Witcher 2 not saving - tried everything I can think of

[Aedre]

(Hoping this is the right place to post this, if not I can move it ) Hello everyone, I've been trying for 2 days now to get The Witcher 2 up and working properly. I cant for the life of me get it to actually save, even though in-game it says that it is. Here are the things that I can think of that I've tried:

using GOG instead of Steam
Changing document and GOG/Steam file permissions to "everyone" with full access
moving the game file to the root of the folder, now in D:/
disabled firewalls and antivirus
tried administrator permissions on the .exe
deleted my old Witcher 1 saves (in both the documents and D:/ folders, also in-game)
disabled steam cloud saving
uninstalled and installed multiple times
disabled in-game UI stuff
updated drivers

And there's probably more. But I still cant figure out why Witcher 2 isn't saving anywhere. I'm at a loss and very tired. If anyone has any ideas of what else to try that would be amazing. i'm not giving up hope yet. Thank you for any advice you can give!

my specs:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz 4.00 GHz (not overclocked)
16 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FTX 980 Ti

 

[DonLuzolvaz]

You can save with F5 see if that works. (You can also do a manual save instead of quick saving with F5. press ESC while in the game to open pause menu then click on Save (Or save game I can't remember what it's called) ).

 

[Riven-Twain]

@Aedre , a couple questions: Are you using any mods? And where is the game installed? If in 'Program Files', you may need to try another folder, as that location always cause issues, of one sort or another.

 

[Aedre]

@Riven-Twain no mods, purely vanilla game. I moved my whole GOG Galaxy folder to the root of my D: drive, which is where the game is installed. @IllyaSherlock I've tried both F5 and manually saving.. each time it says in game that "game saved..." but when I go to load the game at the save its missing. Looking through the Witcher 2 folder I cant even find where it would save... the path is This PC > New Volume D: > GOG Galaxy > Games > The Witcher 2. inside of that is another Witcher 2 folder. I assume there'd be a folder somewhere that's "gamesaves" or something right?

 

[Draconifors]

Looking through the Witcher 2 folder I cant even find where it would save

The saves are not in the game's directory.
My gamesave folder would be (game isn't installed) at C:\Users\[username]\Documents\The Witcher 2.

 

[Riven-Twain]

Ay, the gamesaves folder should be within the above location, by default. If it's not there, though, you could try creating the folder and sub-folder. Just make sure the titles match.

 

[Aedre]

@Draconifors @Riven-Twain Oh interesting ok when I go there all there is is Documents > The Witcher 2. Nothing in the witcher 2 folder. What's the folder and sub-folder that should be in there?

edit/update: ok so apparently I have both "The Witcher 2" and "Witcher 2" as folders in my documents. "Witcher 2" had config, downloads, and gamesaves folders. I copy and pasted those into my "The Witcher 2" folder that had nothing in it. Tried the game and it still wont save.

edit 2: Installed Witcher 3, same thing is happening. everything runs fine but it wont save. installed the Steam version. Path is Documents > The Witcher 3 > gamesaves

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2021

OH My gosh guys I think I figured it out!!! I managed to move my documents folder into my D: drive instead of having it on my C: drive and apparently now it works!! I thought it wouldn't matter what drive it was on but LOL lessons were learned. Thank you so much for your help guys I wouldn't have figured out the drive thing if not for your help. You guys are amazing

 

[Riven-Twain]

Thank you so much for your help guys I wouldn't have figured out the drive thing if not for your help. You guys are amazing

I'm glad you found a solution, and that we could be of some help! I hope you enjoy the rest of your game!

 

[bedy666]

Hey, so I'm playing Witcher 2. I'm about 40 hours in the game. Experienced crashes which got more frequent with more saves so I found out you need to delete save files from time to time. Since I was using Steam Cloud I haven't found any way to delete the saves from there so I switched to not using Steam Cloud and had no problem since. Well until now. I realized the game suddenly lost the ability to actually save the game. It does nothing (manual/quick - doesn't matter). Lost like 2 hours of gameplay.

*My saves were always located in C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\userdata\MySteamID\20920\remote (even when I disabled Steam Cloud)
*I got the most recent save backed up

So I was trying to fix this but nothing worked.

Things I tried:

• Verify the game
• Deleting all the save files except the most recent one
• Switching multiple times back to Steam Cloud (This actually one time allowed me to save the game but It was unplayable because of that high amount of saves on the Steam Cloud=those crashes I wrote about, anyway this really worked only once)
• Permissions of Documents (where the game can also save) and the 20920 file like setting it to Everyone, taking ownerships

Could reinstalling help? (I don't know how tho)
Maybe reinstall and then import the most recent save I have?
Deleting Steam Cloud saves might help but I haven't found any way to do it and had no luck with the Steam Cloud Sync conflict popping up. (So I could upload my local saves -only the recent one)

I just don't know what to do. So ye, please help I guess...

