Game freezes, lost all companions on reload

[Ares]

As the title suggests, the game froze while entering a water tile from the world map on my punt to come ashore. The game froze in the loading screen. I let it sit for five minutes, but it remained frozen. I closed it out, and when I reloaded, I was far away from that spot, still on land, but my three cattle laden with all my possessions, three dogs, and two companions had all vanished.

[JP_Finn]

First of all: losing one animal sucks.. 3 dogs, cattle and companions. Just ARGH, that's material for "STFU, I'm not happy camper!"

By any chance, did you Save and Exit right after?
As that would be the 2nd most beneficial scenario for bug hunting.

Best scenario for bug hunting is to go to the game executables folder while the game is frozen*, copy the character folder and save it elsewhere (I use folder called /backup), then force close.

*as long as it's only game that froze, not also your operating system.

[Sami]

As the title suggests, the game froze while entering a water tile from the world map on my punt to come ashore. The game froze in the loading screen. I let it sit for five minutes, but it remained frozen. I closed it out, and when I reloaded, I was far away from that spot, still on land, but my three cattle laden with all my possessions, three dogs, and two companions had all vanished.

We assume this being with the latest version, 3.81, and on what operating system?
My reply probably comes a bit late, but animals and the party might have been recoverable to some extent - with luck - so in case like these I can at least take a look at the savegames to see if there's anything to do. But this should be done as soon as possible after the incident.

[Ares]

Yes, most recent stable version on Steam. Windows 10.

[Plotinus]

I've also experienced a few freezes on entering locations -- it was completely dead, kill wasn't enough to get it to exit, had to use kill -9.

and i was also on a raft in the sea wanting to come to shore, but I was lucky and didn't lose any animals -- for me it correctly rolled back to the last time I'd woken up. 3.81, arch linux version.

[Sami]

Yes, even with having to kill/force-quite the frozen game it should start from some earlier savepoint with the animals present.
The cause of freezes is always tricky to find out, but if it seems to follow a pattern eg. always happens at certain area, then it might be worthwhile to investigate closer.
But we dearly hope, and assume, that the freezes still remain a rarity.