Save files are corrupted

[HasegawaTaizo]

Stop crafting and loading saves? Seriously?

After my save got corrupted i looked for a fix and i find that?


I'm done, i will do the only reasonable thing left for me to do and remove this waste of SSD space. .

 

[ArcticKiwii]

I think the biggest confusion is that people think the file size grows linearly. Which is not the case. The biggest thing that increases the file size is discovering new areas. That is from tests in this very thread. Discovering all areas seems to bring people to around 5MBs.

I know this is super anecdotal, but I'm at 70 hours - been to every (or almost every) part of the map, completed tons of side missions, did a bit of crafting, but plenty of hoarding, and just now did I pass the 5MB mark.

So if my user case is anything to go by, getting far enough into the game to discover every area and then doing so would hopefully result in a save file moderately below 5MB.

 

[crspears]

I know this is super anecdotal, but I'm at 70 hours - been to every (or almost every) part of the map, completed tons of side missions, did a bit of crafting, but plenty of hoarding, and just now did I pass the 5MB mark.

So if my user case is anything to go by, getting far enough into the game to discover every area and then doing so would hopefully result in a save file moderately below 5MB.

deleting my first post. wasnt someone with a cheat editor giving himself millions of crafting mats earlier in the thread, with no increase to save file size?

 

[LaikeBogard]

I think the biggest confusion is that people think the file size grows linearly. Which is not the case. The biggest thing that increases the file size is discovering new areas. That is from tests in this very thread. Discovering all areas seems to bring people to around 5MBs. Crafting normally, doing 100% side quests, etc.. appears to add another 2MBs. People are freaking out because they don't understand that the game normally uses 5MBs just for the areas. That doesn't mean you will grow past the 8MB limit playing normally. Most people with this issue have done an exorbitant amount of crafting.

No excuses for CDPR because there should absolutely be a failsafe. But I must stress that normally playing the game doesn't appear to breach the 8MB threshold.

You're absolutely right. Most people, even those who fully 100% the game and clear all content, will not run into this bug. I've seen your numbers before, so let's just assume they are accurate. Your save file is sitting at 7MBs total. Loads are a bit slower, but nothing game breaking going on. No big deal, there's nothing left for you to do in the game. Main missions and side content are all cleared, and I doubt driving around literally doing nothing would significantly add to your file size, if you felt the need to save at all. You should be good. For now.

Let's assume every player finishes the game this way. All of us have finished the current content and are perfectly happy with where we left our characters, ready to face the multiple content expansions we were promised in the future. Do you see the potential problem now? I see a lot of back and forth in this thread about not exploiting the crafting mechanics and just playing the game normally, but many have also confirmed that 100% playthroughs end with a save file around 7MBs. This leaves little room for the save to grow with future content, which we were promised. I've seen first hand how discovering an area of the map can bloat the save file. Do I think it's coming soon? Of course not, they have plenty of fires to put out first, but if it isn't addressed at all, "legit" players will run into this same problem a few months from now.

Again, I completely agree with your post, I'm just using it as a jumping off point. We need to turn our focus from how this effects the game now to how it could impact the game in the future. There's very little room for any new areas or questlines if this new content impacts our save file in a similar way. CDPR has even talked about supporting the modding community, so pile fan made content on top of that and we are looking at a problem that the fast majority of players will face if they do anything outside rushing the main story.

 

[cIass101]

I managed to edit the Cyberpunk2077.exe file to change values of MaxSaveSize* to 500KB but unfortunately, the 1.2 MB save is still loading fine, even after overwriting the save files with the values set to 500KB so I'm out of idea currently as to how reproduce the issue and so on to fix it that way.

[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSaveSize = 500000
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSettingsSize = 4194304
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxProfileSize = 4194304
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/ScreenshotBuffer = 1048576
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSaveSizeTotal = 500000

MaxSaveSize to 500KB
C7 05 8E 28 26 04 00 00 80 00 -> C7 05 8E 28 26 04 20 A1 07 00
C7 05 54 28 26 04 00 00 80 00 -> C7 05 54 28 26 04 20 A1 07 00

MaxSaveSizeTotal to 500KB
C7 05 6E 29 26 04 00 00 C0 00 -> C7 05 6E 29 26 04 20 A1 07 00
C7 05 34 29 26 04 00 00 C0 00 -> C7 05 34 29 26 04 20 A1 07 00

 

[CyberBossMan]

I managed to edit the Cyberpunk2077.exe file to change values of MaxSaveSize* to 500KB but unfortunately, the 1.2 MB save is still loading fine, even after overwriting the save files with the values set to 500KB so I'm out of idea currently as to how reproduce the issue and so on to fix it that way.

