Persistent.sfs deleted upon computer restart

[ble210]

Hi all,

I have a rather unusual problem.  My persistent.sfs gets deleted whenever I turn off my computer and start it back up.  It is fine to load from in-game as well as when returning to KSP after exiting the game (but not turning off the computer).  All other saves are fine (quicksaves, backups, etc.).

Anyone have any idea of what might be causing this and how to fix it?

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, ble210 said:

My persistent.sfs gets deleted whenever I turn off my computer and start it back up.

OS? Game version? Logs? Install method?

This is probably not a KSP problem, and the possible causes are going to be specific to your OS, install location and background applications.
Reasonable first steps would be to check your filesystem and kill any meddling antivirus.

[ble210]

1 hour ago, steve_v said:

OS? Game version? Logs? Install method?

This is probably not a KSP problem, and the possible causes are going to be specific to your OS, install location and background applications.
Reasonable first steps would be to check your filesystem and kill any meddling antivirus.

Thank you for your reply.  I'm running windows 10, and I have the most recent version of KSP.  I installed through Steam.  Steam is on my SSD, and I install games onto my standard hard drive (non-SSD).  I have McAfee antivirus installed as well.  I'm not sure how to get logs.

I also created a shortcut to desktop of Kspx64, and added -force-d3d12.  This is how I've been running the game.

Its a brand new computer, so I am still not used to it features yet.  I did earlier today go into the advanced properties of the shortcut and tell it to run as administrator to see if that helps, and tomorrow I will boot up KSP again to see if the new persistent.sfs is there or not (I would do it today, but I am trying to recreate everything exactly as I've done it before- I'm not sure if some virus scan occurs during the night that may affect things).

Thank you again for your help- I sure appreciate it, and look forward to hopefully getting this mystery solved.

[steve_v]

31 minutes ago, ble210 said:

I'm not sure how to get logs.

This may also be worth a read, particularly WRT DEP & incompatible programs:

 

31 minutes ago, ble210 said:

I'm not sure if some virus scan occurs during the night that may affect things

That would be my guess. Either that or the disk / filesystem it's on has issues.

That said, I haven't used Windows in years, so now that the OS question is answered I'll admit that I'll probably not be much help.

 

Edited September 12, 2018 by steve_v

[ble210]

20 hours ago, steve_v said:

This may also be worth a read, particularly WRT DEP & incompatible programs:

 

That would be my guess. Either that or the disk / filesystem it's on has issues.

That said, I haven't used Windows in years, so now that the OS question is answered I'll admit that I'll probably not be much help.

 

Nothing appears to be at issue with my virus protection software- nothing quarantined or deleted or anything like that.

After some more investigating, the persistent.sfs file exists after turning on the computer (I checked the save game folder).  It is only after I boot up KSP does it get deleted.  It is like the game decides to delete the file for some reason.

I can rename prior quicksaves to persistent.sfs, boot up the game, and it works just fine.  But once I restart the computer, then the next time I open KSP, the persistent.sfs is gone.

It may be anecdotal, but I think my game may also have stopped autosaving for some reason.

I'll try to learn how to find any logs about what is going on.  Thank you for your help in this- I appreciate it!

[ble210]

21 hours ago, steve_v said:

This may also be worth a read, particularly WRT DEP & incompatible programs:

 

That would be my guess. Either that or the disk / filesystem it's on has issues.

That said, I haven't used Windows in years, so now that the OS question is answered I'll admit that I'll probably not be much help.

 

Here is a link to my output log.  I'm happy to repost this in another forum.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mkhdqd442taxnbf/output_log.txt?dl=0

[steve_v]

39 minutes ago, ble210 said:

I'm happy to repost this in another forum.

Nah, you're in the right place. I just assumed no mod as you didn't post a list of mods, and somehow failed to notice which sub I was in.

 

1 hour ago, ble210 said:

It is only after I boot up KSP does it get deleted.  It is like the game decides to delete the file for some reason.

