Need Help To Back Up Game

[Eugene Church]

I am not good with technology...

Here's how I back up my current game:

Click: File > Backups > Backup Current Game

This gets me to the screen below... which should I select?

"Copy all files" or "Start backup".

I have always chosen "Copy all files" thinking that meant it makes copies of every file in the game and stores it in case I need to reload the game files.

What does "Start backup" do?

Should I use it instead of "Copy all files".

Would appreciate your help.

[hefalumps]

"Start Backup" only copies the files that have changed since your last backup. Most of the time, this will make your backup go faster. However, I have noticed that sometimes files get missed this way - usually news, injury, or transaction logs that have gotten "archived" from the previous season. So for most of my backups I do "Start Backup", but for my backup at the end of preseason before the regular season starts, I do "Copy all files" to make sure I don't miss anything.

It's also important to note that if you change the file path of your backup destination, you MUST do "Copy all files". Otherwise, the new backup destination will only contain those files that changed since your last backup. At least that's the behavior with previous versions - haven't tested it in awhile.

Hope that helps!

[Eugene Church]

So I should use "copy all files" each time?

Is that the best way to back up?

I have never changed the backup destination.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by hefalumps

"Start Backup" only copies the files that have changed since your last backup. Most of the time, this will make your backup go faster. However, I have noticed that sometimes files get missed this way - usually news, injury, or transaction logs that have gotten "archived" from the previous season. So for most of my backups I do "Start Backup", but for my backup at the end of preseason before the regular season starts, I do "Copy all files" to make sure I don't miss anything.

It's also important to note that if you change the file path of your backup destination, you MUST do "Copy all files". Otherwise, the new backup destination will only contain those files that changed since your last backup. At least that's the behavior with previous versions - haven't tested it in awhile.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the help... appreciate it.

[JudgeGio]

The in-game backup feature only makes a backup to your hard drive. If your hard drive fails, you lose everything. So sometimes I copy the contents of C:\{OOTP folder}\data\backups to an external source such as a flash drive or CD.

[hefalumps]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

So I should use "copy all files" each time?

Is that the best way to back up?

I have never changed the backup destination.

If you want to be sure you got everything, then yes you can just keep doing that to be safe. The only downside is it takes longer and you're probably copying a lot of the same files that are already there. But if you're OK with that, just keep doing it.

But as JudgeGio pointed out, if your backup destination is on the same hard drive as your game, you should occasionally copy that backup destination folder to an external hard drive or thumb drive. I usually take my backup folder at certain points in the season and compress it into a ZIP file that I can copy off to another device in case something happens.

[DirkGildun]

What I do is:


1. "Copy All Files" to my selected OOTP Backup folder on my hard drive.
2. Use WinZip (or WinRAR, etc.) to create a compressed copy of the backup on my hard drive.
3. Copy the compressed copy om my hard drive to a quick drive ( for a backup to the backup).
4. Delete the original uncompressed backup from my OOTP Backup folder (to save space on my hard drive).


I always keep the last 2 compressed backups on my hard drive and the last compressed backup on a quick drive.


If I have to restore my league, I copy the appropriate compressed backup to the OOTP Backup folder, uncompress it (using WinZip, etc.), and do an OOTP Backup Restore.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by hefalumps

If you want to be sure you got everything, then yes you can just keep doing that to be safe. The only downside is it takes longer and you're probably copying a lot of the same files that are already there. But if you're OK with that, just keep doing it.

But as JudgeGio pointed out, if your backup destination is on the same hard drive as your game, you should occasionally copy that backup destination folder to an external hard drive or thumb drive. I usually take my backup folder at certain points in the season and compress it into a ZIP file that I can copy off to another device in case something happens.

I back up on an external hard drive, too.

Right now it only take 15 seconds to back up my latest small 24-team league... my new computer is great and really fast... it is in its 3rd season with no minor leagues... very small league.

I will see how long it takes to back up my Islandian Pro Alliance, a 64-team league with 73 seasons... it used to take endless hours to back it up on my old computer... 18 hours... I recently deleted the 72-year-old archives... so it may be a lot quicker now, especially without the archives and using the new computer.

