Save files are corrupted

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Is there really nothing we can do ? This thing made the game literally unplayable for all of us. What did we pay for ? I dont care for they break of christmas man. If my Christmas is ruined because of this, does anyone care ?
 
If you didn't encounter the issue just yet and are still early enough to adjust your gameplay the behaviour to have is to pick up and craft the minimum items possible.
Try to avoid stackable items (like grenades) as much as possible.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, progressing in the main quest causes the file to naturally bloat (and side quests probably have the same effect) so, it's technically nothing to be worry about as long as we're very picky on looting/crafting.

Am I getting that right?
Wrong. There is no sure way to know what is happening with inventory state / Items-ID DB in save as long as there is no save editor.
Everything in this topic is anecdotal evidence at best. Everyone is getting different values, sometimes selling/dismantling items reduce save, sometimes not. There is so many things happening in the background beside crafting that its very hard to get any reliable data. If sleeping reduces save size sometimes that means there is some kind of cleaning.

Since its unknown what items and for how much causes size to grow, even if you don't craft maybe you will get some lucky drops and get some epic items with mods that will cause your save to grow 3 times more than crafting 100 grenades.
Who knows what is better - not pickup weapons from enemies? Pickup and sell? Pickup and dismantle? Over 1 hour of game-play you do so many things in game, that without any debugging tool its just blind guessing.
 
I agree with everything you said, which is why I say it's in no way an excuse for their actions. A statement would not be too much to ask, and is a 100% reasonable request.

The reason why I compare it to No Mans Sky was because these same demands were being made. People wanted answers as to why the game was missing a good chunk of advertised features, and why there were really bad bugs and stability issues at launch. I bring it up because HelloGames did NOT respond to ANY demands for ANYTHING. Not a single word from HelloGames for MONTHS. The lead of HG, Sean Murray, redirected ALL of their social media accounts to his device and told the devs to essentially ignore everything you see online and work on fixing the game.

Over time, instead of using their social media account to make statements, they started pumping out updates to the game instead. Eventually reversing the state of the game in such a way that the product you get now is almost completely unrecognizable from the product that was released.

I only bring it up because, it's possible that we could get no word from them about these issues, and instead just see them fix the issues like HelloGames did. I am trying to discourage people from seeing no response from CDPR now as the end all be all of the situation and assuming that they are never going to fix the issue or are not taking the players seriously.
In this regard I also don't think that HelloGames' behaviour was the right one. Also, CDPR had a different behaviour one week earlier, which would make shift harder to sell. (I haven't followed the story of HelloGames, maybe it is perfectly applicable in this situation, maybe there are differences.) Also, they already released some kind of statement through a proxy, stating that the limit might be increased. But we shall see what the future brings.

However, one thing I would also like to note. I do work in software development and I have noticed that issues that are complained about more heavily are fixed faster than maybe larger issues nobody complains about. So, posting here might help after all.

Again, I agree that a statement would be 100% an easy thing to do, and is not at all an unreasonable request. I just don't want people to set this expectation that they are going to revoke christmas break in order to fix these issues. We're pretty much locked into this until January.
Yes, please! They should enjoy their holidays and recharge their batteries. We should be able to live without CP2077 for a few weeks, but also please include it in the January fix.
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Is there really nothing we can do ? This thing made the game literally unplayable for all of us. What did we pay for ? I dont care for they break of christmas man. If my Christmas is ruined because of this, does anyone care ?
Don't take this personally, but your Christmas shouldn't be ruined because of that. Sure, you can be disappointed, that's perfectly reasonable, but there are other things to do an to enjoy.
I get that CP2077 is a great and highly anticipated game - albeit its bugs - but there is no harm in taking a break from it.

Just try WoW, I've heard that keeps people busy^^ (Just kidding)
 
I just wait for CDPR PR guys turn this into advertisement :
"We put so much content into the game that even saves cant contain it all!"
Perhaps I'm misreading things but it appears the only people having this issue are those using item duplication glitches? And those purposely creating thousands of the same items (for currency I guess)?

So the likelihood that any normal player would get this issue is pretty miniscule in that context, yes?

It sucks for those that have gone down that route already and should absolutely be fixed ASAP. But I think it makes sense to clarify the magnitude of the issue. This doesn't seem like 99.999% of people would ever have this issue. Am I wrong thinking this?
 
Perhaps I'm misreading things but it appears the only people having this issue are those using item duplication glitches? And those purposely creating thousands of the same items (for currency I guess)?

So the likelihood that any normal player would get this issue is pretty miniscule in that context, yes?

