[SOLVED] I lost all my save files after last game update (GOG+Steam)

[PrivetDime]

Hello!
I have GOG copy of Factorio.
I bought second copy of the game on Steam.
Due to hope to play them both on same machine on Dual Monitors setup at once.
But I figured out that they both use last entered account credentials, instead of separate settings.
So I can't play one of my copies.
That was sad, but there is a twist.
After last update (1.1.70) on GOG and after Steam Cloud Sync, all my save files was erased.
Not every game setting, but save files.
They all gone.
Any chance to restore them?

[aober93]

check the folder?

C:\Users\ your username \ Appdata\roaming\factorio\saves

anything in there ?

[PrivetDime]

This folder is empty.

[aober93]

try a right click on the "saves" folder. And click something that sais previous version or something ,depending on your locality. Its possible you can restore a previous state.

Or possibly you used a different username?

[PrivetDime]

Your answer means everything about "I'm, as user of the game, need to backup my save files and know ways how to restore them".

But this is forum about Factorio game. And my question to developers of this game about "Why Steam or GOG overwrite my save files like THEY want" and "How to prevent this in future or restore this action".

I'm asking for more technical information from developers WHY this happen in GOG or Steam in the first place.

Thank you very much. But I don't need advices how to restore or backup my personal files on my own on my machine.

[Loewchen]

I'm asking for more technical information from developers WHY this happen in GOG or Steam in the first place.

Thank you very much. But I don't need advices how to restore or backup my personal files on my own on my machine.

You asked: "Any chance to restore them?" and you got as answer a method with a chance to restore them. Nobody here is to blame for the loss of your files but yourself and nobody here controls either GOG or Steam.

[FuryoftheStars]

Your answer means everything about "I'm, as user of the game, need to backup my save files and know ways how to restore them".

But this is forum about Factorio game. And my question to developers of this game about "Why Steam or GOG overwrite my save files like THEY want" and "How to prevent this in future or restore this action".

I'm asking for more technical information from developers WHY this happen in GOG or Steam in the first place.

Thank you very much. But I don't need advices how to restore or backup my personal files on my own on my machine.

You attempted to install 2 copies of the game from two different vendors. It's not on the game devs to automatically handle and support this for you. It's not on them even to automatically handle and support installing 2 copies of the game from the standalone version. With any game or application, before attempting dual install, you should research if it supports it. If you had, you would have found that the devs actually provided config files with the game so you could redirect the appdata save location to a non-standard location for each copy, thus preventing the overwriting and data loss.

And you clearly stated in your OP:

[...]
After last update (1.1.70) on GOG and after Steam Cloud Sync, all my save files was erased.
Not every game setting, but save files.
They all gone.
Any chance to restore them?

(emphasis mine to highlight key line)
No where in there did you say:

"Why Steam or GOG overwrite my save files like THEY want" and "How to prevent this in future [...]"

[PrivetDime]

I'm really sorry if my words sounds not polite. But please understand me right. My question is in both: Title of my message and story how I lost my saves. Not just in last sentence (which is just useless statement of the problem).

If developers have zero responsibility to how they distribute their game this is very different question. But they definitely can know a little more THEN ME, how GOG or Steam sync services work with accompaniment with their product. Because not every game puts their savefiles in same place. And I though that this is serious Forum about technical issues. So some people can know more about "under a hood" question between Factorio+GOG+Steam.

But instead specific technical answer I mentioned IN THE TITLE about anything that can work as a clue for me, Consumer of Product, I got just advice to make backups. This is why my words can sound bad. Because I'm just lost my personal files and I'm disappointed. And here I'm asking for technical help on specific problem.

If you think that I should remove this question just because GOG and Steam are different products and HAVE ZERO correlation with Factorio, then I can remove it. No problem. But I don't understand why the description of this forum section telling me "Technical Help. Anything that prevents you from playing the game properly. Do you have issues playing for the game, downloading it or successfully running it on your computer? Let us know here."

For example "downloading" part of description to this forum means that I need to use Internet. Maybe I need to go away and ask for help people who invented and created Internet? If I chose the wrong place for the question, just tell me. I'm really sorry if I bother people in the wrong place.

