Save Game corrupted?

[GTAGuy1995]

Hello, I was playing GTA San Andreas and today when I saved game after a couple of unique stunt jumps, the game crashed at Save Successful message (which required a restart) and the save game became corrupted. Since I save everyday on a different slot, it isn't a problem but I lost an hour for about 15 unique jumps done and I'd like to know if it's possible to get the save game back. I will continue playing using my previous save, after all there were just unique jumps and are not required for 100% completion but I'm still doing them. Thanks and I hope you help me in this situation. Here is a screenshot of my saved games which shows the corrupted save:

 

[lil weasel]

No salvage, sadly.

Saving once a day isn't enough. You should be saving every hour or less.

Save after each difficult accomplishment.

[OrionSR]

A game save is identified as corrupt if the sum of all data doesn't match the checksum at the end of the file. If you load the save into the Savegame Editor 3.x and save again it will calculate a new checksum so the game should try to load it. However, since your game crashed during the save there's a really good chance that the data is messed up pretty badly. I would expect the save to crash and boot up a new game from the start of the story. And even if it does load there's a good chance that important structures aren't working properly. If you are only losing an hour or so of progress then you are much better off going with a backup save.

[GTAGuy1995]

Thanks for replies guys. I always thought it was enough to save daily on each slot but I actually save every often, every time I complete a mission/side-mission/several collectibles or unique jumps/after each successful date, etc. I never save after I get wasted/busted/fail mission.

 

It doesn't matter anymore about the corrupted save, I just managed to re-do the 15 unique jumps that were lost in corrupted save (so far I have done 26 out of 70) so I didn't lost much as I expected. Plus I did a story mission to compensate (my game completion status is about 90%). And it was the first time happening the corruption thing but I deleted corrupted save and reloaded the previous one I played yesterday. And sorry for confusion, should have mentioned that I save OFTEN (every few minutes when I complete tasks) but I save on same slot until next day when I start next slot and I also backup the saves on a CD just in case.

 

I also forgot to mention an important thing that Weasel asks in other Troubleshooting threads, in that my game version is 2.00, as the game was purchased legitimately off eBay 2 months ago and didn't use any cheats/mods/trainers/, everything was done legitimately. But this save corrupted thing really surprised me, hope it doesn't happen again in future.

Edited May 2, 2014 by GTAGuy1995

[OrionSR]

Game save corruption is really rare in San Andreas. I get them once in a while when I forget a step after manually edit a file, but otherwise the process works pretty well. You pretty much need a crash during the save (explains your situation) or there's a problem at the system level - usually a bad disk, perhaps a delayed-write issue. Cheats and mods might screw up a save, but the game should still write and read the messed up save correctly, which is the issue with the corruption message.

 

Good idea on backing up your saves to an archive. That can save you a lot of frustration in the long run. You'd be surprised how many people post desperate requests for help in recovering their only save. My save strategy is to alternate between two saves during a play session.

Edited May 2, 2014 by OrionSR

[GTAGuy1995]

Well, I've had 3 other times the game crashing at Save Successful screen (my game crashes quite often due to mouse stopping working bug) but in those cases, save game wasn't corrupted and loaded normally as if nothing happened but yesterday, it was pretty much the only (and first) time when my save got corrupted. I didn't use cheats/mods/trainers at all, they ruin the gameplay and I prefer to do/find everything myself.

 

This is the exact reason why I make multiple copies of each save, I imagine if I went only with a save slot so far in story without backups at all and then the game gets corrupted and I have to do everything again, I'd quit the game and never come back or just download a 100% save. I actually make sometimes two saves per day when I'm unsure of something or mouse stops working in menus (because of this, game can crash sometimes and this is what caused corruption of yesterday) but when I save last time on that day, I save on first one and next day I save on second one. I once even got gym glitch and I couldn't use gym for few days but the glitch fixed itself and then I could use gym equipment as normal. I don't know how happened or how got fixed but I'm glad it isn't happening anymore.

 

P.S: This topic can now be locked, the problem with save was fixed shortly after by using previous save. Hope it doesn't happen again in future and I will keep in mind all suggestions OrionSR.