How do you edit/fix a player inventory without loading save?

[Bumber]

I tried giving myself a generic tree cutting "fruittree-cutting", which crashed the game. Now the game crashes whenever I join my world. I tried doing a sqlite3 recovery, but that doesn't fix the issue.

Is there any way to get the block out of my inventory without loading the game? Or perhaps make the block not trigger a crash (e.g., JSON patching to fall back on an existing type?)

System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'key')
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.FindValue(TKey key)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.TryGetValue(TKey key, TValue& value)
   at Vintagestory.GameContent.BlockFruitTreeBranch.OnBeforeRender(ICoreClientAPI capi, ItemStack itemstack, EnumItemRenderTarget target, ItemRenderInfo& renderinfo) in VSSurvivalMod\Systems\FruitTree\BlockFruitTreeBranch.cs:line 140
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.InventoryItemRenderer.GetItemStackRenderInfo(ClientMain game, ItemSlot inSlot, EnumItemRenderTarget target, Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\Render\InventoryItemRenderer.cs:line 395
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.InventoryItemRenderer.RenderItemstackToGui(ItemSlot inSlot, Double posX, Double posY, Double posZ, Single size, Int32 color, Single dt, Boolean shading, Boolean origRotate, Boolean showStackSize) in VintagestoryLib\Client\Render\InventoryItemRenderer.cs:line 197
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.RenderAPIGame.RenderItemstackToGui(ItemSlot inSlot, Double posX, Double posY, Double posZ, Single size, Int32 color, Single dt, Boolean shading, Boolean rotate, Boolean showStackSize) in VintagestoryLib\Client\API\RenderAPIGame.cs:line 280
   at Vintagestory.API.Client.GuiElementItemSlotGridBase.RenderInteractiveElements(Single deltaTime) in VintagestoryApi\Client\UI\Elements\Impl\Interactive\Inventory\GuiElementItemSlotGridBase.cs:line 479
   at Vintagestory.API.Client.GuiComposer.Render(Single deltaTime) in VintagestoryApi\Client\UI\GuiComposer.cs:line 695
   at Vintagestory.API.Client.GuiDialog.OnRenderGUI(Single deltaTime) in VintagestoryApi\Client\UI\Dialog\GuiDialog.cs:line 375
   at Vintagestory.API.Client.HudElement.OnRenderGUI(Single deltaTime) in VintagestoryApi\Client\UI\HudElement.cs:line 30
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.HudHotbar.OnRenderGUI(Single deltaTime) in VintagestoryLib\Client\Systems\Gui\Huds\HudHotbar.cs:line 571
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.GuiManager.OnRenderFrameGUI(Single deltaTime) in VintagestoryLib\Client\Systems\Gui\GuiManager.cs:line 301
   at Vintagestory.API.Client.DummyRenderer.OnRenderFrame(Single deltaTime, EnumRenderStage stage) in VintagestoryApi\Client\API\IClientEventAPI.cs:line 82
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.ClientEventManager.TriggerRenderStage(EnumRenderStage stage, Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\Util\ClientEventManager.cs:line 191
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.ClientMain.TriggerRenderStage(EnumRenderStage stage, Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ClientMain.cs:line 787
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.ClientMain.RenderToDefaultFramebuffer(Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ClientMain.cs:line 965
   at Vintagestory.Client.GuiScreenRunningGame.RenderToDefaultFramebuffer(Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\MainMenu\Screens\GuiScreenRunningGame.cs:line 241
   at Vintagestory.Client.ScreenManager.Render(Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ScreenManager.cs:line 668
   at Vintagestory.Client.ScreenManager.OnNewFrame(Single dt) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ScreenManager.cs:line 643
   at Vintagestory.Client.NoObf.ClientPlatformWindows.window_RenderFrame(FrameEventArgs e) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ClientPlatform\GameWindow.cs:line 76
   at OpenTK.Windowing.Desktop.GameWindow.Run()
   at Vintagestory.Client.ClientProgram.Start(ClientProgramArgs args, String[] rawArgs) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ClientProgram.cs:line 312
   at Vintagestory.Client.ClientProgram.<>c__DisplayClass9_0.<.ctor>b__1() in VintagestoryLib\Client\ClientProgram.cs:line 129
   at Vintagestory.ClientNative.CrashReporter.Start(ThreadStart start) in VintagestoryLib\Client\ClientPlatform\ClientNative\CrashReporter.cs:line 93

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Bumber

[Bumber]

Figured out a solution. The gist of it was to use sqlite3 to select the "data" column from "playerdata" and output that to a file I could open in a hex editor. There was some data that included slashes ('/') followed by the word "hotbar", which I guessed was info about where to find the player's hotbar data in the save.

I opened the save file in a large hex editor and did a search for the data with slashes, which gave only 1 result. The hotbar data was a number 0-9 followed by some bytes until the next number. Empty slots aren't listed. I identified the slot with the bad item as the one right before the first empty slot (i.e., where a number is skipped.) I copied the previous slot's bytes over the one with the bad item. (I didn't delete the slot data in case doing so would have messed up other data.)

The save loaded successfully and I had two hotbar slots containing an identical stack of 2 firewood, confirming that the bad item had been overwritten by it. Hopefully this can be of use to someone else.

[AcidNight]

Hello Bumber, I just had the same problem and I'm looking for the file where the player info is stored but I can't find it. In which folder is it?

[Bumber]

On 5/4/2025 at 6:44 AM, AcidNight said:

Hello Bumber, I just had the same problem and I'm looking for the file where the player info is stored but I can't find it. In which folder is it?

Should both be in the save folder, IIRC? %appdata%/VintageStoryData/Save or something like that.

[isopod]

Hi! I want to preface this with my thanks to you for the solution you listed, as someone who doesn't really know a whole lot about computers it helped me a whole bunch. I was testing out modded building materials in a simple creative world, and then it happened so I followed your steps up to a point. However now I'm kind of stumped, while inspecting the full savefile I noticed that there are two mentions of a hotbar followed by numbers (presumably the hotbar slots). One hotbar list continues on normally and has the broken item in slot 2, while the other list (which also matches up with the one in the playerdata\data) ends at item 3 which is also the broken one.

Obviously this is weird on many levels, the discrepancy in the item slots and the fact that the actual list from the data column is incomplete in the file. I'd really appreciate if you somehow knew how to help. Maybe I should only replace the one from the incomplete list?