Forum:Ultima 9 - solution for save state corruption

Hello everybody. I wrote a text file to solve the "save state corruption" bug, that would otherwise mean you have to restart Ultima 9 from the beginning. Are you interested? ---Abacos (talk) 02:40, 11 January 2023 (MST)

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        ULTIMA 9: ASCENSION
SOLUTION for SAVE STATES CORRUPTION
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Despite three bug-fix patches (the last official one, the semi-official one, and the most recent fan-made one) and the fan-made Extended Setup Beta Utility, Ultima 9 still suffers from many, many bugs.
One of them is save state corruption.
I found a workaround solution that worked with me several times already.

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BUG DESCRIPTION
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Sometimes, an error may occur while saving the game. When you try to reload, the game crashes.
Even worse: you know that when you launch the game, it automatically loads the last save state. If said state is corrupted, the game crashes straight away.
Shall you reinstall the game and start over? Not anymore!

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BUG WORKAROUND
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First of all, play using more than one save state. I typically use four, labeled "new chapter", "new area", "one step solved", and "trying out".

When the savestate bug occurs, go to the "savegame" folder within your "Ultima9" folder. Locate the "u9game" .SAV files. If you used four of them, the files will be named "u9game2.sav", "u9game3.sav", "u9game4.sav", "u9game5.sav".
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* u9game2.sav      *
* u9game3.sav      *
* u9game4.sav      *
* u9game5.sav      *
********************
The bug solution consists in renaming the files changing just their number.
As an example, if you used four save states:

1) rename "u9game5.sav" as "u9game5_temp.sav" (or anything you like).
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* u9game2.sav      *
* u9game3.sav      *
* u9game4.sav      *
* u9game5_temp.sav * <--
********************

2) rename "u9game2.sav", "u9game3.sav", and "u9game4.sav" as "u9game3.sav", "u9game4.sav", and "u9game5.sav", respectively. That is: shift their number up by one.
********************
* u9game3.sav      * <--
* u9game4.sav      * <--
* u9game5.sav      * <--
* u9game5_temp.sav *
********************

3) rename "u9game5_temp.sav" as "u9game2.sav".
********************
* u9game3.sav      *
* u9game4.sav      *
* u9game5.sav      *
* u9game2.sav      * <--
********************

This way, you end up with the same file names as before. When you launch the game again, it will load a different state (same file name, different file contents). You can then open the Journal and reload the "corrupted" state normally.

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LEGAL & CREDITS
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This file was written by Abacos on 2022/12/29 (international date format).
If you want to copy part or all of it, you should state explicitly that it comes from this webpage (or add a hyperlink).