Save files are corrupted

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I don't think the issue is necessarily tied to crafting. Maybe it makes it worse faster, I don't know. But I'm about 80hrs in, and have maybe crafted 5 items in total.

Looking at my save file sizes... they just get bigger every save. All I do is normal gameplay - kill people, loot people, sell stuff, do missions, drive around etc. The save file gets bigger every time.

Looking at the last 3 saves - I drove 4km to a mission, didn't pick up any stuff, answered a phone call on the way - the save file got 15kb bigger.

So I don't think there's any way of stopping the bloat, but hoping there is. I like to do long, thorough playthroughs, and now I'm stressing over a bloating save file.

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I also did everything at Watson, now doing everything on other places, at lvl 22 and at 4300KB. An old save at lvl 13 is at 3400KB. I break cheap items I find, sell others, have like 7000-8000 crafting mats. Tech 3 and I was about to being speccing into that but apparently at this rate I won't be able to finish my "complete everything" playthru.

CDP so far only saying "we might increase limit in the future" isn't trust-inducing so I'm kinda cooled to the game since yesterday. I don't feel like playing with a Damocles' Sword hanging above my head, preventing me to do whatever I want. CDP should flat out say "we're working to fix this in the new patch" with no excuses.
 
I don't think the issue is necessarily tied to crafting. Maybe it makes it worse faster, I don't know. But I'm about 80hrs in, and have maybe crafted 5 items in total.

Looking at my save file sizes... they just get bigger every save. All I do is normal gameplay - kill people, loot people, sell stuff, do missions, drive around etc. The save file gets bigger every time.

Looking at the last 3 saves - I drove 4km to a mission, didn't pick up any stuff, answered a phone call on the way - the save file got 15kb bigger.

So I don't think there's any way of stopping the bloat, but hoping there is. I like to do long, thorough playthroughs, and now I'm stressing over a bloating save file.

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I did some testing on my end. I had quite of few things in my inventory because i like to keep different outfits and weapons i might use for different occasions. So i had a lot of junk. Disassembling everything brought my file size down a bit. This makes me think disassembling and components you have doesnt increase size. I then essentially wiped my inventory, and i lost about 60KB

I then started to craft things, essentially at the end i created a bunch of pistols. But i also crafted health stims. And after my crafting spam fest the file size increased by around 100KB.

I then sold all the things i crafted and file size went down by around 60KB. I then also sold all the components i had left, which were quite a few still, but that ended up not changing the file size. Note the file size after all this ended up being a bit bigger than it was after i first wiped my inventory, so something is sticking to the save even after i crafted and sold everything, the save isnt being cleaned completely.

So i do think something with crafting, or something with putting items in your inventory (this is harder to test without crafting) is causing the file increase. Of course there could be other things since a lot is going on in the game, but items being put in your inventory is a large contributor from what i can see.
 
a quick fix would be just remove all the deleted items from the save files

I would think so too. Why aren't deleted items removed from the save files? Is there any reason for this?

EDIT: I'm not a programmer, but does this mean a tool could potentially be made by users which lowers file size? Or is it impossible to see which items are still in the game and which aren't if they are not immediately removed when sold/used, meaning it can't be fixed?

EDIT 2: Skipping time seems to lower the file size, but only by very little for every dozen or so days. Perhaps a mod that allows you to skip a thousand days at once might help? Just theorizing here. I tried making a macro to skip time but couldn't get it to work.

EDIT 3: Made the macro. Let it run for about an hour, didn't really do anything to the save file's size.
 
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Okay so after some more testing of different things. I decided to just spam craft pistol ammo to see what happens. Given that you can only have a max of 500 ammo, and when you craft more it doesnt even show up in your inventory.

And sure enough the save file grew quite quickly. This tells me it might not even have much to do with the items themselves, but simply the act of crafting. Unless of course the excess ammo is getting stored somewhere just like an inventory item except it's just hidden from the player.

And unfortunately i havent found anyway to reliably decrease the size. Tried many things and i dont think there is anything left to try. So an official fix is the only hope i can see.

I myself havent done any side missions or main quests since act 2. Have only done gig's and ncpd missions. I have 65 hours playtime though, and my save file is 4,541 KB.

So i will continue playing as i would normally and see how the size grows, and keep everyone posted. Quite concerning though because 8mb is extremely small given what im already at and it seems a lot of other people are around this size too. Also the fact at around 6mb people have said loading begins to take long, so 6mb is looking like the soft cap.
 
