Backing up PS3 console save files via Cloud

[AJ_Radio]

My PS4 is automatically set to upload to the cloud in the early morning. In the seven years I’ve been trophy hunting, I’ve had at least five instances where my save files were utterly corrupt, which made resuming my game progress literally impossible. Thanks to cloud saving, it has saved me over 100 hours of working to regain that lost progress, which surely would of angered me. 
 

I have stopped Dark Souls II on the PS3. I already mentioned it on a group I’m in on PSN, but I lost my character. My PS3 is beginning to age and unfortunately it just decided to take a crap and freeze the entire console. My controller was not responsive and I was killing knights in the Iron Keep area in Dark Souls II. When I reset my console and went thru the process of restoring after it told me it was not turned off properly, I learned my Dark Souls II save was corrupt. 
 

Unfortunately this particular game is always auto save and there is no way to turn that off. That means quitting to XMB without quitting to the main menu of Dark Souls II is enough to corrupt your save. I tested this deliberately and I can confirm that this indeed corrupts your save, because I received the exact same message in getting corruption. You can try to say ‘Yes’ which will delete characters that are on corrupt saves, but sometimes this doesn’t work. Saying ‘No’ almost never works. 
 

So from this point forward I will try to back up every single save file for games I plan to play and finish. The problem now is From Software has made it a pain in the ass to copy save files, which I’ve already done for Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed and other games. But From doesn’t let me do that, so I’ve backed my new character over to PS Plus. Unfortunately I have to wait 24 hours to download that particular save so if I run into another freezing problem, that’s already progress lost. 
 

Maybe this isn’t an issue with the PS4 version of Dark Souls II since cloud saving works, but I don’t know about the PS3. I tinkered with some settings a while back so I don’t remember if there is an auto upload for PS3 save files. What I do know is the console must be left on, and I generally turn off the PS3 when I’m not using it. 
 

Still, I’m a little upset that this happened and it’s going to take a week and a half at best to regain what I lost in Dark Souls II. 
 

Always back up your saves, because you never know what might happen. 
 

Anyway, here’s a dude that suffered much worse than I did. So I’m far from the only one. 
 

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by AJ_Radio
Lost progress sucks big time

[You]

Sorry to hear that mate.

 

Yeah it's developer dependent, there was a bullshit trophy on Street Fighter III on PS3 for 5 wins in a row online, where I had to back my save up to the cloud incase I lost, after winning twice in a row I decided to back up my save to the cloud each time I won, but that was the same. Once i had uploaded it, had to wait 24 hours to grab it again if I lost a match

.

I guess it's prevent cheating but it's still kind of a dick move and didn't prevent "cheating" anyway, it just took a bit longer.

 

Especially as in like you say, no way to know or not if you the save you uploaded is a corrupted save or not, and then having to wait 24 hours for the privilege to check.

 

Which is the reason why I think cloud saves only saves on PS5 sucks. Savedata is part of your experience, I hate that it's being restricted / put behind a paywall in most cases now.

Edited November 7, 2022 by enaysoft

[AJ_Radio]

3 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

Especially as in like you say, no way to know if you uploaded a corrupted save or not and still having to wait 24 hours for the privilege.

Which is the reason why I think cloud saves only saves on PS5 sucks. Savedata is part of your experience, I hate that it's being restricted / put behind a paywall in most cases now.

I forgot to mention that I back up via USB as well. 
 

Sony should change the way cloud saves are handled, but I doubt they’ll listen.

[You]

9 minutes ago, AJ_Radio said:

I forgot to mention that I back up via USB as well. 
 

Sony should change the way cloud saves are handled, but I doubt they’ll listen.

 

I also wish auto save was optional, I mean sometimes I just don't want to save. Can you imagine if playing Resident Evil 1 it was auto save?!

Like you'd be running to a new location to get an item and you got hit by dogs 3 times, when usually it's only once, or not even bitten at all.

Manual save was better because if you did shit, well you just didn't save and restarted and tried again.

 

Now though it's autosave, which is convenient but sometimes a hinderance. We all know the warning signs of "Don't remove the memory card while saving"

But like we have no idea when your game is being saved in the modern era, and if your save file gets corrupted sometimes that isn't known UNTIL you restart the game on a different day or shut down the game to load up a backup save.

 

Another great thing about USB is that you can use multiple and have different states of your save data, something which in most cases cloud saves do not support.

[AJ_Radio]

Just now, enaysoft said:

I also wish auto save was optional, I mean sometimes I just don't want to save. Can you imagine if playing Resident Evil 1 it was auto save?!

 

This is why I'm starting over on Dark Souls II.

[James Tiger]

Cloud backup is one of the best invention imo.

 

Back in the PS1 and PS2 era, there was no way to back up your savedata to your usb or cloud.

The only way to backup your save is copy to another memory card, but who the heck can afford multiple memory card back in the day ??

 

I remember once my PS1 memory card was broken and all my 30 games' save data gone with it. FML.

[AJ_Radio]

38 minutes ago, James Tiger said:

Cloud backup is one of the best invention imo.

 

Back in the PS1 and PS2 era, there was no way to back up your savedata to your usb or cloud.

