Help! My Saves keep not working.

[WinNowLoseLater]

I downloaded Process Monitor.... but I'd be lying if I told you I knew what I was doing with it.. it unfortunately is Greek to me.

[WinNowLoseLater]

** Cries ** @AstralWanderer You may have saved the game for me! I might be jumping to conclusions here, but I was messing around with the Process Monitoring app and noticed a bunch of werfault.exe ... which meant nothing to me at the time. So I looked into it an did a sfc /scannow and now I do not see any werfault.exe in the process monitoring app.... If I'm correct in my assumption here... you've probably fixed all the crashing i've dealt with in my other games too.

Will post again if I come into another crash or dead save... I might just be excited over nothing... but I think this fixed it.

[WinNowLoseLater]

Just an update. I haven't had any error reports from the saves... But I have had 2 crashes that wiped the character saves so far. So.. not completely fixed yet... Almost got to level 14 again.. Have yet to pass level 15 still.

[WinNowLoseLater]

*Sigh* Made it to level 16. Completed "Storming the City" quest. And when I entered Derth again my game crashed and save was Kahput. Not sure if my antivirus is messing with things... so added ToME and the save folder to exceptions list... will keep posted if that works any better.


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Lua Error: /mod/class/NicerTiles.lua:54: attempt to index field 'zone' (a nil value)
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[AstralWanderer]

Apologies for the delay replying.

game.teag is *the* critical savegame file containing your character data and details of the current zone you are in (zones that you have left are saved in separate files) so seeing .tmp files with this name indicates a problem.

However you may be able to recover that save just by renaming the file to remove the .tmp extension and restarting TOME (assuming there isn't another game.teag file present).

werfault.exe is the Windows Error Reporting service - you should have received a popup window reporting an error whenever this kicked in. If you haven't - try checking the Windows Event Viewer for any errors or warnings. However just to double check, was it actually writing to the TOME savegame folder? (you need to set up a filter in Process Monitor for this folder - %USERPROFILE%\T-Engine\4.0\tome\save\ though you might need to enter the full folder name - as noted above only TOME itself should be writing here).

[WinNowLoseLater]

No need to apologize! Thanks to you I've made as much progress as I have.

Ahh good to know about the game.teag file... I may have jumped the gun on that character and deleted the file hoping if the .tmp file was missing it would let me load it.

I wasn't getting any notifications for the werfault.exe issues... I've had games crashing a lot on me over the last 6-7 months. Path of Exile, Path of Exile 2, Mount and Blade 2, Bannerlord, WarFrame was almost unplayable when I tried it last month.... Last Epoch, Kenshi, Kingdom Come, Bauldur's Gate 3..... I mean... everything was having issues.. Making any progress on my games was a chore and was frankly taking the joy out of it haha. I haven't tried playing any of my other games yet time being a bit limited and all... and I REALLLLLY want to get it so this game works. I'm hoping after I get ToME sorted my other games are going to run much smoother too.

Ah Yea... I'll have to look up how to set a filter... finding anything in Process Monitor is... a challenge. I was scrolling through literal thousands of processes manually cause I'm a bit of a tard.

I haven't made any other changes yet.. And I'm not entirely sure how to troubleshoot it further/better.

I did want to post a quick update, since fixing (or addressing) that issue I managed to unlock the Archmage class yesterday. Then I did lose that save (at level 16).. But I am now playing an Archmage, trying to get some more unlocks, I managed to unlock the Temporal Warden earlier today and officially have reached the highest level without killing my save file at level 20 *Hurray!*. So keeping my fingers crossed the game is a little more lenient to me.

Knowing that in the future I might potentially save my characters by removing the .tmp from the game.teag is awesome, if that works that will be a game changer.

So, thank you @AncestralWanderer for all the tips, suggestion, and time you've invested in me. I really appreciate it a lot. I <3 your face.