[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSaveSize = 500000
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSettingsSize = 4194304
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxProfileSize = 4194304
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/ScreenshotBuffer = 1048576
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSaveSizeTotal = 500000

MaxSaveSize to 500KB
C7 05 8E 28 26 04 00 00 80 00 -> C7 05 8E 28 26 04 20 A1 07 00
C7 05 54 28 26 04 00 00 80 00 -> C7 05 54 28 26 04 20 A1 07 00

MaxSaveSizeTotal to 500KB
C7 05 6E 29 26 04 00 00 C0 00 -> C7 05 6E 29 26 04 20 A1 07 00
C7 05 34 29 26 04 00 00 C0 00 -> C7 05 34 29 26 04 20 A1 07 00

Probably much harder to do but I would think you'd need to increase the maxfile size to like 12MBs and then create a save thats >8MBs but less than 12MBs to see if it fixes the issue of creating a working larger than 8MBs file... there may be some other variable in the engine limiting it to 8MBs.

 

[b_sprout]

Any way to recover saves?

55 hours in and all of my saves and auto saves load me back to the title screen with the message "saved data is damaged and cannot be loaded". Is there any recovery potential or did Every save and auto save I have get corrupted at the same time somehow?

forums.cdprojektred.com

55 hours in and all of my saves and auto saves load me back to the title screen with the message "saved data is damaged and cannot be loaded".

Is there any recovery potential or did Every save and auto save I have get corrupted at the same time somehow?

Bit late to the party, but something to try is the steam cloud - steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp

Login to that using a browser and you can download saves, just need to get the format right with cyberpunk.

Local Disk ( C:/ ) > Users > [username] > Saved Games > CD Project Red > Cyberpunk 2077
Add to a folder eg Quicksave-0
You need 3 files - metadata.json | sav.dat | screenshot.png

 

[Aki-San]

CDPR advertised an open world where you can play for eternity. then you put out a buggy mess (and that is the nicest way to say that). than they brick the games after reaching a file size bc they put a waste-leakage problem into the save file +/& have an upper limit on the file size before it bricks (which can EASILY be REACHED BY JUST DOING THE CONTENT OF THE GAME).

THIS NEEDS TO BE ADRESSED ASAP or the refunds will continue AND there will be more severe consequences (aka lawsuits). you can screw over people only so far, at some point even the most loyal community cant defend you (CDPR) anymore.

 

[JohnFishere]

"Help! Help! My save file got corrupted!"

"It's not a bug, it's a feature."

 

[burfo1]

(which can EASILY be REACHED BY JUST DOING THE CONTENT OF THE GAME).

Can you explain the EASILY part? If it's that easy, then perhaps we can follow your steps and from that we might identify what causes the problem.

I'm 58 hours into this game and my latest save file is 3.7 MB, so I must be doing something differently. Not sure what though.

 

[pagefault404]

So hopefully this turns into something, but...

On the UEG YouTube video that was linked earlier, a PC user claims to have a file at 13mb with zero corruption. I have screenshots of this too that I have attached. I would suggest maybe someone go to the video and try talking to him? I asked if he meant hisxsave folder or a single sav.dat file. No response from him yet. I did suggest he come here to inform this thread of his file. Unsure if he will.

EDIT: I am the individual named OmegaZenoir talking to him.

This is horsepoop. The game is at a hard limit of 8192KB. When attempting to write to file with data larger than that, it truncates the file to 8192KB and discards the rest of the data, also leaving out the End of File marker. This has been proven earlier in the post by looking at save files that reached 8192KB versus save files that are smaller.

Youtube comment sections are cancer, especially with emotionally charged topics like this.

Until he supplies his magical save.dat file that's greater than 8192KB, he's just some fool on the internet, and should be treated as such.

 

[AtraydeezQL]

Just wanna make a comment to those individuals considering refunds. I don't think that's going to make much of an impact really. I'm curious to see the percentage of people returning vs not. I've seen a statistic saying Cyberpunk made all of its money back from 8 years of development on day one of launch release. While these issues are frustrating, I think it's best to remain optimistic and be proactive towards trying to find a solution, whether that be providing input to developers through support tickets or the community of players coming together to create a patch themselves. Shitting on CDPR by giving negative reviews isn't going to encourage anyone to fix the problem. What's the developers incentive to fix the problem if you're going to shit on their work?

