Can I ask for a little sympathy?

[Petra Fyde]

For the past few days my hdd has become increasingly, worryingly short of space. I booked my younger son to come look at it with a bribe of 'We'll feed you', but yesterday with only 2GB left in blind panic I tried to clear some space.
Finding that the whole of 'documents' appeared to be copied under 'music' I deleted the lot - only it wasn't a copy.
Consequently I am now faced with re-creating the desktops of all my UO characters - cos I'd already ditched my back up

It took my son all of 5 minutes to track down the 'pac man' that was eating my drive - I had almost half a drive full of 'system restore'.

Back to trying to remember character macros.

 

[Tina Small]

Any chance they're still in the trash can or at some point you copied them over to some type of cloud storage?

 

[Eärendil]

You have my sympathy!

 

[callum_fitzhugh]

You got my sympathy. I had a similar experience recently. The very important files I thought I had backed up to OneDrive [cloud] werent there when I needed them! I think its a sync issue - another PC logged into Onedrive without those files in the same location its c:\ drive and so OneDrive seems to have wiped them. Moral of the story. Backup your backups! And good luck remembering macros Petra. We are too old for this kind of technology these days

 

[Archnight]

Sorry that happened Petra, best of luck on the recovery

 

[Merus]

If most or many of your characters use similar macros you can alter the default macro file that gets created when you log the character on... Then you only have to set up the character specific macros.

Alternatively, you can create 3 or 4 templates (mage,tamer,warrior) and copy the appropriate version into each character.

 

[ShriNayne]

Sorry you had that happen to you Petra, computers can be so frustrating! I think you'll just have to set aside a couple of hours, plenty of coffee (or tea!) and slog through it. Maybe make a list of macros you need first... good luck!

 

[Swordsman]

It’s really painful to recover a large vol of data.

Let me see if I can help a little bit to recover your macro. For CC, you may try to directly search the files and folders in the recycle bin. This may save your time to handle the massive restored files.

Try to find out the following folders in the reclying bin :
EA Games
Ultima Online Legacy
Ultima online Stygian Abyss
User data
Or the login name of your account
Or shard name
Or character name

 

[Fogsbane]

ugggh. sorry Petra, you definitely have my sympathy. i've had semi-success in the past using undelete tools, such as 'recuva'. might not be worth the time it'd take, so probably best to use this opportunity to redo and tweak anew, propagating a favored setup from a master layout.

 

[BeaIank]

Try running recuva (Recuva - Restore deleted files, even if you've emptied the Recycle bin! - Piriform) and see if it can recover some of those files.

 

[Mervyn]

If your data isn't backed up in 2 places, it's not backed up at all.

 

[Picus at the office]

Could you not do a system restore to the last safe save and find those files? Didn't the folder get renamed some 5 years back when they moved where it saved to, anyone else recall that?

 

[Tina Small]

Petra, any chance you ever played any of your characters on someone else's computer and copied a set of macros over to that computer?

 

[Petra Fyde]

No other computer and the re-cyle bin is empty - but I'm on the way to re-building with a bit of help from desktops pictured on various of my videos. I made them to help others, but now they're helping me. I'd even made a vid of how I built my crab fishing macros

 

[Merlin]

I feel the pain your pain too. The day the Pet Revamp patch was published... I lost the set ups for two of my characters... including my main Mystic Mage Weaver which had LOTS of spells macro'ed. As soon as I logged, it showed me the screen as if I was a new player with everything gone. Luckily, I had a back up that was about 6-7 months old, so I atleast had a starting point for most spells, but it was still quite annoying as I am always updating and moving around pieces of my interface.

I'm not sure why this happened, as I had talked to a few other people about this happening and no one shared the same issue with me. It also only affected two characters but the others were all fine. But to be safe, I'm now copying all character interface data files from my two main accounts on a monthly basis.

Not sure how many characters this was affected for you or which client you're on, but good luck getting it all back together. Take it one character at a time.

 

[Slayvite]

You have my sympathy as my daughter recently returned from Uni and i was given her laptop to "clean up"...
.....my god, i've never seen so many bugs, viruses, trojans ext. in one place.

