LittleBigPlanet glitch may erase parts of your save data

by Andrew Yoon { Dec 30th 2008 at 10:31AM }

Some users are reporting a terrible glitch in LittleBigPlanet which affects the game's save data. According to this forum post, random things will go missing from one's save. For example, progress in the MGS4 level pack may disappear. "I've completed all five acts, and when I turned off the power and played again, all that was unlocked was Act 1-3. However, my scores from Act 4 and 5 were still in place-- it's just that I need to unlock them all over again as well as collect the prize bubbles," says SuperPhillip.

The more frightening consequence of this bug is the deletion of user-created content. "I lost four costumes and she lost all 12 of her saved costumes, as well as losing the level status. Also we found that all of our community and saved photos were erased too," says justsayno2girls. Some are theorizing that the glitch is caused by bloated profile data. Since the release of the game, players have collected tons of objects from community members. The MGS pack also adds a large amount of data to one's profile. The game may be automatically deleting content when a profile gets too large.

Considering its the holiday season right now, Media Molecule hasn't offered an update on the situation, but we're certain they'll work on a patch in the coming weeks. However, we'd recommend that users avoid creating new levels for now -- we wouldn't want anyone to lose a level they worked on.

[Thanks, Terry W.!]

Tags: glitch, littlebigplanet

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ScottishPrik @ Dec 30th 2008 10:41AM

Lol, what is it with LBP and these ridiculous gamebreaking glitches. Jeez, and I thought Gears 2 was bad.

Dennis Rosecrans @ Dec 30th 2008 10:53AM

I had the exact same problem and after days of testing the problem I have the solution. First it's not the photo's taken with the ps3 eye exclusively as many people have posted. I had the problem twice, once just playing and exactly the same problem you describe with the metal gear pack. It's all your photo's not the ones you get through story mode but the ones from everywhere else like if you took a picture of your sack person your level or whatever just get rid of all of them then restart. I believe what is happening is when you have too much user created and community content. I recommend you delete everything community stickers and objects, keep your own objects though but feel free to delete your non story stickers first and foremost since they are easily replaceable.

Huschke @ Dec 30th 2008 10:50AM

I had the same problem. Fortunately there's a temporary workaround. Just delete some of the community objects or photos you have in Creation-Mode.

After that no progress will be lost.

jim @ Dec 30th 2008 10:53AM

I am a LBP player and a community member....Be aware...it seems this bug is due to the profile size allotted to each player. Profile size is determined by how many stickers, costumes etc you have in your pop it...what happens is when you too many community objects stickers and my objects....you feel up the amount of space you were allotted by Mm. If you simply delete the community objects and stickers that you don't need and keep you r My photos and objects to necessity minimum the game saves everything just fine.
The MGS added many objects to our pop its...most of us had a ton of community and personal objects/stickers in our profile already...this happened to me. My gave just stopped saving somewhere in the third act of the MGS pack.. If you read the forums you would find that this problem was slightly different for everyone because everyones profile filled at a different point. Some were unaffected cause they hadnt had a full profile!! I deleted unnecessary stuff, and voila the game began saving as it always did. It wasnt deleting stuff arbitrarily, it just stopped saving after the point your profile was full!

The game isnt broke but Mm should allow players a larger profile size!!! :P

Roto13 @ Dec 30th 2008 12:12PM

I'd be really surprised if the next LBP update doesn't fix this. :P

Tidus @ Dec 30th 2008 4:04PM

That is not always true cause i deleted everything i had and LBP still doesn't save :( My beautiful Pod decoration is now deleted :( :D

Fane @ Dec 30th 2008 4:45PM

Any idea on what the current size limit is?

ps3man @ Dec 30th 2008 10:57AM

it dont delete the stuff, it just dont save it when your inventory is FULL.....just delete some of the community objects you dont need and everything will be ok.