"Gamers" sent out death threats to CDPR devs because they couldn't wait for the game to come out, that's pathetic. Now because the game was rushed we have an unfinished product. Don't get me wrong I love the art style and some of the storytelling of the game, even the gameplay is cool and unique in many parts. I want to see improvements to the game, I want to see more content. So, enjoy what you have, offer helpful suggestions and emphasize the positives.

 

[CyberBossMan]

This is horsepoop. The game is at a hard limit of 8192KB. When attempting to write to file with data larger than that, it truncates the file to 8192KB and discards the rest of the data, also leaving out the End of File marker. This has been proven earlier in the post by looking at save files that reached 8192KB versus save files that are smaller.

Youtube comment sections are cancer, especially with emotionally charged topics like this.

Until he supplies his magical save.dat file that's greater than 8192KB, he's just some fool on the internet, and should be treated as such.

Yep I would caution people from taking posts from any side at face value without some proof.

There are quite a few people with hate boners for this game due to political reasons. They will manufacture drama or overexaggerate an issue because they know negative news spreads like wild fire.

Case in point that UEG guy quoting a forum mod as if they speak for all of CDPR. People lap it up without a second thought.

 

[chriscshunter]

Hence why i'm saying to chill and wait a couple of days. You don't wanna be a gonk by getting it refunded because of this exact issue and then it be fixed 24 hours later. But hey this is the internet, I know logic doesn't exist here

I'm concerned about this issue aswell as i'm 60 hours in and my save is nearing 5mb. Just have some paitence. If it's not fixed before Xmas then fine do whatever.

People like you don't seem to get it. Its already too late. I've wasted countless hours already trying to compensate for the damaged saves by replaying the content over and over. 60+ hours of my life is gone. I cut my loses at this point and I will take my money back now. If you go to a restaurant and start puking and find out they gave you food poisoning you typically don't go back. You also typically get your money back at the very least.

 

[Tracido]

Yep I would caution people from taking posts from any side at face value without some proof.

There are quite a few people with hate boners for this game due to political reasons. They will manufacture drama or overexaggerate an issue because they know negative news spreads like wild fire.

Case in point that UEG guy quoting a forum mod as if they speak for all of CDPR. People lap it up without a second thought.

The mod didn't change the GOG statement page, CDPR did..

Cyberpunk 2077 - Saved data is damaged and cannot be loaded.

Unfortunately the save is damaged and can't be recovered.Please use an older save file to continue playing and try to keep a lower amount of items and crafting materials.If you have used the item d...

support.gog.com

"Please use an older save file to continue playing and try to keep a lower amount of items and crafting materials. "

I will repeat this link for the point. https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016743298-Cyberpunk-2077-Saved-data-is-damaged-and-cannot-be-loaded-?product=gog

...

 

[TalentX]

No corrupted saves can't be restored back to useable saves. It uses a buffer to create save data. The buffer stops at 8MB and will skip any data that follows. Which means it's saving a broken file.

If they increase the size it'll only impact users that are going to exceed 8MB after that specific "fix" (really it's not a fix)

Exactly, increasing the save file limit won't solve the problem, it will only delay it.

They have to make changes so the file size automatically cannot exceed the predefined limits.

As I have stated in one of my earlier posts, I suspect that this isn't as easy to do.

Setting a save game limit also means that there must be limits of how many content the player is able to do and how many items it can collect in total.
However, that's not so unusual, because I know lots of games with such a system in mind, that limits you to have only a specific amounts of items stackable for example. Also a grid-based inventory normally is limited to a predefined render, whilest in CP77 (and TW3 respectively) the inventories are unlimited scaling automatically. Hence, not even the weight system is a limit, it only determines when you cannot move anymore, but it won't prevent you from being a "garbage collector".

In order to apply such changes to CP77 isn't just a hotfix, it could be a bigger patch to provide, because they have to rebalance quite many things in this case, since the game isn't desgined to have any limits in mind as of now. At least in terms of stuff the player is able to collect that is.

Cheers
TalentX

 

[chotnik]

I managed to edit the Cyberpunk2077.exe file to change values of MaxSaveSize* to 500KB but unfortunately, the 1.2 MB save is still loading fine, even after overwriting the save files with the values set to 500KB so I'm out of idea currently as to how reproduce the issue and so on to fix it that way.