I asked her about the Anti-virus i installed before she went to Uni and she said "oh it kept blocking things so i deleted it"...........

i'm at the point where i'm thinking it's just easier to put an axe thru the laptop

 

[skett]

Off topic but I posted awhile back that I have 2 accounts that almost all characters I login always auto use a macro
"I Wish To Release This" I deleted the files deleted all macros on them they still do it. They are just storage char/acc.
I'm worried at some point I'm going to release lock downs and not see it.
Any ideas

Thank you

 

[Gilmour]

Think i have 5 different backups of those folders, just because of this

 

[Gilmour]

Off topic but I posted awhile back that I have 2 accounts that almost all characters I login always auto use a macro
"I Wish To Release This" I deleted the files deleted all macros on them they still do it. They are just storage char/acc.
I'm worried at some point I'm going to release lock downs and not see it.
Any ideas

Thank you

You can search the settings folder for 2dmacros and open them all and remove that from all the files with find-replace (finding what you want removed and replace with nothing) feature of a text editor. A good free one is notepad++.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I could kick myself, it's such a basic mistake and one I thought I knew better than to make. but my chars are getting nice clean set ups with logical arrangements and shared macros where possible - so maybe it's a good thing in the long run. I play EC for those that wondered.
@Merlin I had that problem once. I'd accidentally put in my user name with a space where there shouldn't be. Suprisingly the password still worked for it, but the character file was not found and when I looked in my documents folder I found it had made a new folder for the account. Logging in properly restored things to normal.

 

[Merlin]

I play EC for those that wondered.

+1 on that. Hopefully won't be too terribly much of an issue to re-create your hot bars and drag the spell / ability / macro buttons and just re-map the keystrokes.

@Merlin I had that problem once. I'd accidentally put in my user name with a space where there shouldn't be. Surprisingly the password still worked for it, but the character file was not found and when I looked in my documents folder I found it had made a new folder for the account. Logging in properly restored things to normal.

Good to know for the future. It now has me wondering if I had done the same thing when the issue popped up for me. Either way... not a bad policy to start making back ups once a month or so of those type of prudent files (backed up both on home computer and cloud).

 

[Nexus]

This is actually one of the things I really like about the free cloud backup options available today. For a small amount of data like you're UO config files and Macro data those folders can be kept backed up in the event of an accident.

 

[Gilmour]

This is actually one of the things I really like about the free cloud backup options available today. For a small amount of data like you're UO config files and Macro data those folders can be kept backed up in the event of an accident.

Correct, if you have a cloud backup, odds are your document folder is in it anyways

 

[MalagAste]

@Petra Fyde I make a base file of set up for mages, one for dexers and one for crafters. I keep them on my desktop to copy and paste in. EC makes that real easy.
I feel for you.

 

[Old Vet Back Again]

Recuva - Restore deleted files, even if you've emptied the Recycle bin! - Piriform

 

[Uvtha]

For the past few days my hdd has become increasingly, worryingly short of space. I booked my younger son to come look at it with a bribe of 'We'll feed you', but yesterday with only 2GB left in blind panic I tried to clear some space.
Finding that the whole of 'documents' appeared to be copied under 'music' I deleted the lot - only it wasn't a copy.
Consequently I am now faced with re-creating the desktops of all my UO characters - cos I'd already ditched my back up

It took my son all of 5 minutes to track down the 'pac man' that was eating my drive - I had almost half a drive full of 'system restore'.

Back to trying to remember character macros.

Thats a bummer man. I would as has been mentioned move your doc creation to a cloud setup like google drive, or a folder synced to Drop box or something if you are averse to google stuffs. I used to have to copy an endless amount of art, pics, and text over every time I got a new compo, no longer having to worry bout that is nice.

 

[MalagAste]

Thats a bummer man. I would as has been mentioned move your doc creation to a cloud setup like google drive, or a folder synced to Drop box or something if you are averse to google stuffs. I used to have to copy an endless amount of art, pics, and text over every time I got a new compo, no longer having to worry bout that is nice.

Amazon Prime offers 1TB storage and more... Where I keep quite a number of things... Photobucket is nearly free where I store thousands of pictures... so many choices... not to mention I back up to an external Hard Drive whenever possible..

Just having dealt with the game not allowing me to patch and the uopatch.bin deciding that I don't "own" it and I'm not allowed to do anything with it... and it telling me there isn't any "storage" on my computer... myself... I can say that rebuilding is almost liberating... I've been wanting to redo the buggy save I had for my main for a long, LONG time but.... now it's done... I feel better... so yep... I know EXACTLY what Petra has been dealing with...

