How to Fish Save Fix: Game Name Slots, Backup & Transfer

What Patch 1.0.11 changed for save safety

Dazed Games now says save files are always checked for corruption before loading and have backups in case they become corrupt. These are official Patch 1.0.11 safeguards, replacing the older need to describe corruption prevention only as a hopeful 1.0.9 fix.

All save slots say “Game Name” after a crash

Preserve the files before trying to repair this state. A September 1 Reddit report says a PC crash was followed by all six slots displaying Game Name; none could be loaded or deleted in game, and creating a new usable save was also blocked.

Dazed Games’ official Patch 1.0.6 previously added save validation so invalid entries would no longer appear as fake servers named Game Name. The fresh report therefore establishes a possible regression or unhandled corruption case, not proof that every Game Name slot has the same cause.

1. Close the game and Steam first. Do not create another slot or keep clicking the broken entries.
2. Copy the entire game-data folder. Preserve the full How to Fish folder under LocalLow in a separate dated location before changing anything.
3. Locate the Saves subfolder on your PC. Current reports show publisher-folder spellings such as DazedGames and Dazed Games; confirm the active path by its modified time instead of creating a guessed folder.
4. Work only on a duplicate. Move one clearly suspect file at a time out of the duplicate Saves folder, then test whether the remaining slots return. Never delete all saves and never use the untouched backup as the experiment.
5. Stop when the suspect file is not clear. Keep filenames and timestamps intact and ask in the developer-linked Community Discord rather than guessing across multiple files.

Accidentally deleted your How to Fish save?

Stop creating new slots or overwriting remaining files. Copy the entire LocalLow How to Fish folder once the game is closed, and keep any older dated backup separate. The Save button writes the current state; it cannot undo a deletion.

An August 29 Steam report describes an accidentally deleted Island 4 save. A reply suggested changing a backup file into a save file, but the author later said that attempt changed nothing. The thread establishes a recovery problem, not a working restore procedure.

1. Preserve what remains. Keep filenames, timestamps and the whole folder together. Do not rename or edit the only copy.
2. Check your own earlier copies. Look for a manual backup made before the deletion. If you had a device-backup service enabled, inspect its history without replacing the current files yet.
3. Distinguish deletion from a missing slot. Record whether you pressed the in-game delete control, removed files in Explorer, or simply opened the game and found no campaign.
4. Ask for version-specific recovery guidance. Use the developer-linked Community Discord with the last known island, deletion method and available backup dates. Keep full save folders out of public posts.
5. Restore only from a separate copy of your own known-good data. Preserve today's folder too, and do not overwrite it until the expected campaign and version have been identified.

If no intact backup exists, recovery is not established by the checked sources. Reinstalling the game or repeatedly saving a new session does not recreate the deleted progress. Main Menu, Quit and periodic autosave can write state, so do not treat continued play as a harmless recovery test.

Skins and fish both disappeared

A September 15 community report describes losing skins and the in-game fish index on the main PC after about 45 minutes of play on a laptop using the same Steam account. The player says campaign progress, achievements and weapon upgrades remained intact. This is one reported sequence, with no confirmed cause or recovery; it does not establish that Steam Cloud erased the collection.

Check which progress is actually missing

• Selected appearance: hold the matching equipment and cycle with the default Z/C controls. If the skin is still selectable, the appearance reset alone does not show a lost unlock.
• Skin unlocks: record which appearances are missing from the correct equipment's cycle.
• Inventory: check carried fish, weapons and items separately from the collection index.
• Fishipedia: open Tab and record entries that used to be completed but are now missing. This website's browser checklist is separate from the game and cannot restore those entries.
• Campaign: check the same host and world, island progress, upgrades and currency. A working campaign does not prove the skin collection or fish index is intact.

Preserve both devices before trying a recovery

Close How to Fish on both devices and make separate, dated copies of each complete local game-data folder. Stop repeated launches or attempts to upload the changed state. Keep the folders separate; do not mix profile files, delete a profile or overwrite either copy with a downloaded completed save.