[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSaveSize = 500000
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSettingsSize = 4194304
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxProfileSize = 4194304
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/ScreenshotBuffer = 1048576
[2020-12-22 03:10:51.683] [info] GameServices/MaxSaveSizeTotal = 500000

MaxSaveSize to 500KB
C7 05 8E 28 26 04 00 00 80 00 -> C7 05 8E 28 26 04 20 A1 07 00
C7 05 54 28 26 04 00 00 80 00 -> C7 05 54 28 26 04 20 A1 07 00

MaxSaveSizeTotal to 500KB
C7 05 6E 29 26 04 00 00 C0 00 -> C7 05 6E 29 26 04 20 A1 07 00
C7 05 34 29 26 04 00 00 C0 00 -> C7 05 34 29 26 04 20 A1 07 00

Safe to assume (for now) the loading is working "fine" as long as save file is correct (has EOF and correct data).
Its the saving part that is making problems and has hardcoded buffer limit somewhere else OR (more likely) it looks like saving is getting error/exception and just stops writing anything past 8192KB, even EOF.

I think testing with 500KB is not that good, as this is below limit of any proper save, game might ignore this value and fallback to some default one.
2MB might be the good test case, as initial save would work (1.2MB at game start), but any later save with some story done would be over the limit and should in theory write bad save.

OR (more likely) those settings aren't actually working and save function has hardcoded values inside it like I mentioned above.

 

[cIass101]

Yeah the issue seems very complex because they also mention, "The save file size limit might be increased in one of the future patches, but the corrupted files will remain that way."

So nothing will be able to restore a damaged save as there are probably some missing parts now we cannot restore.

So the best you can do actually if you really want to keep your save is probably to back it up somewhere, and stop playing until a fix is coming.

 

[hulkman2456]

So basically it's a choice of unlimited item storage that crashes. Or a limited item system. With a rebalanced encomy crafting upgrade limit.

 

[chotnik]

Exactly, increasing the save file limit won't solve the problem, it will only delay it.

They have to make changes so the file size automatically cannot exceed the predefined limits.

As I have stated in one of my earlier posts, I suspect that this isn't as easy to do.

Setting a save game limit also means that there must be limits of how many content the player is able to do and how many items it can collect in total.
However, that's not so unusual, because I know lots of games with such a system in mind, that limits you to have only a specific amounts of items stackable for example. Also a grid-based inventory normally is limited to a predefined render, whilest in CP77 (and TW3 respectively) the inventories are unlimited scaling automatically. Hence, not even the weight system is a limit, it only determines when you cannot move anymore, but it won't prevent you from being a "garbage collector".

In order to apply such changes to CP77 isn't just a hotfix, it could be a bigger patch to provide, because they have to rebalance quite many things in this case, since the game isn't desgined to have any limits in mind as of now. At least in terms of stuff the player is able to collect that is.

Cheers
TalentX

Nah, they don't need to do any "rebalance".
For workable solution - they just need to increase the size like twice for future AND implement GC on saving.

There were few examples here in this thread that clarify things.
1. Cheating 50 million mats doesn't increase save dramatically - so mats are "safe" as they are not stored as single items. Safe to assume money and ammo works the same.
2. Crafting 2000 pistols at once and doing nothing with them does increase file size a lot (like 1MB, like it's expected).
But even this will not lead to a problem because even if you craft 2000 pistols you need to do something with them since you cannot move and your inventory is scrolling forever.
Safe to assume no one will move 2000 pistols to stash one by one (there is no bulk move for single items like weapons right?)
You either sell them or dismantle them or throw them on the ground.
In any of those cases we run GC every 24/48h of game time. Or every sleep - you go to sleep then we:
a) reset traders buyback (like its done now anyway but every 48h I think)
b) we clean up any stuff you thrown on the ground
c) we GC any memory used for items you crafted and dismantled (we dont need it, item is gone anyway)
d) we clean any crafting or owning history of items you no longer have from a/b/c/d. They are gone, no need to keep it.

If the save were limited to like 16MB AND there would be GC like above, then only way to crash it would be to craft 20.000 weapons in 24/48h and keep them in inventory or stash so they wont be GC'ed. This is unrealistic and edge case scenario that should never happen.

This fix is not that hard unless they hardcoded to keep history of items/crafting for some reason.
And since people are reporting some bodies still lying in the city after hours/days of gameplay that means something is not ok with GC and every such body is also saved adding to the problem.