saveindex corrupt, can't restore savegames, over 41 hours in ='(

[stufff]

Game crashed when I tried a quickload (stuck at loading for 5-7 minutes before I opened task manager and forced it to close).

I restarted the game and tried to manually load my quicksave, and the autosaves. All of them had the same problem, they would be stuck at loading forever and never load, and I would have to force them closed (I waited 30 minutes one time to be sure. My average load time is 20-30 seconds).

I tried loading my hard saves, and those all still worked, though my most recent hard save was from 5 hours prior so I still wanted to try to rescue my quicksave and autosaves. I read somewhere that the problem might be that the saveindex file was corrupt and could be fixed by deleting it and making a new one, so I deleted my saveindex and user file but left all my save games. I started up Deus Ex, but it didn't recognize that I had any games.

So I thought, maybe I need to create a new saveindex file by saving a game. So I backed up all my gamer#, gamea, and gameq save files to a folder on my desktop. Then I deleted everything in the save folder, started a new game, and made sure to get a quick save, 2 autosaves, and 12 hard saves (same number I had for my real game). Then I exited the game, copied everything I had backed up to the savegame folder, which now contained all my old saves but the new saveindex and user files. I start up DX:HR again, it says these files aren't the same as the ones on the Steam Cloud, and asks me to confirm that I want to overwrite the files on the Steam cloud, which I do.

I try to load my saves and they all say something to the effect of "save could not be loaded". So It appears that I have 12 save games (gamer1-gamer12) which I'm pretty sure are still good, a quicksave and autosaves that may or may not be corrupt, and a missing saveindex and user.

I don't understand why I can't just stick my save games into the folder and load them without the saveindex and user files like any other game. Is there anything I can do do get back at least my hard saves? I've played 41 hours at hardest difficulty, making sure to get every secret and experience gain I can possibly find, please someone tell me I haven't lost all that? I don't think I have the heart to play those 41 hours all over again.

TL;DR: Missing saveindex and user files that went with my save games, still have my hard saves but game won't let me use them with a newly generated saveindex. Please help!

I've tried deleting the ClientRegistry.blob (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7241-EYON-2343) and restarting Steam which this post (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2080238&highlight=saves) says will let me use these saves, but this does not work for me.

I can post my save games if anyone has the ability to generate a new saveindex and user file that would work with them.

[stufff]

Someone on the Steam Forums helped me resolve this problem.

Posting exactly what I did here for anyone else who has a similar issue:


Backed up all save games to a New Folder on my desktop (gamer1-gamer12, gamea, gamea2, gameq)
Right click game in Steam, Properties, Updates, uncheck enable steam Cloud (not sure if this is necessary, but steam Cloud seems to be buggy in this game anyway)
EXIT Steam (I know this is a required step, I tried everything else without exiting steam and the game would not load my imported saves)
delete all content in Steam\userdata\[number]\28050\
Open Steam back up, start a New Game, skip intro movie, press escape and make a hard save as soon as you spawn in Megan's office.
Exit Game, exit Steam again (mandatory)
Take one game file (this didn't work with multiple save files, only one at a time), in my case gamer12 was the most recent, rename to gamer1, copy over and overwrite the gamer1 from your new game
Start game, Load the first and only save file. It will say Sarif Industries but when you actually load it, it will be correct.
Make a few extra hard saves of your resurrected save file, make a quick save, make a hard save over the save that still says Sarif Industries


I have to say, up until this problem, this was the perfect game. It had the best gameplay and one of the best stories of any game I've played in the past three decades. I can't imagine why anyone thought it would be a good idea to lock down the savegames in this manner and make it difficult to import save games in general. I was also experiencing frequent crashes on exiting the game, which I thought was only a nuissance but now I'm fairly sure it caused the saveindex corruption and corruption of my quicksave and autosaves. I really hope Eidos gets these issues under control because they are seriously detracting from the enjoyment of an otherwise perfect game. I shouldn't have to spend hours of my day figuring out how to import a save file.

[SharpAimX]

Same problem, the above didn't help. My saveindex got corrupted and trying a new save then renaming an old save to the new save gives me an unable to load save data error ingame. Anyone know of another fix I could try? Lost my save right before the ending :(

[RstyKnfe]

It's December and still no word from Eidos??? COME ON GUYS, I spent my money on your game MONTHS ago, and my save files were corrupted MONTHS ago and still we have no solution.

I was getting the infinite loading screen problem on at least 4 of my most recent hard saves and on my quicksaves and autosaves as well. I tried the above steps: created a new saveindex, backed up saves, re-pasted my saves into the save folder and I was getting the "Unable to load game" message just like above. When I restored my files to my original saveindex file and the original save files, the game doesn't even recognize that there are save files.

This is just completely unacceptable that we have had no word from Eidos and no fix. I put in many hours on the hardest difficulty and made sure to get every little piece of experience just like the above players.

Again: This is just completely unacceptable. You guys as a studio should have been all over this MONTHS AGO. MONTHS AGO.