HAAS599 @ Dec 30th 2008 11:04AM

I can't believe these people didnt see the huge promp in the middle of the screen that says your profile is too large. It must have popped up 10-20 times before I finally deleted enough community items to be able to save.

doom saber @ Dec 30th 2008 3:04PM

That popup doesn't shows up on the recent lbp update, hence a lot of ppl didn't know it won't save because of a large profile

JustVashu @ Dec 30th 2008 11:05AM

I'm suffering of this as well. So I can confirm it s a real issue.

j.howlett @ Dec 30th 2008 11:05AM

yeah, i ran into this problem because i got alot of community items and pictures. it didn't delete anything i just couldn't get more stuff. it also happened just replaying certain stages where it takes your picture. i wouldn't call it game breaking

PSN: Aggie_CEO @ Dec 30th 2008 11:15AM

yea this is tied to profile sizes.........

I think its pretty dumb that I cant have...I dunno.....maybe 2GBs of storage for community related stuff.......I got a message the other day that it was deleting stuff because I had reached the limit.......make you not want to play community levels at all now........

Vincent @ Dec 30th 2008 11:22AM

they need to patch up, at least let me save the community objects in a back-up file on my PS3 HDD. So far my profile is far from full, because I always delete useless pictures and community objects, but still.

John @ Dec 30th 2008 11:29AM

Some other stuff to watch out for... I was goofing around with a level I had created, 50% of the maximum object level size. Tried out the paintinator, shooting around the level in Edit mode.

I had a cardboard cutout set around a house sticker, which is rather large. While shooting the paintinator at another object, suddenly, the very large house sticker, with very little paint residue on it disappeared entirely, leaving a cardboard cutout. Cool weapon, but definitely level creation is a fine balance act in order to minimize bugs.

justin @ Dec 30th 2008 11:29AM

yes this happen to me 2 but when i got the message it only stay up there for 2 seconds and i didnt have time to read it all. the 1st time i noticed it was when i was trying to play the tic tac tow game.. they gave me a x in the game but i couldnt find it. not realizing my stuff was full..i have a question...when deleting stuff how do you know if its from a community level or from a real career level..??i dont want to delete stuff from my career levels.

Mo @ Dec 30th 2008 1:12PM

it should be labeled with Community somewhere on the title.

Mo @ Dec 30th 2008 11:30AM

Some people can be so dramatic RTFM

kentuckyfried @ Dec 30th 2008 12:32PM

I'm glad I haven't started playing this game.

Mo @ Dec 30th 2008 12:48PM

you are missing out... BIG TIME

sdf @ Jan 17th 2009 6:31PM

you are so missing out

Crimson_Ryan @ Dec 30th 2008 12:34PM

Same problem. All MGS-Pack related stuff was deleted, even by Johnathan Custom made costume.

Just go into your level and delete ALOT of community items. I deleted about 47 of them and it started to save again. This WILL fix it, though... Some people won't do it. I've told my friend Eddy to do this and he refuses. Says he'll "Wait for a patch". Kind of annoying. :/

Huschke @ Dec 30th 2008 9:10PM

Sry but thats dumb as the patch won't "fix" the issue. Why? Cuz it's not a real issue, it's just that the error message is somehow not beeing displayed.

So tell him, that waiting for a patch won't do anything unless he starts deleting some stuff he doesn't want or need.

Mo @ Dec 30th 2008 1:11PM

hmm it seems confirmed that its not DELETING data, just not saving any after you have reached your quota.. maybe we should consider changing the title? or is this just flamebait? Considering that this is ps3fanboy.com shouldnt the skew be in the other direction? something like, lbp may actually unlock levels you havent even played yet.

:-P phooey...

cartman58 @ Dec 30th 2008 1:21PM

A good fix for this would be to allow people the option of keeping or not keeping all of the random crap that we get from user-created levels. It's awesome that people make levels and all of that jazz, but user-created items in general are lame/useless.

Jim @ Dec 30th 2008 2:04PM

I was just about to say that. I try to avoid picking up the gift bubbles 99 percent of the time, but sometimes it's impossible to jump over them when they're lined up in a long row. It's also impossible to avoid the prizes some creators give you for finishing or acing the level. They need to have something at the very end of the level that asks you, "Do you want to keep that crappy tricycle made out of sponge?"

Huschke @ Dec 30th 2008 9:15PM

Exactly! That's the reason my newest level ("Metal Gear Solid VR Mission 01" created of course by me "Huschke2k") avoids you having to pick up items to play through the level. The items in my newest level are rather secrets that you can look for if you so desire.

