As shared by Redditor u/Kanosei, some players are experiencing a game-breaking bug that’s unique to the No Man’s Sky NEXT update. The bug can cause save files to become corrupted over time, and even making multiple back-up saves doesn’t seem to protect you from harm — the bug is all about the new freighter system and how it works.
The bug is caused by freighter expeditions — it is unknown what triggers the bug exactly, but the expeditions are part of the problem. In No Man’s Sky NEXT, you can purchase a massive freighter and build a fleet of smaller frigates. You can send frigates on missions, called expeditions, and that’s where the big issue lies. Below, we’ll explain more about this bug, how to check and see if you’ve been affected, and how you might be able to recover your file.
If you’ve experienced this bug, please contact Hello Games and submit a help ticket here.
More No Man’s Sky NEXT guides on Gameranx:
Save Corruption Bug – How It Triggers
The new save corruption bug is linked with the new expedition feature you can access in a massive freighter. Sending a frigate on an expedition can trigger a repeated line of code that will continue to repeat until it completely swallows your save file, overwriting any previous code.
If you continue to play after triggering the bug, all your save files will be corrupted. This bug does not cause the game to crash, so it can be completely invisible until you attempt to load your save file after closing the game.
How To Detect Corrupted Save Files
As detailed in u/Kanosei’s threat on Reddit, you can check to see if your save files are affected by this error on PC. Before opening your safe files, make sure to back them up. Do no save any changes you might accidentally make when opening save files in notepad.
- Find your save folder:
- C:users/name/appdata/roaming/hellogames/nms/st_####
- Open the save file with notepad, and press Ctrl+F to search.
- Search for “ExpeditionSeedsSelectedToday“
- Under that title, you’ll see a line of code. If it repeats constantly, the bug has triggered.
- The line of code under “ExpeditionSeedsSelectedToday” will repeat hundreds of thousands of times.
If you’re effected by this bug, you have two options; you can wait for a fix from HelloGames, the developers, or attempt to recover your save file with the solution below. It won’t work for everyone, but if you have at least one uncorrupted save file, it might be possible to recover your progress.
How To Recover Your Corrupted Save File
Some players have managed to recover their corrupted save files temporarily. There is a partial solution, shared by u/Dannyus on Reddit. To do this, you need to download the No Man’s Sky save editor mod — download it here.
- To use this temporary fix, you need a save file that matches the save file you’re attempting to recover. (Same play options — Normal Mode, Survival Mode, etc)
- If you don’t have a backup file with the same play options, create a new one.
- Open your uncorrupted file in the NMS Save Editor, open the JSON and find “ExpeditionSeedsSelectedToday”
- Copy everything after “ExpeditionSeedsSelectedToday” — including the “]”
- Open your corrupted save file and find the end. It should say “0x4B5734BB5BB9EA1B”
- Delete this last line of code, then paste everything you copied from the uncorrupted document onto a new line.
- Select “Validate” in the top-right corner, then save.
- You should now be able to load your save.
After loading, try turning in your incomplete expeditions to clear the repeating code string from your save file. The only thing you’ll lose are all of your discoveries — the repeating code overwrites all the discoveries you’ve made in that save file.
While this isn’t a permanent fix, it is a temporary one. Hopefully, when HelloGames manages to fix this bug, you’ll be able to play with your original save file restored.