It sucks for those that have gone down that route already and should absolutely be fixed ASAP. But I think it makes sene to clarify the magnitude of the issue. This doesn't seem like 99.999% of people would ever have this issue. Am I wrong thinking this?
Please read the entire thread (I know it's long) but this is not the case.
 
Is there really nothing we can do ? This thing made the game literally unplayable for all of us. What did we pay for ? I dont care for they break of christmas man. If my Christmas is ruined because of this, does anyone care ?

For now there is really nothing we can do aside but wait for the January patch. As hard as it is we really have to accept that. You can also just start playing and be mindful of the playtime every session. Some people are able to 100% complete the game without issues so maybe your playstyle is more inline with them than those who are experiencing the problems. As for myself I'm not gonna push my luck and I'm not really comfortable playing the game rn because I'm at 5.2mb 65hrs (maxed out crafting perks) and I still have a lot to do ingame so I'll just camp on the thread hoping maybe someone from the community will be able to come with a workaround or just wait for a patch. It's tough but hey I don't see any other alternative.
 
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Perhaps I'm misreading things but it appears the only people having this issue are those using item duplication glitches? And those purposely creating thousands of the same items (for currency I guess)?

So the likelihood that any normal player would get this issue is pretty miniscule in that context, yes?

It sucks for those that have gone down that route already and should absolutely be fixed ASAP. But I think it makes sense to clarify the magnitude of the issue. This doesn't seem like 99.999% of people would ever have this issue. Am I wrong thinking this?
Yes you are....
So the save game is constantly bloating... Everything you do bloats the save game a little bit.
Crafting is the only thing that has been confirmed to bloat the save game at a rapid pace compared to the normal level of bloat you see just playing the game.

The people that are going to run into this issue are likely the following:
People who craft a lot
People who horde EVERYTHING
People who put 100+ hours into one character.
Completionists who want to finish everything available to do in this game 100%

The bottom line is your save game will inevitably bloat to the point where it corrupts itself.
But for most people (barring super crafters) this is going to take over 100 hours being put into the same character.

If you finish a playthrough before the 100 hour mark and don't plan to go back, to said playthrough at any point, you will likely NOT see this error ever come up (unless you crafted a ton).

But for anyone that puts many hours into one character, this is a gamebreaking issue, ESPECIALLY if they want to use the crafting system efficiently.

EDIT: I should also mention the 100 hours I keep referring to is a rough ballpark based on my playthrough with minimal crafting.
I am sitting at 101 hours and my save file has just recently hit 6MB
 
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I have more faith in modding community for providing a quick fix to the issue simply because... Devs have a really bad time atm, lot of stress and disputes with the leadership (according to sources like jason schreier), and it's christmas time. After crunching so hard they deserve a time off. We on the other hand are on our time off so we can pick it up and try our best for a temporary solution.

This is urgent issue, so I do want them to fix it eventually, but they're people too, and I'm certain they've been exhausted lately.
 
Just try WoW, I've heard that keeps people busy^^ (Just kidding)
I unironically enjoyed Genshin Impact more than CP77 in its current state :shrug:
It's also polished so much that I haven't seen even a single minor glitch, let alone serious bug.
 
In this regard I also don't think that HelloGames' behaviour was the right one. Also, CDPR had a different behaviour one week earlier, which would make shift harder to sell. (I haven't followed the story of HelloGames, maybe it is perfectly applicable in this situation, maybe there are differences.) Also, they already released some kind of statement through a proxy, stating that the limit might be increased. But we shall see what the future brings.

However, one thing I would also like to note. I do work in software development and I have noticed that issues that are complained about more heavily are fixed faster than maybe larger issues nobody complains about. So, posting here might help after all.

I have very conflicting feelings about this issue, as anyone can see when they read my long diatribes but see my responses to them. I feel that the issues should be fixed ASAP 100% but at the same time I'm trying to reign myself in and be cool about it.

Also I work in IT support so I know about "The squeaky wheel getting the grease" so to speak and I agree that posting here will absolutely help.
 
I have more faith in modding community for providing a quick fix to the issue simply because... Devs have a really bad time atm, lot of stress and disputes with the leadership (according to sources like jason schreier), and it's christmas time. After crunching so hard they deserve a time off. We on the other hand are on our time off so we can pick it up and try our best for a temporary solution.

