The save file you have selected is protected... Possible Fix

ainwood · Jan 8, 2006

We have been researching this problem, and we believe that a lot of the problems are due to the way files are returned from the operating system - under NTFS, files are generally returned in alphabetical order (the order that Civ4 expects); under FAT/FAT32, they're returned in order of creation date. To check whether your hard-drive is FAT/32, open "My Computer" and right-click on the icon for your hard-drive. From the menu, choose 'Properties'. From the picture that comes up, look at what it says the file system is - if its 'FAT32' and you have WinXP, you should be able to fix this.

As a possible fix, those with Windows XP should be able to convert their hard drives from FAT/32 to NTFS. Following this, the assets password problem shuld go away (or, at worst, require Civ4 to be reinstalled again before the problem is solved).

Now: To do this, follow the steps on this page.

NOTE: Before you do this, I suggest that you back-up critical data! The process SHOULD be safe, but with computers, there is always the chance that something can go wrong.

If you have any concerns, then the better bet is probably to simply wait for a patch (hopefully this issue will be patched)

Neon Deon · Jan 8, 2006

What is the frequency of this error while running under fat32?

All the time? Most of the time? Some of the time? or Every once in awhile?

Just curious because I have had this game since Thanksgiving and have never run across that error with my fat32 partitioned hard drive.

ainwood · Jan 8, 2006

Neon Deon said:
What is the frequency of this error while running under fat32?

All the time? Most of the time? Some of the time? or Every once in awhile?

Just curious because I have had this game since Thanksgiving and have never run across that error with my fat32 partitioned hard drive.

Most often, it will happen when you are trying to play a game with the "no cheating" option set, especially if it was a game created on a NTFS system (eg. the Civ4 Game Of The Month). For this case, I think its about 100%.

Neon Deon · Jan 8, 2006

ainwood said:
Most often, it will happen when you are trying to play a game with the "no cheating" option set, especially if it was a game created on a NTFS system (eg. the Civ4 Game Of The Month). For this case, I think its about 100%.

Have you tried this in reverse?

Create the GOTM on FAT32 and then play no cheat on NTFS?

This is from the bottom of MS turorial and should be made a little more bold IMHO.

"Important Once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS, you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32. You will need to reformat the drive or partition which will erase all data, including programs and personal files, on the partition."

I would also like to point out that when installing xp on the hard drive the default setting is NTFS. You would have to have a specific reason for manually configuring windows XP to run on fat 32.

IE: Old programs that dont operate properly when converted to NTFS like programs designed to run in a dos environment and expecting FAT that XP DOS emulation can not handle.

asmodai · Jan 9, 2006

ainwood said:
We have been researching this problem, and we believe that a lot of the problems are due to the way files are returned from the operating system - under NTFS, files are generally returned in alphabetical order (the order that Civ4 expects); under FAT/FAT32, they're returned in order of creation date.

And why on earth would that matter?

Wouldn't the program in question look at all the statistics of a particular file and based on that information sort it appropriately?

Great_Scott · Jan 9, 2006

I have a mod program from.. Vilus, i think it is. Well, what it does is alter the tech modifier cost for each era. It changes the Civ3TechInfos.xml file.. For example, if you select 1.1 for Classical, it will make the research cost for all techs in the Classical Era 110% of the original. I'd had lots of fun with this, as I like to play rediculously long epics.

Pretty much, I'm still playing a game from the second patch, which is fine, but I also play a few games PBEM. So what i have to do make a copy of the current TechInfos file I have (currently modded for the epic single player game) to the original vanilla one... because Civ 4 loads the xml files every time you restart, well naturally i need to save, then quit my current game.. backup my modded .xml file, etc... so that when the game reloads, the Tech costs will be normal.. so that when I play my turn in PBEM, my Ancient Techs cost around 50, not 500.. (10 times longer, as modded).

I found the problem when I started a quick game.. wanted to rush to the modern era and check a few things out... this was the first game when i checked the 'no cheat' option. I was playing this game fine, then did the copy and backup as it was my PBEM. When I reverted back to my modded game, i found while I had replaced the Civ4TechInfos file with the exact same information, since when I last saved it was last modified 'x' time, when it went to reload, the new copy had 'y' time... therefore I couldn't load the game.

No cheats is good in concept... but I can't stand the single game on even marathon speed.. it's too quick. So any game I play, PBEM or Single or whatever.. has to have no cheats. Which sucks, as it leaves the option for others cheating... but i have no choice.

ainwood · Jan 9, 2006

asmodai said:
And why on earth would that matter?

Wouldn't the program in question look at all the statistics of a particular file and based on that information sort it appropriately?

Because it doesn't sort it. It grabs information for ALL files in the folder, and does it in the order that the files are returned from the OS (so if you have a back-up file in that folder, you'll get the password error message as well).

asmodai · Jan 10, 2006

ainwood said:
Because it doesn't sort it. It grabs information for ALL files in the folder, and does it in the order that the files are returned from the OS (so if you have a back-up file in that folder, you'll get the password error message as well).

In other words: no defensive programming.

Haggadorn · Jan 11, 2006

OK, since I reported this problem, I have (1) replaced my ferschlugginer Belkin ('balkin') router with a Linksys WRT54G -- seems better -- (2) re-installed Civ IV completely, and, perhaps most importantly, discovered that while my Windows and Pagefile partitions are NTFS, my CivIV home partition (along with most of my other ones) was FAT 32! So I have converted the partition to NTFS (that's why I had to re-install CivIV for the second time), and since then have not experienced the 'save file is protected' error. I get other errors still -- multiplayer issues make the experience quite frustrating for the ordinary person, obviously, as you can tell by 'listening' to what people are saying in the GameSpy lobby for awhile. Latest is a new round of endless Leonard Nimoy while 'connecting to the peer' ... probably just means I have to open ports on the new router. I hope my reporting of my own experience has been helpful.

