Well, all my apps also come from the playstore;

About the iPhone version, cannot say much, and the only Android version bug I heard of is the "0 byte savegame" one, that seems to happen when the game crashes while saving. Thus, we have a "Do not turn off your computer while saving icon is displayed" issue. Problem here is that there's no save display icon, but you cannt do much here, and even without the display icon, this is of common sense

By my logic (can mostly talk about Android version): Issue is that when it needs to save, something makes it crash, and that corrupts the savefile.

- Can it be agame issue? I have three devices and haven't had that issue on them of them, but that's just me. In fact, FoS seems to load savegames to memory when the application starts, or at least it keeps a loaded vault on memory once loaded (on Android this is easy to spot since you can scum-backup and scum-restore vaults. If you scum-restore with FoS staying at the main menu, game doesn't load the file, but instead seems to load from what it had stored in memory). Probably on iOS works the same way.

- Can it be an OS issue? Android's a jungle so it's totally possible, game demands OS access in a way a custom launcher and frontend it might not like.

- Can it be a third party issues? I've had enough antivirus and firewall issues at work blocking even database backups to know it's a common problem. Maybe game saves data in a specific pattern some thir party programs do not like, like the antivirus test file 99% of the AV software is coded to recognize as dangerous. For example, when FoS tries to "dump" the save out of memory into the file, something might consider this any kind of "attack"

- - -

And no... I haven't looked on any of the support forums... because I seem to be one of those 99+% "lucky" guys that have a perfectly working game, so I haven't had the need to complain; I just play the game.

And about those clean and dirty environments. As I said you may test your app in some "not so clean" environments (basic, commonly installed apps on most devices), but you probably won't test your app on a device you wouldn't dare to touch with a 10 foot pole. Apple's App testing is controlled by Xcode and only on registered devices, and Beth probably would not release the app on iOs (specially taking into account that it was first releaded on iOS), if all the tests weren't successful (since Apple validation comes later).

I've had this happen to me twice now. I still see no patch in site but thanks to the experience both times I believe I can see what the issue is, the games loading sequence when first initialized does not like interruptions. The first time the game froze and crashed and stopped working for me I was loading it up as I got a Facebook popup, I clicked said popup believing the game would load up in the background but it did not. The second time was 15 minutes ago. As the game has loaded I got a call and it's scrambled it again. I've made a copy of my save and hopefully the vault will survive until there is a patch.

It seems that the iphone bug and the Android bug are at least somewhat connected since it's resulting in the game crashing and then not letting you back in again afterwards. It's all well and good to not interrupt a game in the process of saving on a console. Not inturupting it on devices like phones that are going to have pop ups is completely different. I have games that continuously save on my phone and do not have this same issue so it's definitely avoidable. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by common sense. Never exiting or interrupting the game when it might be saving which could be at any point in time? How are you supposed to guess that? And again, it is possible to design a game where the saving continues in the background when apps are switched and yet this game doesn't seem to be designed like that or at least has a bug that causes it to not always work like that. That isn't a good way to design a game that runs on devices that for the most part utilize multitasking and have pop up windows.

I don't really have experience with with Androids so I'm not sure if you mean basically that when you switch between open applications, the game is already loaded rather than starting at the main menu? If so, it did that with me plenty of times too though not all the time.

The problem is happening across the board so it seems more that they have a bug when it comes to multitasking and the game running properly during that.

I don't have any added on antivirus or firewall apps and I don't believe I have any apps that should be interacting with the app other than the phone's camera after they added the picture option into FoS.

My point about the forums was that you are making a lot of comments about the people experiencing this bug and if you haven't seen that area of the forums, you probably don't have the whole picture of just how much it is happening and what is going on. And you know really if Bethesda were even to come out and say that they've checked and it's not a problem with the game itself that would be something. Even if I didn't really agree with them, my point has been that there is a large amount of people who can't even open the game and are trying to get help and despite being told that the best way to bring it to Bethesda's attention is to post in the forums, the communication on the Bethesda side has been very much lacking. Games that are put out on Xbox and Playstation are also put through testing and have to manage within certain standards. That doesn't mean that we never get a horrible glitchy game. I get that they had to be approved by Apple. That doesn't mean that the process is perfect or that nothing is missed.

I am professional developer and in my opinion, loss of save file can be prevented even in case that the app crashes while saving data.


App that uses local save file can maintain multiple versions of save file and save file will have CRC checksum at end that app can check for its validity.


In case of crash or last save file is corrupted or truncated, app will fall back to older save file. Then some progress may be lost but the vault remain intact even case of app crash while saving.


Such use of backup save file is technically easy to implement and quite standard practice. Storage space is not an issue.


With such simple measure most of loss of vault can be prevented and as long as the vault data is preserved, crashing become not so serious issue.


