save file problems

mr mag00 · Post by **mr mag00** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 6:27 pm

evening all, been playing for about a week and brings back memories of childhood.

anyway hello all.

I was playing this evening when i docked for some reason i had no cash? so i went to reload my saved game and the game wouldnt recognise it so i opned it in notepad to see if all the text was there, not that i would know if it wasnt, but it all seemed intact.

Reloaded the game and I cannot find the file when looking to reload a previous game. i have moved the file to a number of places, including the saved game folder, but the game will not find it. what have i done ?

cheers

Darkbee · Post by **Darkbee** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 6:46 pm

Did you happen to save the file when you opened it in Notepad? That will undoubtedly anger the ancient serpentine gods of Ra.

Oolite's files have a different end of line character than a standard Windows text file. So if you let Windows jig around with those files (i.e. using Notepad et al) then Oolite will get confused as to the format of the files.

It's recommended you use something like Notepad++ or Greenpad that supports multiple types of end of line characters to view files.

Other than that I don't know why your original problem occur, I haven't seen that issue before.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:24 pm

Hi, mr mag00, and first of all welcome to the boards, and of course to this great game!

Could you provide some more information? Which version of Oolite are you running, and on which system? That would certainly help us to identify the source of your problem.

Post by **Kaks** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:28 pm

Using notepad++ you should be able to resurrect your dead save file:
Edit>EOL Conversion>Unix Format should do the trick.

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:29 pm

The first guess (at least if it's WinXP) would be notepad has appended a .txt to the end of the save game (so it's now filename.oolite-save.txt rather than filename.oolite-save). If you have known extensions hidden then of course you won't see it.

That would be the first thing to check. You can see if extensions are hidden by opening a windows explorer (not IE) window and selecting tools --> folder options and then the view tab. Hide extensions for known file types is about half-way down the scrolling list (at the bottom of the list when the scroll bars are all the way up).

No idea regarding cash, as others have said that's a new one. And also the advice about not using notepad is good, it can add strange things to files which oolite chokes on.

mr mag00 · Post by **mr mag00** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:00 am

running on xp this is the file name, i did automayically save in notepad yup.

Jameson (autosave).oolite-save

the version i am runnign is Oolite-1.74.2-test.exe

JazHaz · Post by **JazHaz** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:41 am

mr mag00 wrote:
i did automayically save in notepad yup.

Stop using Notepad. As discussed above the standard Windows Notepad screws up your Oolite save files.

I use Notepad++ which is an open source (free!) editor. Get it from here.

mr mag00 · Post by **mr mag00** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:49 am

yup now have notepad++

JazHaz · Post by **JazHaz** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:53 am

mr mag00 wrote:
yup now have notepad++

Good. Now as Kaks said, do this:

Kaks wrote:
Using notepad++ you should be able to resurrect your dead save file:
Edit>EOL Conversion>Unix Format should do the trick.

mr mag00 · Post by **mr mag00** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:55 am

have also updated my version of the game. cheers

mr mag00 · Post by **mr mag00** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:57 am

unix format is greyed out and therefore not available. looking at it again it seems to be unix already

Post by **another_commander** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 8:05 am

Maybe you can post your savefile on pastebin.com? We may be able to figure out what's wrong with it.

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 8:06 am

Do you have hidden extensions for known filenames set (see my post above)? If so then you may have a hidden .txt after the .oolite-save which will make the file invisible to the game.

mr mag00 · Post by **mr mag00** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 8:09 am

hey Thargoid yh i have the hidden extensions unselected, that is right yes?

JazHaz · Post by **JazHaz** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 8:30 am

mr mag00 wrote:
hey Thargoid yh i have the hidden extensions unselected, that is right yes?

Yes.