Saved game not opening

[juntoalmar]

Hi,
I'm experiencing some problems opening game files recently. From time to time, a game file seems to be corrupt: when I load it from the game it starts the launching screen with the progress bars moving, etc... and after a while the game simply closes. I have to go to a previous game file, and repeat the last actions to continue (which may save correctly or not later on).

- I've checked on Windows Task Manager and, when that happens, there is a MWiF process running.
- If I try to delete/rename the file, Windows doesn't allow it as it says MWiF.exe is using it, so the game is there and the file is open.
- If I try to open the file a few times, it creates a few MWiF processes.

I've opened the file with a game editor, and the text file seems ok, no strange characters or weird binary code.

Has anyone experience that? And solved it?

I'm playing currently on version 3.2.0 and I have attached a game file that doesn't open for reference.

Thanks in advance!

[Courtenay]

I have experienced that. I have never gotten a saved game that has happened to to work. I just assume that the file got corrupted somehow, use a previous saved game, and go on. It has not happened to me very often.

[Centuur]

This was a known bug in the version 3. The best way to work around this is to check when you've exited MWIF using Windows if there is a shadow MWIF running.

In current versions of MWIF I haven't seen this bug occurring anymore.

[paulderynck]

Downloaded the file and tried to open it with the latest version of MWIF. It looked like it was almost finished and then the program just quit and disappeared. MWIF.exe had terminated without a bug report and was no longer loaded according to the task manager.

Looking at the file in notepad, I can see it is incomplete. It ends part way through the production route lists which are near the end in a good file but are normally followed by about 200 more lines of data. A good game file typically has these lines at the end:

0,GameFilterData
-1,CostFilter
-1,SizeFilter
-1,TypeFilter
-1,YearFilter
-1,ControlFilter
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3
0,0

Looks like that file is corrupt somehow. You'll have to look for an autosave that is close to the same point in the game.

[juntoalmar]

It has not happened to me very often.

It's happening very frequently recently. I haven't updated the game until there was a good reason as it seems newer versions bring new problems, it may be about time to update now...

[juntoalmar]

Looks like that file is corrupt somehow. You'll have to look for an autosave that is close to the same point in the game.

Thanks! I didn't think of looking at the end of the file (I didn't know how it should look like either).

[juntoalmar]

An update if someone's interested.

I compared the broken file to a working one, that there are around 3k lines of text missing. The broken file ends abruptly in one of the resources route. I tried to copy the missing lines from a working file at the end of the broken one, and... voila! it works.

That could be a way of fixing a broken file, just it we could be sure that no info has been changed in between the working file and the broken one. I mean, if you were just moving land units, it would be safe to copy/fill the missing info about production, US entry, etc.

Not knowing exactly what is the information at the end of the file, is what makes it a bit risky. I see that after the resource routes there is some info about Sea Areas, Partisans, Declared war On Minor Country, US options... but it's hard to know what are the non-labeled numbers.

BTW, I see that the units historical description is replicated by unit, so 10 units of the same airplane have the same description copied in the file 10 times. And this info is stored in every game file? That seems a lot of innecessary information to be duplicated in every GAM file, isn't it? Half of the gamefile content (around 20k lines) seem to be units' description that could be stored in a different file and indexed, making the GAM files around half size.

[paulderynck]

That's for sure. The unit descriptions could have been put in an installation file and referenced by the program somehow.

Not sure why that choice was made, but more than likely people would zip the game files for transmission anyway so it does not make a lot of difference.

[juntoalmar]

What version do you sugest to update the game to? Which one is more stable (we don't care about AI oponent)?

Thanks!

[rkr1958]

What version do you sugest to update the game to? Which one is more stable (we don't care about AI oponent)?

Thanks!

I can't speak for netplay but for PBEM or solitary I'd recommend the latest public beta, 5.0.0.10 (debug).

[juntoalmar]

Thanks! That will do. We are playing multiplayer, but it's basically a solitary game where we share files by Dropbox and ask questions over whatsapp.

[Angeldust2]

Why are you using dropbox for file swapping, when you are using whatsapp already?

[juntoalmar]

Why are you using dropbox for file swapping, when you are using whatsapp already?

Because you can't save/load your files directly from Whatsapp, but we can have a repository of current and past files in a Dropbox folder, which is automatically updated. Plus, the files and messages/images don't get mixed up in the same thread.

In sum, for convenience.

[Joseignacio]

To be true, there has been few time yet, but the serious improvement of the server seems to have helped enormously with some glitches like cancelled "undo"s and maybe other features (supply?). Maybe the severe past problems of synchronization had something to do. Who knows if that had something to do with your problem.

Unfortunately the convoys behaviour keeps being erratical, since that is a given at the moment. Wrong programming, IMO.

Anyway, I think this is going to improve netplay a lot.