AC will NOT remember settings

[Piero Favretti]

Hello

I will try to be brief, forgive me is I seem frustrated but I am, very much so, and have been since Assetto Corsa came out.

The short of it is; if I play AC on a daily basis the game seems to remember my settings. If I don't use it for a period of time once I log in EVERYTHING IS GONE!

I have read I am not the only one having this issue, now on 2 different PCs, in Windows 7 and Windows 10. I have tried everything and every suggestion on the internet, yet this incredibly irritating and time consuming issue persists.

Can someone please point to a solution? Otherwise I will permanently uninstall this SIM and be done with it. Please understand I have an AccuForce wheel, AC does not (in my opinion) have the best FFB out there, getting it to feel right with the AccuForce is a time consuming process. Yes, I have the settings saved in the SimCommander software, curiously when AC loses it's internal settings it never feels the same way so I have to go tweak this or tweak that.

Again, if I seem unreasonable or hard on AC please understand this is an issue I have dealt with since it came out and I have wasted enough time on a no brainier issue the game should not have. By the way, AC is the ONLY game having this issue even when no new updates or patches have come out.

Any helpful feedback to permanently resolve this issue is appreciated. Thank you!

PS; I forgot to mention when this happens, after a period without usage, the game acts as if I just installed it, even my saved replays are gone...everything is gone except for my profile curiously.

 

[TheMixon]

For me AC is very touchy about how I connect my wheel, for example. I have to do it the same way, same USB ports (used to be a problem, now I just connect everything to a dongle). If I run the game just to check something without having my wheel connected, it deletes all the settings. Basically I have to steer clear of anything related to steering, or else AC will delete everything.

I don't do much but assigning pedals and stuff, but it deters me from trying to go in-depth. Also yeah, it seems that when AC is in doubt, it wipes everything.

It pains me greatly, as no other game has ever done something like that.

 

[Jempy]

I never encountered this problem and never heard of it for other ones ( and I was and am rather present in many forums since the very beginning of AC ).

I just wonder why this might happen.... there must be something in common in the PC configs for those rare ones having this kind of problem.

I now have a SSD for +- 1 year .... but all simracing games including Steam are on my SSHD ... and my Documents also, the SSD with only Win10 and most softwares except games.

Might it only be a problem due to the way your PC is configured with SSD-HDD-Documents-Windows ?? ... or Administrator rights ? .... or maybe a conflict with a used software or even antivirus suite ? .... I don't know why but I should search first for a problem there.

The best should be that you might compare your configs with others with the same problem.

 

[Kek700]

I do not use sim commander I just use
the settings stored in the accuforce wheel.
All I ever did was endlessly fiddle with the settings.
I find using just wheel settings and settings
In AC provides a very good results.
When setting have been made in AC,save them to your setting in ac ( example accuf1)
Never had your problem unless I did not save in AC.
There is in my view only one sim that has better FFB and that is ractor2. AC is very close.

 

[Piero Favretti]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
@Kek700 SimCommander is not the issue, the issue is AC itself. How can it lose all saved settings? How can it lose all the saved replay files?

@Jempy I run all the games and software as administrator, I do have all the games saved on a HD other than my boot SSD drive. How can settings be fine if I use the SIM or twice a week, suddenly gone if I don't play it for 2-3 weeks?

@TheMixon You would think a fix would have been applied long ago for the settings disappearing. I get how people enjoy AC when it's running perfectly, but this kind of bugginess has me pulling my hair and wanting to delete it all together.

I don't get why these issues only affect a handful of people, I wish I could find a permanent solution and/or for Kunos to FIX this once and for all.

 

[Kek700]

Go into steam and do an integrity check on AC
and see if any of AC is corrupted.

My pc runs entirely from a SSD.

You could start from the position of copying
my process, and mimicking my system approach as it is similar to yours,
Load setting to accuforce wheel itself, not using all the variables from simcommander4 , shut
Simcommander4 down, start AC ( not from sim commander ) adjust AC parameters, for steering and pedals ,then save settings and see if it is saved permanently

All I do is turn on pc, accuforce goes though
It’s initiation, load AC, and I then always go straight into race mode.

 

[Kek700]

Don’t forget to set AC wheel rotation to match
accuforce wheel rotation, I always use 540 degrees as an example.

 

[Piero Favretti]

Go into steam and do an integrity check on AC
and see if any of AC is corrupted.

My pc runs entirely from a SSD.

You could start from the position of copying
my process, and mimicking my system approach as it is similar to yours,
Load setting to accuforce wheel itself, not using all the variables from simcommander4 , shut
Simcommander4 down, start AC ( not from sim commander ) adjust AC parameters, for steering and pedals ,then save settings and see if it is saved permanently

All I do is turn on pc, accuforce goes though
It’s initiation, load AC, and I then always go straight into race mode.

Thank you for the suggestion Kek700, I will give it a try and report back.

 

[Mascot]

Are you using the default Kunos launcher? If so, try Content Manager. You can save and edit multiple profiles easily.

 

[Brun]

Controller assignment is simply based on the order in which devices appear in Windows Game Controllers control panel. Any changes to this and it's very likely the configuration will be lost.

It was probably done like this initially because it's the easiest way, and works well enough if - for example - you're using a Thrustmaster setup where wheel, pedals and shifter are all see as one device (and don't regularly connect and disconnect other things like gamepads). However it's absolutely terrible when using hardware which is seen independently. Kunos were no doubt aware of this at some stage but a solution was clearly never considered a priority.

