Legacy GM Unexcusable data loss CRASH

[Zaxtor99]

ARGHHHH!

I've been using GameMaker for years now but have NEVER seen a crash like this, which caused complete corruption and data loss of thousands of lines of code.

Working on a new project which to my fault I hadn't yet backed up but was simply trying to load a sprite from a sprite sheet PNG obtained from the popular royalty free 2D character generation website... and once I got all the images on the sprite sheet set correctly as per number of images, rows, size, offset etc..

GameMaker started processing the sprite and then hard crashed. I had to force close GM 1.4 from my task manager, and when I opened my project again after re-opening GM, it came up with a little white window that reads: Error loading: C:Users\MyPC\Documents\GameMaker\...\spr_alex.sprite.gmx.File not present

..and when I hit OKAY to get past that error message, it loads up my project not just missing that alex sprite that caused GM to crash, but missing ALL of my objects where my dozen+ hours of code was contained!!

Now I get that I should have backed my project up before this point, however to have GM crash and corrupt ALL of my object data and code simply trying to import a sprite sheet I feel is unacceptable. I paid $100 for this GameMaker application and it has been out many years now, and this just should NEVER happen, period.

However, really what I'd love help with, if anyone knows....
Is.. Does anyone know if there might be a way to fix my project or recover all of my object data and code it seems like I have lost? The reason I ask is because if I go into my project folder manually outside of GameMaker, I see all my object data in an object folder etc

Thanks in advance.

 

[rIKmAN]

ARGHHHH!

I've been using GameMaker for years now but have NEVER seen a crash like this, which caused complete corruption and data loss of thousands of lines of code.

Working on a new project which to my fault I hadn't yet backed up but was simply trying to load a sprite from a sprite sheet PNG obtained from the popular royalty free 2D character generation website... and once I got all the images on the sprite sheet set correctly as per number of images, rows, size, offset etc..

GameMaker started processing the sprite and then hard crashed. I had to force close GM 1.4 from my task manager, and when I opened my project again after re-opening GM, it came up with a little white window that reads: Error loading: C:Users\MyPC\Documents\GameMaker\...\spr_alex.sprite.gmx.File not present

..and when I hit OKAY to get past that error message, it loads up my project not just missing that alex sprite that caused GM to crash, but missing ALL of my objects where my dozen+ hours of code was contained!!

Now I get that I should have backed my project up before this point, however to have GM crash and corrupt ALL of my object data and code simply trying to import a sprite sheet I feel is unacceptable. I paid $100 for this GameMaker application and it has been out many years now, and this just should NEVER happen, period.

However, really what I'd love help with, if anyone knows....
Is.. Does anyone know if there might be a way to fix my project or recover all of my object data and code it seems like I have lost? The reason I ask is because if I go into my project folder manually outside of GameMaker, I see all my object data in an object folder etc

Thanks in advance.

First I'd have to state the obvious - that never backing up once during a project that comprises "thousands of lines of code" is stupid at best, and negligent at worst.
Let this be a kick up the ass for you to start using Source Control, or at a bare minimum making regular backups of the project folder.

As you using 1.4 then it's possible you will have backups of the last 5 "runs" of the project in the backups folder, so check there first and see if one of the older backup versions load.
They can be found in C:\Users\<username>\Documents\GameMaker\Backups\<project_name>

If that doesn't work then check the project folder for your game and see if the actual files are still there, and if so you should be able to import them back into a clean project which will take some time but should mean you don't lose all the resources.

 

[Zaxtor99]

First I'd have to state the obvious - that never backing up once during a project that comprises "thousands of lines of code" is stupid at best, and negligent at worst.
Let this be a kick up the ass for you to start using Source Control, or at a bare minimum making regular backups of the project folder.

As you using 1.4 then it's possible you will have backups of the last 5 "runs" of the project in the backups folder, so check there first and see if one of the older ackup versions load.
They can be found in C:\Users\<username>\Documents\GameMaker\Backups\<project_name>

If that doesn't work then check the project folder for your game and see if the actual files are still there, and if so you should be able to import them back into a clean project which will take some time but should mean you don't lose all the resources.

Thanks for the response!

I must confess, I DID actually back up my project, but it was the day before yesterday and I did a lot of work on it yesterday and hadn't saved it yet when I tried importing that sprite sheet which caused this massive crash and corruption of data.

I saved my project day before yesterday on my D drive.

