Forums → Support Forum → My saves were erased; I have backup but it's not working
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I just had to clear out all my web browsing history (including cache & cookies). I know that this usually erases all local save game content for games here, it's happened to me a few times before. But I also keep a backup copy of the folders where all the flash games data (that I know of) is saved.
Here are screenshots of my backup copies of the folders. The originals are located in [My name]\\AppData\\Roaming\\Macromedia\\Flash Player\\#SharedObjects.
I play on Armor Games using Chrome, and I play on some other similar sites using Firefox. I cleared my browsing data for both browsers. When I came to check in these folders afterwards, I noticed almost all those folders were gone. (They were gone from the original location; I still had the backups.)
I copied all the backed up folders and pasted them into their original locations, overwriting anything files/folders that I was asked to.
But after I did that I opened Armorgames on Chrome to check, and several; games still didn't have their saves back.
I also checked on Kongregate (which I play using FF), and all my local savegames are gone from there too. (*RAGE!!!!!*)
Some examples are:
Building Rush
Tinysasters 2
Catapult Madness
Burrito Bison Revenge (this one really sucks because I was only one upgrade away from having all achievements & quests completed!!!! *tears at hair*)
Why didn't work when I tried to restore my saves from backup!? I've done it before & it's worked before. Is there a different method I need to use?? Do I need to manually select every file in every subfolder from my backups and paste every one back into the original location one at a time in order for them to have the same folder-paths? When I cleared browser data, did it alter what the correct subfolder or file names are that the games will recognize, making them unable to recognize all my previous files of everything? What else can it be? Please help I need my saves back, I've invested too many YEARS in this to lose absolutely all of them everywhere!!!!!!!!
- 3 Replies
Do you still have the back-up folders?
Also, when you saved the back-ups of those folders you did keep them in a separate place outside of any temporary internet folders?
When I cleared browser data, did it alter what the correct subfolder or file names are that the games will recognize, making them unable to recognize all my previous files of everything?
This may be the case.
Locally saved data from flash games is stored in .sol files.
The typical file location of save games played in Firefox and Internet Explorer on Armor Games is:
C:\Users\[Name of your Computer]\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[Number and Letter Code]\cache.armorgames.com folder\files\games\[folder of specific game]\[.sol file]
[Name of your Computer] this is the name of the computer you are on. So if you computer is name MyLaptop, you would see MyLaptop at that part of the file directory.
[Number and Letter Code] there may be a more proper name to this other than number and letter code for this folder. The folder will commonly have names like 7WDN2F3R, 9VEN5W4S, and such. When you clear out your temporary files this folder is deleted. When you play and save a flash game locally, for the first time, after clearing temporary internet files a new folder with a new number letter combination will be made. This may be related to the problem you are having now.
[folder of specific game] many games create their own folder with names like, invert-selection-16003.swf or papas-freezeria-12067.swf. The .sol files are usually located in this folders.
Lastly, some games save the .sol file directly to the folder cache.armorgames.com. (The .sol file is not in a folder that has it's games name.)
Save files for flash games played on Armor Games in Google Chrome save to a different directory, this one here:
C:\Users\[Name of your Computer]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\shockwave Flash\WritableRoot\#SharedObjects\[Number and Letter Code]\cache.armorgames.com folder\files\games\[folder of specific game]\[.sol file]
You will need to be able to see hidden folders on your computer in order to see the AppData folder. To turn on hidden folders
If the Control Panel is in Icon viewing mode go to:
Control Panel > Folder Options > View Tab (in the Folder Options Window that pops up) > Click Show hidden files, folders, and drives > Click the Apply Button
If the control panel is in Category viewing mode go to:
Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Folder Options > View Tab (in the Folder Options Window that pops up) > Click Show hidden files, folders, and drives > Click the Apply Button
What you may need to do to restore the saves is this process:
1.) Start the game you would like to restore a save file for. (Note: You are starting the game brand new from the start. You will not have to play it for long though.)
2.) Play the game until it saves at least once and then quit the game (close the tab or browser).
3.) Open your back up save folder and navigate to the .sol file of the game you have just played. Copy your old, back-up .sol
4.) Open the folder containing the new .sol you just created (this will be one of the two directories I listed earlier in my post. Depending on what browser you played in will be the directory you follow.)
5.) Paste your old, back-up copy of the .sol over the newly made .sol
6.) Start up the game again and click load game. The game should now load your old save file.
or
Just copy the cache.armorgames.com from your back-up folder and paste it over the newly made cache.armorgames.com to try and restore all your save files at once. You will first have to play and save one game on Armor Games in both Firefox (or Internet Explorer) and Google Chrome and then paste your back-up folder two different times, one in the Fireforx/Internet Explorer directory and one in the Google Chrome directory.
