Me vs Steam Cloud (I am losing...)

[Strider]

I really hate Steam now. Even more than before. (Personal opinion, no flame war please)

This is the thread about steam screwing me and my gaming experience.

So, I've got a new PC. Hey, I thought, no problem with the savegames on steam, Plants vs. Zombies uses Steam Cloud now to keep the save up-to-date on all pc's. I'm technically knowledgeable enough that this was never an issue, but nevertheless, nice feature. If it works.

So I've got this PvsZ savegame with almost everything unlocked, took quite some time. With job and daughter time is precious and I was happy I got there.

The complete savegame was cloud-synchronized. So I installed steam and PvzZ on the new pc, waited for the savegame to synch. Nothing happened, but it didn't show an error, either. Since there are no manual options, I could only try and see.

So I started the game and was a bit dissapointed that the save was not downloaded on this pc. I quit the game. NOW the cloud feature said 'synchronizing'.

Fearing the worst, I checked and well.... my save is gone. A brand new savegame without anything was uploaded. Great feature.


Ok, don't panic. Make a ticket at the steam support. The first answer was very generic and an unhelpful link to something unrelated. The second answer: 'sorry, we can't help you in this case.


So wait, let me get this straight: I have no control whatsoever which savegame is up/downloaded, and if the system screws up you (valve/steam) can't help me?

Sometimes, things in the past really were better.

And I don't even seem to be the only one. The steam forum, for PvzZ alone, has several complaints like this one.

Great, just great.

[Syl]

...why don't you just manually copy over the save file? you're going have to do it with 95% of your other steam games.

[Strider]

The save I had was overwritten by the steam cloud, because it uses that feature.

[felix]

When reloading my system, I always manually back up my saves. I also backup my saves when I uninstall a game, even if I don't expect to play it again for a while.

[Syl]

The save on your old computer was overwritten by steam cloud on the new computer?

[Strider]

Yes, essentially. It automatically uploaded the new empty save which was downloaded on the old computer automagically (steam cloud). I expected a 'sync error' which should ask me which to keep, but that never happened (but it should've).

[Syl]

good to know. i'll need to watch that

[Anenome]

Hmm, where exactly are steam-saves kept? I'll have to think about backing some up.

[doogz23]

X://Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common
...this is the main directory for Steam games and the save games would be strewn about.

Some games will use your 'My Documents', so you'll need to look in there too.

[Anenome]

Some games will use your 'My Documents', so you'll need to look in there too.
yeah i f'ing hate that!