Save Corruption Fix!

[FelisNoctu]

Well, the first and most obvious suggestion is to save manually, frequently. I can't say that enough. I lost about 15 minutes just recently, and I could have had to start over if I wasn't so anal about my saving.

The actual "fix" I mentioned is actually fairly simple. If your game crashes while saving (map change crash, that sort of thing), your autosave will be corrupt. Do fix that, you will want to navigate here:

C:\Users\[Username]\Saved Games\Lionhead Studios\Fable 3\

Granted, this is on Windows 7 mind you, might be a bit different for you. In any case, there is a folder with a random name in there, a collection of numbers and maybe a letter or two. Head inside there. Now, you will see a list of all of your save games, as well as a bunch related to the autosave.

Delete anything that begins with "hero1autosave_", but leave the others alone.

Fable III is prioritizing the modification date for the file it seems, and in this case the autosaves of course are the most recent. While you may lose some progress, redoing a bit is still much better than starting over! =D

Well, It fixed the game not being able to start, but it always crashes in the same place. The autosave immedately after picking up the guild seal. Is there a way to turn off the autosave function? By the way, this seems to be the cause of the Main Executable error.

[FelisNoctu]

Yeah, I actually figured out this "fix" after having the same issue. My game crashes repeatedly when trying to enter the Brightwall Academy caves. I set it to reinstall last night, so I'm going to see if that fixes anything.

The crash itself is well known, it seems to have something to do with GFWL, and has been around since like... early 2009 I believe. I was hoping however that the decryption just went bad, so I redownloaded everything last night. Here's hoping!



EDIT:
So, I continued to get errors even after the redownload. What actually fixed it was to log into GFWL first, and leave the window open, and then run Fable 3. You should try that as well if you're still having issues with the guild seal.

Process might be slightly different depending on the OS, but for me it was:
Start Menu->
Programs->
Microsoft Games for Windows Marketplace->
Games for Windows Marketplace

I have absolutely no idea why this worked, but for us people who can actually manage to get GFWL to run in the first place, it seems to help things. At the very least it helped with my current issue, so I hope it works for you yoo. D:

*Sigh* Unfortunately that didn't work for me. The same thing keeps happening. Games For Windows Live works fine for me. (And I kept it up while playing...) So, the problem has been around since 2009 and it hasn't been fixed? Doesn't seem like good business to me.

[FelisNoctu]

Microsoft doesn't need good business practices, remember? They have a monopoly! :P

[youthd]

one problem i get is that I copied the save game files from one computer over to another, and in Windows Live(in the new computer), it says the saved game is corrupted, has anyone tried this before?

[Incendia]

The only thing in my save folder is the autosave, even though I've saved multiple times through the game.

from what I read on the nets its a problem with 64 bit version of things
by any chance are we all on xp 64? it says on the steam store page:

"OS: Windows XP 32bit SP 3, Windows Vista 32/64bit, Windows 7 32/64bit"

i call hatecrime
and this is horseplay, i didnt buy a game fullprice to discover i have to redo the first seven hours because of some tomfoolery


edit:

Originally Posted by Incendia

The only thing in my save folder is the autosave, even though I've saved multiple times through the game.

yeah i used F5 to quicksave all the time too, so F.T.S.

http://lionhead.com/forums/p/303842/...4.aspx#3678084

post here problems please

[Damage2000]

15 minutes? 7 hours? I lost 21 hours of progress thanks to corrupt savegames. Seriously not happy.

[DanJonMin]

Exactly the same issue. I only used quick save, and then when it was autosaving, the game crashed. I had literally just finished the 6.5 million gold for the treasury after taking all the good options at the end, was about to finish, and boom. Game is corrupted, start again, GLHF...

I had a playthrough where I had just finished the main story and fully upgraded a few legendaries, then due to a corrupted save I am now back at just after finishing the masquerade ._.

Now I keep all 5 save slots updated ~_~

[PereKermann]

I've got the wonderful problem where, when I first start playing the game, without even doing anything at all, my save game becomes corrupt.

I can't save. Any time I start up the game, it corrupts the save file, making me replay the intro and everything. Every single time.

[Sybuur]

First off is my post related to your posts?

Secondly, I picked up this game for my daughter and she is having a problem saving her game. We have Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2. She is still running the game and we are trying to figure out a way to salvage the save files before turning the game off and trying to see what happens.

I decided to see if I could help her with this myself and in doing so I like to watch what games are doing via Microsoft's (SysInternal's) Process Monitor. I'm seeing that the game is trying to save files into "C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\fable 3\c:\documents and settings\<%username%>\lionhead studios\fable 3\saved games\<some number>". Yes I typed that correctly. It is concatenating two file paths as one. This seems like something Lionhead needs to take a look at.

Besides the game having 'code that needs improvement', are there any other suggestions about fixing "The save game is corrupted and cannot be loaded"? BTW saving the quicksave does not give any errors just using the statues.

-----
I just came across this link: http://lionhead.com/forums/t/304146.aspx for "The save game is corrupted and cannot be loaded".

[PereKermann]

Originally Posted by Sybuur

I decided to see if I could help her with this myself and in doing so I like to watch what games are doing via Microsoft's (SysInternal's) Process Monitor. I'm seeing that the game is trying to save files into "C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\fable 3\c:\documents and settings\<%username%>\lionhead studios\fable 3\saved games\<some number>". Yes I typed that correctly. It is concatenating two file paths as one. This seems like something Lionhead needs to take a look at.

Whoa. If that's true, then it should be easy for them to fix.

Yup. Just confirmed it for myself. It tries to Create File in "C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\fable 3\c:\documents and settings\<%username%>\lionhead studios\fable 3\saved games\<some number>"

And of course, it gets "Name Invalid".

I can't get to my Lionhead account, due to it being inactive for a long time (but it still occupies my email address), so anyone who has an account there, and could post this for Lionhead to read, I'd be extremely grateful!