Lemma Soft Forums

Hi guys,

I just encountered a new yet very unexpected issue with Android!

In a nutshell, I asked my code to save the game everytime a new dialogue is displayed - no autosave, no quicksave, only one save file called "1-1" (i.e. appears on first page & first slot of the save menu). And on the launch screen, I only have a "Start" button that checks the existence of the save file "1-1" and loads it (if it doesn't exist, it starts a new game).

When I test the game on Bluestack / Renpy, no problem => the "Start" button on launch screen does launch the save file "1-1" and I start exactly where I left the game ==> all good
But when I test the game on my Android device (with SD card), I sometimes encounter a weird issue when I start the app:

1. 50% of times, the game directly loads the latest (and theoretically only) save file "1-1" without showing the launch screen - the screen just says "auto-reloading" and then directly displays the loaded file (a bit weird, but at least I start exactly where I left the game)
2. The other 50% of times, the game properly start and I get to the launch screen (no direct loading of saved file); but when I click on "Start" button, the save file it loads is not the latest one=> it's an "old" "1-1" file that does not get me exactly where I left the game

So when I'm unlucky, I can get 3 times in a row the "old" "1-1" file when I start the app, i.e. the game would just not save the latest progression and just send me back to an old save => this doesn't make sense to me as there is supposedly only one save file called "1-1" that is replaced everytime I display a new dialogue...

My only guess would be that there are actually two different "1-1" files somehow, one on the device and one on the SD card:

• The "proper" latest one would take me to case 1. (game automatically loads the latest file, no launch screen)
• The "old" file would take me to case 2. (game shows launch screen, but I only get access to a weird old "1-1" file)

Just FYI, I have disactivated all automatic saves, including the ones from Android (in script.rpy): Has anyone encountered the same issue? Any advice would be a massive help, I'm completely stuck on this!

Many thanks!

Have you tried setting quit_on_mobile_background True?
https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/config.h ... background

This will force the game to fully restart each time you close it and relaunch it, so you won't see the soft launch (auto-restarting), which should force the game to go to the main menu, triggering your load.


Just something to think about though, saving in every line of dialogue is not a good habit as you're hammering I/O, which will wear the users device out fast as well as slow your game down.

Hi Imperf3kt, thanks for your help! Will definitely try this tonight - hopefully the hard launch will make the game load the latest "1-1" save file (and not some old version that somehow exists).

About your side note, I understand your point - what would be the best practice here to make sure there's only one save file always up-to-date?

Why not have the game save at sections instead of every line. Auto saving at every line is way too excessive.

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for all your help - tried Imperf3kt's solution, it works perfectly (I don't have any "soft launch", and the app properly loads the latest save file).
Here is the final code FYI:

Regarding the saving frequency, I will try to set up frequent checkpoints as you guys suggested to make things smoother.

Thanks so much!