Be careful when you do this as you may accidentally copy the new, less complete save file and paste it over your old more complete save file.
Sometimes it is easier to copy and paste the whole folder the .sol is located instead of just the .sol file. In other words the folders named like invert-selection-16003.swf and such.
Well, now I realize that all this time I've only been backing up savegames from Firefox. I play Armorgames on Chrome, and I had no idea that Chrome flash data was saved in a totally different place.
Thank you for showing me the exact file path, I've made a back up folder for it too now. But there's definitely no getting those erased saves back, since I never had them backed up before. From now on I'll plan to just play AG on firefox, make that my browser for all online flash games.
Do you know if I'll have to manually transfer files from the chrome flash data locations to the firefox flash data locations, for games here that have ONLINE saves? There are only a few I'd bother doing this with: Kingdom Rush, Crush The Castle Adventures, and Sinjid,
Thank you for showing me the exact file path, I've made a back up folder for it too now. But there's definitely no getting those erased saves back, since I never had them backed up before.
You can at least look through your back-ups to know for certain which games you have lost and which ones not.
I know I'm kind of repeating myself, but just encase. You can look in your back up folders and see which games you still have backed up. So the directory for you to look in would be something like:
C:\\Game things\\flash games back-up saves\\37YETGG3\\cahce.armorgames.com\\files\\games
and
C:\\Game things\\flash games back-up saves\\DHA4KCFE\\cahce.armorgames.com\\files\\games
At those two locations should be a bunch of folders with the names of the games you have backed up. You can see which games you still have back-ups for. As an example the folders will be named like this invert-selection-16003.swf. So that folder would be the game for Invert Selection and inside that folder would be the .sol file (which is the save itself). Some games have more than one .sol (if the game has menu settings or multiple save slots, that is typically when you will see more than one .sol).
Some of the saves may be just in one of these two locations:
C:\\Game things\\flash games back-up saves\\37YETGG3\\cahce.armorgames.com
and
C:\\Game things\\flash games back-up saves\\DHA4KCFE\\cahce.armorgames.com
The saves in those two locations won't be in folders, you will simply just see the .sol. Sometimes the name of the game isn't part of the .sol, so it may be tricky to figure out what game it's for.
Also, for any save games played on Kongregate or other websites, the save location will be a bit different.
Example:
The location that Kongregate games save to in Firefox and Internet explorer is different. It looks like the games save to:
C:\\Users\\[Name of your Computer]\\AppData\\Roaming\\Macromedia\\Flash Player\\#SharedObjects\\[Number and Letter Code]\\chat.kongregate.com\\ gamez\\0021\\7148\\live\\[folder of specific game]\\[.sol file]
although the 0021 and 7148 may change when you clear the browser cache, I'm not certain as I don't play at Kongregate often. Also, some of the Kongregate saves might be in kongregate.com (and then other subfolders) and not chat.kongregate.com, I'm not sure exactly.
So, to look at your back ups for Kongregate, you can look your back-up directories that should look something like this:
C:\\Game things\\flash games back-up saves\\37YETGG3\\chat.kongregate.com\\ gamez\\[numbers]\\[numbers]\\live\\[folder of specific game]\\[.sol file]
You're probably getting the general idea here, you just have to look through your back-up folders and see what games you have saved and then copy and paste them into the spot that the browser saves them.
Do you know if I'll have to manually transfer files from the chrome flash data locations to the firefox flash data locations, for games here that have ONLINE saves? There are only a few I'd bother doing this with: Kingdom Rush, Crush The Castle Adventures, and Sinjid.
Your online saves from Armor Games and Kongregate should be intact. Online saves save on a server and not on to your computer. So when you clear your browser cache this should not affect your online saves. If you are missing an online save then you would want to talk to a website admin (on Armor Games it's Ferret). They may be able to help you, but it may not be possible to recover a lost online save.
Lastly, some games that have online saves do allow local saves to be transferred to online saves. This process happens within the game, usually on the save screen. So if you have a local save from Kongregate and you put the save file in the Armor Games spot, you could then enter the game on Armor Games. If the game has an option to transfer the local save to online, you could then transfer over the save. Most often it's not possible though because if you play and save a game online over at Kongergate, then the save is on the Kongregate server and there would be no way for you to access it and bring it over to the Armor Games server.
Hope that helps, if you need more help or a clarification I should be around.
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