Sadly all 5 backups seem to have missing or no data.

On my C drive, I have the current build which now won't load any of my object data, but if I go into the folder manually, I see all of the folders including an object folder with all of the objects inside. Before you responded, I already tried moving all the C drive folders and replacing the D drive folders with the most current folders, including my object folders etc but if I then try loading the project from gamemaker with the old GameMaker gmx file, it doesn't work and if I try moving my new C drive gmx file and replacing the old gmx file on my D drive with it, launching that from GameMaker causes the prviously mentioned loss of all object data.

You mentioned created a new project and manually moving all my folders there.. okay I can do that, but how will I make it work with no gmx file? I guess I don't understand exactly how to manually make this work. I DO appreciate the help! Thanks!

 

[rIKmAN]

Thanks for the response!

I must confess, I DID actually back up my project, but it was the day before yesterday and I did a lot of work on it yesterday and hadn't saved it yet when I tried importing that sprite sheet which caused this massive crash and corruption of data.

I saved my project day before yesterday on my D drive.

Sadly all 5 backups seem to have missing or no data.

On my C drive, I have the current build which now won't load any of my object data, but if I go into the folder manually, I see all of the folders including an object folder with all of the objects inside. Before you responded, I already tried moving all the C drive folders and replacing the D drive folders with the most current folders, including my object folders etc but if I then try loading the project from gamemaker with the old GameMaker gmx file, it doesn't work and if I try moving my new C drive gmx file and replacing the old gmx file on my D drive with it, launching that from GameMaker causes the prviously mentioned loss of all object data.

You mentioned created a new project and manually moving all my folders there.. okay I can do that, but how will I make it work with no gmx file? I guess I don't understand exactly how to manually make this work. I DO appreciate the help! Thanks!

Be careful with copying / moving / merging things all over the place, you could make things worse believe it or not. I'd even advise making a backup of the project folder as it stands now, just in case it may be helpful in future.

Try creating a new project, and then right clicking the Resource Tree sections and the choose "Import Existing and browse to the relevent folder in your broken project and import the assets into the new project - it has to be done one by one sadly.

Hopefully they will import without error and you can rebuild your project and not have lost so much work as you currently think you have.

 

[YellowAfterlife]

I have a blog post outlining different ways to get your work back.

I would similarly recommend making a backup of the broken project and then trying to import its resources into another one - chances are that only .project.gmx structure got messed up and resources are still OK (well, except for that one cursed sprite)

As to "how could this even be allowed", you kind of answered yourself - if you've had this crash for the first time in years, it is likely not too easy to reproduce to fix. Moreso now that GMS1.4 support is long over.

 

[Mool]

You should use git + github etc. I lose data very often (GMS and Unity)

 

[Zaxtor99]

Be careful with copying / moving / merging things all over the place, you could make things worse believe it or not. I'd even advise making a backup of the project folder as it stands now, just in case it may be helpful in future.

Try creating a new project, and then right clicking the Resource Tree sections and the choose "Import Existing and browse to the relevent folder in your broken project and import the assets into the new project - it has to be done one by one sadly.

Hopefully they will import without error and you can rebuild your project and not have lost so much work as you currently think you have.

Dude, thanks a million!! I was able to recover my project and lost work by making a brand new project and use existing items one by one for all sprites, sounds, objects, rooms, fonts, scripts, etc from the broken project into the new project. It was a little tedious yes, but not nearly as tedious as re-coding all those lost hours since the other day would have been!

A sincere thank you to everyone else who responded as well! I both understand what you say about even tho a bad crash that it's a rare crash and hard to reproduce for the developers to fix @ YellowAfterLife. I know that YoYo doesn't support Game Maker Studio 1.4999 anymore, but it's still my "go to" game engine almost every time.

 

[rIKmAN]

Dude, thanks a million!! I was able to recover my project and lost work by making a brand new project and use existing items one by one for all sprites, sounds, objects, rooms, fonts, scripts, etc from the broken project into the new project. It was a little tedious yes, but not nearly as tedious as re-coding all those lost hours since the other day would have been!

A sincere thank you to everyone else who responded as well! I both understand what you say about even tho a bad crash that it's a rare crash and hard to reproduce for the developers to fix @ YellowAfterLife. I know that YoYo doesn't support Game Maker Studio 1.4999 anymore, but it's still my "go to" game engine almost every time.

Glad it worked out.

Now start using Source Control!