Save Game Runtime Error

[Spore18]

I'm running into an issue where about 50% of the time when I try to interact with my save games, I get an error that crashes my game and either prevents me from saving or corrupts the file I was attempting to save to. Sometimes it happens when I just press the save game button to open the menu to save and sometimes it happens when I actually try to save. I've already verified integrity of game cache and it persisted. I totally reinstalled the game and played without mods and it persisted. I have no clue where to go from there. It's also not save game specific, it happens with both an MP game I'm playing and an SP game I used to play, so it's not one single bad save game. An image of the error I'm getting is below.

[VPaulus]

Check if any of your Internet security programs isn't interfering with the game.

[Spore18]

I turned off my anti-virus and VPN and I still got the same error the moment I tried to load a save. In fact the circumstances that trigger the error have changed as well. Now it appears to occur 100% of the time when I try to load a save file, so at this point the game is unplayable for me. What should I try next?

Edit: It also errors out when I try to load a scenario... I'm going to try verifying integrity of game cache again to see if I can get it back to the original error where it just happened sometimes when saving a game.

Edit 2: It didn't help. I'll wait for your advice on what to try next.

[morvael]

Is your game installed outside Program Files? Is it run as Administrator?

[Spore18]

My game is installed through Steam, and my Steam library isn't located in Program Files, but it's never been an issue in the past and this only came up a couple of days ago. I'm not sure how to run a Steam game as an administrator, I'll get back to you on that.

Edit: Holy crap that looks like it did it! I went into the game files and found the WarInTheEast.exe file, then went to properties and checked off the run as administrator setting and it looks like that fixed it. Thanks so much!

[Spore18]

Bumping this again because the issue came back, even when running it as an administrator. Weirdly enough it worked fine for a bit when running as an admin, but it stopped working properly again. These are all the different ways I've seen in which I get the error posted above and the game crashes, and each of these seems to happen like 50% of the time when I attempt that action:
- Loading a saved game or scenario from the main menu
- Opening the menu to save from the main game screen
- Actually attempting to save the game from the save game screen if it didn't crash when I tried to open it
If I try to overwrite a save and it crashes, I'm left with a completely empty file, so whatever is going wrong is going wrong after deleting the old save data but before writing in the new save data.

[Spore18]

I'm just gonna bump this again, and if I don't get a response in another day or two I'll make a new thread because this one seems to have been abandoned since I falsely stated the issue was fixed. Sorry about that.

[Shalkai]

I'll give it a bump too. I started a PBEM game with GamerDad two weeks ago, and we upgraded to v1.12.01 yesterday. Save file I made for him last night is corrupted, gets that runtime error.

[morvael]

Well, it happens in an ongoing game and that was never recommended. Maybe the save was corrupted earlier. Could you post the save here, so I could try to load it for myself?

[VPaulus]

Try also running Steam client as administrator and not only the game main exe:

- Navigate your Steam installation file (By default, it is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam).
- Right-click the Steam executable.
- Follow the above steps to set it to Run as Administrator.
- Restart Steam.

[Shalkai]

@Morvael - Yes, I've been reading all the posts and the warnings about these patches, so no finger-pointing from me at all. Teh risk was ours. The other player upgraded without checking with me first, so I had to upgrade as well and cross my fingers. It apparently went boom. Not a huge deal since I was only finishing Axis Turn2. We're starting over.

Just to be clear, I haven't had any save or load glitches myself. I saved PBEM turn, sent it to other player, and he reported getting runtime errors.

Since this is a PBEM both sides have passwords. I made the following saves:
Axis end of turn, before hitting F12, under v11.03 from Steam.
Axis end of turn, before hitting F12, under v12.01.1 beta from Steam.
Axis end of turn, after hitting F12, under v12.01.1 beta from Steam.

I'm attaching the second of those, and sending you my match password in a PM. Not sure if that'll be any help in troubleshooting but worth a try. If you want another of those saves, or for me to ask the other player to send you what he received and his turn password, please let us know.

Thanks,
- Shalkai

[Spore18]

Making Steam also run as administrator might have done it for me. Hopefully I don't end up bumping this thread again. Thanks!

[Spore18]

Alright nope, that also didn't do it. Had a couple of sessions where it worked, but once again when I tried to save a turn I had played for a while it crashed and I lost that effort. What else is worth trying?

[Bertram]

Got the same error while saving the game. PBEM game at turn 77, no problems till today.

[VPaulus]

Do you have single hardisk with a single partition?

[Spore18]

Can't speak for him but I have three different hard drives on my computer, neither Steam nor WitE are installed on my C drive, and my main Steam location is on a different hard drive from the one where WitE is installed. That said, my setup has always been like this and it played fine for about a year before now.

[Bertram]

Made a separate thread for my issue - it might after all be something totally different....

[DETURK]

I am experiencing the same thing on my game.

[Hanny]

Is the sav files present in the WiTe Dat folder?, or in my games?. Could be a pathing problem.

On steam preferences do you have auto update selected?, opt out of beta?

[Spore18]

The sav files are in Z:\Steam\steamapps\common\Gary Grigsby's War in the East\Dat\save

For Steam preferences, I'm set to auto-update but opted out of the beta. My game's current version is 1.11.03, which should be the same version that all these saves were started on.