openmw.org

This is the error
The other odd thing I noticed was my settings.cfg file today was full of NULL inexplicably. No clue what may have caused all the issues.

Please help, the only working save file at this point is from 3 weeks ago... *cries*

Usually that error is caused when you try to load a save created by a newer OpenMW version. Are you sure that this couldn't have happened?

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The strange thing is that I played the previous night, no issues, next day I download some mods, remove a few, start the game up and get an error saying something like "OpenMW could not play without a settings.cfg"

I opened the file and it had NULL repeated entirely filing up the file. So I go back, reconfigure the settings, start the game and can't load the hard save or quicksave. But I am able to play my other save from three weeks agp.

Sounds like a hard drive failure.

scrawl wrote:Sounds like a hard drive failure.

No shit? Is there any save file cleaner for OpenMW? Or any means to do so at all?

scrawl wrote:Sounds like a hard drive failure.

mmh...Do save files contain some hash validation code?
If not, maybe it could be interesting to add.

This should be something that is solved by the filesystem, not necessarily by the application. See ZFS for example that will check for file corruption (bit rot) and correct for it during scrubbing/resilvering.

Until that time where this 'feature' becomes wide spread, then perhaps some time of manifest or binary signing is not such a bad idea. I can see this getting out of hand though.

psi29a wrote:This should be something that is solved by the filesystem, not necessarily by the application. See ZFS for example that will check for file corruption (bit rot) and correct for it during scrubbing/resilvering.

Until that time where this 'feature' becomes wide spread, then perhaps some time of manifest or binary signing is not such a bad idea. I can see this getting out of hand though.

Is ZFS packaged with windows or will I need to download it from somewhere?

Apologies, we are digressing from the topic and I feel it is my fault ^^'

LoopZoop, from your explanation could be that your drive got corrupted in some way. Once data is affected, not much can be done generally.
As a first step, you can run some check to see if it can confirm it. Honestly, I am not sure of its fiability, but on Windows, open a command window and use "sfc /verifyonly" to run some preliminary checks.
More info: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lib ... 84577.aspx. Check teh scannow and scanfile options, can be useful.

If it confirms that data is corrupted it may show the file and thus confirm it is affected.
If no error is show, then we are back to square one and could be an issue. I will try to load the save file in a clean installation later and see what happens.

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Now, digressing again, the ZFS is a filesystem not available on Windows and a perfect solution should com from the filesystem. But probably something easy could be done from OpenMW side, maybe just keeping a backup of the last saved file when overwriting, or attaching a md5 hash to the safe file in some way.