[2.0.60] Changing Username Breaks Pins and Creates New Player when Re-Joining Multiplayer Game

[GroveMaker]

- What did you do?
1. I was a non-host returning player in a Multiplayer Space Age Save. With my old username, I connected to the server then disconnected to change my Factorio Username. I then changed my Factorio Username using the official Factorio.com Web Portal.

- What happened?
2. Upon relaunching my game, I was properly authenticated as my New Username. Upon reconnecting to the server, my player character, hotbars, per-player mod settings, entity pins, and player permissions were all reset to those of a new player joining the save. This also broke the Pin System, as I was no longer able to entities or players to my Hud using either (A) The Player Menu, or (B) Alt + Right Click to pin an Entity.

I tested reloading a local save of the previous play session prior to the name change, which resulted in me inheriting the host player's character instead of my character where I had taken the save.

I also tested reloading an entirely separate single player save, which correctly resulted in me having continuity with my player character.

- What did you expect to happen instead? It might be obvious to you, but do it anyway!
3. I expected to rejoin the game, and have continuity of my player character, hotbars, per-player mod settings, entity pins, and player permissions without needing to edit save binaries. I additionally expected that the Pin System would remain functional on this "new character".

Similarly with a local save of the multiplayer game, I would expect to maintain continuity of my character in the save.

- Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?
4. The issue persisted through game reboots. I am unable to verify that the issue would resolve if I was to change my name back or change my username again, as I am only able to change my Factorio username very three months.



- Attachments:
The following save was made after (1) My Username was changed, (2) I had rejoined and attempted to restore my items from my old Player character, and (3) my player character could no longer pin entities or players to the HUD:

Ian World Save Post Mods 2.zip

(52.84 MiB) Downloaded 8 times

The following MP4 file is a video demonstrating the broken pin system, with the same setup as the previous attachment:

07 26 2025 Broken Pin Demo.mp4

(10.36 MiB) Downloaded 11 times

The following is my factorio-current.log:

factorio-current.log

(83.86 KiB) Downloaded 7 times

[Loewchen]

That is not a bug, a new username will create a new character in multiplayer.

[GroveMaker]

If it is not a bug to create a new character,
do I need to submit a separate bug report for the process breaking the pin System?

[Rseding91]

Pins are per player as are permissions. Changing your name acts as if you are a completely different player: Factorio does not have any kind of GUID system and the username *is* the unique identifier for who is who. By changing it, as far as the multiplayer server is concerned you are a completely new player connecting and completely unrelated to any previous player.

[Bilka]

You may find this helpful:

I changed my username and now all my items are gone.

If you change your name your save game will see your new name as a new character. You can use a console command to swap your character back in-game:
/swap-players old-username new-username