My friends and I bought the game about mid December 2022 and have rented a server to play on. We have been playing hard and just today when he started the game it said "you must do a data migration" so he clicked on it and once it completed all his characters were gone and it was like launching the game for the first time. We are playing on a persistent open world game and want to know if there is any way to get his character back.
#Character missing after data migration
full lion
white grove
No, there is not.
After the data decentralization patch, all files are stored local.
When you do a migrate, it removes the local files and (attempts to) migrate from central server.
I know there is Steam Cloud save.
However, it saves the files each time you exit Icarus.
So if you start Icarus, you notice your characters missing and you exit the game, the file with the 'no characters' is saved to Steam Cloud save.
If you want to restore from Steam Cloud save, you have to tab out of the game instead of exiting it, and do the restore (do make a copy of the restored files before exiting the game, just in case).
As a rule of thumb, regular make a copy of the %localappdata%\Icarus\Saved\PlayerData\<SteamID> folder.
That's where all player data is stored.
When something goes wrong again and you lose your characters again, you can simply put the most recent copy back.
Now since your friends characters are gone, he has to create a new one.
And start leveling it again.
There is a way to give a character levels and talents and such by manipulating json files, but I don't know how.
Also, json manipulating is at your own risk; you might end up losing more than just your character.
When you go that route, always make a copy of the json file first.
Oh, and please do keep in mind dedicated servers are still in beta.
When you play this beta function, you accept the risks coming with it.
Risks that are stated in the dedicated server channel.