Ok I admit it, I'm one of the few that happened to find Fable 2 on the K-Mart shelves :/  Anyways, there is an extremely bad glitch at one point in the game (IN THE MAIN QUEST!) that literally has the auto-save feature saving a frozen state (a lock up).  At first I thought it was a normal lock-up that the Xbox 360 gets every now and again but as soon as I reloaded the console (it totally froze the console as well), I tried to load up the saved game and it wouldn't load and instead just shows a black screen and locks up the console again...  I played for over 10 hours and I encountered this glitch that literally made it so I could never recover my character ever again, the console freezes as soon as the save loads!

I lost over 1 million gold, all of my expressions that I found, all of the silver keys, everything.  This was absolutely devastating.  So after a day of gathering myself from this loss, I decided to start a new character and see if it was just a simple fluke and try to get up to the same point that I was before.  This time I was very cautious about the location I was heading towards.  Everything seemed to be going fine and I got to the same point again and I was very hopeful that the last time was a weird 1 in a million bug... but... nope the game went into auto-save mode and saved this "locked up" state AGAIN.  I lost everyone of my items again and wasted over 5 hours two times.

Now you would think I learned my lesson now in that the game would not let me play past this point no matter how hard I tried but instead I started up a third character and instead sped directly to the location in the main quest line.  Upon my discovery of this location, the auto-save feature saved the locked up state FOR A THIRD TIME.  I didn't bother with any trivial things like money or items but I still wasted about 2-3 hours..  this is unacceptable.

This is quite possibly the biggest game breaking bug I've ever seen out of every console game on the market.  Not a single game that I've encountered has EVER done this.  I'm so confused and frustrated with this stupid game now.  Sure it was fun while it lasted but it looks like I can't even play it thanks to this.

If any Devs or Mods can let me know what the hell is going on here I can give you all a much better description of the problem through e-mails.  I'm positive that I'm not the only one it will happen to.

You can reach me at: 

cdmlarue@comcast.net

Thanks for reading this over

I have a corrupt save from trying to save in Wraithmarsh ...  Considering I got the game on the 16th (was lucky) it seems I've lost tons of time investment.

I would love to see some kind of fix for this ... but I'm doubtful. This is honestly the most catastrophic failure I've ever seen in a console game. Crashing while saving = bad.

Hey, yeah the same exact thing happened to me and I would like to also know what is going on because I am unable to progress any farther in the game. This is very frustrating and hope someone has an answer.

This is crap it did the same thing to me.  Play for 12hrs and then freezes, 2 different times. I load up and as soon as it gives me my money from having purchased places bam freezes up every time, im gonna see if i can delete the co op patch and go from there. Unless Lionhead or Xbox get off their buts and post something

The same thing just happened to me, so devistating.  It happened to me at the top of brightwood tower, I dont know if that is where it happened to you as well?  I really hope this gets to the devs attention because I have had a hard time finding anything about it.

Same thing happened to me so i figured it was the co op patch, so i couldnt do anything.  All of a sudden it froze and i was pissed, every time i loaded the game it would run a few seconds and freeze. So i went to my memory on my xbox360 and erased my save, then started a new character. After about 10hrs the same thing happened, again i was not thrilled at this. Off for answers i went, looked everywhere on the net and i got an idea. If it was the co-op patch i could delete it with the cache clearing code. I did and the next time i loaded my "corrupt" game it worked fine. SO HERE IS WHAT YOU DO, START UP YOUR XBOX360-> GO TO THE SYSTEM BLADE-> SELECT MEMORY-> THEN DO THIS CODE

Y, X, X, LB, RB, X, X              IT WILL SAY ARE YOU SURE THIS WILL DO

                              MAINTANENCE ON YOUR CONSOLE-> HIT YES AND IT SHOULD ONLY TAKE A SECOND OR TOO. YOU ARE DONE, PUT IN FABLE2 AND DO NOT ACCEPT THE UPDATE, YOU SHOULD NOW BE JUST FINE

yeah I already uninstalled the patch and it still doesn't work. It doesn't freeze a bit after it loads, it literally goes to a black screen when it loads

Yeah I had already tried uninstalling the patch, did work in my case.

I tried this, but my game is still frozen. This is really annoying.

I can't edit it... but mine should say did "not" work.