Refusing to implement such simple measure can be considered intentional negligence or even fraud. I think that such criminal negligence is subject to reporting to BBB.

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I don't know if there are hundreds, or even thousands of complains... but the comparison should be made between the players complaining (and lets say that just a 25% of the players with your issue are requesting assistance on Beth's forums) against all users who have downloaded the game, on Apple Store or on Google Play. And at least on GPlay, there are millions of FoS downloads. Even if there are 1000 complains in the forums about this issue... players with that isue would still be less than 0,1% of the total players.

As I said... the ones having problems will be the only ones complaining (and not all of them will complain). Any player that doesn't have that issue will not complain... he/she simply plays the game.

Start sueing then. I hope you have time, because the list of "criminally negligent" companies is going to be veeeeeery long.

You may start with Nintendo and all pokemon series, then 2K with Bioshock games. Beth also will all Elder Scrolls and Fallout, Mojang with his minecraft, Konami for his MG5 (recently found), EA with their Sims and Dragon Age series, Ubisoft with their Assassins Creed ones, WB games and their Batman series...

Seems the entire videogame industry are just a bunch of criminals. Specially companies like Square, that sometimes actually corrupted your game on purpose... (oh, those old SNES times...).

Thoses who wrote complaint in this forum is just small tip of iceburg. Most people who lost their vault due to crash simply utters some curse words and lose interest on FOS, uninstall game from their phone and leave to other games and forget it.


Someone with more remaing interest in it will goggle or visit reddit to dig information on the problem and abandon hope. Most player does not know that the FOS has this forum for customer service.


Only very small dedicated people will take time to write complaint on this forum. If a game has one customer that actually write complaint on vendors forum, there may be hundreds or thousands of people who experience the same problem but not bothering to post complaint and remain silent.


Of course many other games, especially mobile games have their share of problems, but it does not make them all subject to reporting.


But priblems of FOS is paticularily severe and not fixed for too long time. Among recent memory of mobile games that I played, FOS is THE worst one in software quality. I never experienced such severe game breaking problem and not fixed fir long time other than FOS among recent mobile games.


Loss of savefile is unthinkable for modern consumer mobile games. It is very serious accident. Maybe THE worst kind of accident that can happen to mobile game. Such kind of urgent problem should be fixed within few days, not few weeks.


Just imagine that the Clash of Clan or Candy Crush Saga start to lose the saved game user data, Then it will make a head line in game press like IGN. And the compnay will face sure multiple litigation from hord of angry consumers.

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Nowhere have I said I do not like the game. In fact I like this game however I can't play it due to its bugs. This has nothing to do with maniacs/graphics/play style of this game. It has everything to do with the clearly 'fraudulent activity' of providing a game with known, game stopping bugs in it which cost people real money.

Not everyone who pays for content then has a crash is going to ask for a refund. Fool on them you say but I say this is very unfair on those people who do not realise what has happened and don’t know they can get their money back.

I bet you laugh at all those old people getting scammed by door to door sales men…

Anyway if the game gets enough reports then iTunes/Play should question what Bethesda and push them into getting either a fix or remove their in game purchases. If it’s the latter then Bethesda would be daft to not solve the problem and gain some more capital for minimum outlay.

Anyone who uses the ‘it’s a FOC game’ as an excuse for Bethesda activity is missing the point completely.

I See many Nice words in here.

Fact 1: it is a free Game of Young arme not buy in Game boxes for more stuff---- result it is not free anymore becouse you can Start free bist for more Thinks you have to Pay!

Fact 2: iOS 9 the Game is Working free... I Test it without changes in My device ( mobile )

But @ the Moment you buy boxes the Game is crashing in My Device @ the next Startup.

Every simple App has a saved Game or credits in the Cloud but not this game.


So many of you are Playing it for free, and it is not crashing. Nice for you.... But your coment is bot helping us, so please Shut up.

We, WHO are having this problems about game crash, We payed money for it. So We have the dammed right to Write here down what is going wrong

Fact 3: you Write the Support.... But get no answer or just " look into this Forum"


And yes if you Report this into iTunes it is changing somethink: it is worning others to spend Money in it. If there is just one Person Reading this and he spend no Money Till next patsch. It worked for me.

-Sign- you are Right !!!!!!

I got my money back by filing a dispute with PayPal. A few hundred disputes should get Googles attention faster than reporting it to the PlayStore or iTunes IMO.

Do this instead:

https://www.reddit.com/r/foshelter/comments/3h7pdf/android_corrupted_save_game_made_purchases_get/

Thank you for good info.

I will bump this info regulaly or repost it for affected others.

It won't hurt the developer. Just the people who aren't having those kind of problems with the game.