How bizarre. I don't see anything interesting in the log, nor do you have any mods installed that would interfere with the save/load system. at least as far as I can see.
Is the persistent file that is being deleted a valid save? I.e. if you rename or move it to prevent it from being removed, can you then load it?

[ble210]

30 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Nah, you're in the right place. I just assumed no mod as you didn't post a list of mods, and somehow failed to notice which sub I was in.

 

How bizarre. I don't see anything interesting in the log, nor do you have any mods installed that would interfere with the save/load system. at least as far as I can see.
Is the persistent file that is being deleted a valid save? I.e. if you rename or move it to prevent it from being removed, can you then load it?

Hmmm I'll try to copy it, and put it back in the folder after it gets deleted.  But I'm pretty sure its a valid save- once I rename one of the quicksaves to "persistent.sfs", I can load it and play from there.  But once the computer restarts, and I load KSP, the persistent.sfs gets deleted.

I'll experiment by copying the persistent.sfs, restarting the computer, letting the file get deleted, and putting the copy back in its place to see if that works.  If it does, it will at least be a crude workaround so I can continue to play the game.

[ble210]

55 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Nah, you're in the right place. I just assumed no mod as you didn't post a list of mods, and somehow failed to notice which sub I was in.

 

How bizarre. I don't see anything interesting in the log, nor do you have any mods installed that would interfere with the save/load system. at least as far as I can see.
Is the persistent file that is being deleted a valid save? I.e. if you rename or move it to prevent it from being removed, can you then load it?

After restarting the computer, the persistent.sfs file was gone (before loading up KSP).  So it does indeed look like it has something to do with restarting the computer (I must have been mistaken before when I thought they were present after restart but prior to booting up KSP).  I copied the persistent.sfs to a separate file on my desktop prior to restarting, and that remained fine.  So I can put that in the KSP save folder and play from it, but once I restart the computer, it will be gone.  However, I can keep manually backup up the persistent.sfs like that each time prior to shutting down.

The strange thing is that all the other .sfs files are just fine- all my quicksaves, all the autosaves.  It is just the persistent.sfs file that gets deleted.

[ble210]

Which makes me think that perhaps the file location is the issue (as the persistent.sfs file in the save folder gets deleted, but the persistent.sfs in the desktop folder does not).  I may try copying the entire KSP directory (which is currently in "...Program Files...") to a new desktop folder, and see if that helps.

Edited September 13, 2018 by ble210
clarification

[steve_v]

38 minutes ago, ble210 said:

(which is currently in "...Program Files...")

Ahh. To quote from the post I linked earlier:

Quote

Windows Data Execution Prevention (DEP)

Another big cause of crashes is Data Execution Prevention interfering with KSP. Symptoms include the game not saving settings and/or not writing anything to it's output_log.txt file located in the \KSP_Data\ folder. The issue is caused because KSP is not an installed program, but can fortunately be remedied fairly easily and fixing it should thus always be attempted before posting a support request.

• Copy (not move) your KSP installation away from the C:\Program Files\, C:\Windows and C:\Users folders, this includes places such as My Documents and your desktop. Copy the KSP folder, then paste it to C:\ or a folder you create there directly, such as C:\KSP or C:\Games. You can then create a shortcut by rightclicking KSP.exe and placing that shortcut on your desktop for easy access.

Note that this may make you lose your savegames. You can take a look in this thread to see where they are located so you can recover them.

Windows permission management is an unholy mess of kludge bolted to kludge, and recent (post-vista) versions are very protective of system directories - this includes Program Files.
Try copying the game elsewhere.

44 minutes ago, ble210 said:

I may try copying the entire KSP directory (which is currently in "...Program Files...") to a new desktop folder, and see if that helps.

Put in a subdirectory of the drive root to be sure. Winblows can be screwey about the desktop too.

[se5a]

16 hours ago, steve_v said:

Put in a subdirectory of the drive root to be sure. Winblows can be screwey about the desktop too.