I just got hit with this when the game autosaved after I got promoted to rank 5 in one of the woodcutting jobs in Oakfield

I'm so glad I was focusing on the story and not spending extra time doing those sidequests or jobs or buying property...........oh wait.........

Time to play Far Cry 2 instead, hopefully it won't be full of game-breaking bugs as well.

ok i was stuck right after the first main quest, ive just got hammer, and i left it to sleep. when i came back it had one of these lock ups. i tried maybe 5 times just restarting my xbox and what not. on the 6th try i had to go do something so it played the cinematic trailer during the title screen, i pressed a to get to the main menu and pressed continue, as it was loading the gears stopped and i thought maybe ill leave it for a while. so i did and when i came back it was loaded . my character was standing there. i ran around for abit to se if it would lock up it didnt.

so what im saying is try letring the cinematic trailer roll through before you try loading you game. it worked for me it may work for you too

same happened to me tho just after learning about a magic mirrow 2 minutes into the game im not happy does. any1 now wen the bug will be fixed?

I'm in the same boat.

I crashed during a save coming out of blacksmithing, and my save game won't load anymore. Tried clearing the cache and re-updating the game. No luck. My other games still work.

Extremely frustrating, especially since much of my time was doing professions/sidequests.

Now what?

this is so annoying. i locked up around when you are getting on the ship and i can no longer load my save file...i just get the black screen. tried clearing my cache...still nothing. there's no way i'm starting this game over. i'd rather just get my money back.

Tried clearing the cache, Did NOT work. Putting FableII back in the box until something is done. Waste of time to start over, that or sell the freakin game on e-bay.

Screen comes up with the gears saying Loading WestCliffe, and blank, nada zilch. No responese even to dashboard.

Another lock up here....what a waste of time!

omg the moment i load my save game it freezes and wont let me do a thing, we realy need to hear that lionhead is going to solve this sometime soon, this is just disapointing

Just had this happen to me after working a bartending job in Oakfield. I'd just finished my mission in the tattered spire, so I lost a 8 to 10 hours of gameplay. Loading up the game leads to a black screen that locks up my Xbox. Tried clearing the cache and had no success. This is a total deal breaker for me. Shame on not including multiple save files.

Black screen of death when loading a saved game for me too... I will try to get a refund if they dont fix this soon. 13+ hours gone like that...

I couldn't believe it. This just happened to me. I have been playing quite a bit for the past 4-5 days (lots of side quests and such). I was questing in Wraithmarsh (Nomononacon or whatever). After a few Hollow Man battles, I decided to save (you know, just in case). To my horror, the game froze during the save.

OK. I've had the game freeze up on me before. No big deal. Until I attempted to continue. It just started to load (showing the spinning cogs and a little tip), and then goes to a black screen.

I am insanely frustrated at this point. I cannot imagine going through everything I've done (all the side quests, jobs, family, real estate, furniture, keys, demon doors, etc.) all over again.

I was having a grand old time, and now I almost wish I never got the game in the first place. And the worst part of it is that my paranoia of a potential problem, causing me to save, was the actual catalyst that resulted in the loss of my entire character!

Alright... So I played all the way up to the part right before you go speak to Reaver after he sends you on his lovely little errand.  I had a feeling that some world changing event or that the main storyline may suck me into it for a bit so I decided to do all of the side quests that I could and whatever other menial tasks I felt necessary..
So I was on the Book of the Extremely Dead quest where you save those two clowns once again and had just finished killing a Banshee off.  I ran over to the little well behind one of the buildings in the Drowned Farm (i think thats it) area and was about to start the quest off... Game froze.. so I figured... ehh, just a freeze... ive seen it before on other game and it hasnt caused any problems... I turned off my 360, started it back up and went to load my saved game..

The load screen for my file lasts all of 5 seconds and at the top it says its loading The Forsaken Tower (no idea why its the forsaken tower... bc i believe the area i was trying to enter was a WellSpring or something and the last manual save i did was prior to going to Wraithmarsh, at the Archons thingy in Brightwood.
Ive played this game all the way up to this point with the patch applied and have not run into any major problems, excluding minor hiccups or villagers names remaining at the top of my screen even though I dont have them 'locked on'.
Soooo I did what any other gamer would do, faced with the loss of much time and effort invested into a game file.  I freaked out, then looked for a solution.
So I looked online and followed the steps to clear my cache... and that didnt fix it... so here I am... my 360 running, trying to load this 'corrupt' save file with a black screen on my tv.  Hoping and praying it will load... probably going to leave it on overnight in hopes that something will happen.  In any case... I feel for everyone posting on this message string.  Im in the same boat and hope Lionhead has some integrity, admits the issues they shipped this game with, and trys to correct them.  However... considering the track record of this company and its crew... I wouldnt hold my breath.

