32 réponses à ce sujet

[Sleip_Same]

Hi

I'm having a significant bug with my Mass Effect 2 game. The game runs excellently, but my problem appears when trying to load a game. I can save my game normally, but when i go to Load Game in the main menu, no careers are available to select. I can press "Select Career", but no saved games show.
I can however, press "Resume" in the main menu, and the game will load my last saved game.
As you can imagine, this causes some problems in terms of perhaps regretting a choice I made, or something similar to that, and wanting to load a previous save. Also, when I create a new character, any attempt to save a game doesn't work.

I have a hardcopy of the game, using AMD Phenom II x4 955 at 3,2ghz clock speed, 4gb RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 with 2gb VRAM, with Catalyst version 9.9. Running DirectX 10, don't really know if that's relevant, though.
Also using Windows Vista x64, service pack 2.

This is what I've tried so far:
I did try reinstalling the game, but the problem still exists. Also tried a different hard drive, no difference.
In the folder where the game stores saves; Documents\\\\\\\\BioWare\\\\\\\\Mass Effect 2, i found a Config file called "Gamer Settings" where there was listed a bunch of stuff about resolution, graphic settings and so on. There was also a part where it said "SaveGames: Location=[blank]". (blank meaning that there was nothing there)
I tried putting in the path of the savegame folder, Documents\\\\\\\\BioWare\\\\\\\\Mass Effect 2\\\\\\\\Save, but nothing changed.

I would really appreciate any input on this matter!

Thanks!
_________________________

Solution:

To sum it up, it would seem that some people who have chosen to locate
their Documents folder on a different drive than the default C: drive,
causes the Mass Effect 2 game to not properly save the game in matters
of attaching the save games to a career, your characters name.


To fix this, you have to add a folder inside your Save folder in Documents. It should look something like this:

D:\\Bioware\\Mass Effect 2\\Save\\Character name\\Your saved games(Save_0001.pcsav etc.)

(D: is replaced with whichever disk name you have your Documents folder located in.)
Oh, and it's supposed to be single backslashes, BioWare forums add another for some reason.


In the case of creating new characters, new savegames will be saved to D:\\Bioware\\Mass Effect 2\\Save,
and will not be attached to any careers, so for every new character,
you have to create a new folder with the characters name, and put the
according save game files there.

I hope this reaches BioWare developer attention, so it can get properly fixed throug a future game patch.

Kudos to Jimmie_Rox for bringing the info to the post! ../../../images/forum/emoticons/smile.png

And also, many thanks to UltimaThule for helping me try to solve this!

Modifié par Sleip_Same, 06 février 2010 - 06:54 .

[UltimaThule]

Your idea was good but I think the saves path you put there was incorrect.
 
Usually it goes like that:
C:\\Users\\ Your Name \\Documents\\BioWare\\Mass Effect\\Save
(for some reason it’s Mass Effect not ME2 there for me, but it seems default, and saves fine).
Note that this forum adds extra slashes to the path’s name…

Modifié par UltimaThule, 04 février 2010 - 08:39 .

[Eliende]

I will try that. I have the very same problem, and it is to say the least very annoying. ;(

[Eliende]

Weird... In mine it says Location=D:\\BioWare\\Mass Effect



Which is the exact place it is in.



Or is it the double dash that makes for problems..?

[Eliende]

Oh, nerver mind the slash-part...



"Note that this forum adds extra slashes to the path’s name…"



That's for being tired when reading. :/

[kahner]

I'm having the same loading problem. Saving seems to work fine, displays the saves, just doesn't show anything to load. Achievements aren't saving on my game either. I can resume a game to continue playing, but obviously there's no changing a misclick here or there. Also just ran into a lovely bug where the killer AI ship laser mirror section crashes the game after I rotate the first reflector. Got a physical copy of the game because I preordered direct from EA. Since I can't load back to before I boarded the ship (and actually stopped bothering to make seperate saves), I'm stuck now.

[UltimaThule]

To try to help you a bit more: the game by default should save in the Documents\\\\BioWare\\\\Mass Effect 2.

And the GamerSettings file we talked about is located in BIOGame\\\\Config folder in the Documents (not in the registries or the installation folder).

Edit: But the thing it says Mass Effect not Mass Effect 2 does not bode well, after giving it a bit more thought... So, unfortunately, it would be rather the folder the game is looking for the old ME1 saves to import the character , not the acces path to the current saves...

Modifié par UltimaThule, 04 février 2010 - 09:50 .

[Sleip_Same]

I understand what you're saying, but my documents folder isn't located in the C: disk, because I've set aside a whole hard drive to be my documents folder. I just changed the path destination for Documents to the hard drive, so I don't really think that's the problem.

I do suspect though, that there is some file or something that renders the game unable to locate save games. But even in that case, how does it find the last saved game when i press "Resume"?

[Sleip_Same]

Oh, and I've also sort of managed to have several characters now. I back up a folder of my first character and put it somewhere, then delete the original. This makes me able to make save games of a new character, and still have my first one on my hard drive.