[WinNowLoseLater]

Oh.. I didn't actually empty my recycle bin! I have the game.teag.tmp file it's a TMP file (file size = 998 KB)... And I also have a game.teag file, that's a TEAG file (file size = 828 KB).
If there's a way I can finagle these files around and save my level 16... I'd be a pretty happy camper. And then I can use the knowledge going forward if it happens to any more of my characters.

[AstralWanderer]

I wasn't getting any notifications for the werfault.exe issues... I've had games crashing a lot on me over the last 6-7 months. Path of Exile, Path of Exile 2, Mount and Blade 2, Bannerlord, WarFrame was almost unplayable when I tried it last month.... Last Epoch, Kenshi, Kingdom Come, Bauldur's Gate 3..... I mean... everything was having issues..

Digressing a bit from the original topic...

If you are seeing random crashes with multiple games, then the key culprits are (a) overheating (CPU or GPU being most likely) or (b) an inadequate power supply. To check (a), assuming you have a tower case, just take the side off and point a desktop fan at it - if the crashes stop then heating is the problem. Use software like CoreTemp to monitor your CPU temperature and MSI Afterburner for your GPU and take steps to improve cooling as appropriate.

If the fan makes no difference, then consider getting a good quality, higher capacity power supply. Even if it doesn't help, you still end up with a spare PSU which is handy to have.

Now back on topic...

... finding anything in Process Monitor is... a challenge. I was scrolling through literal thousands of processes manually cause I'm a bit of a tard.

Check The Ultimate Guide to Procmon for instructions on creating filters (in your case you will want to create a filter based on Image Path containing "\T-Engine\4.0\tome\save\" to see activity on TOME savegames). ProcMon is certainly an advanced tool (and I probably should have given more links showing how to use it) but it can come in useful in numerous situations.

Oh.. I didn't actually empty my recycle bin! I have the game.teag.tmp file it's a TMP file (file size = 998 KB)... And I also have a game.teag file, that's a TEAG file (file size = 828 KB).
If there's a way I can finagle these files around and save my level 16... I'd be a pretty happy camper. And then I can use the knowledge going forward if it happens to any more of my characters.

If TOME crashes loading the game.teag then delete it and rename game.teag.tmp to game.teag and retry. If you check the "Last Updated" time on those files (and you can configure Windows Explorer to display this in a column in the right-hand window to save right-clicking and checking Properties all the time) you'll probably find the .tmp file was modified earlier and may therefore come from a previous save.

Congratulations on hanging on in there for so long and hope you manage to finish a game of TOME!

[WinNowLoseLater]

Awesome! I Will look into that.

Have some bleak news to report. . . My highest character made it to level 24 before bricking the save. I was fighting "the Master" in the tower... and well he was spanking me repeatedly. . . And while going to the underworld the game crashed. No error report or anything. The save looks good, no .tmp in there. But when you go to load it, it gets to 100% completes, and then just loads a black screen with the mouse cursor. Truly a shame. (I tried removing the save file for the zone.. didn't help at all. I also tried loading it in the debug.exe, sadly same result with a black screen in either case)

I'm going to take your advice on downloading one of those programs to create back up saves. I should have done that a week ago... who knows how much grief that would have saved me.

** Edit ** Noooooooo I just googled how to unlock Necro class (Really want to do a play throughs with Necro and Ooze - I had all the lore items for it.. just needed to take my happy behind to the graveyard. Maybe this playthrough I can kind of focus it.. ** End Edit**

(off topic)
You know I originally thought the constant crashing was due to having heating issues as well. But everything was good on the heating end. I did have some power issues due to the children loosening the power cable that connected to the outlet... I forget how or where... I found the error report in the PC logs for power.. but once I got the cord plugged in well again it was no longer an issue.

I forget why.. but at some point I also thought I might have been having RAM issues... but I checked both sticks and they said they were good.. so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[WinNowLoseLater]

I downloaded the program you had recommended : Aphar Backup.
Is there a crash course you could lead me too.. or possibly walk me through the setup here? Or Discord, email, whatever was most convenient for you?

