A Sad Day for Sparky :(

[DepressedFarmer]

I have been playing Stardew Valley for over 7 years now I believe, I remember it getting me through hard times, and it made me feel better and relaxed every time I played. I had put over 600 hours into the game (not including modded times) and I had this large, beautiful farm...called Skyville Farm Farm. (yep I made the mistake) I farmed wine and cheese, I had a wonderful layout with iridium sprinklers all lined up in perfect ranges with the Juimo hut so every space was getting watered and harvested whenever necessary. I had sheds, full to the brim with kegs and machines for complete wine production, my cellar full of wonderful aged wine ready to sell. I had all my iridium tools with me, and I was ready to start a new project, I wanted to surprise Sam with an orchard of fruit so production could be even better. But I was tired, so I said goodbye to my husband and child that we had just adopted and I logged off safely, turned off my computer, and went to sleep.

The next morning...I awoke with hope to finally get started on the orchard project...but as I load up to the wonderful opening screen, I clicked on the load button....and Sparky the Farmer was no where to be seen.

I researched, and looked, modified any possible files I could in an attempt to retrieve all that I had lost. But no luck. Sparky was gone...the world that I had created and worked so hard on, was gone. I attempted to load my backups, but to no avail. I will never see my lovely farmer again, I will never see my cellar again, I will never see all the hours, years I had put into the farm....I had everyone at full hearts, I had married the villager I loved the most, I had raised multiple animals and chickens, each with their own special name and meaning.

I am very depressed over losing over 7 years worth of game play...and I'm really debating just downloading multiple mods and just cheating my farm back, but I don't know if that would really help me feel better about this. After doing some research I discovered that anti-virus programs will effect Stardew Valley at times, which I never had to worry about on my old computer, but after 4 years of playing I had to switch over to a laptop, and those programs had not been disabled yet. I'm really kicking myself over this, and I really hope this encourages people to save their games and backup their files.

Also I apparently lost my account for this forum after having it for possibly 3-5 years? I don't feel like fighting for the account back so Sparky the farmer is truly gone.

(If anyone has any ideas or suggestions on what to do now, I would really appreciate it :,) for now I'm just going to mourn over all that I had lost...)

 

[Aine]

But, how, how can the game just delet your save file out of nowhere?!!?!?
Did you tryed restoring your pc alltghether? since the save files have a copy on you pc you should lost very few days if somehow it got deleted, also, when you do it, dont open the game, go to the save file folder before anything and see if the save file is there, make a copy, and start the game. I actually cant figure how it could possible deleted your file out of nowhere, if you use steam the save files are saved in a cloud server, I will look more into it.

EDIT: Did tou see if you were logged on steam??? You may be looking into a windows problem with a temporary username creation or something like that, if you can, try to log into your account on another PC to test.

EDIT 2: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Saves this may help you recover your save.

 

[DepressedFarmer]

But, how, how can the game just delet your save file out of nowhere?!!?!?
Did you tryed restoring your pc alltghether? since the save files have a copy on you pc you should lost very few days if somehow it got deleted, also, when you do it, dont open the game, go to the save file folder before anything and see if the save file is there, make a copy, and start the game. I actually cant figure how it could possible deleted your file out of nowhere, if you use steam the save files are saved in a cloud server, I will look more into it.

EDIT: Did tou see if you were logged on steam??? You may be looking into a windows problem with a temporary username creation or something like that, if you can, try to log into your account on another PC to test.

I couldn't find an explanation on how it deletes it, all I could get was that it can happen (Very annoying) I opened the save logs in notepad and sadly it was blank, so that's how you know its gone and can't be recovered. I had not used steam since I play with about 3-4 mods on that help me out, but I am trying to log onto steam on a different computer to see if maybe there's a chance I could retrieve my files and maybe email it to myself to transfer it back to my laptop? I doubt it's going to work but thankyou for the suggestion, I also might just try and open it with steam on the laptop itself and see if there's anything there.

EDIT: So I logged onto both my old pc on steam and my laptop on steam, and somehow it's still there on both?? The only setback is that I lost a months worth of work and my child but hey that's better than nothing. So I wonder why its only the (let's call it the SMAPI version) that deleted the file? Now what I'm thinking about doing is actually deleting SMAPI in total, just all together, and then reinstalling it so that way it will have to connect to stardew valley again and then maybe possibly will I be able to play with my casual mods (like harvest with scythe and npc map) Should I attempt this? Thoughts?

 

[Aine]

Glad you could find at least a file that is not that far from what you have done. I found this way to maybe recover, since you use smapi, you can try, but save a backup of the one you currently have.

