[Kovarex] [1.1.107] Blueprint library cloud sync gets deleted on fresh factorio install

[nosebleed]

Reproduction steps:
-Have an existing blueprint saved in the steam cloud sync
-Have an existing save game also in the cloud
-Have a new device that hasn't had factorio before (in my case, a brand new steam deck.)

-Check your cloud storage in steam with a browser (https://store.steampowered.com/account/ ... pid=427520) note the blueprint file blueprint-storage.dat.zstd exists and your savegame zip file.
-Install and run factorio on the new device. Let it cloud sync so it's up to date.
-Load up the save game
-check your blueprints. They aren't there, because in the options the blueprint library cloud sync is off. Head to the options and enable it.
-Check blueprints. Still empty.
-Open your cloud storage again, note the blueprint file still exists. Download it if you need a backup at this point.
-Close the game. It will now sync to the cloud.
-Check the cloud storage via the browser. The blueprint-storage.dat.zstd file is now deleted.
No other files touched though.
-Check each of your factorio installs. None of them will have your cloud blueprints after syncing with steam cloud as they replicate the change of deleting that file.
-Despair

I took screenshots of my steam cloud if that helps. Maybe having an old timestamp on the blueprint file might be part of the bug. My blueprint-storage.dat.zstd was last changed 22.10.2023 before I blew my prints away with a new install.

[Loewchen]

Cannot reproduce.
When I perform these steps on windows I get a cloud conflict message with options on what to overwrite.

[nosebleed]

If your windows install is receiving a conflict message, that means that the fresh install did wipe the blueprints file. That is the bug. Why is it wiping the cloud blueprints after doing a cloud sync when launching it first-time?
My windows and other linux install with the existing blueprints do not report conflicts, they just go ahead with the latest change and blow the file away unfortunately.

If you need evidence for the cloud storage not reporting conflict, could you try a new install with Linux instead?
This is not the first time this has happened to me.

When going from (original)Windows10 -> (new install)Linux in a dual boot configuration on my machine, this bug happened. Didn't think too much of it cos I had backups.
I'm still dual booting win and lin, and got a different steam deck about a year ago. Blueprints were wiped as described in this post when opening factorio for the first time.
That steam deck was stolen by UPS when I needed to RMA it back to steam. I now have a new steam deck. When installing factorio fresh just yesterday, it wiped my blueprints again but I was a bit more prepared for a bug report.
Note that after the wipe is replicated between my factorio installs, they all seem to behave fine and sync future changes.

The only consistent factor I can think of with linux is that I'm running arch, and steamos is also arch-based.

[nosebleed]

Hopefully you have access to a steam deck, but if not I've listed major details of my install that may or may not be bug related.
GUI: KDE/plasma 6
Window system: X11
Steam installed via pacman (NOT flatpak)

To save you a lot of time installing, run "archinstall" unless you want to do the long winded manual install.

Thank you in advance!

[aka13]

There is a way to recover the blueprints from a savefile, saved me once in a similar situation, can't remember how exactly, but was also some form of cloud sync issue.

viewtopic.php?t=94427

[SoShootMe]

Hopefully you have access to a steam deck, but if not I've listed major details of my install that may or may not be bug related.

I did something very similar to what you described, with the same outcome, when moving from one Windows PC to another. So I don't think the problem is OS-specific and Loewchen's failure to reproduce is due to some other subtlety.

The basic problem has been reported a number of times seemingly to no avail.

[Tertius]

Some time ago I also investigated the deletion of the blueprint library with the Steam version. I investigated for a new Windows PC I just bought. My conclusion was a bit different than in the OP.

If you start Factorio on a fresh install for the first time, immediately go to the settings without starting or loading any game, activate cloud sync and directly terminate Factorio, cloud sync runs on program termination and works fine. Saves and blueprint library are synced and downloaded from the cloud fine.

However, if you start a new game or some save before you activate cloud sync, then activate cloud sync after that, the current state of the local files is compared to the cloud, and whatever file is newer, is used for the cloud. If local files are newer than the cloud files, they are uploaded and replace the cloud files.

So if you just started a game for testing purposes to see if Factorio works on a new install and abort it a minute later, the local blueprint library has been just created fresh and empty. It has the timestamp from just now. This is newer than the cloud stored file, and will overwrite the cloud blueprint library, effectively wiping it empty.

[FuryoftheStars]

So if you just started a game for testing purposes to see if Factorio works on a new install and abort it a minute later, the local blueprint library has been just created fresh and empty. It has the timestamp from just now. This is newer than the cloud stored file, and will overwrite the cloud blueprint library, effectively wiping it empty.

Yup, this. ^^

Factorio and the devs have no control over this as it is Steam doing the syncing, and the devs have no idea what your intentions are, so they can't program Factorio to not create the local blueprints file in this case.

Steam sync is extremely simple: use the newest file. As such, in order to use it properly, you have to actually think about these types of things.

[Tertius]

May be a possible workaround to implement is if the player activates cloud sync, the game asks if the player wants to use the current local file(s) to sync or the cloud stored file(s) to sync. It could warn the player that if he chooses the local files, the cloud will be overwritten, and if he chooses the cloud files, the local files will be overwritten. And if the player choose the cloud files, the game should download them immediately right now in that moment, so any local files are gone immediately and later sync always has the cloud based files.

However, may be the Steam wrapper of the game does not allow such fine grained control and explicit file transfer.

[chl]

This just happened to me too. There is no warning about cloud conflicts, becuase there is never a conflict. Game is installed and Steam downloads the old blueprints -> game is launched -> save is loaded, overwriting blueprints with an empty file -> game closes syncing the new blueprint library state. Luckily I was able to recover all (I think) bps from another save file, per the link above.

Really something should be done about the blueprint library syncing. Easy fixes would be to enable blueprint syncing as default, or to also cloud sync certain settings (settings not related to performance or hardware I guess the vast majority of people want the same across machines, as well as keybinds).

[Side note: the blueprint management overall needs an overhaul I think, it's such a fickle system. I am a very technical person and still have problems, in multiplayer game with my less technincal friends it's happened so many times that blueprints gets deleted because they accidently move them to their inventory and then deletes them or similar things.]

[Marcely1199]

The cloud syncing system is severely flawed, I never had it work once when I moved my machine. It's the third iteration where I want to play the game and all the past blueprints have disappeared. And no, I never even touched the toggle in the settings. And a little google search reveals that it's a common problem with this game.

[kovarex]

-check your blueprints. They aren't there, because in the options the blueprint library cloud sync is off. Head to the options and enable it.

Why is it off? I checked and the default value is on, and it should also sync your config.

[kovarex]

Honestly, the cloud storage and related logic is not my speciality, and I'm not sure how much do we have it under control, but I researched a bit to see what can be done to mitigate the risk via simple steps:

• the default to use cloud storage was changed to true recently, so it should help. (This was already changed prior current release)
• The game was altered to not save blueprint storage if it wasn't altered yet, so it will not even produce the file to overwrite something with until you actually put something into the blueprint storage.

I can't promise 100% reliability, as there are things not under our control, but this should help things.