Help! My project did a rollback!

Well, it goes like this:

I opened my project under RPG Maker 2003, and it looks like I've lost a lot of data.

Luckily, I've kept a backup copy to compare some diagnostics.

The project copy that went corrupt appears to still have the map data on my computer, so it hasn't been completely erased.

The backup copy has less maps than the corrupt copy so it's safe to assume that the copy is still up-to-date, but RPG Maker 2003 isn't displaying it as so.

For the record, it seemed to have rolled back about a week and a half's worth of data give or take.

I was afraid to save immediately after figuring that I lost data. My first clue was that my map organization was reverted; some maps that I named before were renamed 'Map0000', etc

Mind you, this is not a simple 'I forgot to save' deal.. it really did a half-baked rollback that still has my data somewhere hidden.

That's a unusual case as I never had it and I never seen anyway around here have it either. Maybe, you opened a different project? It happened to me once, I opened up a project that had nothing there, it had a similar name to the one I was working on, I found the problem eventually. So maybe you opened up the wrong project, I'm just saying though.

Hm... when you import resources, do you directly put them into the folders, or do you use the importer? Because I've seen a problem on different forums that projects went corrupt because of this.

Or did you accidently paste another game's map tree into your game?

Hm... when you import resources, do you directly put them into the folders, or do you use the importer? Because I've seen a problem on different forums that projects went corrupt because of this.

Or did you accidently paste another game's map tree into your game?

When I import resources, I make a new folder in the RM2003 Projects folder and paste data from the .lzh. As far as I know, I never pasted data into this project folder. I save frequently, and all of a sudden, my project rolls back. If it helps, I can tell you some of the things that got erased from my vision

-Monster data from a new area I was working on
-The names of some towns I created (for teleportation purposes) were renamed to their default state.
-A whole dungeon got deleted (although luckily, my spare project kept that.. but I have to re-assign the monsters)

This could actually be a good thing because my development gotten a little shakier from that timeframe of lost data, but still... that's freaky!

But let's suppose the map tree got corrupt and the maps are still there... would there be anyway to re-detect them?

That's where I can't help. I only know a possible problem, but I don't know how to fix it since it's never happened to me.

Hmm, a possible problem? I'm not exactly sure what I done wrong. The only things I done was edit my project normally and saved frequently. OH, and another thing...

I created some new heroes in this update right? The files are still there, but when I open the file, the game crashes and says invalid hero. That's actually expected, but that proves I at least saved the project on a normal basis, and I'm starting to guess that my data hasn't actually been deleted, but has become misread.

I wonder what file(s) are responsible for reading the data when you open the project..

I wonder what file(s) are responsible for reading the data when you open the project..

Those files that aren't folders or maps.

Ehehe, ask an obvious question, get an obvious answer... lol

But yeah, this is getting interesting. by viewing the .ldb and the .lmt in WordPad, it appears that evidence of my recent updates are visible on both files! That's somewhat a relief.. I figure if I save my project now, all that hard work would really dissappear... x-x but hmm... even knowing this, I'm not sure what else I can do about it.

THIS JUST IN

I believed I solved my own problem!

I told you before when I said the data was proven to be still there, but not detected. What I wound up doing was copying & pasting the folder my project was in, and my original plan was to edit and save the copied folder to see what would happen. What surprised me was that opening the project lead to everything being recovered!

The weird part is I was going to delete the other folder since the problem appeared to be solved, but the folder didn't delete. I checked the original folder, and it looks like that folder was reading the right way too!

Now this doesn't explain what I did wrong in the first place, but I think I figured out how to solve an RPG Maker 2003 rollback - I'm happy I didn't screw things up in the end. Thanks all for your support, but I think this case is closed~

Cool. Anyway, good luck.

This exact same thing has happened to me twice. The second time it happened after upgrading from Vista to Windows 7. That makes me think it's some sort of registry issue, because it otherwise copied all the files over correctly.
After reading your posts I just changed the folder name of my project and re-opened it. That brought back all the data. No matter what I did I couldn't get the original folder name to bring back the data. Like you said, it is very important not to save your project when it is in this "rollback" state as that will erase all your work.

Glad you recovered everything.  I had the same thing happen a few times, usually when trying to transfer folders between computers.  I almost lost months of work once, but that was with RM2K.

So to fix this kind of thing you copy the folder of whatever the project is called?  Or do you copy the actual "project" folder?

-flap

This happens if you randomly run RPG Maker with and without administrator privileges.

If RPG Maker tries to write to the "Program Files" directory without administrator privileges, Windows redirects it to some cache folder.

The easiest solution is using some path inside of "My Documents" for projects and NOT inside "Program Files".

Regards,
Cherry