The only way to backup your save is copy to another memory card, but who the heck can afford multiple memory card back in the day ??

 

I remember once my PS1 memory card was broken and all my 30 games' save data gone with it. FML.

 

I've lost dozens of hours on PS2 memory cards because they just decided to go corrupt. So I can definitely relate.

[MonaSaxPayne]

2 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

Unfortunately I have to wait 24 hours to download that particular save so if I run into another freezing problem, that’s already progress lost. 

 

is this a thing for all PS3 game saves? or just those that are unable to be copied to USB?

 

every single time I finish a session on whatever game I'm playing.. I manually back up my save to the cloud (I don't like depending on auto upload)

 

I have backed up saves for every single PS4 and PS5 game I've ever played

 

 

[Jelly Soup]

There are some save managers out there, that I believe are not ok to name drop here since the secondary use involves resigning, that can allow for making backups of saves for games that otherwise wouldn't allow it. Worth looking into. Beyond that, USB backups are the best way to go with the PS3. If you can set up an external HD just for them, that's be great.

 

Reminds me of the PS2 days. People would buy copies of FF11 not for the game, but for the huge external HD that came with it. Was basically a huge memory card, great for backing up piles of saves.

[aimeraya]

I always backup my savefiles on all consoles, including PS3, PS4, PS5 and Vita. You'll never know when a console is going to be dead or some bad issues like electric power is out. Same thing like you think you probably screw up some trophy hunting.

 

So..Always! Back! Up! Your! Savefiles!

[You]

35 minutes ago, MonaSaxPayne said:

 

is this a thing for all PS3 game saves? or just those that are unable to be copied to USB?

 

98% of games are fine, some games have a 24 hour copy protection and some games, their files cannot be copied at all.

I don't think PS3 supports automatically backing up of saves. Which I think is likely the original issue.

[Xillynoc]

It's always "fun" when you find an older game that deliberately hampered backup saves. I had an atrocious experience with Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate where my save glitched (by despawning a plot objective), so I tried to download my older save that was on the cloud...and learned the game could only upload OR download a save there one every 24 hours, for whatever godforsaken reason (it doesn't even have online stuff to manipulate!), and when I turned off the auto-upload of the game so I could try again the next day, it UPLOADED THE DATA ANYWAY and forced me to start from scratch. Unforgivable garbage game.

[AJ_Radio]

1 minute ago, Xillynoc said:

It's always "fun" when you find an older game that deliberately hampered backup saves. I had an atrocious experience with Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate where my save glitched (by despawning a plot objective), so I tried to download my older save that was on the cloud...and learned the game could only upload OR download a save there one every 24 hours, for whatever godforsaken reason (it doesn't even have online stuff to manipulate!), and when I turned off the auto-upload of the game so I could try again the next day, it UPLOADED THE DATA ANYWAY and forced me to start from scratch. Unforgivable garbage game.

 

Speaking of which, I had a 16 GB PS Vita card completely crap out, so some data on there was corrupt. Had no choice but to try to wipe out the data, but the Vita wouldn't let me so it's as good as dead.

[wajbsb]

I think all saves to the cloud on PS3 can only be uploaded or downloaded once every 24 hours.

There is auto upload to the cloud for PS3 saves - if your console is turned off then it will turn itself on and upload your saves to the cloud - but then you can't download for 24 hours. There is a 2 hour window for the auto upload. For example, my PS3 automatically turns on and uploads game saves to the cloud every day between 4 and 6 pm. It doesn't take 2 hours, it only takes a minute of two.

[Jelly Soup]

9 hours ago, enaysoft said:

I don't think PS3 supports automatically backing up of saves. Which I think is likely the original issue.

 

It does, but only if you have PSN+ and then only once every 24 hours. And lots of PS3 games are strange in their file structure, so there's no guarantee it'll save the correct thing the right way. This is why I'm still deleting OG Skyrim backups a decade later.

 

If you're capable of doing it, USB/external HD is the best backup method for the PS3. There are some save managers that can make backups of even games that disallow it.

[Viper]

PS3 has automatic cloud saves if you have PS+. You just have to set the time it does it. The PS4 auto uploads when you put it in Rest Mode, and the PS5 does it every single time you simply go back to the main UI (it's insanely quick, which can be problematic in certain games where you might need it to NOT auto-upload). 

 

My PS3 is set to auto upload between 4am-6am. And it comes on, on it's own every morning and does its thing...even though I don't play it much these days it does...something anyways. I've never had an issue with it. Automatic updates is one of the big reasons I've been with PS+ since 2012. Backing up to an external drive is never a bad thing to have a backup of a backup though. 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Viper

[HuntingFever]

13 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

Speaking of which, I had a 16 GB PS Vita card completely crap out, so some data on there was corrupt. Had no choice but to try to wipe out the data, but the Vita wouldn't let me so it's as good as dead.

In that sort of situation, all you can do is bin the Memory Card and buy a new one .

[Sauron-The-Great]

Corrupt save files really are a nightmare man

I had it happen to me too

now Ive got a game that doesnt recognize the save anymore and want to start a new game everytime. Luckily I had a backup save, Im just looking for help for a way that the game recognizes my backup.

Anyway I hope you got your player back