My City is Missing!

[gio10469 24]

I'm running Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition with a plugin folder of roughly 4Gb. Today I was in one of my cities saving frequently...all seemed normal until my final save in which I used the "save to region" option. Upon loading of the region view, I realized that my city had completely disappeared from the region view. I can't even click on the square...its gone!

Can my city be recovered or is it gone for good? Has anyone else ever experienced this problem? I searched the forums and couldn't find any previous cases but maybe I just wasn't searching the right words. Anyways your help is very much appreciated!

[CaptCity 4,915]

Usually this results from a city file being corrupted and, unfortunately, unrecoverable. If you have a backup copy of the region, you could try replacing the corrupt city file with the same file from the backup.

Just a note... The corruption sometimes occurs while saving with other programs running that could interrupt the save by causing the computer to focus on something else.

[gio10469 24]

*Facepalm* That makes total sense! I had google earth open in the background but I've done that before and I've never experienced this error. I do have a backup luckily but I made so much progress today that it hurts to know that it's gone for good. Oh well, they say things are done better the second time around, right? Thanks for you help CaptCity!

[Gath22 15]

Yes, extremely annoying, sadly I am familiar with this problem as well. Ever since I just make a back-up of my city every time after I quit, this way I know for sure I never lose any progress.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

For backup, you need to be sure the city saved OK, so you should always save to region, making sure you get the thumbnail, then quit the game and compress the whole region into an archive format such as .zip or .rar.  Don't backup a city file on its own, because there are relationships if you have neighbor cities that need to be saved.

[gio10469 24]

@A Nonny Moose: So are you saying that it would not be ideal for me to pull the city from my backup and drop it in? Well if thats the case, I was thinking about maybe just starting this whole region from scratch and change my saving habits.

[Yuu Caa Sim 55]

You can put your cities back in, it's just that if you made or adjusted any neighbor deals involving the affected city, you might need to do that again. The surrounding cities would also be running some of their development based on the extrapolation of a (presumably) larger city than actually exists, which may cause some problems with demand in these cities.

To fix this, it would be best that after putting the backup you made back into the region, you load the backed-up city first and then save again. This will cause all cities surrounding it to be updated with the actual values, and not the values from the corrupted save.

[CaptCity 4,915]

If I"m understanding him correctly, I think he was just saying to be sure the save was a 'good' save before making a backup copy of the entire region. If you know your backup region was made after a 'good' save, then you should be okay.

One thing I should note... I have relpaced exchanged city files successfully, but I think I've seen mentioned where this replacing a city file may not. It might depend on the way it was corrupted. But it is something to try...

Edit: yunxiang's post with some good advice got in before mine...

[Aspire 3]

There is a way to get your city back...

Using Windows XP, you will have to use system restore, which is longer and a very boring task.

Using Windows vista or 7, all you have to go to is "Previous Versions" tab in proberties for vista or "Restore Previous Versions" in 7.

PS: just make sure you go to the folder that you want to restore, and restore THAT folder.

UPDATE: you could just do that file, i forgot about SC4's city files

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Others have covered my concerns.  With restore poionts, you have to have an appropriate one.  When did windows start saving user files?

[Aspire 3]

Usually Windows should save after you install it. I dont know specifics, but in some sort of way, theyve came up with a time-machine-esque system that puts files in a cached folder when there is changes to a file.

[phillipjohnmc 0]

aspire, that's brilliant! i just lost a city from a bad save and restored it through the Windows 7 feature like you said.  i think i may just love Windows 7 now, i had no idea you could do that.

[Adjiebrotot 94]

i have same problem with you when saving.. after that when i open SC4 again, the city is lost

[Wiimeiser 452]

Theoretically, one could try fixing the checksums with a hex editor and survey the "damage", but the exact method isn't known and it would take upwards of several years to figure out how many there even are.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

See if you can get it restored from the automatic windows backup. If not, then it is lost. I think this was covered in another thread.