Record the last known good device, the play order, each in-game profile name and any Steam sync message. The player reported different in-game profiles under the same Steam account; that detail does not identify a cause. The Cloud guide explains how this differs from uploading a known-good campaign. Ask Dazed Games for recovery guidance with the preserved copies; no tested file-by-file restore is available for this report.

Do dropped items save after Patch 1.0.10?

Yes—with a defined limit. Dazed Games now says the game saves up to 64 items dropped on the ground between sessions. When more objects compete for that capacity, weapons, tools, quest items and creatures receive priority.

This rule reverses the older expectation that loose world items always disappear on exit. It does not prove that current inventory-loss reports are solved, because inventory, equipped items and world objects use different states.

Items disappeared after a catch, death or reload

Patch 1.0.12 limits item velocity to make loose items harder to lose; it does not restore an item that is already gone. Identify the last place you saw the object before buying replacements or changing saves.

Guns disappear after a teammate revives you

A September 12 Steam player reports dying, being revived by a friend and finding their guns absent from the ground and water. This is a death-and-revival report, not a report of losing weapons after reloading a save. The post does not establish an intentional penalty, the cause or a working recovery.

Compare equipped slots, inventory and the death area with the teammate who performed the revive. Record the weapon names, island, dropped-weapon markers and whether both players see the same result. Patch 1.0.12 limits item velocity but does not promise restoration. Preserve a copy of the local game data before testing another session; saving the empty state does not recover the guns.

Save loads, but the entire inventory is empty

A September 12 Steam player reports playing for an hour, then loading a second time to find nothing in inventory. The post does not identify a device switch, Steam Cloud conflict, game version or cause, and the replies do not provide a recovery. This differs from a missing save slot, loose objects left on the ground, or one weapon lost after death.

Check that you opened the same campaign with the same host, then record the empty inventory and whether quests, cash and equipped slots also changed. Avoid repeated load-and-exit cycles to force a sync. Close the game and preserve the complete LocalLow game-data folder before trying a different copy; if another device still has the wanted state, protect that copy first.

Patch 1.0.10’s ground-item persistence, 1.0.11’s corruption backups and 1.0.12’s Steam Cloud support do not promise reconstruction of an empty inventory. Inventory loss alone does not establish that Cloud caused it. Compare local versus cross-device loss before changing synchronization, and keep the damaged copy alongside any dated backup for developer support.

Drip Seahorse disappeared after a screenshot

A September 6 player reported catching a Drip Seahorse, taking a screenshot and finding it gone. The report does not say whether it had entered inventory. Replies suggest a floor collision or a seagull, but neither cause nor a successful recovery is confirmed. Check the nearby ground, inventory and overhead birds before assuming the catch must be repeated.

Weapons fall out of the map after death

A separate September 7 report describes repeated sniper-rifle loss after death and explicitly rules out seagulls in that player’s account. Preserve the island, death location and host or guest state if it happens again. Do not jump into the void to chase an unreachable marker or treat the item-velocity patch as a restore command.

For a missing navigation tool, use the Radar shop checks. For a weapon left beside a dealer, use the accidental-sale checks. If the whole campaign differs after switching devices, follow Steam Cloud save sync.

Before testing a different save, close the game and keep a separate dated copy of the entire LocalLow How to Fish folder. Saving again records the present state; it does not undo the loss.

Patch 1.0.9 corruption fix: history, not recovery

Patch 1.0.9 said save-file corruption was hopefully fixed. That wording remains an attempted prevention fix, not a promise that every old save is repaired or that equipment already missing will be reconstructed.

The same announcement tells players who still cannot load a save, or whose game crashes while equipping weapons, to use the Community Discord guidance. It does not publish a universal item-restore button or rollback procedure in the patch note.

What Patch 1.0.6 officially changed

Dazed Games published a specific save change on August 23. The game now checks a save before loading it, no longer writes the local or server state when the application crashes, writes when the player presses Save, Main Menu or Quit, and continues to autosave every minute.