This is urgent issue, so I do want them to fix it eventually, but they're people too, and I'm certain they've been exhausted lately.
Don't put too much faith in the modding community in this regard. There might be an underlying engine related issue that's not easy to fix or workaround. Modders don't have access to the source code of the Red Engine, nor is it under normal circumstances possible to change the way a game saves. Creating a savegame mechanic like CP2077 is apparently really complex, which is why many games do it differently. (AC for instance just saves your progress.)

While we could still find a way to make the ini edit work, this might result in other issues because - as others have mentioned - I doubt the 8MiB limit is arbitrary. If it is in place to save cloud sync space we are fine, but there could be other reasons we currently know nothing about. It's also a telltale sign that after 4.5MiB users report a short blackscreen before the loading process is finished.

One thing the community might be able to achieve is to write a Savegame-trimmer that removes superfluous data. However, something like that is very error prone and might destroy more save-files than it saves. (Well, if someone is at 8191KiB there is nothing to lose and one can still make a copy.)

All I'm saying is that there might be a community fix for this, but don't get your hopes up. I'm currently still rooting for CDPR.
 
I think it's very likely that many more people will run into this problem during the holidays. If they don't resolve this before the break they will be in much more trouble than they already are.
 
I keep reading every post with hope someone came up with a solution but I'm just going to play the witcher 3 again lmao, another full playthrough will last me until February.
 
I've been following this post, silently, since the beginning and refreshing it every day, reading the input here. THere's a lot of good information here, however, I feel like everyone was so quick to dismiss Sigilfey for his hot take about how to work around the issue, that they failed to even consider the valuable information he provided in one of his responses. I know a lot of people want to hate on the mods and the company right now, but, anyone interested in the history of this issue should read this.

Sigilfey linked to a post from The Witcher 3 forums made in 2017 that highlights the extensive testing done to uncover why saved games were going corrupt. Back then, they weren't hitting a size limit, but, they were hitting something else just as terminal, and it all stems from the REDengines handling of itemIDs. Back then, during the testing, the user that did all of this testing called this a runestone bomb, because it was best duplicated with runestones.

In The Witcher 3, the REDengine assigns a unique itemID for every single item you come across, even swords that are the same sword with the same stats, even stackable items. Every runestone got it's own itemID. The engine didn't see a stack of 1000 runestones as one item stacked 1000 times, but a stack of 1000 unique itemIDs. This is only part of the problem. Another issue the engine has, is, whenever you get rid of items, or keep them in your inventory whatever, every time you save and reload your game, that stack of 1000 runestones? It got 1000 MORE unique itemIDs, and the old itemIDs were not released from your save file inventory. They existed as ghost items.

So what players in The Witcher 3 were running in to, was an issue where, over time and after hoarding everything not nailed down, their save would surpass the 16bit integer used for itemIDs, which is 65,536. When this happened, your save would be corrupted because it would cause an itemID overflow, rendering the save file unreadable.

It's important to know about the history of this issue because I believe it plays a critical role in the current issue we're having now. Players who are getting corrupted saves smaller than 8MB are potentially surpassing the 65,536 limit for itemIDs on their saves, rendering their saves unreadable. Everyone else is hitting the max file size for saves, as noted in earlier posts where the EOF is not being written to the save file, like it magically gets cut off.

The problem, is that every unique itemID is causing save file bloat. The solution is obviously some kind of garbage collector process that removes these ghost itemIDs attached to our character inventories.

However, CDPR has known about this issue, because it was brought to their attention during The Witcher3 days, and yet the issue persisted when they improved REDengine 3 to 4. Why? Both answers will likely make your heart sink.

Either they CAN'T fix it, because it's some kind of inherent flaw tied to the engine that will completely break the way it handles inventory, or, they WON'T fix it, because doing so would cause irreparable harm to the way the inventory system functions, so much so that it would cost them a lot of time and money to fix, more so than correcting the issues on console.

I don't believe this issue was left in maliciously. I believe that, if they were even aware of this issue, they never imagined that people would either 1.) Hit the save file size limit, or 2.) Would exceed the 65,536 itemID limit. While it's short-sighted, again, I don't believe this is a malicious thing. I believe there's a reason for why the engine handles itemIDs this way, and I also believe that there's a reason why this issue has persisted since the days of TW3, maybe even earlier.

