mods in the past, but nothing to do with this "saveline" or playthrough and nothing related to texture replacements etc, just movement speed mods that affected only 2 scriptfiles (creaturespeed.d2a and moverates.d2a)

Agreed. Likely not. Nuts...that would have been the simplest answer.

You might want to send a saved game into Support. They may be able to verify whether or not there's an issue in your save-state:

http://en.cdprojektred.com/support/

What remains after this is probably a more severe system issue. Are you seeing anything weird with any other games?

 

[tommy5761]

I dunno but it may be a scaling issue. Are you using any beta programs for your video card. A long time ago a user was using a beta for MSI Afterburner and that really messed up his inventory as well. Maybe try turning off DSR through Nvidia control panel as well. Also I seem to remember chat programs like teamspeak caused some issues with W1.

 

[FakeJack]

Greetings,

thanks for all your replies and for the support received.

I did wait a couple of days just to do more tests, and it came out it was a really annoying application that caused (i still don't know why) this whole inventory bug. The application is OC Guru overclock utility from Gigabyte. I normally use it to run GPU fans at custom values (not for overclocking purposes) so i don't know why it was causing all this mess. Every test i made so far has been followed by a computer's reboot. It just happened sometimes i forgot to launch oc guru and it worked.

Plus, i tried to re-enable all the security option i disabled before, the "Exploit Protection" ones, specifically. They seem to cause some problems too, as i tried to re-enable it and the game did not start at all, without any error or warning.

At least now i know i don't have to run OC Guru and keep these security options enabled to play without any problem!

I actually feel stupid about all this mess

Thanks for all your support!

 

[SigilFey]

Great to hear you sorted it out. If you want to manage the fan speed curves, try MSI Afterburner instead. I've been using it for years, and I've never had the slightest issue. (It also allows overclocking, but I, too, only use it to keep the GPU core below 70 C.)