Forum Discussion

New Novice

8 days ago

Solved

Save folder, including saves from old account, reappeared after deletion

I repurchased MELE on a new Steam + EA account (bought on Steam, running through EA), after having previously deleted my old accounts. For some reason, the saves and achievements associated with my old account appeared in my new account, even though I deleted the BioWare/MELE folder in Documents. Since then, I've deleted this folder several times, but the folder and saves reappear every time I launch the game. This has also screwed up my achievements—getting the Veteran achievement in the prologue of ME1 was disconcerting. I'm running on Windows 11.

Any advice? Anything I can do to wipe the slate clean, as much as is possible, anyway? I'll admit deleting my old accounts was probably wasteful, but what's done is done. It would at least be nice not to have my old saves showing up when I keep deleting them...

holger1405
4 days ago
AstraAeterna

Make sure the "Documents/Bioware/Mass Effect 3" or "Documents/Bioware/Mass Effect Legendary Edition" folders are deleted. (Permanently!)
(If you use OnDrive make sure the "Documents/Bioware" folder is not in your automated OneDrive backup.)

Please clear your temp files:

Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time to open the Run dialog box.

Into the new window, type or copy & paste: "%temp%" (Without the quotes.) > hit "ENTER"

Now your Windows Explorer should have brought you to the "C:\Users\>your user name<\AppData\Local\\Temp" folder. > Delete all files and folders in it.
(If some files or folders can't be deleted, reboot and try again.)

Then:

Go here and download "Revo Uninstaller. (The freeware version, Portable version works too.)

Run "Revo Uninstaller" > Deinstall EA app.

At the end of the main uninstall, Revo will ask you which cleaning method you want to use. > Select "Advance" > Browse.

If "Remaining registration content found" is displayed > Select All > Delete > Next

When "Remaining Data and Folders" is displayed > Select All > Delete.

Restart the PC

Download a new EA app setup exe from here. (Do it even if you already have the installer!)

Install EA app.
Now do the exact same for Steam.

Run EA app as Administrator > Click the EA app shortcut on your desktop > Run as Administrator.

Test.

7 Replies

EA_Shepard
Community Manager
1 day ago
AstraAeterna Hey, glad to see that those steps helped with this issue.
AstraAeterna
New Novice
2 days ago
I'm not sure if it fully fixed the problem, but this definitely helped, and the saves have stopped reappearing. Thank you!
AstraAeterna
New Novice
2 days ago
Update: I'm not sure how it happened, but the saves have stopped reappearing. Thank you for the help!
AstraAeterna
New Novice
4 days ago
Thank you, I've given this a try and am now reinstalling. I'll let you know how this goes!
AstraAeterna
New Novice
4 days ago
Thank you for the response!
The funny thing is I have a different Steam and EA account, although I did use the same email address for my new Steam account as I did for my old Steam account. Maybe that could be what's causing the issue?
But I've manually deleted as much as I can and ran a file cleanup, and now I'm reinstalling. I'll let you know whether the folder still restores itself!
holger1405
Hero+
4 days ago
AstraAeterna

Make sure the "Documents/Bioware/Mass Effect 3" or "Documents/Bioware/Mass Effect Legendary Edition" folders are deleted. (Permanently!)
(If you use OnDrive make sure the "Documents/Bioware" folder is not in your automated OneDrive backup.)

Please clear your temp files:

Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time to open the Run dialog box.

Into the new window, type or copy & paste: "%temp%" (Without the quotes.) > hit "ENTER"

Now your Windows Explorer should have brought you to the "C:\Users\>your user name<\AppData\Local\\Temp" folder. > Delete all files and folders in it.
(If some files or folders can't be deleted, reboot and try again.)

Then:

Go here and download "Revo Uninstaller. (The freeware version, Portable version works too.)

Run "Revo Uninstaller" > Deinstall EA app.

At the end of the main uninstall, Revo will ask you which cleaning method you want to use. > Select "Advance" > Browse.

If "Remaining registration content found" is displayed > Select All > Delete > Next

When "Remaining Data and Folders" is displayed > Select All > Delete.

Restart the PC

Download a new EA app setup exe from here. (Do it even if you already have the installer!)

Install EA app.
Now do the exact same for Steam.

Run EA app as Administrator > Click the EA app shortcut on your desktop > Run as Administrator.

Test.
EA_Shepard
Community Manager
4 days ago
AstraAeterna Hey,

Sorry to hear you have been having some issues with the game. I'm a huge achievement hunter, so that one hits. That was an issue a while back, but I have not seen it since. Sadly, though, with achievements, especially with Steam, we have no way to undo anything.

What is happening is that when an account is delinked and then relinked to the same or another EA account, the Steam side is reading save files on your PC. If the saved data was still on there from your old account, a new account, or from a site like Mass Effect Saves
For example, it will sync all of that data, and then pop up all of those achievements.

If there is more than one account being affected, that means there is still Mass Effect data that was never deleted off the PC, or it synced with the EA account cloud saves.

For the saves, you have to manually start deleting everything on that PC, and then run a file cleanup.

Also, try these:

Fully close MELE, Steam, and the EA app.

Pause OneDrive syncing temporarily.

Check and rename or remove the MELE folder from both possible locations:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect Legendary Edition

%OneDrive%\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Search the PC for any additional folder named Mass Effect Legendary Edition, including another Windows user profile.

Launch the game and let it create a new folder.

Confirm whether the saves return before resuming OneDrive.