Power went out, and I lost all progress?

[TSBX]

I also blame the grocery store when I drop a carton of eggs at home.

[The Gronk]

I also blame the grocery store when I drop a carton of eggs at home.

 

http://i.imgur.com/ZdATN4f.jpg

[BULIGO]

Time to invest into a UPS.

 

^^^^This.

I live in a small village with occasional power issues/blackouts. Learned my lesson 15 years ago. Now I am running my PC protected by an excellent APC-made UPS with modded power capacity (90 Amper/h instead of the stock 32Ah). My whole system can run 2 full hours just on battery now. Also, saves on HD replacements (less HD head crashes apparently), memory issues, gfx card issues etc, plus saves from lightning surges too.

Worth every penny IMO.

There are really cheap UPS system that will keep you on for a couple minutes, just long enough to save-exit your game/application. Even living in a big city, a power surge/short voltage plummet can happen anytime for no apparent reason messing stuff up.

Opening the game console and typing in 'sa' will save the current world. Might help in a pinch.

[Morbid76]

Even living in a big city, a power surge/short voltage plummet can happen anytime for no apparent reason messing stuff up.

 

Sometimes power usage spikes without any predictable reason, thus leaving the power stations unable to rev up fast enough to avoid a brown out. The alternative is running at extra surplus power at all times, hitting cost per KW for the average user. I guess regions have various policies and solutions. Where I live, we import extra power from dams and nuclear power plants from 3 different countries, when we get into trouble, so brown outs are rare. But they do still happen.

[DividingByZero]

http://i.imgur.com/ZdATN4f.jpg

 

Aww... you beat me to it.

[Fyrdrinc]

I am with the original poster that this is an unacceptable and needless problem caused by the way that TFP chose to save the game to preserve world state. A better way is to set up the save mechanism to write to a back buffer and then make the back buffer the primary once the file completes writing and you've validated it. Requires a little more data storage but you always have a known good place to load from. This is really trivial coding that is used commonly when maintaining data integrity is critical.

 

That aside, I am here to rescue you with a handy desktop script that works in Windows 7 and potentially other versions of Windows. Some slight editing is needed to tailor to your system. This creates a save of all your in-progress game files to a folder on your H drive. Adjust your path as preferred. To make it, open a file in Notepad and copy the below text. Then save that file to your desktop as "7D2D Backup.bat". When you want to make a secure save, just open the console, type "sa", then alt tab out and click the backup script.

 

@echo off

set datedaystr=%date:~4,2%

set datemonstr=%date:~7,2%

set dateyrstr=%date:~10,4%

set timestr=%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2%

set deststr="H:\7D2D Backups\%dateyrstr%%datemonstr%%datedaystr%\%timestr%"

robocopy C:\Users\<your Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\Saves %deststr% /e

[Guppycur]

Hilarity gold. Can't make this stuff up!

[Stasis]

Hilarity gold. Can't make this stuff up!

 

I'm with you bro. These guys that can't accept need to do a semester in 101 computer eng.

[Stasis]

http://www.apcdistributors.com/white-papers/Management%20Systems/WP-10%20Preventing%20Data%20Corruption%20in%20the%20Event%20of%20an%20Extended%20Power%20Outage.pdf

 

LOL

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I am with the original poster that this is an unacceptable and needless problem caused by the way that TFP chose to save the game to preserve world state. A better way is to set up the save mechanism to write to a back buffer and then make the back buffer the primary once the file completes writing and you've validated it. Requires a little more data storage but you always have a known good place to load from. This is really trivial coding that is used commonly when maintaining data integrity is critical.

 

That aside, I am here to rescue you with a handy desktop script that works in Windows 7 and potentially other versions of Windows. Some slight editing is needed to tailor to your system. This creates a save of all your in-progress game files to a folder on your H drive. Adjust your path as preferred. To make it, open a file in Notepad and copy the below text. Then save that file to your desktop as "7D2D Backup.bat". When you want to make a secure save, just open the console, type "sa", then alt tab out and click the backup script.

 

That won't fix jack in a power outage. Sorry bro.

 

Best you can get is last save and that may well be corrupted depending on the save code.

[open6l]

Imagine the tears in this thread if 15.1 requires a wipe. It's an alpha. As most know already don't get attached to your saves.

[Brian9824]

It's just funny, this isn't an incremental save game, its more like a MMO with single save system. The saves can be quite large because they contain map info so if its constantly backing up saves you will fill up people's hard drives.

[Morbid76]

Imagine the tears in this thread if 15.1 requires a wipe. It's an alpha. As most know already don't get attached to your saves.

 

Stable branch USUALLY means not having to wipe. In contrast to the recent experimental. Version progression as in A14 to A15, requires wipes. But I think we have reason to expect that at least the majority of A15.Xs will NOT require wipes. Then again, you never know.

 

Btw, I used to use macros tied to a G-key on my Logitech G15, to maintain the integrity of my XCOM games. There were certain bugs, that would END a game, and you simply could NOT do anything about it. Since I played Ironman, encountering just ONE of those would screw the entire campaign. These kind of macros are NOT hard to make. I never saw anyone complaining about the save game system that Firaxis made for the game, even with ironman. But I did see complaints about the bugs, which were NEVER fixed by the way, even though one of them is clearly shown, and the damage it does, in one of the most famous LP series for XCOM of all time (Zemalf, Impossible, Ironman - no deaths).

