Mass Effect 2 Career Load/Resume Error

[RlC0CHETS]

I recently started experiencing trouble with Mass Effect 2 Game Resume.

The problem started after the latest origin update on the 13th of March 2017; I couldn't manage to resume the career in progress.

After the latest update, I logged in the game and instead of getting the usual resume option in the main startup screen board, I got only a load option. I went to the game loads, and instead of seeing my latest saves, the game exposed several careers load option, a total of 6 including 2 of mass effect_1 imported careers. All careers will load fine except the latest one in progress.

If I try to load the desired career I get an error and the game crashes. If I run another previous saved career, the game will load perfectly though starting the game from the beginning. I don't feel like playing all the game all over again especially it is getting near the end and it is my second replay.

I tried repairing the game, reinstalling origin, restoring windows, deactivating in-origin game, deactivating the Norton security option... None of them worked.

I checked my saves file and found 6 saves folders according the 6 character I get to load when the game starts. The most recent one with the latest saves is included too.

I can't find a way to resume the game from the most recent progress, tried to ask for help in the chat section and I only got generic replies.

I have a windows 10 home, 12 GB RAM , Intel I5  2.3 Ghz

My VGA is Nvidia Geforce 920M with 2 Gb VRAM running with the latest update. I don't think it is a hardware issue since the game worked fine till the latest update and and the latest saves synchronization.

I believe the problem is about a cloud synchronization issue that corrupted my latest career saves file. 

Is there a way to restore my latest saves/career and manage to load them without causing the game to crash?

[holger1405 · Accepted solution]

@RlC0CHETS

No, all saves are in this folder and If the profile would be corrupted the other saves also wouldn't work.

Disable "Cloud save" until you got the game running.

Maybe it is easer if you try it the other way around. Move all saver games out of the character folder and test.

If the game starts move the save games one by one or in small groups if you have many back into the character folder > test ( you need to restart the game very time.)

[holger1405]

@RlC0CHETS

Could be that only one of the save games is corrupt. Move the latest save games one by one out of the Charakter folder and test after each.

[RlC0CHETS]

I tried that and the same kept on happening. The thing is that once I load the character I don't get to reach the saves load menu, the game crashes just before that.

If I choose another character load, a window opens with several saves files to load, but as I said, with my most recent character the game always crashes.

Are the characters profiles saved elsewhere?

[holger1405 · Accepted solution]

@RlC0CHETS

No, all saves are in this folder and If the profile would be corrupted the other saves also wouldn't work.

Disable "Cloud save" until you got the game running.

Maybe it is easer if you try it the other way around. Move all saver games out of the character folder and test.

If the game starts move the save games one by one or in small groups if you have many back into the character folder > test ( you need to restart the game very time.)

[RlC0CHETS]

Thank you for the help, but first let tell  you what I tried to do before you replied.

I decided to try ME3 and noticed when creating a new game I was missing several ME2 Achievements affecting the ME3 progress. So I went back to ME2 and tried something else.

While the cloud sync being disabled, I loaded a new game in ME2 from one of the existing working careers ( with only two save files, autosave and chapter save) the game at the beginning. What seemed odd to me that I had the credits & minerals for having accomplished the game once including the weapons acquired in the first run but my Achievements and medals list was entirely not achieved including the reach lvl 30 with one character. I am already lvl 30 in this new game with 51 distributed points. But have no achievement regarding these facts or any others. So definitely it is a career/character file issue and not a save file problem.

On the other hand I checked my saves folder and couldn't find any folder matching the current last saves. In this newly created game I had 8 new saves that did not appear in any of the existing save folders located in Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect 2\Save.

I could see a different load screen board and loading nonexistent saved files as if these saves were temporally saved in a different place. So I saved my game and quit, then I turned on the cloud sync, and started the game again and resumed where I left minutes before, I checked my save folder again and it was then when the new save folder was created/updated. So now, after the sync, there is a folder corresponding to the new game saves that matches the saves I see in the game.

I did something more, I added the old save file, the one with the most advanced career, to this folder and opened my load screen and it was there, I managed to load and resume the game at the point I was before all these trouble started. Now I have all the team and loyalties missions accomplished but if I check the Achievements, I find that all the loyalties achievement and many more still missing.
So even in the game load with the old save, I have all the weapons, Paragon and renegade went high but still missing all the achievements. I have just few ones, the achievements acquired in this new campaign.

In each save character folder there is ChapterSave file. I assumed it was the character profile/career of each new campaign. I switched across the files from the old save to the new save to check whether the accomplishments are reestablished but nothing changed neither.

Finally I did the steps you asked me and moved out all the files except the auto save and went adding the save to the folder in portions and i did manage to load but with the same result, no achievement history. 

Any other suggestion?

[holger1405]

@RlC0CHETS

Well, it could be that you get a permissions isuue. (The game can't save to the designated folder.)

But if I get you right that is working now, so I still assume that the save file is coruppted.

You can try "Gibbed's ME2 save editior"  to modify a save game for import. (only the save games after you are finished a game are "seen" by ME3. But you can modefy a existin save befor the game is finished as a end game save.)

There are plenty of guides for Gibbed on the internet, just google for them.

[RlC0CHETS]

I guess one of the save files was corrupted indeed. I did not try them all since the latest ones worked fine. But still I was worried about my accomplishments since they do not show in my profile. I finished Mass effect twice and does not show that I did when I started ME3. My lvl was also 30 in the saved game and did not show that. This mod is very interesting but does not affect the profile. I also googled the issue and it seems the only way to solve profile achievement issues is by downloading another profile along with another saved game or doing it the hard way. They also advice to backup the profile since it is saved in a different location and once it gets corrupted everything is lost.

Now I started a new replay from scratch. Importing ME1 character.  Trying to accomplish again all the achievements the right way, I got half of them so far and I am lvl 12. The only achievement that is not improving is the Reach Level 30 achievement which shows 0/30 which I think it is a glitch and will show once I reach lvl 30. 

I do believe your latest Suggestion in emptying the Save folder and adding the saves one by one was a good solution to resume the game. so I will call it as solved and will close the Post.

I would like to thank you a lot for your help and mainly for your time, I wish EA official Support had 10% of your will and dedication.

Great Work!