Factorio Forums

Hello there!

I try to load my game as usual, and during loading the next message appears:

Entity [name=biter-spawner, type=unit-spawner, position={-2303.0000000000, 1211.5000000000}, setup=false, owned-by-ghost=false, to-be-deconstructed=false, to-be-upgraded=false, simulation=false] belongs to invalid force index=130

My +190h game had worked well until now. I played for the last time last Thursday 16 on my laptop during a trip, everything was fine. Today I returned home and when I loaded the game on my PC (Steam sync) I got that error.
I tried to load the game on my laptop, the same error came up.
None of the three _autosave works either.
I have updated the mods, but the error remains.
I have contacted the mod pack creator Space Exploration (@Earendel) but he tells me that "I don't dynamically create new forces or put biters on non-enemy forces", and he told me this is worth to report here.

Any ideas what could have happened? Please ask for more details if needed ^^

Log file in the attachtments
Save file (84 MB): https://www.dropbox.com/s/ae90a75d1d5z8oo/Partida%20espacial%20Portatil.zip?dl=0

Force ID value 130 is binary 10000010 (invalid in your save)
Force ID value 2 is binary 00000010 (enemy force)

So, you had a single bit get flipped in your RAM and it saved an invalid value to the save file. This could be a completely random thing or it could mean your RAM is going bad. You can try running something like https://www.memtest.org/ and see if it spots anything.

I edited the 1 bit back to a 0 and the save file now loads.

Awesome! Nice find, thank you so much for fixing my save.

I did a RAM test. I don't know how to interpret the result, but I guess red line is not good



It is a 10 years old laptop, and even so it runs Factorio (at low) without any problems (until now). So I will be more careful in the future to avoid losing saves due to random bit flips.

Thanks to all of you for your time!

Yeah that means your RAM is going or has gone bad. You could replace it; but if the laptop is 10 years old I'm not sure if it would be worth it over just getting a new laptop. Or making a lot of saves with different names so when it breaks again you can try an older save.