Can't say it enough. Thanks for all the help/hand holding. <3

** Edit **
Oh, the read me has a ton of gibberish (Opened in Notepad... probably wasn't the right call).. but if you scroll to the bottom it looks like it provides a walk through.
If I'm understanding it...
I select source : C:\Users\*****\T-Engine\4.0\tome\save
Then I select the destination : C:\Users\*****\T-Engine\4.0\tome\Back Up Saves

I do not understand "File Mask". Would that be... game.teag ?

It then gives me 4 options:
Only Mirror files matching the file mask.
Do not mirror files matching the file mask *This one is currently selected*
Loose "Last Changed" time compare for FAT (a.o.) systems
Only Overwrite destination file when source file is newer

Then I get
Max Back ups... I'm assuming.. I want a few? 5? (No idea what a safe number is here...

Then I get 3 more options:
Immediately begin backing-up after program start.
Auto-hide after program start
Compare directories before starting watch-thread *This one is currently selected*

Oh of course there is a "Quick Help" button front and center I couldn't be troubled to see in the beginning.

Any help/direction you can enlighten me with is greatly appreciated!

[AstralWanderer]

Have some bleak news to report. . . My highest character made it to level 24 before bricking the save. I was fighting "the Master" in the tower... and well he was spanking me repeatedly. . . And while going to the underworld the game crashed. No error report or anything. The save looks good, no .tmp in there. But when you go to load it, it gets to 100% completes, and then just loads a black screen with the mouse cursor. Truly a shame. (I tried removing the save file for the zone.. didn't help at all. I also tried loading it in the debug.exe, sadly same result with a black screen in either case)

Ouch, once you complete Dredfell the game plot then starts properly...

If you are playing online and this sort of thing happens, it may be possible to contact one of the mods here and ask them to teleport you elsewhere - but going back to a previous save would seem a surer bet.

(off topic)
You know I originally thought the constant crashing was due to having heating issues as well. But everything was good on the heating end. I did have some power issues due to the children loosening the power cable that connected to the outlet... I forget how or where... I found the error report in the PC logs for power.. but once I got the cord plugged in well again it was no longer an issue.

Hmm...it is possible for a power loss like that (particularly if repeated with a cord making/breaking connection) to cause damage to disk data. If you haven't done anything to check your disk, I would advise at least doing a chkdsk (open a command prompt window and type chkdsk c: /f /r - you will be told this can only be done on the next system restart, since c: is your system disk, so agree to that, restart your system and go away for a tea/coffee/slap up meal/gourmet 16-course monster banquet depending on your disk size, since the full check will run for a while). The results will be logged in the Event Log so check those, in particular making sure that the number of bad sectors is zero).

I downloaded the program you had recommended : Aphar Backup.
...
I select source : C:\Users\*****\T-Engine\4.0\tome\save
Then I select the destination : C:\Users\*****\T-Engine\4.0\tome\Back Up Saves

That's it - the file mask can be ignored for now (it is only to exclude/include specific files and in this case you want everything copied). The destination can be wherever you wish, but is best to make it easily accessible (I use Aphar Backup for all saved games so have created a separate Saved Games folder with subfolders for each game underneath - this does involve more work but is a once-off for each game installed). If you have another disk, use that for backups if possible since it will cover you if (or rather when) your main disk fails.

Only Mirror files matching the file mask.
Do not mirror files matching the file mask *This one is currently selected*
Loose "Last Changed" time compare for FAT (a.o.) systems
Only Overwrite destination file when source file is newer

Max Back ups... I'm assuming.. I want a few? 5? (No idea what a safe number is here...

Then I get 3 more options:
Immediately begin backing-up after program start.
Auto-hide after program start
Compare directories before starting watch-thread *This one is currently selected*

Leave everything at default for now - maximum backups is the only one you may want to change, but 5 should be OK for you currently. Some games may do automatic saves or update their save in multiple steps - for these a higher number of backups may be justified.