Lets all cross our fingers.  i'll be checking back periodically with this board hoping theres some kind of fix posted in the coming week.  The game is phenomenal, however... these bugs have crippled it.  Lets hope the crew take pride in what theyve made and see it to the end.

And if you guys dont mind... if you can send me a "hey dude the patch is out" or "this worked for me!" if you all have anything... shoot me an e-mail.  Eric.Wenzel.1986@gmail.com

Thanks guys

I completely agree, it is just not logical to have a single save file, need to have seperate autosaves vs regular saves. I tried today getting a new disk that didnt help either. The GameStop said they had lots of people exchangings discs for a new one. I started over cross my fingers i can get through it this time, lost over a million gold though. They really should of let us users beta test this thing. It would of been reported in the first day. KUDOs to all companies that let us beta test and report bugs.

Being a web developer, you can only look and test your own code so much before you stop finding anything new. Other people testing always find something b/c they are doing it different.

Seriously.... this happened to me too right after completing the blacksmid level 5, the game froze... I was actually afraid it didn't save and I had to do the whole blacksmit level 5 again... well, after restarting the 360, I was actually relieved to see the last achievement I got right after completing the blacksmid lvl 5 sidequest, cuz that meant it did save! so I started getting my hopes up...  too damn soon I guess: black screen of death as a result..... the crazu thing is, it actually says "verifying savegame" before loading it... wtf is that for exception handling? What are you verifying then??? And why the hell do you commit saved data before verifying, since you're continiously overwriting my saved game....

This totally sucks and ruins the *** out of the game for me... when we as customers choose to pay €60,- for this game, we expect some quality.... this software just didn't have the proper testing when so many of us report so many bugs... If I would've been invited for a beta test and this happened, well, it would've been a beta, so *** happens, right? probably under pressure of a on time release, this game clearly wasn't properly tested.... next time, rather reset your deadline and deliver some quality for us customers paying cold hard cash for a game that looks like a beautiful brand new Ferrari, costs the price of a beautiful new Ferrari, is sold as a bautiful new Ferrari but that lacks the Ferrari engine... instead of that, Fiat (which owns Ferrari) decided to put a Fiat Panda engine in it.... tell me Lionhead, how you'd feel when you hit the road outside of the dealership and you feel that the engine sucks.... you feel betrayed, hustled and owned....

This is a bloody final release!!!!!!!! An optical glitch, yeah, can live with that, a bug that actually ends your game for you, totally unacceptable..... I never had this kinda bug with ANY (I repeat ANY) game I EVER played.... and I've been playing a lot of games ( a lot, I'm kinda a freak) for over 20 years.... and I already see it coming, you guys will probably fix this bug ( I hope so, otherwise the disk will be a worthless piece of 60 euro plastic), but my savegame will remain corrupted data and I have to start over again... let me put it in a different way: IF you'll manage to provide a fix, within a short period of time that is ofcourse, that prevents this bug from happening and also makes my savegame work again (as it does pass the verification stage-hoping your verification method does work, but some wrongly handled params in your loading method cause the problems), you'd really positively surprise me.... seeing is believing  and I want to believe

p.s. Might be me, but I haven't seen the mods actually constructively replying on this specific issue, which should've been a showstopper in the first place...

mdkstang:

I completely agree, it is just not logical to have a single save file, need to have seperate autosaves vs regular saves. I tried today getting a new disk that didnt help either. The GameStop said they had lots of people exchangings discs for a new one. I started over cross my fingers i can get through it this time, lost over a million gold though. They really should of let us users beta test this thing. It would of been reported in the first day. KUDOs to all companies that let us beta test and report bugs. Being a web developer, you can only look and test your own code so much before you stop finding anything new. Other people testing always find something b/c they are doing it different.

 

I've been working in software development for the last 7,5 years, huge projects for big companies too and one thing you'd always need to do with such a big project as Fable II is, is thorough monkey testing.... people with inside knowledge will test the described functionality, but will not perform unwanted, out of the box, actions, which the monkeys (end users) will.... acceptance testing is as imported of a step in your dev process as any other...