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Images Disappearing

ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
in Troubleshooting
Earlier today I went to load up SoD and noticed that the images on the save files were missing. Which is weird but the files still load okay. Upon loading, I noticed that my character's portrait was replaced with a question mark. When I tried to change it, none of my custom portraits would load. They all appear in my portraits folder, are the correct size and filetype, and with compatible names. But the game, for some reason refuses to acknowledge them. The same problem seems to have affected BG2. BG1 seems to work fine still. No idea what could cause this. I am using mods, but its the same setup I've for a couple years now and this has never cropped up before.

Comments

  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    edited May 2017
    When you say *They all appear in my portraits folder* what do you mean exactly?
    The PC customs portraits you can select are in User/Documents/Baldur's Gate - xxxx/portraits (The path where you also find your saves and lua)- not in the portraits folder you find in the game.
    You can just copy the folder from BG1 to the other game parts, unless you play EET, then the only folder really used is the user/documents/Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition Trilogy.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    edited May 2017
    Yeah they are under User/Documents/insertgamehere/portraits. but they don't appear when I try to change a character's portrait.

    *EDIT* To clarify, they all showed up as expected yesterday, but today the games won't recognize them. Nothing has changed with my install between these times.
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    Do you use any launcher or thus to *load up the game*? You can try to do it directly from the exe in your game folder instead.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    Try to change the portraits' names to lower case.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Launching directly from the exe doesn't help.
    @JuliusBorisov The names are all lowercase as well. All the portraits worked perfectly two days ago, its only yesterday that I can't select them in game, and I haven't a clue as to what could have changed.

    Also, thanks for the quick replies, sorry I didn't respond, I posted this at 2:30 am and then kinda passed out.
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    No idea what the reason may be. You could check your savegame directly with Near Infinity (I don't know about EE keeper) to see which is the portrait assigned to your PC and whether the resource is found in your game.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    PaulaMigrate said:

    No idea what the reason may be. You could check your savegame directly with Near Infinity (I don't know about EE keeper) to see which is the portrait assigned to your PC and whether the resource is found in your game.

    Technically its not, because its a custom portrait, but BG1 can load it just fine. For reason SoD and BG2 won't. I also have never heard of the savegame images disappearing either, but all my save games are blank.
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    ThacoBell said:

    PaulaMigrate said:

    No idea what the reason may be. You could check your savegame directly with Near Infinity (I don't know about EE keeper) to see which is the portrait assigned to your PC and whether the resource is found in your game.

    Technically its not, because its a custom portrait, but BG1 can load it just fine. For reason SoD and BG2 won't. I also have never heard of the savegame images disappearing either, but all my save games are blank.
    Probably I have expressed myself wrong. If I open a savegame from any of my campaigns with Near Infinity and I investigate the Charname creature file there, I can see which portrait files the game uses (in my current save it is ISAF016L, a custom file added by a mod) for small and large portrait.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Ah, no it does not show up. Which is weird because all my custom portraits are formatted properly and in the proper folders.
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    Sounds like you did this yourself.
    Did you add those portraits to bgee.sql with INSERT INTO portraits ROWS?
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Nope, just the portraits folders in documents. The thing is, they have worked perfectly fine since I added them a year ago. Its only yesterday that suddenly SoD and BG2 won't recognize them. I have not changed my installation. It seems completely random but something must be causing it. I also don't think its caused by the portraits, as even the little screenshot of your party thats on every save file is blank.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Okay, I don't think its a problem with the games. I'm getting missing images in other programs now. Its looking like my current virus protection software is starting to block parts of regular programs if they modify other folders. Would anyone happen to know a decent budget antivirus that I can replace my current one with?
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    Ninjaed.
    I was just writing to say that the problem may not be in the game but in some update (maybe a window update?) that has changed file association for BMPs and other picture formats.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Hmmm ... any chance that you have a lot of savegames and that your hard drive is getting rather full, @ThacoBell?

    When there are lots of savegames, the indexing of the saves folder can take a long while and use a lot of temporary space, and (as happened to me a while ago) there can be some strange consequences (specifically including disappearance of the savegame-thumbnails) if the indexer runs out of resources and fails to complete the process. Freeing space by deleting a lot of junk from my machine fixed the problem.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    edited May 2017
    @Gallowglass, its possible. I'll give that a shot.

    Well, I have about 400GB on my computer so that isn't it. I'm really starting to think its an outside program. Thanks for the help guys.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    If your anti-virus is now blocking access to programs which were previously not blocked, and if simultaneously other odd things (such as images vanishing) are occurring ... then I'd wonder if maybe the anti-virus is blocking stuff because some malware really has got in and needs blocking. I'd therefore think twice before removing that anti-virus software!

    Before switching to another budget anti-virus which might not detect an existing problem, perhaps try running one of the free online scans offered by some of the full-price anti-virus vendors.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Okay, ran a comprehensive scan from a trusted company and my computer is clean. Uninstalled my previous virus protection and installed a replacement. Lo and behold custom portraits are recognized again and all the disappearing icons in my programs are back. As best as I can tell is that my previous protection was auto blocking all programs that tried to access files outside of its current folder and without logging its activity. Weird.
  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    Glad you solved it.
    Even if not related to the game itself, your (bad) experience may still be helpful for others who encounter similar anomalies.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Technology is crazy.
  • RavenslightRavenslight Member Posts: 1,609
    Yeah! Glad you solved the problem. As much as I love computers they can be a real pain sometimes.
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