Otherwise, if nobody could help me with my problem, just please don't answer and ignore this thread. I don't know what I did wrong? I can't buy two copies of the game I love? Or what?

"Any chance to restore them?" was rhetorical part of this post. Because I'm not a robot. You know, when people talk, they can add useless words. I'm sorry, that I'm human being, also. Please forgive me for that too.

[FuryoftheStars]

I'm really sorry if my words sounds not polite. But please understand me right. My question is in both: Title of my message and story how I lost my saves. Not just in last sentence (which is just useless statement of the problem).

The title to your message asks nothing. It's a simple statement saying that you lost your save files after the last game update. It's not a question.

If developers have zero responsibility to how they distribute their game this is very different question. But they definitely can know a little more THEN ME, how GOG or Steam sync services work with accompaniment with their product. Because not every game puts their savefiles in same place. And I though that this is serious Forum about technical issues. So some people can know more about "under a hood" question between Factorio+GOG+Steam.

It's not a matter of how GOG or Steam distribute the game. Stop and think about this for a second... yes, every game stores their save files in a different location. If they save to their install directory, then sure. Issue solved. Many don't, and it's actually (I believe) generally recommended that they don't. On Windows, the Documents, and more specifically the My Games subfolder, is the recommended area (Factorio does not do this, but it does not change the point I'm coming to). If a game follows this idea, a separate from the install location for save files idea (which Factorio does), then it doesn't matter how many installs, from what distributors, or where you install to on your computer, all copies will point to the same location for save files. This means that when you introduce 2 different distributors that both offer cloud sync, you're going to have both pointing to the same location. Now, dependent on how GOG and Steam have their cloud services setup, either everything will be fine, or it won't (which we know the answer to that now...).

Honestly, though, the devs are about as likely to know the internal workings of GOG and Steam cloud sync and their compatibility as we the players are.

But instead specific technical answer I mentioned IN THE TITLE

Again, there's nothing technical in the title. It's a simple statement of the issue. No questions. Nothing technical.

about anything that can work as a clue for me, Consumer of Product, I got just advice to make backups.

Actually, no, you didn't. You got exactly what you overtly asked for in the post: how to restore the files (if a backup was already being made).

But then you posted something that came across as a minor rant. That is why you're getting the responses you are now. I was ignoring this thread until I read that. That's the only reason I'm in here now.

I can't buy two copies of the game I love? Or what?

I never said you can't buy two copies. I said the onerous is on you to get them configured correctly. And there are resources out there for that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Zd5T-FZ9M
viewtopic.php?t=12819
https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... _directory

"Any chance to restore them?" was rhetorical part of this post. Because I'm not a robot. You know, when people talk, they can add useless words. I'm sorry, that I'm human being, also. Please forgive me for that too.

That was the only part of the post where you actually asked something. And that's fine if you're hoping for more. But it's not fine to diss the help you get on the one question you asked because they weren't answering the unspoken questions.

[Hornwitser]

Looking at the responses from this old thread on reddit you're not the only one that has experienced losing your saves to a cloud.

If the cloud sync function was properly designed it would never ever auto delete your saves no matter what.

[PrivetDime]

Thank you all for additional information!
That was very important for me to know.

This is not the first time when Steam erases my personal files on PC (their Uninstaller removed many files from my Desktop once, because inproper code for detecting *.LNK shortcuts for installed games, but removing random personal files instead). So as stated in Reddit source, I think that specifically Steam itself made this issue.

With that information in mind, at least I can live without constant fear to run and play Factorio (to lose everything once again). And now it will be possible for me to continue to use GOG version normally. Maybe I even will try to buy second copy on GOG instead and make proper configuration by your advices from links.

[Tertius]

You can try to directly look into your steam cloud savefile storage and look if there are some savefiles left. Steam has the option to manually download these files, then you can put the downloaded files manually to the FActorio savefile folder.

https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage

In addition to that, make your own local backup of your important files. If there is no backup of a file, it is not important enough. For the last 25 years of computer usage, I never lost a file. I always had a current backup not older than a day of all of my important files. Backup to a USB drive, 4 TB drives are dirt cheap per gigabyte. As backup app, use Windows built in File History functionality.

