Game not saving..

[Raolin]

I have the Steam version. I played through the 3rd level of the mine (I had to bypass Brink because he would not initiate his quest). I got down to the vendor character, decided to go back to town. I left my town portal up, and quit the game (to check and see if there was a release patch to fix Brink, etc.). I got a "This game is not available" error when trying to launch via desktop icon, but was able to load the game on a second try. I get to the initial character screen, but there aren't selectable characters on the "Load Character" screen. They appear as all new characters (no names, etc.). My game appears to have disappeared? Does it only save your game state at certain points (that would suck)?

[travisbaldree]

The game saves a lot - every time you switch levels, and when you exit, or kick to menu. Its intent is to ALWAYS save your progress -
let's check and make sure you have a saves folder and that something wonky isn't going on!

from start->run

%appdata%

and press enter

then browse to runic games/torchlight

There SHOULD be a save folder there - is there anything in it?

[Raolin]

I actually tried the SAFEMODE=1 fix. It started a windowed session that still did not have my characters available. I tried "Loading" a character by typing the name I used, and Hitting the Load button. All it did was start a new game. I then exited, and had a "Continue" button available, and there is now 0.svt and sharedstash.bin in the folder you mention (only those 2 files). They both have modified times of right after exiting the safemode session. I assume there was nothing in the folder previously (my first game is gone apparently ).

[Raolin]

As an aside, toggling safe mode seemed to have fixed the Brink issue (maybe.. could be unrelated I suppose). He now cued his cutscene properly, and the quest seemed to initiate properly.

[travisbaldree]

That's REALLY weird - did you uninstall the game and reinstall it at any point?

[darthpanda16]

Are you running Vista or 7 64bit?

[Raolin]

No.. this was a straight up first time Steam install, defrag, launch scenario.

Win7 RC (64-bit)

I was also missing some NPCs in town my first try. That also appears to have been fixed (either by just restarting the game, or by using the safemode fix, then restarting).

I would be happy to supply a dxdiag if you need.

[trikztar]

I've just experienced this issue as well. Having played up to lvl 11, I quit to the title screen only to discover that my character hadn't been saved. I checked the save folder - nothing noteworthy in there - only the sharedstash file. Fairly depressing.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate.

[travisbaldree]

Are all of these Steam installs?

[Annihilator]

Yeah I had that too, just lost a character. It happened after the first play. When I went back to menu after the first playing session, the character wasn't available to continue, "load character" only brought me to the "Create new character" screen. It is a Steam install as well.

So I created a new character in a different class, kicked back to menu and he was there. And since then everything works fine with different characters. Maybe that bug affect the first play, I don't know. I played like 1.5 hours on the character I lost, its a bummer but nothing to make me really angry.

Good luck and thanks for this game, I really like it.

[travisbaldree]

So, I have a weird idea on this -
I have a feeling that you are getting elevated permissions during install->run, and that your saves are going to a different folder.
I have a suspicion that your saves exist - but that they got put somewhere else!
Are any of you not logged in as the administrator?

[caseynelson]

I had the same issue after 2 and a half hours of playing...not only did i waste my time but my whole guy is gone, i am running in admin and did the search for the save and nonthing but the stash.bin thing or whatever....so not sure how a game doesn't have a save feature or autosave feature. never heard of this problem in my life as a gamer and i am higly dissapointed that i wasted my time and money so far.

[travisbaldree]

There's some sort of specific issue with running immediately after the install in certain cases that we've never encountered during testing -
Are you also a Steam user? I'm trying to isolate whether it is something specific to the Steam installs and ONLY on the first run, and on which OS.

If everyone who has experienced a problem like this can let me know whether
A) This happened when you ran the game immediately after install
B) What OS you are using
C) Where you got the game

I'd obviously like to prioritize getting this sorted out as soon as possible.
My very great apologies for anyone who has lost their save-

Travis

[travisbaldree]

Also, to help me determine whether the saves are being stored in a strange place for you on that first run, the save file extension is
.svt

If you can do a search on your appdata or users folder to see if any of those come up, and can tell me where that are, that would be a huge help.

[Nagisan]

There's some sort of specific issue with running immediately after the install in certain cases that we've never encountered during testing -
Are you also a Steam user? I'm trying to isolate whether it is something specific to the Steam installs and ONLY on the first run, and on which OS.

If everyone who has experienced a problem like this can let me know whether
A) This happened when you ran the game immediately after install
B) What OS you are using
C) Where you got the game

I'd obviously like to prioritize getting this sorted out as soon as possible.
My very great apologies for anyone who has lost their save-

Travis

A) Yes, worked fine after closing the game then launching it again
B) W7 64-bit
C) Steam

Did a search on my C: drive for .svt, only thing that came up was 0.svt from after I re-launched the game and made a new character, its like it did not save at all when launching from the installer.

[knad]

There's some sort of specific issue with running immediately after the install in certain cases that we've never encountered during testing -
Are you also a Steam user? I'm trying to isolate whether it is something specific to the Steam installs and ONLY on the first run, and on which OS.

If everyone who has experienced a problem like this can let me know whether
A) This happened when you ran the game immediately after install
B) What OS you are using
C) Where you got the game

I'd obviously like to prioritize getting this sorted out as soon as possible.
My very great apologies for anyone who has lost their save-

Travis

A) Yes
B) Windows XP SP3
C) Steam

And it ended up saving after starting/exiting the game again.

[Jarden]

There's some sort of specific issue with running immediately after the install in certain cases that we've never encountered during testing -
Are you also a Steam user? I'm trying to isolate whether it is something specific to the Steam installs and ONLY on the first run, and on which OS.

If everyone who has experienced a problem like this can let me know whether
A) This happened when you ran the game immediately after install
B) What OS you are using
C) Where you got the game

I'd obviously like to prioritize getting this sorted out as soon as possible.
My very great apologies for anyone who has lost their save-

Travis

Same problem here

A) Yes
B) Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
C) Steam

[rivethead]

There's some sort of specific issue with running immediately after the install in certain cases that we've never encountered during testing -
Are you also a Steam user? I'm trying to isolate whether it is something specific to the Steam installs and ONLY on the first run, and on which OS.

If everyone who has experienced a problem like this can let me know whether
A) This happened when you ran the game immediately after install
B) What OS you are using
C) Where you got the game

I'd obviously like to prioritize getting this sorted out as soon as possible.
My very great apologies for anyone who has lost their save-

Travis

A) The game appeared to be working fine. I created a character and played for about 30 minutes. Made it to about level 4. I then exited to the main menu and created another character. Once this was done and I played that character for a few minutes, I exited the game to find the original character was not there. (When I went the the load menu option). Subsequent characters created are still there

B) Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

C) Steam

I've made it a point now to backup the save game directory everytime I log out of the game heh

[Darien]

If everyone who has experienced a problem like this can let me know whether
A) This happened when you ran the game immediately after install
B) What OS you are using
C) Where you got the game

A) Yes. I haven't had it reoccur since that time.
B) Windows XP SP 2
C) Steam

I did not locate any .svt files anywhere except in %appdata%/runic games/torchlight/save and the directory I made to back them up in.

[Darien]

Oh, if it's any help, my wife installed the demo version (also on XP SP 2, also from Steam), and she did not seem to have this problem. Her save files were present and accounted for when she was done playing.