CivIII: Error loading save games?

[blahedo]

I seem to have resolved my problems getting CivIII to start up (see 1.29 patch basenote), but I'm still having problems with the game. In particular, whenever I go to load a saved game, it fails. First I get a Mac dialog that says

DataIO operation System Error: LSNC

DataIO Error

with an OK button that is outlined or glowing (depending on OS 9 or X). I hit enter, and it goes back into Civ, where a Civ dialog pops up:

Load Error

ERROR READING FILE

"impetus\Games\Civilization III\Saves\Montezuma, 4000 BC.SAV"

My HFS+ partition is named impetus, so that part seems to be in order. I'd think that this is an extension of the HFS+/UFS problem, except that it also happens under System 9, which can't even see my UFS partition, so probably not. Is it significant that the filename given has backslashes rather than colons?

Has anyone run into this problem before?

[FlameFlash]

I really doubt the colon vs. backslashes is significant... X seems to use them interchangably and since CivIII is no doubt basically just a port to run on the Mac it would discuss file systems in the same way...

Otherwise, you're going to have to wait for ED to get to you about it... I'm just subbing to the thread to listen and learn.

[EJDay]

Re: CivIII: Error loading save games?

Originally posted by blahedo
...a Mac dialog that says

DataIO operation System Error: LSNC

DataIO Error

with an OK button that is outlined or glowing (depending on OS 9 or X). I hit enter, and it goes back into Civ, where a Civ dialog pops up:

Load Error

ERROR READING FILE

"impetus\Games\Civilization III\Saves\Montezuma, 4000 BC.SAV"

Has anyone run into this problem before?

Not the first part, I have no clue to the "LSNC" part, but definitely the second part (the corruption errors I was getting that I mentioned in the 1.29 thread).

Heck, I didn't even know you could partition a drive with different formats. Since you did, wow, but from the look of the "DataIO Error" message, that might be part of the problem. Some of the read/write actions might not be affected, but I'm guessing that others could be incompatible. The only way to be sure, I'm afraid, is fairly time-consuming: make the entire drive HFS+. Of course, that means transfering everything off, reformatting (I might zero the drive [low-level] just to be on the safe side), and transfering everything back on. A high maintenance pain, I know, but it's the only way to be sure (and it just might work).

[blahedo]

How strange. I thought, before I called, that I would check one more time by starting a new game, saving it, and loading it. Rather than quitting the game and restarting, I just let a few turns go by and hit Cmd-L. And it worked. Doubting my sanity, I tried loading the other game (Montezuma), the one that had been failing before. And it worked too!

Uh.

So I quit CivIII and started it up again, and once again loading wouldn't work. For any of the save files (same error). But I started yet another new game, and without even saving it I immediately hit Cmd-L; and again, I could load any of them.

I'm still going to call it in, but at least now I can actually play. Ah, CivIII. I have awaited thee.

[blahedo]

Just called in both problems, and their workarounds. They seemed a bit surprised that I would take the time to call them when I didn't actually need any assistance, but they thanked me.

[EJDay]

Originally posted by blahedo
...So I quit CivIII and started it up again, and once again loading wouldn't work. For any of the save files (same error). But I started yet another new game, and without even saving it I immediately hit Cmd-L; and again, I could load any of them...

This definitely sounds like the same corruption problem I had, and it may be inherent in the read/write (after all, you can read from within the game on recent saves, but not other saves).

Just for grins, try this:
1.) Quit out completely, then go back in.
• At this point, you can't read a saved game, right?
2.) Start a junk game, name it something odd (so you don't accidentally save over an actual game).
3.) Get out of the game (back to the splash screen, but without quitting Civ3).
• So, before, you could save and reload from the same session, right?
3a.) Re-verify that you can. Open the junk game.
• If you can, cool. Close it and go back to the splash screen. Now that you've had the game open some sort of saved file, here comes the the $64k question:
4.) Open a game saved in a previous session (like the Montezuma game).
• Could you? If so, and I think you said you already did, then I'd guess the problem is in that read/write speedbump by having two formats on the same drive. The OS is using the format of one to read the program, initially, but Civ3 uses another set of commands assuming the HFS+ format, and you're getting a conflict.

• The only permanent solution (I'd guess) would be to reformat the whole drive to HFS+.
• The only workaround if you don't feel like it is:
Everytime you start Civ3 fresh, save a junk game and reload it once to get the OS thinking in the right format, then your previous real game should be accessible.

[bradman]

Originally posted by blahedo
How strange. I thought, before I called, that I would check one more time by starting a new game, saving it, and loading it. Rather than quitting the game and restarting, I just let a few turns go by and hit Cmd-L. And it worked. Doubting my sanity, I tried loading the other game (Montezuma), the one that had been failing before. And it worked too!

I have a theory on this. If the saved game that fails was created with 1.21f or earlier, it may not contain all the proper data to load in 1.21g. By starting a new game, you're basically settup up that missing data, which allows the older games to load.

I'd like to see one of these bad save game files though. Please e-mail it to me at bradman@pobox.com and I'll see if I can figure out where it's going wrong. I don't think it has anything to do with HFS vs UFS.

Brad

[blahedo]

All the save game files were created with 1.21g; even the very newest exhibit this behaviour.

I'll send you a couple of them, though.