Possible Fix for Bereghost Corrupted Saves...

[Darkfire]

Hi,

I recently started playing this great game mod again and ran into the dreaded Bereghost save game problem. 7 hours of real-game time lost! 'No!' I screamed after reading here about this problem...if only I had known. 

Anyway, I refuse to go back to the beginning of Chapter Three (where my last major save was) as I normally do a lot of the side quests here before attacked the ol' bandit camp. So I tried a few things and I think I have my save working again.

Here is what I did...

1. Backup the broken Autosave and Quicksave directories.
2. Rename the Quicksave directory to something else (in my case 'try'). This of course won't load.
3. Take the 'BALDUR.SAV' file from a working save game and put it into the broken save directory. Confirm over-right.
3. Load the save. Wow! It works, I'm now in Bereghost. I look at the characters and they seem fine, all experience and jornual is full as before.
4. Get out of Bereghost fast! I took a southern exit this time (I have a feeling it is going north that causes the trouble...I've left Bereghost a number of times before and had no trouble...it was only when I left via the northern part of the screen that it crashed to desktop and corrupted the saves).
5. Once in a new location quicksave. All is well it seems...

I'm not sure what that 'BALDUR.SAV' file does. It was larger in the Quicksave in Bereghost than it was in the older save games so I assume it is doing something important...anyone know? To make sure though, I copied the corrupted save's 'BALDUR.SAV' over to the new Quicksave I had made and loaded it up. And it works!

Now I don't know whether there are other problems now with the save...everything looked OK to me. I'm going to play for a few more hours and see what happens...

[Macready]

Hello -

Here is what I did...

1. Backup the broken Autosave and Quicksave directories.
2. Rename the Quicksave directory to something else (in my case 'try'). This of course won't load.
3. Take the 'BALDUR.SAV' file from a working save game and put it into the broken save directory. Confirm over-right.
3. Load the save. Wow! It works, I'm now in Bereghost. I look at the characters and they seem fine, all experience and jornual is full as before.
4. Get out of Bereghost fast! I took a southern exit this time (I have a feeling it is going north that causes the trouble...I've left Bereghost a number of times before and had no trouble...it was only when I left via the northern part of the screen that it crashed to desktop and corrupted the saves).
5. Once in a new location quicksave. All is well it seems...

I'm not sure what that 'BALDUR.SAV' file does. It was larger in the Quicksave in Bereghost than it was in the older save games so I assume it is doing something important...anyone know? To make sure though, I copied the corrupted save's 'BALDUR.SAV' over to the new Quicksave I had made and loaded it up. And it works!

Now I don't know whether there are other problems now with the save...everything looked OK to me. I'm going to play for a few more hours and see what happens...

BALDUR.SAV is a compressed archive which holds files containing area, store, etc information which reflects the state of those areas and stores as they existed at the time of the save game.  The Beregost issue can be "fixed" less bluntly by using NI to decompress BALDUR.SAV, overwriting the saved Beregost area file (FWxxxx.ARE, I can't remember the number) with a fresh copy from the Tutu override folder, and then recompressing with NI.  Or, you could use a copy of the area file from one of your non-corrupt Beregost saves.  This will have the effect of rolling back the in-game state of Beregost to whatever its state was in the replacement file you are using.  I don't know if this approach will create problems down the road, though...I'd say careful save game practices to sidestep the problem if it occurs is better.  In any case, I think this sort of file manipulation is better categorized as desperation workaround rather than a fix.

That said, I'm happy you recovered your game in progress.  Hopefully things will remain stable.

[Darkfire]

Well after an hours more play, things seem OK. Only one problem...I can't get back into Bereghost. It crashes if I try to do so...

That being said though isn't a great problem since I don't think I need to go back there for the main plot again. However, you say it is possible to 'roll-back' to the previous saves version of Bereghost, so I'll see if I can fix it that way so I can get back into Bereghost. Losing 7 hours of Bereghost is a hell of a lot better than 7 hours of the whole game!! And I don't think I every went back there after clearing out Naskel Mines...nothing lost then in theory...

[Darkfire]

Everything repaired...I put the earlier Bereghost part in (FW3300 by the way) and I can enter Bereghost once again.

As you say a 'hack', but it works, and since I didn't know about that bug until it happened and I came here looking for answers a good one 

[underdog]

well your fix worked Macready, took a while to figure out how to put the new FW3300 into the baldur.sav, but I found that NI opens up a directory with a similar name to the one edited, and extracts the files into there, then you drop the FW3300.are from the override into there and recompile it and move it to the save directory.
the only real differences i found is all the doors were closed, one of the barrels that I had been storing things in was empty, (over a dozen scalps that I collected before Vai showed up), and Silke and Garrick were back there again, but she didn' t want anything to do with me now.

[Miloch]

I've been lurking in and out of Beregost for some time.  I seem to hit this infamous bug once in a while, usually when loading Beregost from an adjacent area or, less often, at random other times in the area or when leaving.  BG1Tutu (EasyTutu actually) will just exit without warning at that point.

So what I do is just reload the game that was auto-saved before I tried entering Beregost and try again (I'm a half-orc barbarian after all, brute force outweighs subtlety).  The game itself loads so I guess my file isn't "corrupt" as some people've been reporting... then again, maybe it is but I just don't know it?  Inevitably it just crashes again when I try moving to Beregost.  But then I'll try something slightly different like walking along the map edge a bit and trying to enter again from a different spot.  *That* usually works.  Does anyone know what actually causes this bug?  I've an funny feeling that a lot of buildings in Beregost are right up on the edge of the map, and if you try to enter (or perhaps exit in some cases) it crashes because otherwise your guys would end up in a wall or something.  That doesn't make a lot of a sense since a lot of other maps have trees and whatnot on the edge.  Plus you usually seem to enter the map at predefined spots.  But then I don't really know how everything is coded, I'm just a barbarian.  I have noticed other posts from people saying this seems to occur mainly when entering/exiting from the bottom center or east of the smithy, and this is where buildings border the map edges.

On a side note, anyone else think it's odd you can loot every building in Beregost completely dry without anyone raising a fuss or calling the guard, with just a fat man's cloak (also stolen)?  You can even sell the plunder back to the same folks you pinched it from without even a suspicious glance or a "where'd you get this?".  You'd think a blacksmith would recognize his own work.  Not to mention you can make off with the richest man in town's entire library and jewelry collection literally right under the noses of his armed guards who tell you they're keeping an eye on you.  And to top it all off, your normally goody-goody pals will even pat you on the back for it.

Commoner- Charmed
Safana- Lock Pick Succeeded
Miloch- <Chest looted>
Kivan- That was a noble deed.
Khalid- Gorion would be proud of your actions.

I assume this was a feature in the original BG1 (not just Tutu) but I'd have to chalk a mark or two for it in the "unrealistic" column.

[berelinde]

Oh, that is just too funny. But I think poor Kivan and Khalid just spout that at random whenever you do something if your rep is high enough.

But I, too have noticed that sometimes all I have to do is try entering or leaving Beregost from somewhere else and the bereghost does not make his appearance.

The only time I've ever been really hopelessly messed up was when I forgot to save prior to entering town and kept crashing on the autosave reload. But that has only happened once. Usually just walking around for a while prior to trying to leave again is enough.