Lost all progress?!

[Zentsuki]

Hi. I'm currently using RPG Maker VX Ace. For some reason, this morning when I opened up my game, all was well - I even managed to get a few screenshots.

For some reasons, though, a few minutes ago, my progress seems to have reverted to a week back. Fortunately I made a backup 2 days ago, but I don't understand why, since my steam cloud is disabled. What would cause that and is there any way to get back all my work? I worked a lot since and forgot to backup this morning. It's very frustrating.

Edit : Some audio is missing and some data, but the graphics folder is still intact. I don't understand.

 

[Andar]

either you did have the cloud sync not fully disabled, or you opened an old backup instead of the current project, or some files were damaged and incompletely restored.

Difficult to tell without more details about what really happened when you last opened the project...

 

[Zentsuki]

I doubt it's the cloud sync. Both on RPG Maker *and* cloud, it says that it's disabled.
However, I just recieved a weird message after attempting a computer restore (which keep failing for some reason). It says that my project has been updated..... and I have no idea why.

I thought that yes I may have had opened a old backup, but I didn't save anything and checked every single version of it I had on my computer. No luck.

I'm aware this may be a tough one, maybe impossible to figure out what happened and restore my files, but nothing to lose by trying here. It's many hours of work lost.

I just really don't get why the data folder would be changed, but not everything else. I don't get it.

 

[Shaz]

I have had System Restore mess with my projects in the past, reverting several days worth of work.

 

[Zentsuki]

Well, lesson learned. I'm going to compress game files every hour of work. Good thing I took screenshots prior. Eventing went to hell, but at least the mapping part won't be too hard to do again.

 

[Shaz]

compress? or backup?


When you compress a game, then uncompress, I'm not sure you get the original project files back. Test it out and make sure before you rely on it.

 

[Zentsuki]

As in make it ready for playing. RPG Maker will of course always include every file you need to play the game, obviously, so I think that's a safe way to back it up.

 

[Shaz]

But what if you want to edit it again? If you compress and then run the exe, does it give you back all your project files?

 

[Andar]

As in make it ready for playing. RPG Maker will of course always include every file you need to play the game, obviously, so I think that's a safe way to back it up.

Not exactly - if you use the encrypt option of the compression (which would be required for distribution if your project contains purchased resources), then that process will prevent you from ever editing or opening the project ever again.

And that is only a single checkbox that can easily be set accidentially if you aren't carefull...

Better way would be to include one of the autobackup-scripts. That way whenever you start a playtest, an automated backup will be placed into the project folder.

You'll find links to those scripts both on the master script list and in my starting point (link in my siggnature)

 

[Seriel]

I use http://himeworks.com/2013/02/data-backup and it has never failed me. Even one day when my PC froze and deleted my project, I just restored the Backup. You don't even have to do it yourself, I even forgot about it for ages until I needed it.