Problem managed and I'm back to fun.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Oh wow... sorry that happened to you. Definitely a huge pita

I had the same thing happen with a HD crash once. So I keep them backed up in an old school way. Every time I add a couple macros I send all those files to my wife's email as well as saving a draft with the attachments in both of my email address's (work and play lol). When I send a new one, I delete the old ones. I also keep them on a memory stick that has all of my work paperwork backed up on.

 

[Mervyn]

in all seriousness, you do need to back up your data regularly, HDs fail all the time, , or you never know when you might get hit with ransomware, it's not just your uo files you need to back up, imagine if you lost a load of family photo albums.
You can even pickup a usb storage stick or two from the 99c store.

windows has a backup program inbuilt if you search for "backup and restore" on your pc.

 

[DJAd]

@Petra Fyde I make a base file of set up for mages, one for dexers and one for crafters. I keep them on my desktop to copy and paste in. EC makes that real easy.
I feel for you.

This is what I do also. Make basic template files like mage, dexxer, tamer, crafter then just alter each one for the character I'm using it with. Then I keep a backup in Dropbox and locally on my pc.

 

[Riyana]

That sounds like a huge pain. I know I don't consciously think about my macros a lot of the time since a lot of them are the same from character to character, but when I make a new one or change one it's really awkward. Having to rebuild entirely.. ugh.

 

[TheDrAJ]

Hopefully with the EC you won't get the general chat bug!

 

[JohnnyO]

I've recovered many "accidentally deleted files" using programs similar to some mentioned above. Could be worth a try. Even though they're technically gone (the missing files) they're still lurking around.

 

[Tina Small]

in all seriousness, you do need to back up your data regularly, HDs fail all the time, , or you never know when you might get hit with ransomware, it's not just your uo files you need to back up, imagine if you lost a load of family photo albums.
You can even pickup a usb storage stick or two from the 99c store.

windows has a backup program inbuilt if you search for "backup and restore" on your pc.

Or if you use a laptop computer, you never know when someone might spill something and the liquid spreads across the desk/table and ends up zapping your computer. Or someone spills something on your laptop and if you're lucky enough that it isn't zapped, you are still out of service a few days/weeks until you get a new keyboard.

 

[MissEcho]

you can have my template for the ec if you want it has a whole bunch of macros preset turn your icq on

 

[Alex"Drake Iron Heart"CS]

Make new macros that are useful, I am sure you had a few that you weren't using at the time.
Dont see it as a bad thing but a thing to improve actually!

 

[TheDrAJ]

On the classic client I change the macro files in the program folder so that new characters that i make have all my must need macros when created. I assume that could also be done with the EC.

 

[Tyrath]

Sympathy and external storage devices are your friend

 

[Poo]

once a year i back up my characters stuff for both uoassist and just the normal UO on my 2nd comp, then i do it on a external drive THEN i do it into my online drive.

the online drive gives me the added bonus that i can grab it with my laptop should i ever need too.
or if im on a work comp and feel the need to play.

heck, if you have a Gmail account you have a google drive you can park a copy of all your character info on, for free!

you really need to back up your back up people!

 

[Cymidei]

For the past few days my hdd has become increasingly, worryingly short of space. I booked my younger son to come look at it with a bribe of 'We'll feed you', but yesterday with only 2GB left in blind panic I tried to clear some space.
Finding that the whole of 'documents' appeared to be copied under 'music' I deleted the lot - only it wasn't a copy.
Consequently I am now faced with re-creating the desktops of all my UO characters - cos I'd already ditched my back up

It took my son all of 5 minutes to track down the 'pac man' that was eating my drive - I had almost half a drive full of 'system restore'.

Back to trying to remember character macros.

ouch!! sorry to hear that

 

[Victim of Siege]

For the past few days my hdd has become increasingly, worryingly short of space. I booked my younger son to come look at it with a bribe of 'We'll feed you', but yesterday with only 2GB left in blind panic I tried to clear some space.
Finding that the whole of 'documents' appeared to be copied under 'music' I deleted the lot - only it wasn't a copy.
Consequently I am now faced with re-creating the desktops of all my UO characters - cos I'd already ditched my back up

It took my son all of 5 minutes to track down the 'pac man' that was eating my drive - I had almost half a drive full of 'system restore'.