Essentially, what happens is that every time a file is changed in the source folder, it gets copied to the backup folder and any existing copies of that file there are renamed as filename (backup 1) - backup 1 files go to backup 2 and so on until the max backups are reached (so with the default 5, you will have up to five copies of every file with the most recent having the same name and the four older having (backup 1), (backup 2), (backup 3) and (backup 4) added to their names.

If you need to restore an old file, stop Aphar Backup first (to ensure that the file you restore doesn't get backed up again, displacing previous ones), copy the appropriate file (check the last updated time to see how old it is) and rename it to remove the (backup x) addition, e.g. rename game (backup 4).teag to game.teag. Once you've confirmed that savegame works, don't forget to restart Aphar Backup up afterwards...

[WinNowLoseLater]

Scanned both C and D drives - 0 KB in bad sectors, for them both.

Going to try the setup with Aphar Back up. Wish me luck!

[AstralWanderer]

Scanned both C and D drives - 0 KB in bad sectors, for them both.

Good to hear - you might also want to check your drives' SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status - you can do this using Windows 11 own tools or a free utility like CrystalDiskInfo. If you want belt-and-bracers, then consider the commercial Hard Disk Sentinel (which periodically checks SMART, recording and graphing changes which can then be used to provide earlier warning of disk failure - note that the trial version does include a discount code, 20% IIRC, if you decide to upgrade) which also includes several disk tests.

Going to try the setup with Aphar Back up. Wish me luck!

If you find Aphar Backup useful, it is worth adding it to the Startup group (in the Windows start menu) so it gets started whenever you login.

[WinNowLoseLater]

Sorry for not posting an update! Haven't had much time yesterday or today.

I got the folders all set up on the other drive for Aphar Back Up. I did create a new character, made another Archmage, it was pretty fun, but I think it's only level 3? Maybe still 2. The game kept crashing again (Well, it crashed 2 or 3 times while I was trying to play). I did check and it looks like the saves are backing up. I'm just not sure why it's crashing so frequently now... I'm still in the 1st zone area for the Archmage with the planet in the background if I remember correctly, if not I had JUST made it out. I should have a little more time 11/7/2025 to play around and see if I can make any progress in game.


* Edit *
Just checked the drives, they were all Healthy. I didn't use a program though.. maybe I should? I just went Settings > System > Storage > Advanced storage settings > Disks & volumes.

*2nd Edit*
Jeez I forgot to mention, when Aphar is backing up a save, it numbers them 2, 3, 4, 5. I noticed yesterday **Edit 3, by yesterday I mean today... sorry it's been a reallllly long day** that every number has the same time stamp. That didn't seem right to me. Or is that normal? So for example I have... desc.lua, desc (backup 2).lua, desc (backup 3).lua, desc (backup 4).lua, desc (backup 5).lua. but every single one has the same timestamp - 11/6/2025 12:41 PM.

I thought it would... back up a save as 1. Then when I saved again, it would make a separate back up so now I had 2, and then say I switched zones and it auto saved, it would have a 3rd save backed up.

[AstralWanderer]

...that every number has the same time stamp. That didn't seem right to me. Or is that normal? So for example I have... desc.lua, desc (backup 2).lua, desc (backup 3).lua, desc (backup 4).lua, desc (backup 5).lua. but every single one has the same timestamp - 11/6/2025 12:41 PM.

Make sure that you're checking the "Last Updated" time on the file, not its creation time - that one will stay the same. As noted above, Aphar Backup copies the files across (without a name change) while renaming any currently in the backup folder (so they don't get overwritten) - if you look at the program's main window, it should tell you what is going on.

While I remember - don't close the Aphar Backup window (by clicking the X at top right) since that will shut it down completely and stop the backups - use the Minimise button if you want to remove its window from your desktop.

When the game crashes, is it reporting the same error as originally: "Lua Error: /engine/Target.lua:49: attempt to index field 'source_actor' (a nil value)" or something else?