It shouldn't be... desktop is userspace.

I'd be more inclined to check the permissions on the save directory in KSP and make sure the user has full permissions. then again, I've not touched this stuff on windows since 7, there might be other stuff.

 

[ble210]

18 hours ago, steve_v said:

Ahh. To quote from the post I linked earlier:

Windows permission management is an unholy mess of kludge bolted to kludge, and recent (post-vista) versions are very protective of system directories - this includes Program Files.
Try copying the game elsewhere.

Put in a subdirectory of the drive root to be sure. Winblows can be screwey about the desktop too.

Well, for whatever reason the persistent.sfs file exists today, and wasn't deleted.  I created a new folder in C: and copied the game there, and I'll continue to observe both the KSP in the "Program Files" and the new copy.  I'm totally stumped as to what has been going on, but hopefully the problem either resolved itself or the C: file will work.  I'll let you know what happens.

Now I'm wondering if I need to delete all my mods, reinstall KSP, and reinstall the mods.  My worry is that windows also decided to delete some other file at some point.  But man, it'll be a lot of mods to reinstall and custom configs to rewrite.

Thank you for all your help and guidance in this process- I really appreciate it!

[ble210]

I spoke too soon- the persistent.sfs file is now gone from the Program Files KSP, but it still remains in the new C: folder.  Fingers crossed it stays put!

[steve_v]

6 hours ago, se5a said:

It shouldn't be... desktop is userspace.

In theory, yes. I haven't used Windows seriously in about 10 years though, so I defer to Claw and the official sticky post on this one.
I do have vague memories of issues with executables on the desktop in vista, but they're just that, vague. Putting KSP somewhere I know will not cause problems is the better test.

[linuxgurugamer]

For many reasons, it’s not a good idea to put programs on the desktop.

Assuming Windows 10, I would suggest the following setup for a one-drive system:

In the command entry at the bottom left, type:  c:\

This will open up an Explorer window on the C drive

Find the folder labeled:  Users.  and double click it

Now find the folder which is your Windows user, I’ll assume it is the same as your user name here:

Double click on the folder labeled: ble210

This will open into your home directory.

Right click on in the window on a blank space, and select New folder

Label the new folder, I usually call it Games

Double click on the new folder

Copy the entire KSP folder into this new folder

Now, double click on the KSP folder

Find the KSP executable, right click and hold on it, and then drag that to your desktop.  This will create a shortcut to the game

[ble210]

15 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

For many reasons, it’s not a good idea to put programs on the desktop.

Assuming Windows 10, I would suggest the following setup for a one-drive system:

In the command entry at the bottom left, type:  c:\

This will open up an Explorer window on the C drive

Find the folder labeled:  Users.  and double click it

Now find the folder which is your Windows user, I’ll assume it is the same as your user name here:

Double click on the folder labeled: ble210

This will open into your home directory.

Right click on in the window on a blank space, and select New folder

Label the new folder, I usually call it Games

Double click on the new folder

Copy the entire KSP folder into this new folder

Now, double click on the KSP folder

Find the KSP executable, right click and hold on it, and then drag that to your desktop.  This will create a shortcut to the game

Thank you for the advice- I will follow it and install the to location you recommend.  Out of concern of potentially other files being erased as well, I'm going to do a clean reinstall of both the base game and my ~100 mods.

Thank you Steve_v for your assistance in all of this over the course of a number of days, and thank you Linuxguru gamer for the help in where to locate a clean install (plus as I look at my mods I realize you are responsible for maintaining a huge portion of them- so thank you for that as well!)

It is really nice that, for such a great game, the community is so great as well.

Edited September 15, 2018 by ble210
grammar

[linuxgurugamer]

Let us know how it comes out

[ble210]

On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 3:36 AM, linuxgurugamer said:

Let us know how it comes out

Everything seems to be working just fine in the install location you recommended- thank you again!