Lost blueprints after version rollback

[Diablo]

I have just had a horrifying realisation...

With this new update being broken, I reverted back to 1.1.6 to hopefully be able to finish a months long project...
But all my BP's have been erased. ALLL OFF THEM!!!!!!!!!

Hundreds of hours of work just.... gone.
The series I was doing on YT for over a year, all BP's GONE.
The project I was working on for the last 2 months, hundreds of hours of work, GONE!!!!!!!

Update: problem got fixed by the devs... Thank you so much, this is amazing

[Xorimuth]

I have just had a horrifying realisation...

With this new update being broken, I reverted back to 1.1.6 to hopefully be able to finish a months long project...
But all my BP's have been erased. ALLL OFF THEM!!!!!!!!!

Hundreds of hours of work just.... gone.
The series I was doing on YT for over a year, all BP's GONE.
The project I was working on for the last 2 months, hundreds of hours of work, GONE!!!!!!!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you checked in your blueprint-storage-backup.dat file?

[Kalanndok]

Have you verified that they are really gone?
It might be that they just got converted to 1.1.8 and are still there, just no longer loadable from 1.1.6.

And by the way...
Congratulations.
You just found out why it is generally considered a bad idea to use an "experimental release" in a "production environment".

[ickputzdirwech]

There should be at least a 1.0 blueprint backup in %AppData%\Factorio

[pichutarius]

I have just had a horrifying realisation...

With this new update being broken, I reverted back to 1.1.6 to hopefully be able to finish a months long project...
But all my BP's have been erased. ALLL OFF THEM!!!!!!!!!

Hundreds of hours of work just.... gone.
The series I was doing on YT for over a year, all BP's GONE.
The project I was working on for the last 2 months, hundreds of hours of work, GONE!!!!!!!

Update: problem got fixed by the devs... Thank you so much, this is amazing

it happened to me once, ever since then i use an empty map and back up all my bp there.

[seePyou]

that's what backups are for.

I've had Factorio since 0.7, years now, and I never knew how to seperately backup BPs. Maybe Diablo knew, maybe he did not, but you elected to just be a smart mouth and offer no real advice.
Awesome.
Maybe you don't like him. I don't know. Can you at least inform me how to backup BPs?

[ptx0]

that's what backups are for.

I've had Factorio since 0.7, years now, and I never knew how to seperately backup BPs. Maybe Diablo knew, maybe he did not, but you elected to just be a smart mouth and offer no real advice.
Awesome.
Maybe you don't like him. I don't know. Can you at least inform me how to backup BPs?

by exporting them to a string.

[Koub]

[...] Can you at least inform me how to backup BPs?

You can find here where all the useful files are located depending on your OS. The blueprints are stored in a file at the root of user data.

[seePyou]

by exporting them to a string.

Thank you.

[seePyou]

[...] Can you at least inform me how to backup BPs?

You can find here where all the useful files are located depending on your OS. The blueprints are stored in a file at the root of user data.

Thank you. What if I have lost them, as Diablo did? Because I did lose them, and now I'm just working off new ones copied from the map. Any way to get them back?

[Koub]

Sorry, I can't help you for that. Lost data is lost, unless you're lucky enough to manage the recovery with a dedicated recovery software, or by using tricks like an old save.
I use a standalone install whose purpose is explicitly the design and storage of blueprints for one's regular maps (but this is preventive, not curative).

[eradicator]

Thank you. What if I have lost them

If you're lucky the OS might have made a Shadow Copy, but you'll have to google yourself how to check / restore that. Btw, backing up data is just common sense, like locking your door or using a seatbelt. You should back up all your important data right now and consider yourself lucky that your first data loss was something relatively unimportant.

[Impatient]

Ok, Koub mentioned where the factorio directories are. But I did not see the file "blueprint-storage.dat" being mentioned in the latest posts. That is where the blueprint library resides (look in the directories mentioned, in the trash, or in system backups). Usually Factorio makes backup copies when some feature concerned with blueprints changes. Or maybe at major version updates. It places them in the same directory. I am not sure if it makes backups if you revert the factorio version to an earlier one. Reverting the version to an earlier is or at least was a frequent cause for overridden BPL files. I have no late knowledge about if wube took care of that case. Anyways, like others mentioned, backing up data that is important to you is your responsibility first. Then you may trust the application or some backup programs to handle it for you. But I would never be 100% sure about that.

I know, this realization usually comes with first hand experiencing the pain of data loss.

[Bilka]

[Moderated by Koub : Off topic]

[Moderated by Koub : Off topic]

[coppercoil]

I'd prefer slightly different message:

We just restored your earlier (2021-01-13) blueprints from backup because you downgraded the application to 1.1.8, which doesn’t know how to work with blueprints from "the future". Since you have created new blueprints in 1.1.11, we also made a backup for them, and they will be automatically accessible once you come back to newer version.

[dimm]

Downgrade version is an extremely rare use case and you do it at your own risk. There is no need for developers to handle this situation. I recommend making backups or staying on the stable branch.

[coppercoil]

Downgrade version is an extremely rare use case and you do it at your own risk. There is no need for developers to handle this situation. I recommend making backups or staying on the stable branch.

I'm not sure if downgrade is extremely rare. I'd say "it's rare". Nevertheless, I look from a slightly different perspective: developer need to handle all situations, just abilities are limited for today. We all know there are more important bugs and long-awaited enhancements, and task scheduling is a whole science anyways.
But can rare (and very painful) issue have a partial, very simple/fast fix? If developer cannot implement complete fix right now, can application just assist for the player so he could fix a problem without a data loss?

Let’s think.
Was player aware that downgrade is risky?
Did player know how to make a backup?
Did player even think he will want to downgrade?

A player just checked "auto install updates" and this worked well for five years, but today the game crashed, and how the hell he could know he will need a backup of yesterday? Most players are not sysadmins with daily backups. Think about a housewife, does she even know, what is a backup? Please don't say housewives doesn't do downgrades, this is just a basement for the general rule "we solve your problems". That means "likely you will not even know there was a problem". Well, we have a rare problem and almost no time for implementation. Can the application just make a backup of everything before any upgrade (+ weekly backups, just in case), and if whatever load failed for whatever reason, give clear step-by-step instruction how to restore it?

[jodokus31]

Regarding the blueprint lost on downgrade topic (Thank you devs!! )
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=94427

[Impatient]

Just to make 100% sure:
In your factorios application directory, did you check for a file called "blueprint-storage.dat"? And automatic backups of it, factorio creates? And did you check in your operating system trash can?

usual factorio storage directory.gif (6.66 KiB) Viewed 7629 times

Just out of curiosity and not to blame you for something: How did you end up with your save files alone? Did you delete the whole folder but you had backups of the saves? Or what?

Also, but I am not sure (disclaimer), I think I remember, that I read once, that factorio uses steam cloud sync. Or maybe it was just discussed to use it to prevent exactly these cases. IDK. you got to google it.

I googled a bit and look, there is evidence, that factorio uses cloud sync. What this means for an overridden bp-storage, i dont know:
viewtopic.php?t=60438