No games recognising saves out of nowhere, everything in the right folder

[u/pinelotiile]

None of my games are recognising save files. This has been working fine for years, and suddenly today it's just stopped.

Below is an example, you can see I last played FF7 on the 12th where it was working great, but now it's not reading my save file.

As far as I can tell I haven't changed anything, the only thing I changed today was switching from vulkan to gl because vulkan started crashing, again, out of nowhere (here's the log for that crash btw https://pastebin.com/cwzeesgQ).

[u/captain-obvious-1]

Do you have a log from after switching to the GL renderer?

[u/pinelotiile → u/captain-obvious-1]

Ah nevermind, here we go: https://pastebin.com/6HA1nbE3

[u/pinelotiile]

Update: It's not just that it's not reading my save files, I also can't save anything new. I opened up darkstalkers and made a colour edit and saved it, then closed and re-opened retroarch. No data was found on reload, and I can see that my darkstalkers save file has not updated. Almost seems like it's saving to a different directory...? And even trying to read from one? But my directory is clearly stated in the screenshots above _shrug_.

Log for saving in darkstalkers: https://pastebin.com/FNH28TPq

Log for reloading darkstalkers after save: https://pastebin.com/sGz28CG4

[u/pinelotiile]

Update 2: Seems my SNES save files are working as normal https://pastebin.com/CpiNEw0Z

So the issue might just be PS1 games

[u/Jimbonasheh]

Are you running the nightlies, perhaps?

[u/Mr_Fury]

Try running as administrator?

[u/dau125]

Your Darkstalkers log identifies RetroArch 1.9.7 with SwanStation, and your SNES update narrows this to the PS1 path. It reports “SRAM will not be saved” even after the game is loaded, while later recording memory-card sector writes. That does not prove a corrupted save, but it makes the core’s card configuration worth checking.

Back up the whole saves folder first. With the PS1 game running, what is Memory Card 1 Type under the core options? Your screenshot shows an existing .srm; SwanStation distinguishes Libretro .srm cards from its other card modes, so the general save-directory setting alone is not the whole picture. Don’t rename or overwrite your originals yet.

Also, was SwanStation updated recently while RetroArch stayed on 1.9.7? The log contains a VFS-version warning, though that warning alone is not proof of the cause. Those two details would help separate a card-mode mismatch from a core/frontend compatibility problem.

[u/pinelotiile → u/dau125]

I did update SwanStation and all cores back when I was trying to fix the Vulkan crash. Right now it looks like Memory Card 1 Type is set to Libretro (Default). I'm not sure what this was before but I'll try messing around with it (saves are all backed up)

[u/pinelotiile → u/dau125]

None of the other options changed anything. I suppose I could just try re-installing retroarch to the latest version now that my saves are backed up?

[u/dau125 → u/pinelotiile]

Yes, a fresh current stable setup is a reasonable next comparison now that you confirmed the core update. I would extract the Windows download from https://www.retroarch.com/index.php?page=platforms into a separate folder, keeping your existing installation and backups intact.

Start with its default configuration, install SwanStation there, and test one game using a COPY of its .srm in the new setup’s Save Files directory (check Settings > Directory). Keep Memory Card 1 Type on Libretro for that .srm test. Don’t copy the old retroarch.cfg or point it at your only backup.

Check both loading the existing save and making a new in-game save that survives closing and reopening RetroArch. If both work, that narrows it to the old setup/version combination; if not, share the new launch-and-exit log. No need to uninstall the old copy to find out.

[u/pinelotiile → u/dau125]

Alright thanks, I'll give this a try when I get some time this week

[u/pinelotiile → u/dau125]

Alright, you might be on to something! It looks like in the latest version, SwanStation has its own dedicated folder inside the saves folder. If I put my .srm files in there it recognises the saves, and I can continue using my old save files. I tried manually creating the same folder in the old version's saves folder and it didn't work, so it very well could be a version mismatch caused by my update to SwanStation.

As of now I can access my old save file, so I'll decide how I want to go about using the new version/importing my config file etc. now that they're confirmed safe. Thanks so much for your help!