Game stays on the boat loading screen forever

A report captured on Patch 1.0.9 describes both Load and New Game remaining on the boat indefinitely, even after restarting Steam and running file integrity. Official notes through Patch 1.0.12 do not list a universal endless-boat fix. The symptom does not by itself prove the saved progress is corrupt: when a clean new game also stalls, program, startup or session state remains a separate branch.

Try Singleplayer only if it is not already the failing mode

In the older boat-loading discussion, an August 29 reply reports success with Host Game → Session Type → Singleplayer, and an August 31 reply confirms that result. After backing up the closed game's local data, choose that session type from Host Game and try loading the wanted campaign. Treat this as a community workaround for those players, not an official repair.

A separate September 12 player says the endless boat happens only in Singleplayer. If that matches your case, repeatedly selecting Singleplayer does not test a different path. Record the current mode and compare the affected save with one separate new game. Do not delete the campaign or change several settings together.

If the animation stops and the application crashes, use the boat-start crash checks. A boat missing after the world has loaded belongs to missing-boat help; neither symptom proves the same loading failure.

1. Do not delete, rename or replace the live folder yet. Close the game and copy the entire LocalLow How to Fish folder to a dated location.
2. Restart Steam completely once. Reopen the game and record whether the main menu and version text appear normally.
3. Compare the session type once. Use the Singleplayer test above only if that is not already the failing mode.
4. Run Steam file integrity once. This checks program files; it does not reconstruct inventory or campaign state.
5. Compare one clean new-game launch. Keep it separate from the affected save and stop if the game asks to overwrite the only slot.
6. Record the branch. Note whether the endless boat appears for Load, New Game or both, plus solo/host state and approximate wait time.
7. Use the official escalation route. Patch 1.0.9 sends continuing save-load failures to the Dazed Games Community Discord guidance.

How to Fish save file location on Windows

Current Windows-specific guides place the game’s local data under:

A current save-location guide identifies a Saves subfolder inside that directory. Player discussions also point to the Dazed Games area under AppData. Folder names can differ with build or profile state, so copy the entire How to Fish folder rather than guessing that one file is the whole save.

1. Close the game first. Use Save, then Main Menu or Quit so Patch 1.0.6 can finish its normal write.
2. Open the LocalLow path. Paste the path above into File Explorer. If it does not resolve, open %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow and browse to Dazed Games.
3. Confirm it is your active profile. Check the folder’s modified time against the last clean in-game save.
4. Copy, do not move. Keep the live folder in place and create a separate backup.
5. Do not download another player’s save. A different version, host or inventory state is not a safe replacement for your own data.

Does How to Fish have Steam Cloud?

Yes. Dazed Games added Steam Cloud in Patch 1.0.12. For a campaign created before the update, launch How to Fish once on the device where that save already exists, confirm it is the wanted campaign, then leave through Main Menu or Quit and close the game so Steam can upload it.

This explicit patch announcement is the current game-specific answer even though the Steam store feature panel had not yet added a Cloud label during the September 5 check. Follow the complete Steam Cloud upload and Deck/PC sync guide before opening a second device.

• Start on the device with the wanted save, not a blank or older destination.
• Keep the source LocalLow folder until the destination opens, saves and reopens the expected campaign.
• If both devices contain different progress, close the game everywhere and make a dated backup of each before resolving the sync.
• Do not assume Cloud can merge two campaigns, restore already-missing equipment or recover an intentionally deleted save.

Can you transfer a How to Fish save to another PC or friend?

You can test a manual folder copy without sacrificing either player’s data, but current sources do not prove that a host world will load correctly under another Steam account. One September 1 Steam thread asks whether four friends can receive the host’s save and continue when the host is absent; it has no confirmed result. A separate player says signing into their own Steam account on a friend’s PC still showed only the friend’s local worlds.