And if i need to switch, I can backup the 2nd character, delete, and put back the 1st.

Still, this is a really annoying bug, and of course, i still cant choose which games to load.



Bump bump!

[UltimaThule]

Sleip_Same, when moving the documents folder, didn't you by any chance puy it to the root of the drive?

I remembered it could cause some problems, better to put it inside some other folder... Have never tested it myself, but maybe it's worth checking???

[Sleip_Same]

In Documents properties, you can set the location of Documents to, well, anywhere you want, i guess. I set it to it's own hard drive, and I've never encountered problems with it before, at least none that I can recall. It might be what's causing the trouble, but since the hard drive is sort of dedicated to being my Documents location, it may prove kinda hard to try and move it somewhere else, just to try.

But I have an idea. Tomorrow I'll try and install the game on my laptop, since it only has one drive. It's worth a try, at least.

Thanks for the suggestions! And you're welcome to keep' em coming!

[UltimaThule]

Usually moving the Documents to another drive shouldn't cause any problems, in theory... Just heard somewhere it did cause problems with some game, whichever game it was, don't know if it was really true.

Two more questions though: if it's Vista/Win7 you have - are you running the game as the admin?
Is there a "potentially working" Save folder inside ME2 folder in your documents: can you open it fine, hasn't it by any chance gained "hidden" attributes or something like that?
And finally - is there any way for you to move back your Doc folder to the C:\\\\ drive, for a while, just to check if it can save there? (actually you've answered that one already, sorry, read too quickly...)

Modifié par UltimaThule, 04 février 2010 - 10:23 .

[Sleip_Same]

Yeah, moving my Documents is problematic, there's around 300 gb's of stuff there.

I am using Vista, yes, and I actually haven't thought of trying to run the game as admin. I have used the autorun everytime, since the game needs the disc to play anyways.



I tried it just now, but no change. Sill, no careers show up, with no save games to load.

But as i said, tomorrow I'll have the chance to test the C: drive theory. I'll install the game on my laptop and see if it makes any difference.



Also, a friend of mine suggested there might be an issue with the system registry, causing the game to be unable to find saved games. Got any knowledge on the issue?

[UltimaThule]

If you want to check the registry for ME2 run regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\BioWare\\Mass Effect 2

Unfortunately it does not list any values for the Saves path.



In the meantime remembered something funny: about moving the Documents folder to another drive and problems with saving games. So the solution was to said to be: move it back and save the game while the Documents folder is on C:\\ , then copy the entire game’s folder (or just the Saves folder, can’t remember), move the Documents folder to the drive you want and copy the game’s folder there. Somebody claimed it worked, unlikely as it seems to me… Just another hearsay, from the technical point of view it shouldn’t work, but… who knows? ;-)

[Sleip_Same]

I couldn't find Bioware or Mass Effect anywhere in my registry. As far as I know, there aren't a whole lot of games that use the registry to locate savegames?



As for the documents folder, it does really seem unlikely that moving it back and forth would change anything, since the game does read a file somewhere that specifies where default save games are made.



What would really help, though, is if a moderator or anyone with first hand knowledge could confirm whether or not the "Gamer settings" file is the file that decides where Mass Effect looks for saved games. Or eventually which file that does.

[Eliende]

A question about post 1 and 2 - that path you both mention - are you SURE that is a save-and-load-path? The thought has occured to me that it is only the path to old savegames from ME 1 (and thus the lack of the "2" after the "Mass Effect" there). You are after all requested to give a position of that folder when you want to use an old character from the first game. I believe it is merely that thread that is saved there, not the save-load path.



Or am I wrong?

[Sleip_Same]

While that is possible, I could not find any other file referring to a save location. Perhaps I haven't searched thoroughly enough, but it occurs to me that another possibility could be that there is corrupted code in the game, causing the game to be unable to display the careers and save games. This would explain why I can still press "Resume" and it loads my last saved game. The saves are there, but the game has trouble displaying it.

Thoughts?

[UltimaThule]

Eliende wrote...

A question about post 1 and 2 - that path you both mention - are you SURE that is a save-and-load-path? The thought has occured to me that it is only the path to old savegames from ME 1 (and thus the lack of the "2" after the "Mass Effect" there). You are after all requested to give a position of that folder when you want to use an old character from the first game. I believe it is merely that thread that is saved there, not the save-load path.

Or am I wrong?

Eliende, yep, I’ve already come to the same idea (that it's to access the old ME1 saves - it’s posted somewhere above if you look closer at these posts). The path to ME2 saves location may be hidden more deeply in the game.
 
But I understand you both have your Documents folder on D:\\ and can’t save/load your games? (Mine is default on C:\\ and no such problems here, so it can work fine)
Hmmm, I know it’s problematic to move the Documents to another drive again, but it would be interesting to do it to prove the “C:\\ drive theory” right or wrong… And least we will know for sure.
And you wouldn’t have to move to another drive all the data in the Documents folder, just the BioWare one, for a while. (Creating some other folder on the same drive you have documents now and moving the other data there shouldn’t take long. It’s when you move things between the drives that takes time…)

But the fact that you couldn't find ME2 entry in Windows registries, Sleip_Same, seems weird to me, too. Did you install the game as the admin? I guess there will be problems with patching it later if you have no such entry.

