PC Recovering Lost Worlds & Characters

Lord_Chanticleer

Lord_Chanticleer

Terrarian
Surprisingly enough, I didn't notice a single thread in this section that deals with this issue. So, the other day I booted up Terraria and noticed that all my worlds as well as all my characters had gone. Upon checking my local files I found out that all of the data was still there, yet the game couldn't seem to access them. I tried running the back-up (.bak) files, but they didn't seem to be readable either.

Now, I have two questions:
  1. What is the exact procedure for recovering a world/character once it's gone from the game? (i.e. not appearing in the select character/world screen in-game)
  2. Is there a way to safely copy your world/character files to a back-up disk and have them work properly if you move them into the proper folders at a later stage?
Thanks in advance for any possible replies and my appologies if a thread like this indeed existed and happened to have slipped past my attention.
 
Lord_Chanticleer said:
Surprisingly enough, I didn't notice a single thread in this section that deals with this issue. So, the other day I booted up Terraria and noticed that all my worlds as well as all my characters had gone. Upon checking my local files I found out that all of the data was still there, yet the game couldn't seem to access them. I tried running the back-up (.bak) files, but they didn't seem to be readable either.

Now, I have two questions:
  1. What is the exact procedure for recovering a world/character once it's gone from the game? (i.e. not appearing in the select character/world screen in-game)
  2. Is there a way to safely copy your world/character files to a back-up disk and have them work properly if you move them into the proper folders at a later stage?
Thanks in advance for any possible replies and my appologies if a thread like this indeed existed and happened to have slipped past my attention.
Click to expand...

World and Character files are stored in My Documents under My Games section of the game. Not all games use it, but Terraria will. Remember, that its dynamic and local to the user you are logged into. If you change users on your computer, those files will not exist. Are you sure they they are loaded from the right account? If you are running terraria on a user that has no files then it won't show up.
 
I only ever run Terraria on the laptop on which I installed it. I know that the files are supposed to be located in My Documents and so on, which is where I initially checked. They were in said folder, but the in-game world/character selection screens remained empty, however. Also, pardon me my ignorance, but what does "dynamic" mean in this context?
 
Lord_Chanticleer said:
Surprisingly enough, I didn't notice a single thread in this section that deals with this issue. So, the other day I booted up Terraria and noticed that all my worlds as well as all my characters had gone. Upon checking my local files I found out that all of the data was still there, yet the game couldn't seem to access them. I tried running the back-up (.bak) files, but they didn't seem to be readable either.

Now, I have two questions:
  1. What is the exact procedure for recovering a world/character once it's gone from the game? (i.e. not appearing in the select character/world screen in-game)
  2. Is there a way to safely copy your world/character files to a back-up disk and have them work properly if you move them into the proper folders at a later stage?
Thanks in advance for any possible replies and my appologies if a thread like this indeed existed and happened to have slipped past my attention.
Click to expand...

You could try this...

Create a new world for the purpose of checking where the file gets saved. Once you have checked that the world loads up after you've shut down and restarted Terraria, go and find where the save file is. If it is in the same folder as the other save files then you know the folder the game is reading.

Copy the old files to a new folder and remove all files in the Terraria folders. Keep the originals as backups. Change the names of the copied world files and put them back into the Terraria 'worlds' folder. Start up the game and see if any of the old save files with the new names appear. If they do then they should load up. :)

If that doesn't work idk. Its the best idea i've got.:indifferent: I'm not sure if there is an exact procedure for something like this. That's why it's always a good idea to backup your files.
 
Lord_Chanticleer said:
I only ever run Terraria on the laptop on which I installed it. I know that the files are supposed to be located in My Documents and so on, which is where I initially checked. They were in said folder, but the in-game world/character selection screens remained empty, however. Also, pardon me my ignorance, but what does "dynamic" mean in this context?
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If you create another new character or world, and you leave the windows explorer open on that folder; check to see if your pc makes a new world/character file.
 
Thanks for the advice so far, guys. Unfortunately, I got rid of the old world/character files, as I deemed them to be corrupt. They're still in my bin, but I might not be able to restore them to their original location: I did a fresh resinstall of Terraria not too long ago.

At any rate, I can affirm that newly created worlds/characters end up in the folder, so that checks out.
 
Are the last modified times on the .plr and .plr.bak files the same? If they're not, terraria disregards them.
 
Might this work for mobile? Any ideas?
[DOUBLEPOST=1456067897,1456067677][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok, so here is the background. I had a character the hade to beat plantera and ocram but as soon as I had all of my OP armor on to attack my phone ran out of battery. When I charge it up again it said "character bobby-########### can't be loaded because this character was created on a new version of terreria. Keep in mind this happened after I updated Terreria. The hastags are a bunch of numbers that im not going to put on because i'll have to go back to the game for every number.
 
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Bugattimaker said:
Might this work for mobile? Any ideas?
[DOUBLEPOST=1456067897,1456067677][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok, so here is the background. I had a character the hade to beat plantera and ocram but as soon as I had all of my OP armor on to attack my phone ran out of battery. When I charge it up again it said "character bobby-########### can't be loaded because this character was created on a new version of terreria. Keep in mind this happened after I updated Terreria. The hastags are a bunch of numbers that im not going to put on because i'll have to go back to the game for every number.
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To be completly honest, no. The files for IOS stores differently than on the computer.
 
Yo, i have the same problem. My character was okay, but my expert mode crimson world 'Compton', is gone. It's still there, but I haven't even killed the eoc apparently. The map will update wherever I go to as if I never touched the area.

I killed the three Mech bosses, and found good things in my world.

Thank God I haven't beaten any other major bosses like Plantera, golem, etc...

I guess I'll restart.

Someone should make Mourning group for those who lost their beloved worlds and characters...
 
Ninja said:
You could try this...

Create a new world for the purpose of checking where the file gets saved. Once you have checked that the world loads up after you've shut down and restarted Terraria, go and find where the save file is. If it is in the same folder as the other save files then you know the folder the game is reading.

Copy the old files to a new folder and remove all files in the Terraria folders. Keep the originals as backups. Change the names of the copied world files and put them back into the Terraria 'worlds' folder. Start up the game and see if any of the old save files with the new names appear. If they do then they should load up. :)

If that doesn't work idk. Its the best idea i've got.:indifferent: I'm not sure if there is an exact procedure for something like this. That's why it's always a good idea to backup your files.
Click to expand...
Could you please help? According to shinxkirby, your idea worked, but I don't seem to understand how to do it. Can you simplify it for me?
Edit: Tried it, didn't work. Ughhhhhhh
 
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i formatted my hardrive and got afresh install of windows and i dont even have the data in my worlds or charcters section
 
Hello i have had the same problem as you. i figured out a way to fix the issue if it's exactly the same as mine. (this is for worlds idk if it works for player characters)
So go to documents -> MY games -> terraria -> worlds
okay now when u get here, you should be able to see the worlds.
the world you have lost should look something like this
---
world.wld.bak
---
and if it is like that then make a copy of the file and remove the .bak so it should look something like this after it
---
world.wld
---

then simply go to terraria and you will see your world there. for characters im not so sure how to fix those. but to be honest, if you have your world, then you should be able to get weapons back easily if u stored them in chests...

HOPE THIS HELPS
 
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