"broken savefile" - WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG?! How do I recover my char?!

[Nemesis]

I was clvl 40 and hanging around dlvl 90, had all the resists except for Nether and Disenchantment, +21 speed, 18/200 CON, all dungeon spellbooks, EVERYTHING! And now the game tells me the save file is broken! I could have won this game, and sure, I could have died too, but if the game's going to end, it has to be MY fault! This was my first serious vanilla character, and this is no way for him to go away! Sorry for ranting, what I really wanted to ask was if someone could help me.

Here's the save file:

http://rapidshare.com/files/378905723/Nemesis.html

It was a v3.11 game, and I had to reload it after my computer crashed. Then the game told me the save file was broken, but that doesn't make any sense! I mean, it would make sense if my comp crashed while trying to save, but that wasn't the case.

If there's no way to recover the file, is there any character editor for Angband that can help me create a new character with identical equipment, lvl, etc?

[Nemesis]

Maybe I could edit the artifacts I had to be ultra common and make Filthy Street Urchins drop them and give a shitload of xp? But it would be quite depressing having to do that just to recover my game.

[LostTemplar]

Yes, system crashes are evil, just like teleporting into greater undead pit.

[Nemesis]

Yes, system crashes are evil, just like teleporting into greater undead pit.

I would much rather have lost my game due to intentional evil from the programmers than unintentinal evil from them/my computer/windows.

[LostTemplar]

Yes, saving code is somewhat unsafe in angband, one have to use fsync function to save properly on modern systems, or maybe even something more complicated.

[PowerDiver]

Surely it is time to disable the stupid panic save functionality. Now that we have autosave on level change, panic saves are much more likely to do a lot of harm than a noticeable amount of good.

Is there any point to it other than making cheating a tiny bit harder?

[Nemesis]

Surely it is time to disable the stupid panic save functionality. Now that we have autosave on level change, panic saves are much more likely to do a lot of harm than a noticeable amount of good.

Is there any point to it other than making cheating a tiny bit harder?

What do you mean? Is there some auto-backup function that saves on each level change? Is it possible that another, uncorrupted, version of my game is still around?

[PowerDiver]

What do you mean? Is there some auto-backup function that saves on each level change? Is it possible that another, uncorrupted, version of my game is still around?

There is only one savefile. It was overwritten when you arrived at your current level. Then the panic save overwrote and mucked it up when your machine crashed. Had the panic save done nothing, you would have been able to restart at the beginning of the level, but instead you are hosed.

As to your question how to get your char back, I'd guess it would be straightforward if you learn to use wizard mode, but I don't know for sure. The savefile would be marked as a cheat, but you're going to have to throw it away anyway.

[PowerDiver]

I guess I could be completely wrong about this. There used to be panic saving, and I assume that is the problem, but maybe it isn't. Perhaps the autosave under windows doesn't close/sync the file well enough to withstand a crash.

[Nemesis]

As to your question how to get your char back, I'd guess it would be straightforward if you learn to use wizard mode, but I don't know for sure. The savefile would be marked as a cheat, but you're going to have to throw it away anyway.

I managed to get potions of Cure Light Wounds to work as Potions of Experience, and by changing the rarity and depth of the artifacts I had in my old game, I've already recovered two of them. It probably won't take more than this evening to get my new character as good as identical to the one that was lost.

If I win the game, my turncount will be unfair, but if I upload the dump at the ladder I guess I'll just explain what happened and why the turncount is so low (the turncount for this character should actually be very high, as I've had had the habit of tunneling the way through the dungeon).

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Windows does "save on exit." A system crash *may* have sent a Termination signal that initiated the game's exit, and started a write to file, which got trashed by something else. Hard to say, cuz this may (probably is) depend on which version of Windows you're running.

I've had the game crash a few times in Windows...including cases where I'd taken out 2 or 3 uniques and picked up a couple good artifacts...and lost that work. That was painful enough. So I tend to save a bit more often. And periodically, I just manually copy/paste the char file so, if there *is* a crash, I can recover.

It might be nice to have 2-tier saves...so the level-switch autosave is written to one file, while the game-exit or user-initiated save is written to a different file. But I don't think that's gonna get much support.

[Nemesis]

It might be nice to have 2-tier saves...so the level-switch autosave is written to one file, while the game-exit or user-initiated save is written to a different file. But I don't think that's gonna get much support.

At least I am totally with you!

[Sirridan]

Ouch, file is 49kb of all zero's so it can't be recovered, sorry mate.

[Nemesis]

Ouch, file is 49kb of all zero's so it can't be recovered, sorry mate.

Thanks for having a look at it, anyway. The situation isn't as cathastrophic as I expected though, as I've already managed to hack (with the edit files, not hack and slash) back my stats and xp and some of the artifacts.

[buzzkill]

Thanks for having a look at it, anyway. The situation isn't as cathastrophic as I expected though, as I've already managed to hack (with the edit files, not hack and slash) back my stats and xp and some of the artifacts.

Just me, but I'd give it up. If you were going to win this game then you'll win another eventually. It just seems like a lot of work and cheating to get a somewhat questionable legitimate win.

What ancient version of windows are you running that crashed? I can't remember the last time windows crashed on me.