Factorio Forums

Hi,

I play with mods, so I don't know if it's the good place or not, but something goes wrong with my save. I have >260h on it, I hope it can be saved.
I haven’t changed any mods recently, so I can’t see where the error might be coming from.

What happened:
I was playing as normal, then I saved my game without any problems and exited the game. The next time I launched the game, I immediately got this error message.
The game can no longer load my save file, nor any of the auto-saves. My older save files from other games work fine. I’m not sure whether the problem is caused by the game or one of the mods, but I hope it’s possible to recover the save file

Do you have any idea what might have happened?
And is it possible to recover the save file (e.g. by deleting that decorative ID from the files) ?

Thanks in advance

This is known broken hardware.

Wow, what a history of posts about crashes.
Yeah, OP keeps using failed hardware and expect different results

Oh okay, so the problem isn’t caused by a mod or the game itself.
I’d experienced crashes in the past, which I’d actually reported, and I’d been told that the problem was down to my computer. However, I’d never had this issue with a corrupted save file before, which is why I asked here.

Do you think there’s any chance of ‘fixing’ the save file, or is it lost forever ?

pioruns wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 10:41 am Wow, what a history of posts about crashes.
Yeah, OP keeps using failed hardware and expect different results

There’s nothing funny about it.
I’ve only got a limited knowledge of computers, and the problems are different, even though in this case their cause seems to be the same.

I might just have lost a game I’d put 260 hours into… I started it last autumn.
There’s nothing funny about it, and you shouldn’t make fun of other people’s misfortune.

Cubickman wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 2:12 pm Oh okay, so the problem isn’t caused by a mod or the game itself.
I’d experienced crashes in the past, which I’d actually reported, and I’d been told that the problem was down to my computer. However, I’d never had this issue with a corrupted save file before, which is why I asked here.

Do you think there’s any chance of ‘fixing’ the save file, or is it lost forever ?

Unstable hardware can corrupt the game while stored in memory or while manipulated by the processor, depending on what part gets corrupted you will get instant crashes or the corrupt data gets stored in the save file and you only notice it once you try to load it.
The save might be recoverable, but that is costly to do and it is just a question of time until it happens again.

Okay, thanks

Cubickman wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 2:18 pm I’ve only got a limited knowledge of computers, and the problems are different, even though in this case their cause seems to be the same.

1. You have been told before by people more versed in computers, that your hardware is faulty, that was their diagnosis for your crashes. Why you have not listened to them and not replaced the hardware?

Cubickman wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 2:18 pm I might just have lost a game I’d put 260 hours into… I started it last autumn.
There’s nothing funny about it, and you shouldn’t make fun of other people’s misfortune.

2. If your most recent save is corrupted, just load previous manual save from the day before, problem solved.