Can't save game

[Darkness_Falls]

I haven't played for a while, but tried today. Played a bit, but noticed my save attempts weren't working. Can't do via QuickSave (F4/F5 for me) or hard save via the game's main menu.

Console shows some errors like these (see image)

Thoughts?

 

 

[freyk]

Did you an update of tdm? if so, it is known that you cant open your saves after this.

And Is your TDM folder writeable? (Especially your "fms" folder.)
If not, make your TDM folder writable
(instruction from the wiki: " in windows explorer, right click on the darkmod folder > preferences > tab "security > edit > select "Users" > tick checkbox "Full control")

Edited December 9, 2019 by freyk

[stgatilov]

This error is reported when TDM cannot open specified file for writing. Which usually means that it doesn't have rights/permissions to write to the location. So I second Freyk's suggestion about permissions.

[Darkness_Falls]

Nailed it.

Wow, why would Win10 put a program game folder to Read Only?? So annoying, lol. And to not have the ability to simply click the Read Only mark in Properties to clear it away? Equally annoying. I went through your steps, though, and it works like a charm!

The 'Read Only' mark still shows, but I'm able to save games I assume  somewhere in the long list of other permission groups, one of them is on Read Only still, so that's why it insists on saying 'Read Only' still(?). Oh well.

I think I now actually recall having a TDM permissions issue in Win10 months ago (maybe during initial install) and it was a similar resolution, lol. I'll have to try to remember Win10 likes locking users out of simple folders.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Darkness_Falls

[freyk]

nice to know that it works for you.

for my research, i would like to know at which location you put the tdm folder. 

[stgatilov]

2 hours ago, Darkness_Falls said:

I think I now actually recall having a TDM permissions issue in Win10 months ago (maybe during initial install) and it was a similar resolution, lol. I'll have to try to remember Win10 likes locking users out of simple folders.

From my experience, permissions in Windows are a pain for an ordinary one-guy-one-pc case. The workflow I find plausible is to never switch accounts and never run programs under admin (unless it is some type of system maintenance program). Because if you start switching, you will sooner or later have to edit directory permissions

[Darkness_Falls]

.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Darkness_Falls
Made new post directly below w/ updated info.

[Darkness_Falls]

23 hours ago, freyk said:

nice to know that it works for you.

for my research, i would like to know at which location you put the tdm folder. 

C:\Program Files\darkmod. I thought it was D:\ drive, but forgot darkmod went to C:\, unfortunately. That's my SSD drive. (I think I remember someone saying a while back I can just move it to D:\, but I didn't try yet.)

 

21 hours ago, stgatilov said:

The workflow I find plausible is to never switch accounts and never run programs under admin (unless it is some type of system maintenance program). Because if you start switching, you will sooner or later have to edit directory permissions

Thanks! I only have one user profile on my PC that I know of. I do sometimes go "Right-mouse button > Run program as Administrator," even when installing software sometimes Are you saying I shouldn't do that? Years ago, that was a recommended thing to do for Win7 and/or WinXP stuff, so I do it out of habit whenever it crosses my mind. I wasn't sure if you were talking about that, or some other Admin thing

 

 

[nbohr1more]

The drive letter is not really the issue.

"Program Files" is a special protected directory in Windows.

[stgatilov]

2 hours ago, Darkness_Falls said:

I do sometimes go "Right-mouse button > Run program as Administrator," even when installing software sometimes Are you saying I shouldn't do that?

Yes, this is what I mean by switching accounts, I guess my terminology is wrong here.

You cannot live without doing so, because you won't be able to install most of programs without admin rights. But if something can run without admin rights, better run it like that.

The main concern I'm talking about is that when a program runs under admin, all the files it writes are by default owned by admin and cannot be accessed later without admin rights. So imagine that you have installed TDM without admin rights into C:\TDM. Then you accidentally run it with admin rights and quicksave on The New Job FM. The next day you run TDM without admin rights and continue playing this FM, but suddenly quicksaving doesn't work for you. Even worse, your game settings don't persist between launches. And that is because TDM cannot overwrite its files, because they are owned by admin, and you run the game under user. So you have two choices: always play TDM under admin, or edit permissions to make everything accessible to user (and in most cases you don't know exactly where is the problem, so you have to modify the whole directory).

[duzenko]

2 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

The drive letter is not really the issue.

"Program Files" is a special protected directory in Windows.

Which bums the question - should we follow the 'recommendation' and put the files into user profile?

I personally dislike programs that want special installation paths.

[freyk]

On 12/10/2019 at 5:39 AM, Darkness_Falls said:

Wow, why would Win10 put a program game folder to Read Only?? So annoying, lol. And to not have the ability to simply click the Read Only mark in Properties to clear it away? Equally annoying. I went through your steps, though, and it works like a charm!

Those are folder atributes.
There are differences in the use of folder atributes and folder permissions.

we should follow the standardsthat ms giving to us. 

The most of the windows games are installed in the program files.
because that its the standard for all windows applications, so we should not change that default location.

We have to figure it out how the other games/applications writes in this folder and then decide.

• As for that i know, TDM writes all his data to his own folder.
  To let him write in a special windows folder, my installer gives usergroup "everybody" the permission "full control" for the tdm folder.
  (i should change that setting that in my installer)
• All the games that i have installed in the program files folder, the group "users" have read & write permissions (instead of full control).
• D3  located in the program files (with the same user permissions) and writes also data in the users profile (like config files and savegames).
  (C:\Users\user\Saved Games\id Software\DOOM 3 BFG)

Is it possible to change the path's in the tdm config file?

Edited December 11, 2019 by freyk

[stgatilov]

On 12/11/2019 at 3:14 PM, duzenko said:

I personally dislike programs that want special installation paths.

Well, TDM installer does not 'want' special installation path. It does not suggest any default. It installs wherever user puts it. By default user cannot put it into program files, and wherever he can put it, it should install and work normally. If user knows where is his user profile, he can install TDM there.

The instructions on website advise to install to C:\games\TDM or something like this, if I'm not mistaken.

On 12/11/2019 at 8:50 PM, freyk said:

The most of the windows games are installed in the program files.

I cannot agree with you here.

These days most of Windows games install into D:\Steam\steamapps\common\... Why does Steam ignore Windows conventions you are talking about?  I guess exactly for the same reason that we are discussing here: it is too risky to mess with Program Files, admin-protected zones, and anything else which is specific to OS. Plus the structure of special Windows directories changes every 5 years or so, with more and more junctions being added, while D:\Steam worked in DOS, works now, and will continue to work until the last of Microsoft OSes dies.

[duzenko]

2 hours ago, stgatilov said:

Well, TDM installer does not 'want' special installation path. It does not suggest any default. It installs wherever user puts it. By default user cannot put it into program files, and wherever he can put it, it should install and work normally.

So how did they end up with write errors?

We could argue that if the game was saving to user profile, this particular situation would not have happened

I totally understand the origin and purpose of our existing system, it's just almost everyone else (I mean games) uses the user profile for this, so it's become the industry standard. You might want to check how RB-Doom does it (Or id's BFG for that matter).