Need help with missing characters please!

Hi

First let me say this isn't an issue concerning the most recent wipe.

I have played my character many times since then. In fact I had pretty much hit the wall, and have been building my home. I had been playing about an hour or so today, when the game suddenly crashed. It does this rarely, so I just shrugged it off and reloaded the game as usual.

When I got to the character select screen, my character was gone! I got a little worried, and went to backup my game folder...the player folder looks like it still contains 3 different sets of files there. I backed everything up, then ran the verify data thing through Steam, still no luck

Is there anyone with a bit more knowledge on the file structure and placement that might be able to help me?? I would appreciate it.

 

Some people have had similar issues, It seems like the current save-structure is very vulnerable to unexpected client terminations. As far as I know I'm afraid that your save has been irrevocably corrupted.

 

Ugh......

Thanks for the reply.

Any super programmers or maybe Devs reading think maybe there is a way to trick into skipping this ignore step, or repairing the file somehow to get it to that "magic byte" number?

Error: Error loading player file, ignoring! ..\player\73437fdeef5a00fe7cdb6d595aae9bf4.player : IOException: Wrong magic bytes at start of versioned json file, expected 'SBVJ01'
0065812E starbound_opengl.exe
00546BC7 starbound_opengl.exe
00404CE5 starbound_opengl.exe
00406957 starbound_opengl.exe
0040A234 starbound_opengl.exe
00407E74 starbound_opengl.exe
004E9AD1 starbound_opengl.exe

Error: Error loading player file, ignoring! ..\player\a4d6953d2c18218137702e9c02c378f9.player : IOException: Wrong magic bytes at start of versioned json file, expected 'SBVJ01'
0065812E starbound_opengl.exe
00546BC7 starbound_opengl.exe
00404CE5 starbound_opengl.exe
00406957 starbound_opengl.exe
0040A234 starbound_opengl.exe
00407E74 starbound_opengl.exe
004E9AD1 starbound_opengl.exe

Error: Error loading player file, ignoring! ..\player\c9917d90ad16f731bbfe5a275941f1bf.player : IOException: Wrong magic bytes at start of versioned json file, expected 'SBVJ01'
0065812E starbound_opengl.exe
00546BC7 starbound_opengl.exe
00404CE5 starbound_opengl.exe
00406957 starbound_opengl.exe
0040A234 starbound_opengl.exe
00407E74 starbound_opengl.exe
004E9AD1 starbound_opengl.exe

 

I don't see why they don't have a system where first it saves to a file the data. Then when that checks okay, copy it to the second. If it doesn't check out okay it starts again with the first. If the game crashes it loads the version that's complete and most recent.

Unless it makes saving too slow or adds save lag you'd notice in game.

Or at least a backup created once at login or something so you don't have nothing. But, that is automatically updated if you die on permadeath.

 

I'm not sure this would even work... BUT.. It might be worth trying something that edits and re-saves the character file such as StarCheat... If it can load the player file then it might save it in a way that will allow you to load the character again. I've seen weirder things in the past!

 

I tried that specific program, and had no success. It just does not give me the option to open them. Let me ask you this...is there a way to make a new character, and have him linked to my old ship and world files? If I could get those back, I could at least just use the cheat thing to get my actual guy back....the work we did on the different worlds is really what i am concerned about most....this was actually a semi-persistant thing me and my buddies worked on.

I tried to make a new character, and rename the old world and ship files to match the player file, but that didn't seem to work.

EDIT: Thought I should add that, when I renamed the world and ship files, I got no error. I say it did not work because I still started on the new character's ship, in a newb zone. I could not test flying into Sector X to see if everything was there, but I doubt it....I did not write down the coords, as it was my "home" planet, so I am not sure I could navigate back there anyway.

 

OK, I think I got about the best fix I am going to get.

Most people have System Restore on by default...I am shocked that I haven't turned it off, but I am glad I didn't. I didn't do a full restore, but I went into the "Previous Version" of the Starbound folder, and had a copy from about 48 hours ago. I lost some work, but definately much better than the alternative.

I recommend you guys all take a lesson from my misfortune and make a backup of your "player" folder....I don't mean this to sound pompous, but I am an IT guy for a living...it is not like I made a careless mistake to my system, or downloaded something, or messed up my files (I had ZERO mods before today). It was a completely random bug caused simply because we are in beta and things are being worked out (Like Zody said, the files are vulnerable to sudden client side terminations, and I had a rare crash).

Thanks to everyone that tried to help.

 

Another thought, there is a bug currently with tech mods where if you remove a mod that involves a tech while the player has the tech equipped the chars stop showing up.