Unable to access saved commanders

[Iza]

I just recently began playing the game, and it has been a lot of fun but I haven't been able to access a saved game yet
my saved commanders screen is blank, and at first I thought I was having trouble saving, but I can find the saves in a file explorer and I have begun to figure out that my save commander screen is not supposed to look like this

Any idea what could have caused this? I'm having a lot of fun, but my inability to access a saved game is kinda killing it

[GearsNSuch]

My suggestion would be to find the save file and open it with Oolite.
Also, the save selection screen might be popping up in another window. I know it does that for me.

Welcome to the boards, glad you’re enjoying the game, and I hope you can get your problem sorted.

[Cody]

Welcome aboard...

I can find the saves in a file explorer...

Where exactly do you find them?

[Iza]

Welcome aboard...

I can find the saves in a file explorer...

Where exactly do you find them?

This PC > Windows (C:) > Oolite > oolite.app > oolite-saves

Opening the saves with oolite caused the logo to briefly appear, like the game was about to load up, and then close and/or crash immediately

[Nite Owl]

Go to C:\Oolite\oolite.app\GNUstep\Defaults or the directory similar to this for your installation of the game.

Open the file named .GNUstepDefaults in a text editor other than Windows Notepad - Notepad++ is a good option.

Inside .GNUstepDefaults should be a line that points to your save game directory. Mine looks like this:

Code: Select all

"save-directory" = "C:\\Oolite/oolite.app/oolite-saves";

If that line does not exist or does not point to the proper directory or is not formatted in the proper way for your installation of the game edit it to do so. The game should now recognize your save game directory and show you your saved Commanders when you start the game.

Does this solve the problem?

[Iza]

Go to C:\Oolite\oolite.app\GNUstep\Defaults or the directory similar to this for your installation of the game.

Open the file named .GNUstepDefaults in a text editor other than Windows Notepad - Notepad++ is a good option.

Inside .GNUstepDefaults should be a line that points to your save game directory. Mine looks like this:

Code: Select all

"save-directory" = "C:\\Oolite/oolite.app/oolite-saves";

If that line does not exist or does not point to the proper directory or is not formatted in the proper way for your installation of the game edit it to do so. The game should now recognize your save game directory and show you your saved Commanders when you start the game.

Does this solve the problem?

That looks to be it! thank you, but I'm not sure exactly where in there that line should go

[phkb]

You could put the line immediately after the line you've got highlighted there.

[Iza]

Unfortunately, it looks like the problem is still going on after adding that line

[Cody]

Not being a boffin, I'd try a clean re-install of Oolite. First, make back-ups of your saves and stash them somewhere safe.
After the re-install, start the game, save the virgin Jameson, exit the game, and check the .GNUstepDefaults file.

[Iza]

Not being a boffin, I'd try a clean re-install of Oolite. First, make back-ups of your saves and stash them somewhere safe.
After the re-install, start the game, save the virgin Jameson, exit the game, and check the .GNUstepDefaults file.

I tried the above, and there were some small differences in the GNUstepDefaults file



Most importantly, the saving line was there this time, so I went back into the game to see if the saves were working, but the saved commanders page remained the same

[Cody]

Curiouser and curiouser! <scratches head>

[phkb]

It appears that games are being saved to the folder, but aren’t being read from it.
A couple of ideas:
1. Try disabling any antivirus apps. If that works, let us know what product you are using so we can analyse the conflict.
2. Is there anything unusual about your Windows setup? I only ask because your screenshot is a little different to the default Win10 experience. Again, if there is anything unique going on, let us know so we can look for the conflict.

[Iza]

It appears that games are being saved to the folder, but aren’t being read from it.
A couple of ideas:
1. Try disabling any antivirus apps. If that works, let us know what product you are using so we can analyse the conflict.
2. Is there anything unusual about your Windows setup? I only ask because your screenshot is a little different to the default Win10 experience. Again, if there is anything unique going on, let us know so we can look for the conflict.

Disabled, and even uninstalled for a few minutes, my antivirus, didn't seem to change anything, it didn't even list oolite as having come up on it's radar

And I had a custom windows classic theme running for a while, I figured it might have been a problem, so I went back and tried all the threads suggestions with the default windows 10 theme, it didn't seem to do anything different

[Nite Owl]

Have another idea as to what might be happening. The problem is in the execution of the explanation. My trying to tell you how to fix the problem is going to get extremely complicated and my fear is that we will both get lost in the translation. Your best bet is that once my theory is given that you do some Googling and research and try to understand the steps necessary to fix the problem on your own. Here goes.

The directory that contains your saved games [ C:\\Oolite/oolite.app/oolite-saves ] is not readable by the game because of the permissions attached to that directory. Permissions allow a directory to have data written to it and read from it by specified users and programs. This is accessed by Right Clicking on an empty spot in the directory, choosing "Properties" from the resulting options, and then going to the Security Tab. What exactly you have to do from there depends on a large number of factors and how much access you want the directory to have and who should have that access or what programs should have that access. It is in this last part that things get sticky as you may have to navigate through a bunch of menus and options, make lots of choices, click on and use advanced settings, etc. Basically what you want to Google is as follows: Directory (or folder) permissions, How to apply them, and What do they mean. At the bottom of the dialog box where you choose the Security Tab is a link to Windows Help on this subject. Windows Help is usually a hit or miss affair but it does seem to have the needed information on this topic albeit it an overly complicated form.

Good luck and let us know the result.

[Iza]

Have another idea as to what might be happening. The problem is in the execution of the explanation. My trying to tell you how to fix the problem is going to get extremely complicated and my fear is that we will both get lost in the translation. Your best bet is that once my theory is given that you do some Googling and research and try to understand the steps necessary to fix the problem on your own. Here goes.

The directory that contains your saved games [ C:\\Oolite/oolite.app/oolite-saves ] is not readable by the game because of the permissions attached to that directory. Permissions allow a directory to have data written to it and read from it by specified users and programs. This is accessed by Right Clicking on an empty spot in the directory, choosing "Properties" from the resulting options, and then going to the Security Tab. What exactly you have to do from there depends on a large number of factors and how much access you want the directory to have and who should have that access or what programs should have that access. It is in this last part that things get sticky as you may have to navigate through a bunch of menus and options, make lots of choices, click on and use advanced settings, etc. Basically what you want to Google is as follows: Directory (or folder) permissions, How to apply them, and What do they mean. At the bottom of the dialog box where you choose the Security Tab is a link to Windows Help on this subject. Windows Help is usually a hit or miss affair but it does seem to have the needed information on this topic albeit it an overly complicated form.

Good luck and let us know the result.

The problem with your explanation is that it is so vague, I don't feel like I can accurately say if I did what you asked or not, because I feel like you pointed my in a direction and just said "google it"
But for what it's worth, everything has full control enabled in that folder and nothing changed. From what I understand from a somewhat skimmed reading, that should rule out any permissions issue, although I won't rule out that I didn't do what you might have intended, especially because what I did didn't feel terribly difficult to describe
(Right click in oolite-saves, properties, security, edit, check all of the full control boxes, repeat in oolite.app and Oolite folders just to make sure I was doing it right)