Steam user's game is crashing because of missing files that never existed

[Ericfrancisrock]

That’s correct. The save folder is just all by itself, literally just C:/save. It’s very strange

 

[ATT_Turan]

What OS is this happening on?

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

Windows 11 I believe

 

[caethyril]

The local save file location is based on Node's process.mainModule path:

• https://nodejs.org/api/process.html#processmainmodule

It seems there are situations where that might be affected by system settings. My guess is it's related to something like file permissions or virtualisation, either from the OS or a third-party app. I can't really offer much more guidance there, though.

 

[kyonides]

Since the game is available on Steam, I'd suspect somebody picked that folder on purpose at some point via Steam save folder feature. Just saying.

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

That may be the reasoning for the person who is having this save issue. But the C:/save/ on my wife’s computer happened before I ever put the game on Steam, so it’s not related. I don’t know why that happened on her computer.

 

[JohnDoeNews]

I would focus on figuring out why the files are getting written in an unexpected location.

Yes this. the game should not safe in c:/ but (...)/GameTitle/saves/

even if the game was placed in the main directory of the C drive, like @ATT_Turan says in the last reply, then still the save file would not be in the folder c:/ but in c:/saves/

If that isnt the case, then something is really wrong with your game, or with your players.

When you play the game on your own computer, where does the game save? In the folder where it should be?

Edit: oh wow, so many replies while I was typing... haha

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

Yes, on my computer it saves to the folder that it belongs.

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

Actually, it turns out my computer is saving it to C:/save also. I was misled by the fact that there is a /save/ folder in the game's files but for some reason that's not being used.

 

[ATT_Turan]

I can only think it's associated with what @caethyril suggested, that the mainModule.filename is returning the incorrect path in the code.

You could see what it's doing with a test - make an event in your game that executes the script call

console.log(StorageManager.fileDirectoryPath())

Then while playtesting, press F12 and go to the Console tab, see what it's displaying.

That's the function MZ uses to determine the save directory so I assume that has to be misreporting C:\

If you verify that, it'll at least tell you what's going on, but then why and how to change it is another thing.

You could hard-code a path of your own, but it would be nice to know why it's happening (especially since it must be happening with other games, if this user from your first post has saves from some other RPG Maker game already there).

 

[caethyril]

Some other ideas in addition to what's already been suggested:

1. If the game is currently installed to a different drive, e.g. F:/Games/RPGMaker/MyGame, try moving it to the C drive and test again.
   
   
2. What plugins are you using? Anything related to saves? Screenshot(s) of your Plugin Manager might help.
   
   
3. What version of the core scripts is your project running on? You can check by opening one of your project's core script files in a text editor, e.g. <project folder>/js/rpg_core.js. Unless it's really old, the version number should on the first couple of lines, e.g.
   

   ---

   //============================================================================= // rpg_core.js v1.6.2

   ---

   Generally it's a good idea to make sure the core script version matches the editor version. You can update your project scripts by carefully following the instructions here:
   

   Announcement - RPG Maker MV - v1.6.1 Stable Release!

   6/21/2018 Everyone, please read the instructions carefully. The bugs that are being reported shouldn't happen if the correct files were even copied properly. Such examples like the "CTRL BUG" shouldn't happen if you copied index.html, package.json, the rpg*.js files and so on. I also received...

   forums.rpgmakerweb.com

(I believe MV originally had a bug where it didn't percent-encode filepaths, which caused problems for some operations? As far as I'm aware, though, that was patched years ago. Besides, I think that would cause bigger problems than just changing the save folder location.)

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

First the good news: We Finally Solved It! This player's game was also looking to save in the C:/save/ folder, but theirs contained files from another RPG maker game, which were causing the game to crash as it couldn't find the image files associated with the save screen. They emptied that folder and are finally able to play the game! Thank you for everyone that helped us reach this solution!

You could see what it's doing with a test - make an event in your game that executes the script call

console.log(StorageManager.fileDirectoryPath())

Then while playtesting, press F12 and go to the Console tab, see what it's displaying.

That's the function MZ uses to determine the save directory so I assume that has to be misreporting C:\

This script crashed the game. TypeError StorageManager.fileDirectoryPath is not a function. If I had to guess, this is probably because this game uses MV, not MZ. Is there a similar command for MV?

• If the game is currently installed to a different drive, e.g. F:/Games/RPGMaker/MyGame, try moving it to the C drive and test again.
  
  
• What plugins are you using? Anything related to saves? Screenshot(s) of your Plugin Manager might help.
  
  
• What version of the core scripts is your project running on? You can check by opening one of your project's core script files in a text editor, e.g. <project folder>/js/rpg_core.js. Unless it's really old, the version number should on the first couple of lines, e.g.

- It's installed to C drive.

- Here's the plugins I'm using: (Just Irange greenworks)



My rpg_core doesn't seem to have a version number. This is what it says:
//=============================================================================
// rpg_core.js
//=============================================================================

I originally created this project around 7 years ago, so that might be why.

 

[Andar]

My rpg_core doesn't seem to have a version number. This is what it says:

in that case it's 1.0 - the most buggy version of all cores.

especially the last of the memory leaks were only solved in 1.4, everything older is a big problem.
Unfortunately 1.4 also changed a lot for plugins, so you might have to update a lot of your plugins to work again when updating to 1.6.2 or so

 

[kyonides]

Update the default plugins just in case.
And change the save filename for your own game's sake.

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

Updating the plugins causes the game to crash upon launch.

ReferenceError
makeVideoPlayableInline is not defined.

And how do I change the save filename?

 

[Andar]

Updating the plugins causes the game to crash upon launch.

have you updated the core itself before updating the plugins?
The incompatibility goes the other way around as well, you cannot use modern versions of the plugins with an 1.0 core, the same way you cannot use the old plugin version when updating the core files

 

[Ericfrancisrock]

I have RPG Maker MV on Steam, so it updated automatically apparently. I checked the version and it's 1.6.2. I actually got the new plugins by just making a new project with the maker.

This game was started back in 2015, so the files are from back then.

 

[Andar]

I have RPG Maker MV on Steam, so it updated automatically apparently.

That is not what we are talking about.

Your EDITOR is up to date, but the PROJECT CORE is still the 1.0
The project core NEVER UPDATES AUTOMATICALLY.

You always have to manually update your projuect cores exactly because a core uppdate can break the game. You can find the instructions for that (including making a backup before updating) in any of the MV update topics on this forum.

 

[caethyril]

Like Andar is saying:

Generally it's a good idea to make sure the core script version matches the editor version. You can update your project scripts by carefully following the instructions here:

Announcement - RPG Maker MV - v1.6.1 Stable Release!

6/21/2018 Everyone, please read the instructions carefully. The bugs that are being reported shouldn't happen if the correct files were even copied properly. Such examples like the "CTRL BUG" shouldn't happen if you copied index.html, package.json, the rpg*.js files and so on. I also received...

forums.rpgmakerweb.com

As the announcement says, make sure you make a back-up copy of your project first.

The announcement is for 1.6.1, but the instructions apply for updating to any version. Many bugs have been fixed since 1.0, so I strongly recommend updating.

 

[ATT_Turan]

This script crashed the game. TypeError StorageManager.fileDirectoryPath is not a function. If I had to guess, this is probably because this game uses MV, not MZ. Is there a similar command for MV?

Sorry - I was confused because your profile says you use MZ. Didn't even notice this is in MV support.

The MV command would be:

console.log(StorageManager.localFileDirectoryPath())

But, as others have said, I think it's overwhelmingly likely that your issues stem from never having updated your project files.