I haven't responded for 3 reasons:

1.) The forums may be a bit busy, and it would be fairly unreasonable to expect that the team can give every thread constant and personal attention. I'm not sure why that would even be an expectation...

2.) I already responded with everything I can offer for the issue. Can't really offer anything else I haven't already said. I just wanted to make sure people didn't wind up inadvertantly damaging saved games that were perfectly fine.

3.) CDPR Support handles these issues. If the solution is not already known and community can't figure it out, members need to open up a ticket here:

Please, read the appropriate FAQ section to the end, ensuring all suggestions have been followed. If the problems persist, you can use the "Contact Us" link to send in a ticket.

Be sure to include your system (including specs if on PC), a brief description of the issue, and the steps taken to reproduce it (if applicable).

Based on what I'm seeing in the thread now, I'm guessing that the issue may be due to cloud saving. Also, for people that encountered it after doing the crafting / selling thing -- was this done legit in the game, or did it require you to use some method of exploit? (Like a duplication exploit for example?) If so, I'd strongly recommend against it, as that may be creating inventory or scripting issues that lead to or exacerbate the corruption.

Either way, I'd recommend everyone send in an official ticket if they haven't already done so.

If so, please modify the game quickly and accurately so that the user does not do that.
Take responsibility for this "unfinished game" that you advertised to buy from us in very pretty packaging.
 
If so, please modify the game quickly and accurately so that the user does not do that.
Take responsibility for this "unfinished game" that you advertised to buy from us in very pretty packaging.

He's just a mod on the forum, not a dev.
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Okay, so they're looking into the save file size limit now. That's good. Our saves aren't exactly corrupted though, they're just too big. I assume if they change the file size limit our saves would be back in working order.
Is there anyone with a link to the devs who might be able to give a timeframe on this? How long they're expecting a fix to take, or if they're expecting a fix at all? I know it's a busy time and I respect that, it just would be nice to know if this is something that might take a week, a month, two months...
 
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This doesn't even have anything to do with item duplication, even if you are crafting normally, with how much Crafting XP you need to get your Crafting to 20 you are expected to make a ton of items. If you didn't need so much Crafting XP and you were just expected to bring your crafting up by making a couple of things you need here and there and to patch up what's lacking in your gear, then sure, I could understand saying to not craft too much or to have too many crafting materials, even if I would not agree with it, but the game, as it is currently expects you to craft as much as possible to get your Crafting skill to 20.
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Okay, so they're looking into the save file size limit now. That's good. Our saves aren't exactly corrupted though, they're just too big. I assume if they change the file size limit our saves would be back in working order.
Is there anyone with a link to the devs who might be able to give a timeframe on this? How long they're expecting a fix to take, or if they're expecting a fix at all? I know it's a busy time and I respect that, it just would be nice to know if this is something that might take a week, a month, two months...

From what I understand, once the save size reaches 8MB, it no longer allows more data to be saved to it, so pretty much any save file that is bigger than 8MB gets cut off and corrupted. I have a feeling most of the corrupted save files are permanently corrupted, the only ones that can probably be recovered are ones that were exactly 8MB so nothing was cut off.
 
I'm a console player, has anyone had this happened to them on consoles? I'm kinda scared that ill loose all my progress because we cant even check our individual save file sizes :(
 
I'm curious to hear if this is PC specific, or a widespread issue over all platforms.
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I'm a console player, has anyone had this happened to them on consoles? I'm kinda scared that ill loose all my progress because we cant even check our individual save file sizes :(
You can, atleast on PS4. But apparently console versions have diffirent filesizes, mine are all 12.59mb.
 
I'm curious to hear if this is PC specific, or a widespread issue over all platforms.
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You can, atleast on PS4. But apparently console versions have diffirent filesizes, mine are all 12.59mb.
I've seen multiple PS4 users say their save is exactly 12.59mb, I'm guessing part of that is allocated memory and isn't the "true" file size.
 
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So, there has been some hostility going on here, posts deleted. As a reminder, the forum rules require users to always treat others (which means everyone) with kindness and respect. Thank you.
 
Thanks for all the research you guys have done on this topic. I played around 37hours (am only at 20% completion) and did quite some side jobs and looted almost everything I could grab. I have only crafted 2-3items but scrapped a huge amount of stuff. I also do not have a lot of inventory or parts. My save file is now around 2.75mb in size.
I will tone down on crafting and see if this file will grow when I just play the game normally and keep you guys posted on the progress.
 
more than 8MB save file gets corrupted, so stay below 8MB :D
also wanted to ask you guys who have more than 8MB , do you craft lots of items weapons ?
 
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