 

[Draconifors]

@bedy666 Someone else had the same problem not long ago, so thread merged. You can check out the posts above to see if any of it helps.

As for deleting Steam Cloud saves, there are several guides that pop up in a search ('delete steam cloud saves').
I once did it with this exact game, but it was years ago so I don't remember how (plus Steam has had lots of changes since then).

 

[Riven-Twain]

My saves were always located in C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\userdata\MySteamID\20920\remote

I'd suggest installing Steam somewhere other than Program Files, as that folder frequently causes issues with games.

 

[bedy666]

Hey, thank you very much for your time and responses. I've read trough this thread once more and I don't think I could fix my problem the same way as Aedre did since I have my Documents and the game installed both on SSD (C: Drive + My game is not and never been saved in Documents but in that Steam folder (I mention the whole path in my original post).

But now that you mention that Program Files cause issues I'm starting to think a bit. Does that also apply to Program Files (x86) ?
I'm thinking I might try reinstalling the game on my (D: Drive (not SSD). Do you think it is worth to give it a shot and does that count as ''installing Steam somewhere other than Program Files''? (Since it should create new Steam folder where the game is placed.) Or do you mean install the whole app somewhere else?

 

[Riven-Twain]

I'm thinking I might try reinstalling the game on my (D: Drive (not SSD). Do you think it is worth to give it a shot and does that count as ''installing Steam somewhere other than Program Files''? (Since it should create new Steam folder where the game is placed.) Or do you mean install the whole app somewhere else?

You can certainly try installing the game on another drive, or simply somewhere else on C. If you still encounter the issue, though, re-installing the app may be necessary. Both Program Files folders seem to generally interfere with access to games.

 

[bedy666]

You can certainly try installing the game on another drive, or simply somewhere else on C. If you still encounter the issue, though, re-installing the app may be necessary. Both Program Files folders seem to generally interfere with access to games.

Thanks again for the response... I guess I'll need to give it a shot tomorrow then.

I tried again to see if I could get the Steam Cloud conflict pop up, so I could delete the Cloud saves but no luck with that (it always re-downloads the file along with those saves)

 

[Riven-Twain]

Thanks again for the response... I guess I'll need to give it a shot tomorrow then.

You're welcome. I hope that solves it. Please, let us know how it turns out.

 

[bedy666]

-A little update
I tried to disable Steam Cloud and then disconnect from internet. Started the game and it SAVES... so I will test it tomorrow whether playing it offline fixes it.
Will let you know.

Post automatically merged: Sep 5, 2021

Yup, it is fixed. Tried to play today and it saves again.

HOW I DID IT:
-Disabled Steam Cloud for Witcher 2 (in Steam)
-Disconnected from internet
-Play the game offline
-So whenever I'm going to play the game I just disable connection and play

(And of course I also deleted most of my saves [from folder, not in game] and kept only the recent ones so the game runs well and doesn't crash - this is good thing to do once in a while)

 

[sarmat9112]

Hello! I bought the game in steam The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition, when downloading it writes " Failed, steam will request a product key. You are welcome. please try again in a few minutes."please tell me how to activate this key, or where to get it?

 

[MazzStarChild]

Hello guys! I recently noticed that my The Witcher 2 was not able anymore to save files, nor manually nor automatically. I played for 1 hour straight and i closed the game after saving, but when i loaded the game it did not save my last gameplay. I searched a bit (here and on reddit) and i found many ways to resolve this like delete 20920 folder, play a little enable-disable cloud storage but it did not work. Also, i moved my saves to a folder that i created at this address Documents/The Witcher 2/gamesaves but the game does not see them so i've lost all my saves (80+ hours).
Can anyone help me solving this? Also sorry for my english!
Thank you in advance.

 

[Draconifors]

@MazzStarChild Thread merged.
Strange that so many people, and specifically Steam users, are having this issue all of a sudden.

Multiple possible solutions in posts above; maybe one of them helps you.

 

[SigilFey]

1.) If you're playing any sort of game, especially legacy games that were made for an earlier version of Windows, be sure your Steam installation (or whatever platform) is not anywhere under Program Files or Program Files(x86). These are protected directories, and they can and will create issues with games -- especially older games that use what would be non-standard save locations in the modern day.

2.) Add the entire Steam directory and any libraries you have in other locations to the exclusion lists of your antivirus, firewall, etc.

3.) Be sure to have the program set to "Run as administrator". (It may also be necessary to play from the primary admin account.)

4.) Cloud storage that is being used for games that were made before cloud storage existed can be problematic. Disable the feature through Steam if you're having any issues saving, loading, detecting saved games, etc.