1. Finish a clean save on the source PC. Press Save, leave through Main Menu or Quit, and close the game.
2. Back up both machines. Copy each complete LocalLow How to Fish folder to a separately named dated location.
3. Transfer a copy, never the only original. Keep all companion files together rather than sending one guessed slot file.
4. Preserve the destination player’s folder. Move it aside as a backup before testing the copied folder; do not merge unknown files in place.
5. Test the world and a new save cycle. Confirm the expected host world, inventory and island progress, then save, exit normally and reopen once.
6. Roll back on any mismatch. Restore the destination’s original folder and retain the transferred copy for developer-guided diagnosis.

Keep shared skin unlocks with the local profile

The SaveBackups author describes unlocked skins as local profile data shared by every save, outside the individual world file. Its world snapshots therefore do not include the unlock collection. Back up the whole game-data folder before a transfer or restore; a single campaign file may leave profile data behind.

That community description concerns saves under the same local profile. Patch 1.0.12 does not specify whether Steam Cloud includes the separate skin profile, so compare unlocks on both devices before discarding either original. The skin guide separates local sharing, world backups and cross-device synchronization.

Make a dated manual backup

1. Reach a known-good state. Confirm the expected weapons, currency, boat items and island progress are visible.
2. Press Save. Then return through Main Menu or Quit and wait for the game to close.
3. Copy the whole folder. Copy How to Fish from LocalLow to a separate location such as Documents or another drive.
4. Name the copy with date and context. For example, HowToFish-backup-2026-08-26-after-island-2.
5. Keep at least two checkpoints. Do not overwrite the only known-good copy with today’s untested state.
6. Test restores only from your own copy. Close the game, preserve the current folder under a different name and follow current developer guidance before replacing live data.

A manual copy protects against later accidental changes; it does not repair equipment already missing inside the copied state. The best backup is made immediately after you confirm the loadout is correct.

Protect weapons and upgrades before leaving

1. Finish the transaction. Confirm the weapon, attachment or boat upgrade appears in the active inventory or equipment view.
2. Use the Save button. Do this after an expensive change instead of relying only on the one-minute interval.
3. Leave through Main Menu or Quit. Avoid closing the process during a freeze unless the game no longer responds.
4. In co-op, note the host. If only one player loses items, include who owned the session and who made the purchase in the report.
5. Check the first load before continuing. If the correct loadout appears, save again before beginning another high-risk boss or shopping run.

There is no need to press Save after every ordinary catch. Use it at state boundaries that would be costly to repeat: buying a weapon, applying attachments, turning in a boss trophy, unlocking an island or recovering a missing tool.

Where should you store weapons?

A fresh Steam topic asks for “Weapon Storage,” but the current official notes do not announce a dedicated unlimited weapon locker. The most conservative route is to keep important weapons in supported inventory or equipment slots when space allows, press Save after the loadout is correct and leave through Main Menu or Quit.

This is practical risk control inferred from the official save boundaries, not a developer statement that an inventory slot can never fail. After loading, inspect the valuable weapon before continuing and make a dated LocalLow backup at a known-good milestone.

Boat missing after loading a save

Current Steam reports describe two related world-state failures: one player loaded after the 1.0.10 update and found no boat, while another reloaded at the Island 4 casino after the whale route and still had equipment but no boat. Neither report includes a reliable self-service respawn action.

1. Do not save over the state immediately. Close the game normally if possible and copy the entire LocalLow How to Fish folder.
2. Record where the player spawned. Note the island, building or casino, the last known boat position and what happened before quitting.
3. Separate the missing object. Confirm whether the boat model is absent, the boat is present but unusable, or only the keys and Radar are missing.
4. Reload once from the preserved state. If the same island and missing boat return, stop repeating the cycle and keep that result for the report.
5. Keep solo and host state exact. For co-op, the original host should describe the loaded world; a joining player’s missing view is a different multiplayer branch.
6. Use the developer-linked Community Discord. Include version 1.0.10, the saved island, last boat location and whether inventory remained.