Ok enough advertising, but seriously though you should check out my latest creation. :D
And above all let me know what you think!

The1stMJC @ Dec 30th 2008 3:00PM

Anyone have their LBP game go to a white screen from time to time and freeze on a white screen? This has been happening a lot lately to LBP while playing online for me.

Khan @ Dec 30th 2008 5:25PM

Yes that white screen is a huge problem. I had to restart PS3 about a dozen times because of it.

HouseofGee @ Dec 31st 2008 7:12PM

Yes, was getting the white screen a LOT a couple days ago. Problem is, when I turned off and back on, guess what....EVERYTHING was lost. I popped out in the dark with the British guy's voiceover telling me how to move around. That was a rather crappy moment. Yes, I lost absolutely everything and have had to start over with acing and bagging every. single. friggin'. level. Of course, my saved costumes and photos are history.

igotthatfire247 @ Dec 30th 2008 3:12PM

That's what happens when you "justsayno2girls".

madcrabs @ Dec 30th 2008 3:41PM

This happened to me!!! I thought I was the only one. Played the MGS pack and beat everything. Got all of the trophies, stayed up til 5am working on my own level. The next day everything but the first two MGS levels were gone. My entire level was gone. Still had all of my trophies though.

Khan @ Dec 30th 2008 5:23PM

I lost all my progress in LBP. Everything is gone because of this stupid glitch. I have to play from start, collect all objects and sit through all the tutorials. I was relieved to find out that my levels were still there in the community. But this thing sucks.

Byron517 @ Dec 31st 2008 1:06AM

The only thing I've kept saved on my popit is my customs other then that all the photo's and stuff I delete.. personally I haven't any problems.. but then again I mostly play the story because I haven't beaten it 100% yet... I think MM will have a patch out shortly to fix this..

rich @ Dec 31st 2008 2:25PM

i have R2 then one day i turned it on to play and allll my saved game data was erased but i still have my trophies. i was bummed at first but it was another chance to play through it again then i realized i couldnt get any new trophies that i was missing ...AND NOW my WAW game data randmely erased toooo

mixdahouse @ Dec 31st 2008 7:12PM

Oh my god all levels all stickers all costums. all are deleted omg but i thank god i have my platin trophy not lose and all other trophies. shit mgs packk !

Jamie @ Jan 1st 2009 9:35PM

So wait.. why do they limit the size of YOUR SAVE on YOUR HDD?

I have an 80GB HDD, I should be able to save as much as I want to it. I was surprised the other day when it said I had too many photos and would start deleting older ones, I don't see why it should as there is plenty of space left.

The only reason I could see to do this would be if the save data was stored on a server somewhere, not on your HDD.. but that would be utterly stupid.

Seems backwards to me.

Dan Rabot @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:25AM

I tend to avoid those "1,000,000 community prizes" levels. So I've got plenty of space on my save.

They should extend the max size though, i mean a collecting game with a limit to your collection? silly.

Rhi @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:14PM

I know this is going to sound totally dumb I'm sure, but how do you delete the community stickers and decorations??
I've started getting that pop-up you guys are talking about today but don't have a clue how to delete anything!
I'm pretty computer illiterate so dumb it down for me if poss! Lol!

yoeri @ Jan 6th 2009 2:36PM

http://www.littlebigland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=264&p=2828&e=2828

all bugs currently known.

MetalGearZach @ Jan 7th 2009 2:08PM

I downloaded the mgs stuff and ever since I can't get trophies. It says my save data has been copied from another profile and I have never done that. I'm really pissed cause I can't get trophies on any game now. I don't know what the hell happened!

alex @ Jan 18th 2009 1:16PM

i aced the game yesterday but now i have to do 6 more levels again and get the costumes back because of this.i lost lots of stickers so i dont really feel like playing much more

Jacob @ Jan 25th 2009 9:55PM

Same situation with my little brother and I. We have plenty of space to store countless costumes, stickers, and objects, but an error message continually plagues us no matter how much we delete.

Please, I'm willing to provide any information it takes to solve this problem.