[Sleip_Same]

Indeed, I couldn't find a single registry pointing towards Bioware or Mass Effect. I can try reinstalling the game again as admin, sure.

I'm finally done at work, so I can go home and try installing the game on my laptop.

Will also see if I can relocate my save games to my C: drive. But what boggles me about that, is that if game uses the Documents destination to save/read the savegame files, then I likely will have to move back the whole thing to my C: drive, else it would just create new save games back in Documents, which is in D:.

Also, should note that the game is installed on D:, I mainly use my C: disk for my OS and some programs, since it is a faster hard drive than my other drives. Also has much lower storage capacity.

[Corfius Maximus]

Also a victim here. My Documents are in E:\\ and the games are saved but cant be loaded.

[Jimmie_Rox]

Having exactly the same problem, however only with my Mass Effect 1 imports. If I create a game from scratch then I can save and load in the correct manner. However when I use one of my ME1 saves to import a character then I can only use the resume game function. Which seeing as how I got texture glitched on an unknown planet means I actually cannot continue to play the game. Done pretty much everything suggested here, I've even tried the game on multiple OS as well but that didn't make any difference.



AMD Athlon 5600+, Sapphire HD 5850, 2 Gb DDR2, 250 Gb HDD, Tried with Windows 7 x86, Windows XP SP3 x86

[Jimmie_Rox]

Okay, found a fix, if you open your Mass Effect 2 save game folder and create a new folder. Then rename the new folder with the name of the character, ie "John", then cut and paste your save game files into this folder. Then open Mass Effect 2 and go to load game. Well at least this fix worked for me. It was something I thought of when I noticed that my ME2 new toons were creating a folder with their Name and class in the name. So I tried it and it worked.



Hope maybe someone finds this helpful.

[Sleip_Same]

Allright! I tried the same just now, and it seems it worked perfectly!

I will do a little bit of testing to check it out, and post in a little while.

[Eliende]

UltimaThule wrote...

Eliende wrote...

A question about post 1 and 2 - that path you both mention - are you SURE that is a save-and-load-path? The thought has occured to me that it is only the path to old savegames from ME 1 (and thus the lack of the "2" after the "Mass Effect" there). You are after all requested to give a position of that folder when you want to use an old character from the first game. I believe it is merely that thread that is saved there, not the save-load path.

Or am I wrong?

Eliende, yep, I’ve already come to the same idea (that it's to access the old ME1 saves - it’s posted somewhere above if you look closer at these posts). The path to ME2 saves location may be hidden more deeply in the game.
 
But I understand you both have your Documents folder on D:\\\\ and can’t save/load your games? (Mine is default on C:\\\\ and no such problems here, so it can work fine)
Hmmm, I know it’s problematic to move the Documents to another drive again, but it would be interesting to do it to prove the “C:\\\\ drive theory” right or wrong… And least we will know for sure.
And you wouldn’t have to move to another drive all the data in the Documents folder, just the BioWare one, for a while. (Creating some other folder on the same drive you have documents now and moving the other data there shouldn’t take long. It’s when you move things between the drives that takes time…)

But the fact that you couldn't find ME2 entry in Windows registries, Sleip_Same, seems weird to me, too. Did you install the game as the admin? I guess there will be problems with patching it later if you have no such entry.

I only have one User on my comp, so I am the admin by default.

And I find it to be a rather sloppy bug on BWs part, as I have played many of their other games, with no such problems despite My Documents not being where Windows want them to be.

And the game DOES save, I see the save-files in the folder. It just can't find them when trying to load. Which is quite weird, as bugs go. My guess is that someone spoofed it when writing the code for loading the game,

[Sleip_Same]

Okay, I have now tried having more than one character, and that also works.
Corfius Maximus, Eliende and kahner, please try this solution and see if it works for you as well, so we can confirm this fix.

To sum it up, it would seem that some people who have chosen to locate
their Documents folder on a different drive than the default C: drive,
causes the Mass Effect 2 game to not properly save the game in matters
of attaching the save games to a career, your characters name.


To fix this, you have to add a folder inside your Save folder in Documents. It should look something like this:

D:\\Bioware\\Mass Effect 2\\Save\\Character name\\Your saved games(Save_0001.pcsav etc.)

(D: is replaced with whichever disk name you have your Documents folder located in.)
Oh, and it's supposed to be single backslashes, BioWare forums add another for some reason.


In the case of creating new characters, new savegames will be saved to D:\\Bioware\\Mass Effect 2\\Save,
and will not be attached to any careers, so for every new character,
you have to create a new folder with the characters name, and put the
according save game files there.

I hope this reaches BioWare developer attention, so it can get properly fixed throug a future game patch.

Kudos to Jimmie_Rox for bringing the info to the post!

And also, many thanks to UltimaThule for helping me try to solve this!

Modifié par Sleip_Same, 05 février 2010 - 10:13 .