All of this is a hypothesis based on the testing done in the post SigilFey linked to way earlier in this post. You can find that post HERE and I would advise anyone and everyone read this post, because I believe this engine related issue is at the very core of what is going on.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Most of this is true. However this 8MB save limit doesn't seem to be directly engine limitation.
Why I think so? - there is no problem in runtime. You can craft/dismantle/do quests/whatever and there is no problem with handling the data in memory until you want to save it and load it.
During play there is no magic moment the engine gives up and you have suddenly have 5fps and items start disappearing from your inventory.
All works well until you need to save. Its like inventory buffer in RAM is working ok, but flushing it to file is broken.
For all we know loading is working correct. Its the saving that doesn't write file over 8MB correctly and its missing EOF thats broken.

This is why I think it has nothing to do with ItemID limit.
8MB+ corrupted save writing is one bug.
ItemID bloat is other thing.
But the first one could be caused by the second one. Maybe if they do proper GC on save then 8MB might be enough.

That means you could in theory do no-quit run and craft millions if items and never have an issue unless you save&load.
I already posted this here - https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...-are-corrupted.11052596/page-22#post-12490331
 
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Then, there's no need for you to follow it. Go ahead, and keep on loading saved games as you will. If the bug is occurring during the loading process, as opposed to the saving process, then you'll eventually corrupt all of your saved games and have absolutely no backups to return to, ensuring all of your progress is lost. That is entirely your choice.

Secondly, this is not official CDPR Tech Support. This is a community board where players can come to check on known issues or try to troubleshoot problems on their own. If that's not working out, then let me repeat, yet again:


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).








Right -- now here's a reality of the way that inventory systems work sometimes. (TW3 has a similar sort of limitation.) Whenever you create an item in the inventory, it creates an ItemID. For every new instance of that item (like if the number of that item changes...or I pick up two of the same type of gun) the game will need to assign a unique ItemID for it in order for the program to be able to tell the two different items apart or record the change to the stack, and that number, for each successive instance, will obviously get bigger.

So, if I am rapidly adding / removing items from my inventory, I may inadvertently increase that ID number to something that the engine no longer recognizes. Or a number that conflicts with some other function of the inventory. Or save system. Or loading system. Whatever. Something doesn't like it. That's where the bug must live.

BUT -- considering that CP2077 probably works similarly to TW3, Bethesda games, Bioware titles, etc. -- this also happens to your inventory whenever you save --> reload a game. First, the game reads your save file. It loads an "active" version of your inventory into RAM, and assigns new ItemIDs to every single piece of your inventory from top to bottom. It re-saves those larger numbers for every new save / quicksave, and they become the new default. This is how a program can correctly load older savegames. It compares the newer numbers with the older ones, and chooses the older, smaller number instead. (Computers can't "think", and items in your inventory are not "guns" and "medkits" to the computer. They're collections of data that it needs to be able to tell apart from one another using a numerical expression.)

Not all games are designed for unlimited, endless play. Not all games are designed for NG++++ etc. CP2077, as of now, seems to have been designed with upper limits in place (likely to avoid issues elsewhere in the engine, just like TW3).

The workaround for now?

Don't do it. Play the game until the end, then start a new game. Don't continue saving and reloading the same character for too long. Don't craft thousands of items at once.

Is that ideal? No. And hopefully it can be worked out in the future. Although...maybe not. No game that CDPR has ever created has ever been designed for ongoing, unlimited play. (NG+ was added into TW3 after its release; it was never intended. It was extremely difficult to get working without major issues, is capped at level 100, still gets wildly weird at higher levels, and there is no NG++. It can only be done once per playthrough.) CDPR designs their games with a finite structure: with a beginning, a middle, and an end. They are not meant to be played on and on like Dark Souls, GTA, or an MMO. They're meant to be restarted from the beginning with a new character and played differently. Love it or loathe it, that's the design.

So, for right now, the best step is not to put the game in this sort of situation. It's the nature of the machine. Or, more classically:

Patient: "Doctor! Doctor! It really hurts when I do this!"
Doctor: "Then, don't do that."

Now, the treatment can begin.

The worst response I ever see if we follow your logic is gonna be like this: oh you have a bug? just imagine is not there, what? you want us to use your imagination for you?
 
I have a lot of faith the modding community will fix this.

But I think the answer is in figuring out what is causing the save game bloat and determining a way to clean the saves, not by removing the 8mb cap.

The problem is the bloat. The cap shouldn't be an issue, we shouldn't even be near it.
 
We need to at least give them the chance to fix this.
The question isn't whether or not they can fix it. It's about whether they actually want to fix it.

"hopefully it can be worked out in the future. Although...maybe not."
- SigilFey

Sounds like if CDPR can't fix this, they're perfectly content to let it remain because, hey. You can create a new character and risk having it happen all over again. They're not going to update the game to give you hints on how to avoid it.
 
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