TRP3 wiped. How did this happen?

I downloaded TRP3 years ago and have never had a single issue with it. Ever. Over the years I’ve created countless profiles, atleast 20+ for different characters across different realms. My main ones that I play all the time I had backed up in google docs but most of them (lesser used ones) were not.

I logged in today and they are all gone. All of them. Not a bug. Logged in and out, exited game. Nothing. Just a complete empty slate.

So I have a few questiosn:

1.) How is this possible? How can code just randomly delete itself without authorization from a user? Note: I did not update or download/change anything. I went to bed and woke up the next morning with an empty slate.

2.) What can I do now besides spend countless hours rebuilding everything from scratch?

3.) Has anyone else had this happen?

And yeah, I’ll back up all my profiles in the future but I don’t like the thought of having my work randomly erased for no reason whatsoever.

Not to just be like “it happens,” but it happens. Notably, all the TRP profiles for you account are stored in a single LUA file in your WTF folder; that file getting corrupted or modified or written over without your knowledge can wipe your TRP data, as well as Blizzard changing stuff on their end, since they can basically change anything in any WoW directory whenever they want.

TRP is actually somewhat infamous for this, and as far as I know, there isn’t any one specific cause. The most we know is that it’s data corruption caused by…something.

If you have File History enabled in Windows, or you take regular data backups, you can restore the file TRP uses to store profiles from either of those. A friend that you regularly RP with might also have your profile cached on their machine, and can just copy and paste you what you wrote.

Barring that, however, I’m afraid it comes down to recreating them from scratch.

Like I said, TRP is actually somewhat infamous for doing this. The only real preventative measures you can take is to back up your WTF and Interface folders regularly, and avoid like…making the game crash, or blue screening your computer, or whatever.

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Sorry to hear you are dealing with this issue. :frowning: Sadly there is no way to retrieve TRP data that is already lost to the wind. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent and protect yourself from it that you can employ for the future.

First off, if you do not have the appropriate cleaning measures set for your TRP3 directory, the addon can very quickly take on an overload of data and end up erasing everything of its own accord. The data the directory saves can be accessed across your entire account. While logged in, one’s directory can accrue dozens or even hundreds of profiles saved in a single play session. This includes not only character profiles, but their mount and pet profiles (known as “Companion” profiles) as well… now compile that with the number of alts you might play regularly, and especially if you enjoy attending larger RP events… yeah. It can get pretty massive. And the bigger the directory, the more at-risk you are for an involuntary data wipe.

I strongly recommend going into your TRP3 Register settings and changing/double checking the option you currently have selected for “auto-purge directory”. This particular setting will purge your directory of other peoples’ profiles you have not actively seen in the world for however many days you set it to. I personally have mine set to two days. You may also be the kind of person that would rather not get rid of EVERYONE else’s profiles - me too! If you don’t want certain profiles to be erased, like your RP partner’s for example, you can simply set a relations status for them, and they will be exempt from the routine purging.

Another protective measure I am a strong advocate for is to create a Google Doc or some other equally accessible file within which you can write up/paste ALL of the necessary info for your character’s TRP profile, along with whatever extra material you like. I have a doc for each character I play.

Not only is this helpful in the case of a TRP data wipe so you can quickly refill a new profile with pre-saved info, it’s also great to have if something bad happened to your entire computer, or if you’re away from your computer and need access to that one really obscure favorite food your character said they liked one time but you the player can’t remember; really a myriad of situations can be aided by the simple act of storing your profile information somewhere safe ahead of time.

My final recommendation to go along with the one above is to save the export code of your TRP profiles. You can access these codes by opening your TRP panel and going from Character -> Profile. Then, click the little red arrow button on the bottom right of any profile (called “Actions”), and select “Export Profile”. Now you can copy all that data, paste it somewhere safe, and import it into the addon again any time you might need to do so!

I have been using TRP3 (and its predecessor, TRP2) for many years. I cannot remember the last time I had to deal with a full-loss data wipe and I like to believe it’s due to these precautions. I hope this post might help you avoid situations like these going forward! :purple_heart:

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As a couple extra words of advice, Ursuola is correct here:

However, you must ensure that this friend does not see you in the world again for this to work. Otherwise, their directory will be updated with your new “clean slate” profile, and they will lose all the data they had of your previous one.

I would also like to recommend that you don’t make your TRPs too large. Pretty obvious suggestion, I know, but overly large profiles can become a problem if you get lag while just trying to open them.

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Guys, it just happened again for the second time less than a couple days later.

W T F ?!?!?!?!?!?!

Stranger even, is when I logged on today, I got the message of “Welcome back, returning player, here’s whats new.” even though I’ve been playing since expansion started.

What is going on???

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Your addon said that? Or your actual game? I would definitely talk to technical support if if it’s the latter as it may be beyond our limited scope to help you in an effective way

Yes, now whenever I log in, it’s saying “Welcome back, returning player”, all my interface and system settings are reverted back to default, and I’m getting popup hints all over the place like “Press B to view your inventory!” or arrows pointing to my actions bars saying “this is your action bar. Put your abilities here”