[Eugene Church]

Many thanks to all of you who responded... this is very helpful information.
I really appreciate it.

[jg2977]

I've only been choosing "start backup". Maybe I should choose "copy all files" and copy it to my external hard drive. Thanks for the info everyone.

[Ktulu]

I don't even bother with the in game backup, I just manually zip my league folder and copy to another drive.

C:\Users\Username\Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 22\saved_games

Right click LeagueName.lg
Select your program of choice (7zip) > add to LeagueName(date or some description).lg.zip
Copy file to another drive

Usually do this every Jan 1 or before making any structural changes to the game. Then set the in game auto-save to once a month or week.

If you need your backup just unzip it to your saved games folder.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Ktulu

I don't even bother with the in game backup, I just manually zip my league folder and copy to another drive.

C:\Users\Username\Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 22\saved_games

Right click LeagueName.lg
Select your program of choice (7zip) > add to LeagueName(date or some description).lg.zip
Copy file to another drive

Usually do this every Jan 1 or before making any structural changes to the game. Then set the in game auto-save to once a month or week.

If you need your backup just unzip it to your saved games folder.

Thanks for the help and advice... much appreciated.

[eriqjaffe]

Another option:

1. Install Google Drive for Desktop (https://www.google.com/drive/download/). That will create a "G:" drive on your computer with 15 gigs of free storage which should be more than enough for a few leagues. You can always buy more storage if you wind up needing it but that's unlikely.
2. Choose "G:\backups" (you might need to create the "backups" folder, I think you can do that from inside OOTP) instead of "C:\users\danny\blah\blah\blah\backups" and use that folder as your "Backup" folder.
3. Back up either way in-game.

The benefit of that is that the backups will automatically by synced to the cloud so even if your hard drive dies (which is pretty unlikely regardless) you can retrieve the backup from the internet. The first sync will probably take a while, but subsequent backups will sync much quicker, especially if you just use the "Start backup" option.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Thanks for the help... appreciate it.

copy all files if it is a new backup... and you had "1" before.

the other is incremental. it will only save files that have changed since the last backup. This saves a lot of time and what you should use under any normal circumstances.

The only reason you need to "copy all files" is if you move or rename the current backup folder and want to create a 'new' backup.... anything akin to that you want to choose the 'copy all files'

* the first time you backup it does copy all files, technically.. .but after that point it is incremental.

[Eugene Church]

Thanks to erikjaffe and No Pepper for the help and advice.
Really appreciate you taking the time to help and explain backing up to me.

[curt]

I manually copy and past my game, then rename it according to the season date. I have a folder for saves on a separate SSD.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by curt

I manually copy and past my game, then rename it according to the season date. I have a folder for saves on a separate SSD.

Thanks for the advice and the reply.

[andjbock]

You should copy your world.dat file to dropbox, icloud, or drive etc. This is the only file you truly need to restore your game's data.

Saved Games --> YourLeague.lg --> world.dat

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by andjbock

You should copy your world.dat file to dropbox, icloud, or drive etc. This is the only file you truly need to restore your game's data.

Saved Games --> YourLeague.lg --> world.dat

Just to make sure I understand... I would have all league history, standings, stats and graphics if I just copied the world. dat from the saved game league... right?

Should I need to restore it, I would just have to copy the world.dat to the world.dat folder.

[andjbock]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Just to make sure I understand... I would have all league history, standings, stats and graphics if I just copied the world. dat from the saved game league... right?

Should I need to restore it, I would just have to copy the world.dat to the world.dat folder.

Assuming you also had to uninstall the game or got a new computer, the graphics would be the only thing that can have an issue. All facegen data is stored in the world.dat and each player will 100% retain their specific face. The sepia tone or angle at which they are shown will have to be changed back to what you like.

Logo information is stored too but I believe those images rely on a file path so anything other than the default logos the game comes with have to backed up and then dropped into the logo folder. I'm not sure if those transfer to the saved_game.lg --> news --> html --> photos folder