[PrivetDime]

This is a very correct attitude to personal data, to make backups. I really doing that to all my work and valuable data. But doing that all the time for every file and every situation is crazy. And it sounds even worse for what Video Games really are. They are for relaxing AFTER the hard working day or at weekend. Not for being as SECOND WORK. And you know what is even crazier? Is to have Cloud Backup service that can erase your files, instead of saving them.

Anyway, additional link to remote Steam Cloud storage is brilliant finding. I didn't know about its existence.

And more... I have found my save files in that link.

THANK YOU!

[FuryoftheStars]

This is a very correct attitude to personal data, to make backups. I really doing that to all my work and valuable data. But doing that all the time for every file and every situation is crazy. And it sounds even worse for what Video Games really are. They are for relaxing AFTER the hard working day or at weekend. Not for being as SECOND WORK. And you know what is even crazier? Is to have Cloud Backup service that can erase your files, instead of saving them.

I suggest looking into Volume Shadow Copy. Not as good as a backup to another device, but less work required. Just enable it for your whole drive, and every folder gets some limited backing up. Then it's just a matter of doing what aober93 said in their second post to recover.

[Tertius]

Great that you were able to recover your saves. However, the steam cloud is no backup. It exists to make savefiles available to multiple computers of yours. Most clouds are no backup either. They are remote storage that are mirrored by your local storage. If one file vanishes locally, it vanishes remotely, and vice versa. A backup includes versioning and handling of deleted files. If you really want a remote backup, you need to invest in a remote backup solution.

A simple remote backup is included with Microsoft's Onedrive cloud storage: You can right-click any file or directory to browse previously uploaded versions of that file and pick one to restore. This is a backup. But just a single mirrored copy of a file on a remote storage is no backup.

If it comes to what to backup: Everything. I backup everything. I don't choose directories to backup. I (or to be exact: the automated backup job that does the backup unattended) just backup everything, so I'm able to restore everything.

[tryler11]

Just ran into this. It is installed through Steam as well as GOG, but I don't own it on Steam. That's still enough though for the Steam Cloud to frick it up.

the devs actually provided config files with the game so you could redirect the appdata save location to a non-standard location for each copy, thus preventing the overwriting and data loss.

Regarding this, there is a page on the wiki (https://wiki.factorio.com/Application_directory), but unfortunately the instructions are not very clear.

What I did was update the config-path entry in config-path.cfg within the installation pointer to

Code: Select all

config-path=__PATH__system-write-data__/gog/config

and for the steam version to

Code: Select all

config-path=__PATH__system-write-data__/steam/config

This will put the GOG config in %AppData%\Factorio\gog\config and all the Steam config in %AppData%\Factorio\steam\config.
Starting each version up will create the config files, but they'll still be sharing the saves folder.
So now you need to update both config.ini files in there to use

Code: Select all

write-data=__PATH__system-write-data__/gog

and

Code: Select all

write-data=__PATH__system-write-data__/steam

respectively.

And now that they're totally separated, you can clean up the old root folder by moving those files into both of the directories to keep old progress or by deleting them for a fresh slate.

Now, there are still problems.
Steam Cloud uses the %AppData%\Factorio\saves folder, so your syncing will never work again. It will just create that folder there for no reason (even when Steam Cloud is disabled for the game), further adding to the confusion next time you look there. And if you want cloud syncing to work for one of the installs, you have to put one in the subfolder and leave the other in the root

TL;DR the quoted suggestion is not too good. Your best bet is definitely to have just one copy installed at a time.

[FuryoftheStars]

TL;DR the quoted suggestion is not too good. Your best bet is definitely to have just one copy installed at a time.

Actually, your best bet is to just have one of them in a completely different location. This is possible to do with the config files. I posted links to a YouTube vid and link to another post where more details are given. I also imagine there are more threads out there on the subject.

It's also probably best to have your own backup/sync system in place specifically because you don't know/have any control over the criteria Steam and the like uses for theirs.