If the files are missing but you have SMAPI installed, here's how to recover a backup:

1. Find your game folder.
2. Open the save-backups subfolder.
3. Unzip the latest backup which has your save, and copy the save folder back into Saves.

 

[Boo1972]

My heart broke for you but I’m so glad you got most of your farm back! I Can’t really offer any advice, but I would love to see a picture of your farm if it hasn’t been shared already.

 

[Magically Clueless]

I really think you should report it in the bug reports forum since losing your file is not normal. I've seen a few reports similar to this, but I'd definitely follow what Aine said and it's worth looking in your normal save folders to begin with since there's a chance the files are still there!

Also I apparently lost my account for this forum after having it for possibly 3-5 years? I don't feel like fighting for the account back so Sparky the farmer is truly gone.

About this, you're thinking of the Chucklefish Forums which are still there. These are the Stardew Valley Forums, which are independent of Chucklefish and are different sites run by different people. Your account on the other forums should be there, and because of how private information is handled, we can't transfer any posts/info you had from your other account.

 

[DepressedFarmer]

UPDATE: Alrighty so I managed to fix it and I actually got it back into the SMAPI version of Stardew so I am able to play with my mods again!

After actually crying for about an hour over losing my save file, I thought that there was no way that somehow a simple modding program had actually gone into steam and deleted an entire save file, so I logged onto Steam and checked on the game from there and sure enough my farm was still there in the vanilla version! So what I ended up actually having to do was delete SMAPI entirely from my computer, don't just put it in the recycle bin cause that doesn't get rid of it. After going through my files to double check that there was no trace of SMAPI I proceeded to re-download it and go through the process and instructions on installing it (again) This allowed it to go through my steam files again and pick up the file that it had deleted. Now how it just decided to yeet Sparky out the window? I can't tell ya, I couldn't really find a whole lot of information on this happening because it doesn't really happen often but if anyone does mod or is interested in modding I would just create a shortcut to desktop for the "StardewModdingAPI" file, I wouldn't make it so that every time you use Steam it would just use the modded version because there (apparently) Is a chance that your file will be deleted and I can't really tell ya what to do if that happens while you're using Steam

Note: After deleting and re-installing SMAPI somehow my mods were still installed? So I didn't have to go through all of nexus to find all the ones I had put on and re-download them etc. Now it's a little creepy to me that after uninstalling it, it somehow managed to remember the mods? But hey less work I guess XD.

 

[Firehoshi]

UPDATE: Alrighty so I managed to fix it and I actually got it back into the SMAPI version of Stardew so I am able to play with my mods again!

After actually crying for about an hour over losing my save file, I thought that there was no way that somehow a simple modding program had actually gone into steam and deleted an entire save file, so I logged onto Steam and checked on the game from there and sure enough my farm was still there in the vanilla version! So what I ended up actually having to do was delete SMAPI entirely from my computer, don't just put it in the recycle bin cause that doesn't get rid of it. After going through my files to double check that there was no trace of SMAPI I proceeded to re-download it and go through the process and instructions on installing it (again) This allowed it to go through my steam files again and pick up the file that it had deleted. Now how it just decided to yeet Sparky out the window? I can't tell ya, I couldn't really find a whole lot of information on this happening because it doesn't really happen often but if anyone does mod or is interested in modding I would just create a shortcut to desktop for the "StardewModdingAPI" file, I wouldn't make it so that every time you use Steam it would just use the modded version because there (apparently) Is a chance that your file will be deleted and I can't really tell ya what to do if that happens while you're using Steam

Note: After deleting and re-installing SMAPI somehow my mods were still installed? So I didn't have to go through all of nexus to find all the ones I had put on and re-download them etc. Now it's a little creepy to me that after uninstalling it, it somehow managed to remember the mods? But hey less work I guess XD.

mods are usually saved in a roaming file in devices so unesss you removed the mod/roaming file they'd still be there suaully

 

[GamingEvolved]

Try using data recovery if you have a hard drive in your PC.

 

[Odin]

Note: After deleting and re-installing SMAPI somehow my mods were still installed? So I didn't have to go through all of nexus to find all the ones I had put on and re-download them etc. Now it's a little creepy to me that after uninstalling it, it somehow managed to remember the mods? But hey less work I guess XD.

Well yes, SMAPI is just the mod loader, any mods you have are installed and uninstalled separately. It's not that it remembered anything, it's just that uninstalling SMAPI doesn't uninstall the mods you have.