[2023] PINNED: A21 Experimental Post-Update Save Corruption

"I'm playing on the experimental and after an update my save was corrupted!"

First up, Welcome to the experimental. It is unstable. Progress will be lost. It's not exactly intentional... But it's bound to happen.

Additional info on the subject:

Originally posted by SylenThunder: This is an UNSTABLE EXPERIMENTAL build.

You will be expected to wipe and start over every few days.

There will be bugs.

The primary purpose of opting into unstable_experimental is to report bugs found on the forum.

If you are expecting a stable long-term game, then you should wait until Stable releases.

If you are wanting to play with Mods, lock yourself into a20.7 now in the Betas tab, and don't come out until a few weeks or so after Stable releases. At that point check your mods to see if they have updated.

With that said, If your CHARACTER is corrupted, but your WORLD is fine, there is a possible fix:

Originally posted by SylenThunder: Possible Fix for Restoring a Corrupted Save
This method may possibly/partially restore a save game that is corrupted by not exiting the client correctly. It is strongly advised to troubleshoot the issue that initially caused the improper shutdown before continuing.

1. Navigate to: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\Saves\\ (the error message should give you the exact path as well).
   
2. Copy the folder to your desktop or somewhere else. (you're making a backup just in case)
   
3. Create a new game on that same map and remember the save name, I'll refer to this as , then quit the game.
   
4. Navigate to: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\Saves\\ and copy both the main.ttw and main.ttw.bak to the C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\Saves\\ folder. You will be told that "The destination has 2 files with the same names", click on "Replace the files in the destination" button.
   
5. Run 7DTD and try to continue your game.

Note that this is not a guaranteed fix. You may have more data corruption as a result of the improper shutdown, and may just need to wipe everything and start over. It is a good practice to keep regular backups.

This fix may or may not work on an individual basis.. If you try it and it doesn't work, RIP. Good luck on it working for you.