*NASCAR 09 Warning for 360* Back Up Your Saved Profile

[Flamehead]

This happened to me yesterday, and after a Google search and some researching, found it to be a fairly common problem among 360 users:

There are instances when users attempt to start the game, but it freezes at the loading screen where the "Loading Profile" message is displayed. When this happens, it will continue to happen--meaning, there is no temporary fix and you can't actually get into the game itself because it will always freeze at this point.

Apparently, it is due to the profile corrupting during its last save. To permanently fix it, the user must delete their profile and only then can start the game--all over again. Yes, you lose all progress including challenges, rep, performance points, etc.

I was only 4 races into my career, about 1500+ rep, and maybe about 2 dozen challenges, so it's not terribly bad, but some are reporting having it happen after they've completed most of the challenges, and a race shy of the last race in their Sprint cup career for example. So basically, it can happen at any time.

Some are reporting no issues after disabling the auto-save, but others say they still experience it then. I started with it enabled, but then disabled it after 2 races in career. My theory is that it only happens less with users who have it disabled because there are less game saves occurring with it off (with it on, for example, it'll save after every race whether you want it to or not).

The consensus recommendation is to disable auto-save, and a) save your profile to a memory stick, or even better, b) save your profile to the hard drive and memory stick. That way, even if your hard drive save corrupts, you can save it again and (most likely) get a non-corrupted save to your memory stick. So if your hard drive save corrupts and you realize this the next time you attempt to load the game, you can delete the corrupted save from your hard-drive, load the game, then load the profile from your memory stick.

So in sum, if you plan on spending a lot of time with this game and don't want to lose your progress, it may be worth investing in a memory stick as a back up.

[Shockgeez04]

good lookin out

[Rules]

Wow, thanks for the heads up! I guess I need to get a memory stick, does anyone have any recommendations?

[Flamehead]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rules

Wow, thanks for the heads up! I guess I need to get a memory stick, does anyone have any recommendations?

I plan on going to a local Gamestop today to see what they've got. From what I hear, there are 64 MB cards floating around from $11 - $20 depending on whether you get them used or not.

[GJEM]

So then you just leave your memory card in the memory card slot, disable Auto-save, and always save your progress to both the memory card and the hard drive?

[Flamehead]

Quote: Originally Posted by GJEM

So then you just leave your memory card in the memory card slot, disable Auto-save, and always save your progress to both the memory card and the hard drive?

That's what I understand, yes.

[BaseballCtchr]

I come here today and this is the first I have heard of it and guess what...it just happened to me!

[emark182]

So I read this yesterday...and I went home last night and turned on my XBOX 360 to play some NASCAR, and what do you know...my profile has been damaged and can't be loaded again. I was just a little pissed off to say the least...I will never be able to race online because all my performance points are gone out the window and I cant get my car to go ove 195 down the straigaway at Daytona, ****!

[xx74xx]

Heh, this happen to me on Tuesday, so I spent the day re-doing 75 challenges.

Strange this was, I had my profile saved on a memory card (before the corruption), but once I attempted to load it, it 'disappeared' from the mem card.

Odd.

[Flamehead]

Yeah, as the game gets good word of mouth, more people are picking it up, and so it's being reported more and more often now. I'm thinking that during any given profile save, it just randomly corrupts for some reason, and then you're screwed.

With it getting more attention, I'm hoping EA can release a patch for it, but you know how that goes.

If you always save the profile twice (once to the hard drive, then immediately thereafter the memory card/stick), I'm thinking it should help rectify things because chances are one of those saves will be a good one. Yeah, it's an extra step, but it doesn't really take any time at all.

Since I wasn't too terribly far in the first time, I'll just consider that practice for the real thing the 2nd time around.