Since the release of Payday 2 a lot of people have complained about a loss of progress. It happens out of nowhere and can cause a lot of frustration. Usually there are several ways to bring back your progress, but one wrong click can delete everything. Creating frequent backups of your progress file is a good start. It's easy to do and it can save you from a lot of trouble in case everything else goes wrong.

Update #7 changed the way the backup system works. The backup file is no longer overwritten when you close the game. In our opinion it should help a lot with the crash-related progression losses.

Q: Where can I find my backup savegame?
A: See B. 2.

Q: I crashed and lost my progress, what should I do?
A: See C. 1. c.

Q: How do I back up my progress?
A: See D. 1.

Q: How do I restore my backup savegame?
A: See E. 2. / E. 3.

If you have trouble with English there's a translated version of the guide down here!

Russian - Sylvanas Windrunner.

https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2393156146

Portuguese - gabsF.

https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2468398826

The progress file for Payday 2 is named save098.sav. Its size is about 62 kilobytes when it's empty. The more you play, the bigger the savegame file gets. There are 3 possible locations for it. Two of them are on your hard disk. The third one is in the Steam Cloud, in case the feature is enabled for Payday 2.


Your main savegame is located on your hard disk. The progress is saved whenever you do certain things in the game, such as complete a heist or close your inventory.

The savegame can be found within the Steam folder:


Example:



As of Update #7 a local copy of your savegame file (save098.sav) is created whenever you complete a heist. When you open and close the inventory or close the game, no save is triggered.

It can be found in the local AppData folder:


Example:



The Steam Cloud stores your main savegame file on a Steam server. This feature is enabled by default. A synchronization happens when you launch Steam, when you close the game and possibly when you start the game.

• When you close the game and your main savegame is newer than the one stored
  in the Steam Cloud, it will be uploaded automatically.
  
• If there is no main savegame file (save098.sav) when you start/close the game or
  start Steam, it will be downloaded automatically.
  
• When you start Steam and there's a main savegame older than the one in the cloud
  and the file "remotecache.vdf" was deleted or is different, the cloud backup will be
  downloaded automatically.
  
• When you start Steam and there's a main savegame newer than the one in the cloud
  and the file "remotecache.vdf" was deleted or is different, a sync conflict will occur.
  The next time you start the game you will have to choose which savegame to keep.
  
• If there is a newer/older main savegame when you start Steam, but the file
  "remotecache.vdf" is not different or was not deleted, Steam will not synchronize.

Note: The following part is based on community feedback and my interpretation of it. Please let me know if you have any more information on it.

The most common reason for a loss of progress is a game crash. It's not always clear what exactly happened and therefore it's hard to track down. If you start the game and your progress is gone, it means your main savegame (see B. 1.) was deleted or overwritten with bad data.

a. Main savegame deleted
Steam will automatically download the cloud backup when it can't find the file save098.sav in your main savegame location. This can happen when you start/close the game and when you restart Steam. The most important thing is to not create a new progress file while you are in the game! A new progress file isn't created until you trigger a save from within the game, so don't press anything in the main menu except "Quit".

You will lose whatever you did from when you last started the game up to the moment of the crash.

b. Main savegame overwritten and unreadable by the game
Your cloud backup was most likely overwritten, but your backup savegame should be intact, even if there was no prompt to restore it. When you start the game, see if you can recover your backup savegame through the game (see E. 2.). If not, don't close the game and restore your cloud backup (see E. 1.). If that doesn't work because it was already overwritten, restore your backup savegame manually (see E. 3.).

c. All steps combined


You can select to reset your progress from within the game's option menu. If you haven't closed the game yet, you can still undo it by restoring your progress from the Steam Cloud (see E. 1.). If you closed the game, you can restore your backup savegame (see E. 2.).

You can prevent a loss of progress by regularly backing up your savegame. The game creates a local backup (see B. 2.), but that may not be enough in some cases.

• Do this frequently
  (after each gaming session or daily/weekly)
  
• Save to a drive other than your system drive
  (different drive, external hard disk, NAS or USB flash drive)

The following example of a batch file copies your savegame into a new folder with the current date and time using a YYYYMMDD_hhmm format. Thanks to SS64[ss64.com] for a method to deal with different local formats. Windows XP Professional or later is required. Use it at your own risk.


Create a new text file with this content. Change the path to your savegame file and the path to your backup destination folder (make sure the folder exists!). Save it as a .bat file (e.g. PD2Backup.bat). Double-click it and a backup will be created.

Before you restore a backup, you should check its size. If your progress file is empty, its size is about 62 kilobytes. It gets bigger the more you play. The settings file (save000.sav) is uploaded to the cloud as well and its size is about 4 kilobytes. If your cloud backup is around 66 kilobytes or your backup savegame is around 62 kilobytes, then there is no progress to restore.

• Only works if the progression reset happens while you are in the game
  
• If you closed the game already, go to the next method
  
• You can skip this method if you're certain your backup savegame is intact and up to date

Note: If your main savegame was deleted (instead of overwritten), Steam should download
it when you start the game, when you close the game or when you restart Steam.

• In case you closed the game and your cloud backup was overwritten

• If your backup savegame was overwritten
  
• Requires a backup of the savegame file!

Note: If your backup savegame wasn't overwritten and the game won't let you restore
it (according to E. 2.), you can do it manually. Go to its location (see B. 2.) and follow
the steps below.

We hope this guide helped you and you won't have to deal with a loss of progress in the future.

As for questions, please leave a comment below.