Back to trying to remember character macros.

Sympathy and a cookie

 

[ShriNayne]

Q and I have backed up our character files, I hope we won't need them, but it seemed like a good idea, all things considered!

 

[Lady Storm]

Petra my dear forgive this but...... *GIBBS SLAP* Done with your mental health in mind......
Never ever NOT have a thumb drive with your precious UO settings!!!!
Those thumb drives are cheap hun... if you need one I have a bunch.
hands cookie im sorry you lost them... we all have at one time or another I learned my lesson to back it up off the main machine after the first comp died while turned off!

 

[cdavbar]

You definitely have my sympathy. I recently ran into an issue on the EC that messed up health-bars something terrible. I tried everything I could possibly think of to resolve the issue. Nothing worked. Ironically enough it ONLY affected my main spawn characters (Mystic Mage Weaver, and my Sampire). My crafters were fine. After dealing with this issue for some time and out of options I had to purposefully delete my character files on the PC to reset it all to default since trying to reset to default in the game settings didn't even reset them).

I am still missing macros and hot bar items. I go to use something, and as always in the heat of battle, at the worst time, it doesn't work and leaves me running around screaming *(*&(*&(*&)*)*#$*)(&*(*&$(#)#$)#*$()*&!!!!!!! Then I fix the issue, rez myself, and get back to work until the next missing macro or item pops up that I forgot to put in.

Good luck, I feel your pain.

 

[Victim of Siege]

Sympathy and external storage devices are your friend

i have two external drives, my char files are in both those, 5 different folders on the hdd and 3 thumb drives have it. if i lose my char files, I did it on purpose

 

[skett]

You can search the settings folder for 2dmacros and open them all and remove that from all the files with find-replace (finding what you want removed and replace with nothing) feature of a text editor. A good free one is notepad++.

I recognize your words as English yet I don't understand what you are saying lol
Thanks for trying to help Freind

 

[Tyrath]

i have two external drives, my char files are in both those, 5 different folders on the hdd and 3 thumb drives have it. if i lose my char files, I did it on purpose

LOL I only have the thumb drive and external HD butam notorious for cut and pasting a lot of stuff into the 150 or so unpublished pages of the main website... Redneck version of the cloud

 

[Basara]

I personally keep a version of UO with my characters' macros on each computer, and a backup that I update about every 6 months (due for updating later this week, after I recover from my vacation), on dropbox. This includes my "backup laptop" that I only use for trips - and I found that out the hard way, after having to sit through 15 hours of Windows updates at home readying it for the trip, followed by 21k FILES getting updated in dropbox AT the hotel (thank god for free unlimited net use with their rewards program) while I was there. I never managed to get it to where I could take the time to check in here or in the game - probably because I think the last two files were actually from the backup of my most important file folder on my main laptop, thanks to software that came with an external backup device (backs up both to the external drive and to Dropbox as a safeguard, resulting in all 4 of my computers having the drive backed up to their dropbox folder).

 

[Petra Fyde]

problem all solved. No viruses on my pc - and most very definitely not 'pron links'! 64yr old women tend to have very little interest in pron . However by some oversight the system restore settings had been allowed an excessive amount of disc space. That has now been fixed. Automatic updates are: windows, virus checker, nvidia graphics. I don't think turning those off would be a good idea However the virus checker updates daily, so a daily system restore when the thing has been allowed 100% disc space wasn't good.

All my regularly used characters are now playable and I'm doing 'little' things first to find those automatically used macros that aren't there. My treasure hunter did a level 3 map instead of a 6

 

[Alex"Drake Iron Heart"CS]

problem all solved. No viruses on my pc - and most very definitely not 'pron links'! 64yr old women tend to have very little interest in pron . However by some oversight the system restore settings had been allowed an excessive amount of disc space. That has now been fixed. Automatic updates are: windows, virus checker, nvidia graphics. I don't think turning those off would be a good idea However the virus checker updates daily, so a daily system restore when the thing has been allowed 100% disc space wasn't good.

All my regularly used characters are now playable and I'm doing 'little' things first to find those automatically used macros that aren't there. My treasure hunter did a level 3 map instead of a 6

NVIDIA Gforce Experience can be turned off, Only needed if you play the latest games in market that you need the newest Drivers.
Rest has to be left on!!