[CoolJ]

No, I didn't. I had no idea this game had an issue with saves.

 

It doesn't. You have a problem with consistent power. Buy A UPS. Buy a good one. Not a cheap POS. Make sure it can sustain your PC for at least long enough to shut it down. The unit should be sized so it can provide slightly more power than the power supply in your PC. I can't really recommend one unless I know what wattage your Power supply is in the PC and where you live. I live in the US(110-120v) and I have a 750 watt power supply in my PC.

 

This is the one I am using currently.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16842101421

 

I don't know a single person that uses a desktop PC and doesn't have a UPS. Mainly because if I see them without one, I hound them until they get one. This is PC ownership 101 stuff.

[zombo]

I already gave you one, it's called a "sharing access violation". Do your own research as to why this is a problem with _all_ file operations whether they belong to the same program or not. If you actually try to write your own backup script in any language you'll have to deal with this at one point or another. It's not a constant problem but it will happen eventually.

 

Yes I am aware of this.

Are you not aware of how many games autosave and make backup saves?

 

7 days to die can't do this?

 

Sure it can.

 

It shouldn't do it right now? Hard to do?

 

I disagree. And many on the net would disagree with you guys too, not that you care, cause you were smart enough to know to backup. Good for you, have a cookie... Elitist attitudes are most unfortunate, and you are not very helpful to others who will have this problem. Ya know? Those people who someday will encounter this bug, then do a google search, find this thread, and see how "kind" some of you are. Then they'll see my post... and that I actually gave good answers on how they can get back their levels and items. A poor mans workaround for those who were not as SMART as you wonderful people- who would blast anyone daring to complain about this issue.

 

 

BACKUP SAVING PERIODICALLY IN GAME-

This is something they can do, and should have a long time ago, in my opinion.

 

I am a tester. I am supposed to critique parts of the game that are not done right. This is one of them. Alpha or not, AS A TESTER, I am supposed to tell them when something isn't right.

Pimps, I love you guys, but your poor save feature cost me time and sanity. That is my valid feedback. Why the white knights have to rage about this simple thing I don't know, but there you go. I was never angry with the pimps. Nor even that angry about this problem. What got me angry was the white knight elitist punkery. That ♥♥♥♥ isn't cool. Stop it.

 

 

 

Someone else here said backup saves would make for huge file dumps?

Yeah just have only a few backups not asking for 100 saves. And for people who really have hard drive space issues, maybe make this an option we tick on or off in the options screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S.- some of you people here were helpful. Thank you for your help.

 

P.S.S-- I see I am not the only zombo on this forum. I shoulda picked a diff name when I made an account here, now everyone is gonna get us confused! =\

My apologies to zzZombo. People probably gonna be mad at you for things I said, because I dare to stand in flame wars and spank the white knights square on the ass where they most need it. Sadly many of them derive sick pleasure for it. It's a war I cannot win, oh well, have a good un!

[pApA^LeGBa]

It doesn't. You have a problem with consistent power. Buy A UPS. Buy a good one. Not a cheap POS. Make sure it can sustain your PC for at least long enough to shut it down. The unit should be sized so it can provide slightly more power than the power supply in your PC. I can't really recommend one unless I know what wattage your Power supply is in the PC and where you live. I live in the US(110-120v) and I have a 750 watt power supply in my PC.

 

This is the one I am using currently.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16842101421

 

I don't know a single person that uses a desktop PC and doesn't have a UPS. Mainly because if I see them without one, I hound them until they get one. This is PC ownership 101 stuff.

 

uh what? where you from? no stable power in your country? here no one has this. i didn´t even know this exists.

 

edit i just saw it. US? really? you are joking right?

[jaela]

loss of experience etc with power outtage

 

Sounds like the character files got zapped as well, so when you re-entered it made new character files.

 

Did you backup the game? Please say yes. ;-)

 

 

 

This happened to a friend of mine playing on our server. Now she has errors etc when she tries to log on to our server on top of the being a level one and losing all her merch on her at the time. myself and another were on the server at the time of the power outtage (on our end not hers) and both mine and his are fine but hers is not. trying to figure out what can be done to help her and or fix this situation. In regards to "backing up" should this be done for individuals and servers both or just individuals and also does anyone have instructions to do such. thank you in advance for any help with this situation.

yours truly

jae

[OzHawkeye]

Jaela,

 

As a nearly two year old thread, I'll be locking this one after this post.

 

In short, for servers, the server owner should have a regular back up script going - this is definitely not something unique to 7Days, despite what some of the people posting in the thread inferred - I've run multiple game servers for multiple different games and I never once ran one without an automated backup script going.

 

For the server, there's different methods for backing it up, and it'll depend at least in part on how much access your server provider has given you to the file and directory structure, and/or whether they provide an automated backup service themselves.

 

For local games, there's a script at the top of this page on the thread that has one.

 

If you need any further help, I suggest a thread in the support forums, rather than one here in General. Thanks. ;-)