Mascot's suggestion of Content Manager is worth following. I think (not 100% sure) that it doesn't suffer from this problem.

 

[Pawel Ziolkowski]

Controller assignment is simply based on the order in which devices appear in Windows Game Controllers control panel. Any changes to this and it's very likely the configuration will be lost.

It was probably done like this initially because it's the easiest way, and works well enough if - for example - you're using a Thrustmaster setup where wheel, pedals and shifter are all see as one device (and don't regularly connect and disconnect other things like gamepads). However it's absolutely terrible when using hardware which is seen independently. Kunos were no doubt aware of this at some stage but a solution was clearly never considered a priority.

Don't think that's how it works. I have been disabling (in registry), unplugging, hotswapping, etc. many different devices including virtual and DIY hardware and AC always remembered what was doing what.

I suspect it's the windows dropping and assigning new ID's to the hardware that's causing an issue and that probably has something to do with how it manages it's drivers.

Not saying it's not possible to do it right, other sims can do it, but i think it's because the devs there went the extra mile to fix whatever mess the windows makes, and it's not easy to even know the full range of possibilities of how it can fail, let alone design around it.

 

[Brun]

Posts from

Don't think that's how it works.

It's exactly how it works. See here.

 

[TheMixon]

I suspect something along the lines of what Brun wrote. After my settings are wiped, I usually find everything assigned to the shifter for some reason.
I'll try to do it in CM next time it happens.

Edit: Jesus, do I see right? Are those posts from 2016? It's impressive Kunos managed to produce such a good product and then completely disregard bug fixes. Not to mention stuff like the VR UI being awful.

 

[Piero Favretti]

All, thank you replying. I have saved controller settings every time in between everything disappearing. Remember that all my replays vanish. This is an issue not limited to the controller settings, it's as if I did a new install.

 

[Jempy]

After reading this USB bug for AC, I may understand the problem with the controller settings .... but also replays vanishing seems to point to another problem in your case.

Did you check that other files in your Documents are not also disappearing ?
The fact you mentioned that it happened only after a longer period not playing AC .... makes me think it should be good to check other documents in your PC.

I already heard about a virus deleting some files after a certain amount of time.

 

[Piero Favretti]

After reading this USB bug for AC, I may understand the problem with the controller settings .... but also replays vanishing seems to point to another problem in your case.

Did you check that other files in your Documents are not also disappearing ?
The fact you mentioned that it happened only after a longer period not playing AC .... makes me think it should be good to check other documents in your PC.

I already heard about a virus deleting some files after a certain amount of time.

Jempy
Sorry for not replying sooner, I've been traveling. No virus, this has only ever happened with AC a couple of times. I tried playing it again yesterday, as usual all the settings were gone although the profile was still there but no mappings. It is a real shame Kunos has not bothered to properly fix this title , it could have endured like the original rFactor. Cheers

 

[Stereo]

AC just saves its config in files, if the files aren't there next time it looks that's not a bug in AC, it's something about your windows install making the files unavailable. Especially the replays, once you save them AC has no reason to edit them.

 

[Jempy]

Same conclusion as Stereo .... the problem lies elsewhere than in AC and Documents/Assetto Corsa.
Or in Windows itself ( with a for me unknown reason ) or maybe due to a tool you're using on your PC as it happened with Win7 or Win10.

Files are not vanishing out of your PC by themselves ... there's something in your PC doing this not wished operation.

It looks like that when you start AC after a longer period unused, your Documents/Assetto Corsa are gone or AC doesn't recognize them ( Why ? ...I don't know ) and AC creates a new folder, which might explain why the replays are gone and surely other files too.

 

[Deleted member 379375]

Why not copy the Documents/Assetto Corsa folder to a removable drive and the reload or compare them next time you run AC

 

[Piero Favretti]

AC just saves its config in files, if the files aren't there next time it looks that's not a bug in AC, it's something about your windows install making the files unavailable. Especially the replays, once you save them AC has no reason to edit them.

Same conclusion as Stereo .... the problem lies elsewhere than in AC and Documents/Assetto Corsa.
Or in Windows itself ( with a for me unknown reason ) or maybe due to a tool you're using on your PC as it happened with Win7 or Win10.

Files are not vanishing out of your PC by themselves ... there's something in your PC doing this not wished operation.

It looks like that when you start AC after a longer period unused, your Documents/Assetto Corsa are gone or AC doesn't recognize them ( Why ? ...I don't know ) and AC creates a new folder, which might explain why the replays are gone and surely other files too.

Thank you for the feedback. By the way, for all I know the replay files are all in my PC still. I never bothered to go find them, I just deleted every directory and folder and re-installed the game. The replays disappeared from within the game.

Here is the question that persists in my mind and makes me think you are wrong; why is this happening ONLY with Assetto Corsa?

I have a couple of dozen games, racing or not, as well as software, none have had this kind of weirdness happen like in AC. Even when I used it daily the controller mappings had to be reset almost every day. To this day I have not been able to map certain functions to controllers, controllers that work across all games and functions. Sorry, but I think despite their enormous success Kunos decided to ignore certain significant bugs that few experienced.

I am open to this being due to a bug not related to AC but so far all the evidence points to it given it is the common denominator. For me AC had great potential given the available content and flexibility. I wanted to love this title, it never gave me a chance given the persistent bugs. Cheers