My Computer Crashed and Well...

[Jericho Swain]

Well I was working on VX Ace and then my computer suddenly crashed with the blue screen coming up saying Your computer has an unexpected error and after I was able to start my computer back up again. I can't open my VX file anymore. It says Unexpected File Format. Is there any hope left or have I lost all hope and everything I made towards this point ? T_T

 

[Tokumei No]

This is pretty strange.

I've had the problem of the unexpected file format too.

I solves it by re-installing RPG Maker, but I also suggest you to scan the game folder and the computer for virus, it us Always useful.

 

[djDarkX]

Um, this is an issue with the game project file itself.  You have one of three options:

1. Use Windows built-in auto-backup.  Right-click the file, choose Properties and go to the Previous Versions tab and see if there was an earlier version backed up.  If not, option 2.

2. Make a new project, grab the Game.rvproj2 file and place it into your current projects folder.  It this works, then when you open it up, it might complain about unreadable resources.  In that case, go to the data folder and start deleting individual rvdata2 files until you find the ones that are bad (create a backup of the game and test that to be sure which ones are affected).  You'll more than likely lose some resources, maybe even some maps, but they can be remade.  If this does not work at all, option 3.

3. Start from scratch.  Sorry. :[

 

[Jericho Swain]

Actually I have a few VX Files on my computer and they all work just fine but the one that I was working when the computer crashed doesn't seem to WORK ANYMORE NOOOOOOOOO HELP ME ((((((((( THESE PAST 2 YEARS HAVE BEEN FOR NAUGHT !!!! (((

 

[Tokumei No]

Probably some files of your game project were deleted during the crash... Sorry.

 

[Jericho Swain]

Ok solution #1 seems to work Thanks very Much <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

+9000+ to djDarkX

 

[Andar]

That is because any file that is still open when windows crashes gets destroyed or damaged almost automatically. That cannot be prevented due to the way the harddisk works - and it has nothing to do with windows, it's the same for all computers and operating systems.


There are only two ways around that:


1) backups (either manual or automatic)


2) make sure your windows stays stable (in my experience, 99,99% of all crashes (excluding power failures) were caused by too many or the wrong programs installed on the computer - but to know which programs you should not install, you'll need a lot of computer knowledge)


I suggest you go to the master script list and search for backup - there are two or three scripts that automatically backup your game whenever a playtest is started. One of them was written by Tsukihime and is also on her blog, but I don't know which script is compatible with the rest of your scripts.


That will not help you recover the already lost data, but it will prevent future failures by automatic backup.

 

[djDarkX]

lol You're welcome Jericho.  Glad to be of service.

As Andar said, do manual backups.  I had to do that for a project when I had to use option 2 for one of my projects.  I lost quite a bit of data, but I was able to replace most/all of it with stuff that I could remember off the top of my head.  Now there's an up-to-date backup of most of my projects, in case something like that happens again.

Good luck!

 

[Tsukihime]

I put my projects on dropbox so they are always sync'd.


Dropbox provides version control so if a corrupted version was uploaded, I'm still ok.

 

[whitesphere]

I would recommend 3 things:

1. Keep a copy of your project on Dropbox.  I do this with whatever I'm working on, since it's how I transfer the project between PCs.  This is free if you keep the data stored on Dropbox under 2 GB in size.

2. Purchase an inexpensive UPS, if you can afford one.  A cheap one runs $60 or so.  You don't need a lot of power, just enough so if there is a prolonged power outage, you can cleanly close out of your programs and cleanly shut down your PC.  Do NOT assume "I closed RPG Maker" means "The RPG maker project has been completely written to disk."

3. Purchase an external USB key or drive.  It's a good idea to schedule automatic Windows backups.  In Windows 7, you can schedule automatic, incremental, weekly backups to a USB HDD, including a system image.  If the system is hosed, you can either partially restore or, from the Windows 7 boot disk, restore the system image.  This will preserve everything on your system, at least since the last backup.

 

[ElementalLight]

This has happened to me before i had to replace the data files with old copys and it worked tho it sucks when you dont have backups ......

 

[Wavelength]

I know it's bad form to respond to fairly old topics, but I really wanted to say thanks so much to djDarkX for this solution, since I just had one of my projects crash tonight after a hard reboot, and was thrilled to be able to restore a backup from last week.

Additionally, by taking the "Scripts" file from the Data folder of the corrupt file, it looks like I was able to restore all the scripting work I had done in the past week - so just like djDark's suggestion of removing files one at a time may work, so too can adding back those files one at a time.

Hopefully people can find this of use if they encounter this frightening error.