First of all I'd like to say that I tested this myself and that I managed to get my savegame from my iOS device, running on my Android device. Since the 4th of September I even managed to get it back to work on my iOS device.

I was playing the game on my iPad Mini 2 when suddenly on a morning, the game didn't open any more. I opened it and it was stuck on the opening screen for about 4 seconds, then a black screen and then a crash to the home screen. I tried everything: removing some apps, transfering photo's and video's to my computer to get some more space, numerous restarting of the iPad, installed some system monitoring apps to try to see what was going on, tried understanding the crash logs,... Nothing helped. And I really didn't want to just reinstall the game, because then I'd lose my precious vault with my 80+ dwellers in it.

But then I found a way to retrieve the savegame.

Here's the steps to backup your savegame:

1. Connect the iOS device to your computer.


2. Open iTunes, make a backup of your device and wait until it is fully finished.


3. Disconnect your iOS device from your computer.


4. Install a program called "iExplorer" (you can either buy it for $35 or download a cracked version which is rather easy to find nowadays, just do whatever suits you).


5. Use iExplorer to open the newly made backup: navigate to "Browse iTunes Backups > [deviceType] device of [deviceName] > Backup Explorer > AppDomain-com.gamesas.falloutshelter > Documents".


6. Right-click on the file named "Vault1.sav" and choose "Export to Folder...", save it on your desktop.

There you have it. A backup of your savegame.

Since I also have a Android phone (Huawei Ascend P7), I decided to try and get it on my phone. I installed Fallout Shelter on my phone, transferred the savegame to my phone memory (the directory was Android/data/com.gamesas.falloutshelter/files/). Then I started the game and guess what? My savegame worked!

So here's a fun fact: savegames can be transferred from iOS to Android. And the other way around works too.

In case you want to keep on playing it on your iOS device, you can do so by doing the same steps as above but with these extra steps:

1. Completely remove Fallout Shelter from your device (make sure you have your savegame(s) from your backup on your computer!).


2. Reinstall Fallout Shelter.


3. Start Fallout Shelter, make a dummy vault with the same vault number as the vault you want to restore, and finish the demo. Then close Fallout Shelter on your device.


4. Connect your iOS device to your computer and make another full backup of your device using iTunes (this might go surprisingly fast).


5. Disconnect your iOS device from your computer.


6. On your desktop, open your original backup of your vault savegame in Notepad (it will probably still be called "Vault1.sav"). It will look like garbled text, this is normal. Select all the text in this file and then copy it.


7. Open iExplorer and navigate to "Browse iTunes Backups > [deviceType] device of [deviceName] > Backup Explorer > AppDomain-com.gamesas.falloutshelter > Documents".


8. You will again see a file named "Vault1.sav". This is the savegame of the DUMMY file. We are going to overwriteit.


9. Right-click on the file named "Vault1.sav" in iExplorer. Click on the option "View in Explorer...".


10. Right-click on the highlighted file in your explorer (it will have a weird name and the file extension is just "file") and open it in Notepad.


11. Select everything in this file and paste the text you copied earlier, thus overwriting the dummy vault. Save the file and close it.


12. Close iExplorer.


13. Connect your iOS device to your computer.


14. Open iTunes. Choose to restore a backup. Let the restore process take its time until the backup has been put back on your iOS device.


15. Disconnect your iOS device from your computer after the backup has completed.


16. Launch Fallout Shelter and enjoy your vault!

You now know how to make a backup of your savegame. How to put it on an Android device. And how to reinstall the game and place your original savegame back on your iOS device. All tested by me and confirmed as working by me. http://imgur.com/w82gdtP,3s78Ozs#0, taken with my iPad. And http://imgur.com/w82gdtP,3s78Ozs#1, taken with my Huawei.

Do let me know if these steps have helped you and if you transferred it from iOS to Android or from iOS back to iOS.

AWESOME message TinyBouvier yet in my case did not work with my load crash vault. My vault file size is 1.2 mb and so I believe it is the filesize which crashes this. On another note I have now backed up my second vault which is 100 DWELLER almost all MAXED STATS and so now I have the peace of mind with this Backup fix since we should not expect Bethesda to help.

I just updated my answer with more clear steps because since yesterday I figured out how to get it back to work on my iOS device. It takes a while to get it all fixed, I think it took me about 15-20 minutes, but then again I was trying it for the first time.

This is just an idea to help you, but if you have a Android device somewhere you can load the backup of your savegame there, downsize your population a bit or remove a few rooms (maybe sell a few guns or outfits) and hopefully that will decrease the size of your vault. You can then try the newly added steps to place your savegame back on your iOS device.

I do however have a feeling that it might not have anything to do with the vault file size. My vault was around 500KB when it crashed, and now I got my vault running on my iOS device again but now it's 730KB. I think it's a bug in the code somewhere, causing it to corrupt the game files.

Thanks for letting me know you were able to make a backup of your second vault.

Awesome. Thanks for all the help. Interested to see if someone has reported success with a 1mb+ vault file size following the steps above?!

The chances of a forum moderator actually reading this is probably pretty slim, but if you do: please pin this? You haven't offered any advice or suggestions so far, and in absence of this, helping the community support itself seems like the best idea.

Any non-computer dependent solution ... My laptop died ...

Why hasn't a moderator given any info about this problem? It has been made known since the update. The "support center" says to go to the forums and start a thread, which people (including myself) have done in the general discussion and support forums, but there has been no news. How can multiple posts all saying the same thing not throw up a red flag? At least let us know if/when a fix is coming.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1530996-largest-of-3-vaults-crashes-within-minutes/

Sorry, I'm afraid I can currently only offer you a solution that requires a computer.

http://www.gamesas.com/user/960798-tinybouvier/, thank you. Your solution worked perfectly fine for me.

Game opened as always, anything was saved.

Glad to hear it worked for you.

I had messaged a forum moderator about this; the moderator had a look at the post and has no problem keeping the thread up, but because of the way the workaround works, he cannot pin it as a supported workaround. Which is understandable of course.

Seriously?

But everything else is useful, thanks ...

For the record, I purchased iExplorer because I think it's brilliant and useful. Worth every dollar.

I'm just saying a cracked version -can- be found online rather easy, for those among us who don't want to spend $35 to fix a game. Because not everyone wants to spend money on something without being guaranteed that these steps will work. For some of us, the fix in my post works. For others, it doesn't. I just want to be able to help as much users as possible, and in the end it's still their choice whether or not they buy iExplorer.

So with high hopes of this working, I tried this now on my 2nd vault which had been built up and now died. NO SUCCESS! FAILURE! I'm on an iphone 5s and I tried this workaround on 2 vaults now with no success of this method working. I have now abandoned Fallout Shelter to the WASTELAND and given up on Bethesda as a good customer support company. 2 Vaults, hundreds of hours down! Shame on Bethesda for not responding with any answer and letting fans fall into the void of silence with this game.

OK, I appreciate that this may be the case ..

I hope bethesda will implement some kind of cloud save in the medium term.