Did anyone manage to fix the 'franchise zoo crashing on startup' issue?

[JorisDB]

So I've seen a lot of (older) posts about this issue, all without a solution..
Unfortunately I've gotten the issue myself at the moment, luckily it's happening to my 2nd zoo which more or less serves as a CC farm, but still it's quite annoying since it got a lot of animals + around 300.000 dollars and a lot of researched items in it, and I was planning to turn it into my second fully functional zoo instead of having to start a new one..

Is there anyone who managed to recover his faulty/corrupt save file and get it to work?
Some extra info: my game freezes + crashes after about 5 seconds into the loading screen after I selected my 'farm franchise' and clicked 'resume'.
I can open my main zoo without any problems, and can also start a new franchise without any problems, so it's definitely the save file that's corrupt.
Also, if I check on the different files in 'My zoo' they all have a picture of the zoo, except for the last save file of my farm franchise, which is just a completely 'planet-zoo-green' square (which just screams 'corrupt').

I'd love to hear if anyone was able to fix the issue, and even more so if Frontier might have a solution/are planning to fix this and not have it happen in the future? It was 'only' my farm zoo this time, but I'd be quite upset if my main zoo would become unplayable, and my zoos are nowhere near as big/beautiful as many other ones I've seen..

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[AlexVonHumbug]

there seem to be the posibility to send your broken gamefiles somewhere. i was just told, that this exist, but there was no response jet for my friends broken zoos. so no solution for the people i know.

 

[Firestar97]

Often it helps to delete the newest Save game of the Zoo. But be careful. If you should need to delete more than one Save game, the last one that exists if you need to delete every other Save Game, shouldn't be a Autosave. It seems like you can have only one Autosave.

It can also help to wait until the next Update. Maybe it fixes the problem and you can access the Save game again

 

[Dr4gon]

There was something Steam can do, but I don't exactly remember. Try making a copy of your safe files, delete the originals and do something with Steam. A cloud repair or something.

Disclaimer Statement
All the advice provided by this user is provided on an “I hope it works” basis and you agree that you use such advice entirely at your own risk.

 

[NL_Mutso]

You can mail it to : community@frontier.co.uk

I would wait till the next update.. I have a corrupt save as well (infinite loading) but I've read that most people who sent their broken savegame, just have to deal with losing their zoo.

I hope one of the next updates will help with reliable savegames.

 

[JorisDB]

Alright thanks a lot guys!
I'll wait for the next update and start a fresh new franchise in the meantime!
If anyone runs into a fix in the meantime please let me know .

Cheers!

 

[Arletario]

Well, after patch 1.02 I had a slightly different problem, so I'm not sure if it fits your problem. When I tried loading the savegame of the franchise zoo that I had built the first day, there was only an infinite loading screen until I force closed the game with the Task Manager. But I was able to restore this savegame.

First, I disabled the Steam Cloud so that the savegames will no longer be synced. Then I copied all the savegames that were on my PC to a new folder to make a backup - if needed. I deleted all the files in the "Save" folder and started the game, so everything was reset to the defaults. After exiting the game, I copied back the "zplayer" file (savefile of your mission progress, etc.) and only the last but one savegame of the corresponding Franchise to the "Save" folder. With the release of patch 1.03, the savegame somehow worked again. When it worked again, I copied back some of the mission/sandbox saves, too.

As an additional tip: If you decide that you want to delete this franchise zoo, there is a way to "safe" the animals at least. Otherwise, if you close the franchise on the franchise menu, all your animals will be sold at a really low amount of CCs, much less than they are worth on the market. However, you can send all animals to the Trade Center of your franchise at one disadvantage: Your Trade Center may be full of animals, so you can't buy new ones until you have rebuilt all habitats - or have sold them on the market, of course.

 

[Firestar97]

As an additional tip: If you decide that you want to delete this franchise zoo, there is a way to "safe" the animals at least. Otherwise, if you close the franchise on the franchise menu, all your animals will be sold at a really low amount of CCs, much less than they are worth on the market. However, you can send all animals to the Trade Center of your franchise at one disadvantage: Your Trade Center may be full of animals, so you can't buy new ones until you have rebuilt all habitats - or have sold them on the market, of course.

Why do you not write how to do this?

It is possible to do this through deleting every Save of the Zoo