Disappearing City Problem

[samboo18 17]

Hi fellow Simcitiers,

Well last night I hit Save and Exit to Region and the game bugged out and lo and behold a rip in the space time continuum sucked my city into another dimension. After several minutes of swearing, punching inanimate objects, cursing myself for not making backups and for believing that those monkeys at EA could program a reliable save system, I calmed down and hit the forums to see if their was a way to salvage my city. Everything seems to suggest that this a karmic learning experience and that nothing can be done. However I would like to ask you guys with more technical experience for help because I think maybe, just maybe there is a way to get my city back.

Ok first off its a hole with the city name floating above the abyss and is completely unclickable. However the city save file is still in the region folder at regular size (I think 1.5mb) and when I looked at the "last time modified" I'm pretty sure the time was before the apocalypse took place. Now I tried starting a new region and importing no dice (although the population registered). I then read In one of the many posts on this problem a guy vaguely describing how he recovered a city by opening it up in sc4terraformer and modifying it somehow. Just for laughs I downloaded the app and opened up my region and my city is there, no hole. So if it is possible can anyone elaborate on what this guy is saying. If I could just get the tile back with the landscaping I had done intact I would be beyond happy. Cheers

Here is the quote "I've had this same problem occur before. In fact, I have a continual variation where the last 1/8th of large city tiles don't save properly in the thumbnail (The city itself being perfectly fine).

As for when my city disappeared entirely, I've found that the city >IS< still there, intact (Too late in your case, but perhaps this will save someone else...). However, accessing it is a pain. What I did was open up my region in Terraformer (As it detected the city tile fine), unprotected that particular city tile, and made a very small alteration in the terrain. Saved it WITHOUT wiping out Mayor Mode (That confirmation is...tricky), opened up SimCity, and found a single pixel in the city tile I could click on. City loaded up, resaved, the city tile thumbnail reappeared in region view."

[Grumbs64 27]

I don't know exactly what the guy is talking about, but you should make a copy of your region and work freely on the copy.

I had this happen to me, and now I back up my region after each session. Fortunately the city tile it happened to was under 10,000 population so it was easy to start fresh with that tile. If I had lost one of the 100k+ tiles I would be trying what you are trying.

[Mister Giggles 310]

I do believe you're quoting me. Therefore it would be proper if I answered your question, eh?

BEFORE YOU DO ANY OF THIS, MAKE A BACKUP OF THE REGION. JUST IN CASE.

Open your region in Terraformer, and you will be shown a list of the cities in the region. Find the city that's disappeared from the game on that list, uncheck its protection boxes (One for mayor, one for trees), then confirm. Once you're in editing mode, find your city and make a very small change to the tile. It doesn't take much, but I believe you have to alter land/make land out of water for it to work. If your city is full of skyscrapers, you'll end up having to rebuild the section you augmented.

Regardless, save, MAKING SURE NOT TO WIPE OUT MAYOR MODE. READ THE PROMPT CAREFULLY.

Load up the game, and you will in fact see a pixel/small group of them in the void where your city was. Hovering your mouse over them will allow you to interact with them, and therefore load your city.

[samboo18 17]

lol yep it was you Mr Giggles . Cheers for the elaboration I'll give it a whirl.

[samboo18 17]

MUHAHAHAHAHA it worked but in an ironic way. I tried altering the land and what not like you said and no dice. As I was really only interested in retaining the terraforming I had done (city pop was only 10000) I did exactly what you said not to do and saved without protecting mayor mode (wiping out all buildings, roads, trees and llamas) and the space time continuum spat my city back into the hole. I think the save had corrupted the buildings or RHW or whatever but the land was intact. Having to rebuild my RHW network will be a pain but I wasn't happy with it anyway and I prefer building that to terraforming a large city tile again. Anyway thanks a lot Mr Giggles for your help and yes from this day forward I will be making regular backups of my region.

[Mister Giggles 310]

Occasionally the game does corrupt the Hell out of a save...

Well, I'm glad your problem's solved. Enjoy!