Stemil · Jan 17, 2006

Hmm.. and how would one go about converting FAT32 to NTFS on one's Windows partition? This could probably be achieved through the recovery console, but unfortunately my crappy Acer laptop doesn't offer me the option while booting with the recovery CD.

I could of course convert my other partition and install civ there... but actually I'd rather convert the both of them than have one NTFS and one FAT drive.

LauriL · Jan 18, 2006

I'm hopeless with this error. I just started to play the new GoTM and I seemed to be playing a pretty good game and then this error game. I have tried to uninstall the game and delete all files and folders but that didn't help. What should I try? I have already NTFS. Thx.

asmodai · Jan 19, 2006

Stemil said:
Hmm.. and how would one go about converting FAT32 to NTFS on one's Windows partition? This could probably be achieved through the recovery console, but unfortunately my crappy Acer laptop doesn't offer me the option while booting with the recovery CD.

I could of course convert my other partition and install civ there... but actually I'd rather convert the both of them than have one NTFS and one FAT drive.

C:\>convert /?
Converts FAT volumes to NTFS.

CONVERT volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity] [/X]

volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
/FS:NTFS Specifies that the volume is to be converted to NTFS.
/V Specifies that Convert should be run in verbose mode.
/CvtArea:filename
Specifies a contiguous file in the root directory to be
the place holder for NTFS system files.
/NoSecurity Specifies the converted files and directories security
settings to be accessible by everyone.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid.

PowerkrauT · Jan 22, 2006

Hey !

I keep having this problem "The save file you have selected is protected... " - but with me it starts even when joining a game - it says my hosts versions do not match (I am running on 1.52 version) - this means if I should crash and the "no cheating" option is enabled, I wont be able to rejoin. No use pleading to not check that option (understandable). So I am not sure if those of u having the save file problem do have the version problem as well - for me it is the reason .Comments like "cheater" - "buy the original" etc. are the only reactions I get.

I tried reinstalling in different languages, different partitions - no success.

I use NTFS on WinXP - so please find the real bug instead of making this thing a sticky, it only confuses people imho. :mad:

I now have solved my riddle. As I played civ4 from v1.00 - winxp seems to have remembered this and held that info in the registry. I now did a regedit after deinstall and removed all knowledge of civ4. Now it works fine - no more version or save file conflicts (messages).

Stemil · Jan 23, 2006

Thanks asmodai.. but that was already explained in the beginning of the thread. My problem was that convert wouldn't work on my windows partition (because windows is running, and the partition thus cannot be dismounted)

Oh well.. I got civ to work by converting my other partition to NTFS and installing the game there. It would be nice though, to have both partitions use the same file system.

Barn Owl · Jan 24, 2006

ainwood said:
As a possible fix, those with Windows XP should be able to convert their hard drives from FAT/32 to NTFS. Following this, the assets password problem shuld go away (or, at worst, require Civ4 to be reinstalled again before the problem is solved).

If you have any concerns, then the better bet is probably to simply wait for a patch (hopefully this issue will be patched)

I was one of those who had the "The save file you have selected is protected... " problem for which you kindly emailed me an unprotected copy and yes indeed my system is on FAT32 rather than NTFS, however it simply isn't possible for me to just convert my partitions to NTFS because I am running a multiboot system using both Windows 98 and XP and Windows 98 can't recognise NTFS partitions. I would have to dispense with Windows 98 to do that and I am not in a position to do that at the moment.

Chinetter · Jan 24, 2006

I can play local LAN games just fine, but only by leaving the "cheat codes" option unselected -- otherwise I get the error message and no go. Doesn't matter which computer hosts, doesn't matter which Win XP file system is in place.

Since I gather nobody hosting an online game is willing to leave that option unchecked, I can't play online. I can connect to online games (I fixed my router to pass through port 2056), but then the cheat-codes bug kicks me back out.

nzrock · Jan 27, 2006

Hi
I have the same problem with games created on my laptop. (fat 32 drives)
the games wont play on my other computer (NTFS drives)
But what i have found is if you create the game on the comp with the NTFS drive & then copy the save game over to the laptop.
Then start playing it there, then save the game again, this time on the laptop. You can then copy it back to the other comp (NTFS drive) & it will open whithout the error.

Therfor create the game on a NTFS comp & then you can play it anywhere else, as long as you dont have the no cheating ticked.

Barn Owl · Jan 28, 2006

nzrock said:
Hi
I have the same problem with games created on my laptop. (fat 32 drives)
the games wont play on my other computer (NTFS drives)
But what i have found is if you create the game on the comp with the NTFS drive & then copy the save game over to the laptop.
Then start playing it there, then save the game again, this time on the laptop. You can then copy it back to the other comp (NTFS drive) & it will open whithout the error.

Therfor create the game on a NTFS comp & then you can play it anywhere else.

My laptop has NTFS formatting, unlike my desktop (FAT32), but I doubt it's graphically powerful enough to run Civ4, I might install it and give your suggestion a try though, if no other fix is ultimately available.

Ritaly · Jan 30, 2006

My system has NTFS on all drives. Was playing a game earlier today (v1.52) and when loading a saved game, Civ4 crashed. I rebooted and am now getting this error for all saved games. No FAT partitions are involved...

ainwood · Feb 1, 2006

Ritaly said:
My system has NTFS on all drives. Was playing a game earlier today (v1.52) and when loading a saved game, Civ4 crashed. I rebooted and am now getting this error for all saved games. No FAT partitions are involved...

That is a different error - the game sometimes crashes, and results in this problem. Hopefully, both these issues will be properly resolved with the next patch.

The save file you have selected is protected... Possible Fix

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