Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Technical Issues Inventory bugged (strange empty spaces)

Hi, I've encountered a strange technical issue with my game (Enhanced Edition). When I open the inventory of my main character, there seem to be empty spaces that presist even after sorting the inventory (including the remove empty option). When I wanted to manually fill the gaps by other items, the items in the inventory started to move, as if I was trying to swap two items.

This is not the first technical problem I've encountered. Earlier, I was forced to move back to my last manual save, because all the quick and auto saves suddenly became corrupted. I have not tampered with the game nor the saves in any way, I am not using any mod, the game is fully updated through steam and I don't really own any antivirus except for basic Windows 10 Defender.
(I'm telling this because someone from Larian told me (on steam forums) that AV sofware or firewall can cause save game issues.)

I am bumping this, I would really like to finish my campaign (so I might buy and enjoy D:OSII), but I really don’t want to risk corrupting my saves again, so I haven’t touched my save since I reported this.

Alas, I can't help you with your D:OS problem, but if your save files really got corrupted without any apparent reason, your hard drive may be failing. You should do a S.M.A.R.T. test of the drive. Search the web for "windows 10 smart test" for instructions.

Also, you should backup your existing good save(s) on a different drive immediately if they're that valiable to you. Multiple "normal" saves alongside the quick and auto saves are recommended, if you have the space. I make one at the end of every playing session.

Besides, regular backups of all your important files are highly advisable (there's a saying among the tech-savvy that data without backup isn't important by definition). I would recommend at least two local backup hard drives for rotating backups which you should stash at a secure place. If you encrypt the backups, you can store them at work or with friends, neighbours etc.

Well, it's true that it might be because of my HDD failing (there would be other indications for it, such as BSODs), but I haven't really considered it a possible source of random corruption of just quick- and autosaves (also probably because I have never had any problem with data loss with this drive). It seems I will just wait for my new PC with continuation of my campaign.

Most failing drives had no problems before they begin to die, and visible signs like BSODs occur only if the "right" files are compromised. Many errors can go unnoticed until you access the affected files again.

Just last week one of my NAS' harddisks was stopped because of i/o errors, a s.m.a.r.t. test on my PC confirmed them. Fortunately, a immediate backup showed only 18 damaged files out of the thousands on the NAS. I still have to check if I have intact copies of those files in one of my regular backups I make every other month since the data on the NAS doesn't change that often.

In retrospective, I can say that having backups does wonder on one's nerves in case of hardware failure.

So, just to be (reasonably) safe I would strongly recommend a s.m.a.r.t. test of your drive and a backup of all data whose loss would give you more than a shrug of the shoulders. The test is easily done on most operation systems and it may save you from even more distress.

Thanks for the warning. I will most probably have a new PC in a few weeks time, but it's a good thing to know in the future.

If you are still having this problem, try verifying local files:
In the Steam library, right click on Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition and select Properties, switch to the Local Files tab and then click on the 'Verify Integrity of Game Cache...' button.
With the GOG version, in the (optional) Galaxy client, select Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition in the left column, then click on the More button, and in the Manage menu select 'Verify / Repair'.