Items in the boat disappeared after reloading

Patch 1.0.10 now saves up to 64 dropped ground items, but it does not name the boat deck as a separate unlimited container. Record whether the object was loose on the deck, in inventory, equipped or attached, and remember that the cap and priority order still apply.

1. Separate loose objects from inventory. Record whether the item was physically on the boat, in a held slot, equipped or attached to another item.
2. Record who hosted. In co-op, note whether the missing object belonged to the host, a joining player or the shared play space.
3. Check the first loaded state once. Look through the boat, current inventory and equipment without buying or dropping more items.
4. If the item still exists in-session, secure it. Move it into a supported inventory or equipment slot when possible, press Save, then leave through Main Menu.
5. If it is already absent, stop making costly changes. Repeated saves do not function as a search or rollback and can make the last known-good state harder to describe.

All equipment gone after an update

• Stop buying replacements until you confirm which items and currency remain.
• Record the game version, solo or co-op state, host, last successful save action and the first load where the items were absent.
• Capture the current inventory and upgrade screens so the report distinguishes a hidden attachment from a missing purchase.
• If the current session still contains the correct items, press Save and leave through Main Menu before testing another launch.
• If the items are already absent, understand that another save records that state; it does not function as a recovery button.

Do not promise yourself that a reinstall, death, island change or another purchase will restore save data. Those actions solve different problems and can make the before/after state harder to reconstruct.

Game crashes when equipping a weapon

This symptom has a stronger official boundary than the general item-loss reports. Patch 1.0.9 explicitly tells players who still have a save-loading problem or a crash while equipping weapons to use the Community Discord guidance for removing the problematic item.

• Record which weapon or equipment slot triggers the crash and whether the same save opens before that action.
• Do not rapidly cycle every slot; one repeatable item is more useful evidence than a chain of new crashes.
• Run Steam’s file-integrity check once to separate damaged program files from the saved item state.
• Use the developer-linked Discord route from the official announcement for current item-removal help.
• Do not download an edited save or run an unknown removal utility from an unofficial file host.

The public patch note does not publish one universal manual-edit sequence, so this page does not invent one. Preserve a copy of any file you are explicitly told to change and follow current developer guidance for the exact version.

Can you recover a previous save?

Patch 1.0.11 confirms that corruption backups now exist, but Dazed Games does not publish a rollback browser, item-reconstruction tool or manual restore sequence. The Save button writes the current state; it does not rewind it.

If you already maintain your own dated backups, restore only from a copy you understand and keep the current file separately. This wiki does not claim that a backup from another player, version or host can be transplanted safely.

What to do when autosave freezes the game

Autosave freezes and lost-item reports are separate from the narrow corruption wording in Patch 1.0.9. If the game becomes unresponsive, give it a short chance to complete the write before forcing the process closed. If it recovers, use Main Menu or Quit normally and note the time of the freeze.

If it does not recover, the Patch 1.0.6 rule means the crash itself should not write a new state. On the next launch, inspect the save before playing further. Repeatedly loading and spending currency makes it harder to identify the last good write.

When reporting the freeze, include whether it happens at a regular one-minute interval, during a boss hand-in, during a shop transaction or only in a hosted session. A timestamp and the action happening on-screen are more useful than “autosave broken.”

What a Steam file check can and cannot do

Steam can compare installed program files and redownload damaged ones. That can help a game that fails to launch or crashes because a local file is broken. It does not recreate a missing weapon, attachment, currency total or quest state stored in a save.

Use a file check for program integrity after preserving the save symptoms. Use the Dazed Games bug-report channel for item loss, save contents or reproducible autosave freezes.

Save report checklist

• Game version shown at the time; record the actual build rather than copying an older 1.0.12 label. The Islet Update 1.1.0 shipped September 28.
• Solo, joined co-op or host.
• Missing item names and the island where they were bought.
• Last button used: Save, Main Menu, Quit or forced close.
• Approximate time between the purchase and the exit or freeze.
• Whether currency also reverted and whether the same problem appears after one clean reload.