Invalid Save Game HELP!

[montavious]

Hi all, since I first played the game yesterday, I get through the last tutorial challenge and save the game from the pause menu. Now if i try to back out to the title screen, and reload my game, every time i get an error that the Save File is incorrect or invalid, and can be deleted from the dashboard. I've cleared the HDD's cache, deleted the game info and started fresh, same exact thing happens. I've already placed a call to MS who are working on it, needless to say this is mindboggling to have paid for a game that I cannot save! Every other game I own still works just fine, Any thoughts?

[BIGsheep]

If the save game is invalid, something is fatally wrong with the savegame itself.

Is it the garden that is displaying these symptoms or the VP settings file that loads when you press Start? If it is the former, I recommend starting a new garden. All your settings, levels, cash and tools will carry over.

If it is the latter then you will need to delete your VP save game files from the dashboard.

If it continues to happen then I really don't know what to suggest, sorry, as this sort of error means that something fatal has happened during the saving process, usually its premature termination.

[rashberry]

Q. Are you saving to a memory card or the HD? The saves will require 21mb which is a big chunk of a 64mb memory card.

Rashberry

[BIGsheep]

(That's 5MB for settings and 16MB for garden, FYI)

[PINATAcast]

I got the same issue =*(, but I can tell you exactly what might have done it.

I hit start, then red X'ed out of the game. AS it was saving I received a voice message and I hit the guide button.

When the left blade slide out, the screen underneath froze. I canceled the guide blade, and the save screen never stopped, it just kept looping while I ate dinner.

I restarted, and the garden was corrupt.

I went into the control settings and deleted my TIP garden and started over.

I then tried that glitch again. This time during a save my wonderful wife turned off her 2nd controller (She was active in my garden as a 2nd player) while I was leaving & saving a garden, same thing, stuck in the loop screen. The text says something like

" when you do something bla bla with your gamertag bla bla it will take you back to the main menu"

Never does.

This is happeneing on a 360 Premium with a 20 gig hd.

[SirMossy]

First time I saved it did the same thing too.. however I didnt do anything to 'glitch' it.

Basically I just played for 3 hours, saved and then turned off my 360 once it had reached the title screen. When I went back to play the garden it would do a loading screen, but have the save icon spinning at the top at the same time (why is it saving when i'm loading??). It would then freeze on this screen and do nothing. I cant even go back to the dashboard.

I had to start a new garden twice now :( .. saving on a 20GB HDD on a pro console.

[montavious]

At least I'm not the only one now...I've called MS to no real solution other then trying a new copy which i will later today. This is what's happening to me:

When I start a new game, either it freezes while its saving, the same still runs fine but the minutes i try to open the shop or change locations, it freezes completely. If it doesnt freeze, I save and quit. Then try and reload that file, its says file is corrupt. Nice for a game thatr MS published themselves!

[PINATAcast]

Dear Rare, PATCH PLEASE!

[SirMossy]

OK. I dont mean to whine, but now my THIRD garden is corrupt. I have to start over again. I keep my level and money, but loading my garden freezes my 360 but the music keeps playing.

This is extremely frustrating, especially considering the time i'm putting into each garden.

I dont know if this helps, but I have a 3 year old HDD attached to a brand new 360 (the one with HDMI and falcon chipset). I havent had a single problem with any other game, just this one. I also make sure I dont do anything with the controller while its saving, use the guide button or turn my 360 off before the disc stops spinning, but it keeps happening.

Edit: So I did some experimenting to see if I could work it out. I did the HDD maintenance and then tried to load them up again. No go, my gardens crashed again. So I made a fourth garden and messed about for a few minutes then saved and quit. Went back to the title screen then loaded it back up, it worked. Then I quit again and this time went back to the dashboard. Loaded it up and it worked fine too. Third time I turned off my 360 and loaded it back up. Again it worked.

So now I dont know what to do. My fourth garden is working, but because I dont know why it keeps freezing i'm kind of afraid to put too much effort into it. You also have to consider how many wildcards and variants i've lost now.. its incredibly frustrating. I just hope we're not the only ones with this problem so that it gets seriously looked at, although I know a patch isnt going to come overnight as these things take time. But considering i've been waiting for this game ever since I found out no significant DLC was coming out for VP1, its quite annoying.

