I completed an insane mode run a few days ago, live on my Justin.TV stream. After completing the run, I backed up my save files by moving them into a "backup" folder, and creating a clean, empty gamesaves folder for challenge mode insane runs, such as no quen insane.

After dying a few times in these challenges, I cleaned the savegames folder and restored my insane saves - they are now all marked as dead.... though I never died in the completion run and did not play again after the completion.

Is this a bug? Did something happen in 1.1 that caused my completion to bug out? I had saves during the run from both 1.0 and 1.1 - anyone have any ideas? I did not die, damnit (and I have proof).

Same for me, it's just the way Insane works. I guess hidden player profile is created every time you start new game, and every save is attached to this profile. In profile they count your deaths and other things, so even if you backup saves and die in the same game - all saves attached to this profile will become inactive. I wish they will fix it, so when you complete game on Insane the profile will become locked and deaths can't ruin all your saves :)

Congratulations?

what? =/

On beating Insane mode!

But boo, for dead files.

I have a feeling that they really wanted to cheat proof the insane mode. Having extra saves or importing save files into the folder probably has the game flag them as potential cheat files so it just kills 'em. They really kinda went hardcore on this.

no, i used procmon to watch what game does when you die. It just writes something to registry is all that i noticed. I still think they store hidden profiles somewhere. Can anyone confirm my point? I will upload my last save game, will it work for you (if my point is right - then it should work, because you don't have this profile yet)?
www.megaupload.com/?d=9LS6ELX9

Skull marked for me.

Same on my system. Won't load.

hm, don't know really. Game doesn't change files in any way after death. Should look if there is any background service running =/

There's always the launcher...It doesn't close after quitting the game.

Try comparing hardcore save files to normal save files and see if there is any extra flags in the hardcore one. I don't know what to look for but that is the next obvious step I can see.

Just tried to backup files - no background service as far as i can tell, because backup files were exactly the same as original.
P.S. Another try - all that changed is HKCU/Software/CD Project Red/The Witcher 2/GameData , still can't say what this registry key contains. Files weren't changed in any way. Tried to backup this key - didn't worked. Can you try correct save? May be you system SHOULD have profile to load Insane save? If correct save won't load either it will confirm my hidden-profile theory.
P.P.S. www.megaupload.com/?d=KHP2MXGL save is for 1.2 version

I have a much more simple theory. The GameData registry key contains a key used to encrypt Insane mode only saves. Once you die on any insanity run, the key is overwritten/regenerated, so any insanity saves stored using the old key are automatically invalidated. This would also imply that insanity saves cannot be exchanged between different machines, even if Gerald is alive, though that would depend on a couple of factors (mainly on how that key is generated, is it CD key dependant ? hardware dependant ?).

i thought about it, but, insane mode saves are EXACTLY the same as hard/normal/easy saves. I could say more - if you already died on any difficulty and switch to Insane - all saves made on Insane difficulty will be inactive, even though you haven't died on Insane. Also every time you start new game (even on Easy) GameData is changed, but it doesn't affect old Insane saves. And if you start 2 Insane games, and die in one of them - only saves made in the game you died will become inactive. If you try to backup this key - it doesn't help. If you try to delete it - game won't run (crashes after start). Also it's size always changing - from ~20 bytes to ~60 bytes. I also noticed that new value partially contains old value. I agree, this value seem to contain some info needed to determine if you already died in that game, but i doubt it's just encryption key.
P.S. I did it. To restore saves you should EXIT game and restore reg key, and restart the game - saves will be functional again. It might be encryption key after all, but it's not just 1 encryption key - it's several keys for every game you started (which is why it's size changes every time you start new game) and i think it's used to decrypt only some part of save file, which is not necessary for lower diffuculties, but essential for Insane. I also noticed that death on last game changes first 3 bytes and last 3 bytes (may be more, but my key is now too long and i'm too lazy to compare and other parts seem to stay untouched) :)