[Like VP]

Hi,

I got the same Problem with the corrupt savegame.

it remember me with the Halo 3 error. There were also a Problem with the Savegame and Microsoft admited that it were their fault. But it was just on some several (old??) Xbox 360.

I think it´s the same Problem here with Viva Pinata. I hope Rare will fix it.

[Br26]

well since everyone seems to have problems as well...

my first save game was corrupted. professor pester tried to kill my best Fourheads and obviously i didnt want him to so I quickly exited to the dashboard. I went back and boom, the save file is corrupt.

[PINATAcast]

a patch/update Just came out last night.

[FeralKitty]

well since everyone seems to have problems as well...

my first save game was corrupted. professor pester tried to kill my best Fourheads and obviously i didnt want him to so I quickly exited to the dashboard. I went back and boom, the save file is corrupt.

I hate to say it, but "tricks" like that make it too easy for you to corrupt your own save. Anything you do that aborts the game (such as quitting to the dashboard, or turning the power off mid-game) before information is completely written from memory to disk, can leave your save file in an inconsistent (invalid) state.

You may get by without any problems a few times, but the odds will eventually bite you.

[o Potential o]

So they released a patch?

If so, then did it fix it?

[SirMossy]

I dont know. I'm a little disappointed that BIGsheep or Rashberry havent said anything else about this. A little update maybe?

[thatgeekgirl]

My friend is having the same problem. Any help would be great!

[rashberry]

FeralKitty provides the best response above. The VP:TiP garden save files are absolutely enormous relative to most Xbox 360 titles so you really have to be careful not to interrupt the save process part way through.

Rashberry

[SirMossy]

I havent though, thats the problem. I save and quit back to the title screen.

[palmman]

I havent though, thats the problem. I save and quit back to the title screen.

you mean that always have to save and quit to main screen/menu to have a valid savegame?? in this case there´s no a big problem, only you need to be saving and going to main menu each time to don´t lose any progress... is this correct?

[SirMossy]

In theory saving and quitting to the main menu should be fine. However 3 times I tried that I got a corrupt saved game. However my 4th game seems to be fine so far, maybe the patch helped.

[thatgeekgirl]

Just an update here: My friend did what was reccomended (deleting the save file, not pushing anything while the game saves) and she says it works great! If anything happens for her again I'll letcha know.

[BIGsheep]

Firstly, my apologies. I understand how corrupted savegames can annoy as Braid has been doing this to me recently so I can sympathise.

Secondly, I honestly have no silver bullet for anyone here. The best advice that I can give, as mentioned in the above post, is don't touch anything whilst you save and quit. Accept the save and quit, put your controller down and don't touch anything until you're back at the frontend. This is only hearsay but it seems to have the best results.

Thirdly, if you turn your console off randomly, we're not going to be able to magically fix any corrupt caused. You run a chance of turning it off during a file operation which will knacker your file quicker than a magnet on your harddrive. If you must just turn it off, save and continue first, wait for it to finish, then turn it off.

Fourthly, patches are beyond the control of Rashberry and myself. We are only the programmers on this project and cannot steer our publisher when it comes to such decisions.

I hope this is at least informative and I'll have a look into the matter further later today.


PS if we're not on the boards at the weekends, give us some slack, we have families who like to see us occassionally :)

[palmman]

i hope so; yesterday i got an invalid savegame but that was my lovely wife´s garden; i got busted; later i erased all my fifa 08´s savegames as a payment; she is now really sad cause the data loss. me about erasing my fifa 08´s savegames.

[xenocidic]

You should make sure you have lots of room on your hard drive and also perform maintenance on your hard drive,

System blade -> Memory -> Y,X,X,LB,RB,X,X -> Yes

Can't hurt...

[BIGsheep]

The one tiny silver lining is that if it is just your garden corrupting then you'll still be able to carry on. Your VP Settings file holds your level, your crates, your cash, your tools and your awards, so starting a new garden will bring that all across for you.

Not much, I know, but something to remember.

[Yosh]

As I understand it though, you can't back up your setting files on a memory card, which is the file that includes your levels, awards, etc. So what is someone supposed to do if their hard drive crashed? I don't understand why any game in this day and age would not allow someone to back up their save data. Data is not permanent, hard drives and memory cards can die. I like having back ups