Warning to all Privacy Sweep tools (CCleaner, ASC, etc...) users!

[Rhialto]

I use CCleaner a few times a week and yesterday after having completed 5 screens on Machinarium I ran it.  What gives?  No more saved games, have to restart from zero!

Maybe if "Adobe Flash Player" is unchecked in the Applications list it would be safe but I haven't tried and I'm not willing to now.  

Hope there will be a sticky with possibily other software that could wipe your saved game.  Pretty frustrating to restart from zero when you are far away in the game.

[MODEDIT#1]

Quoting from the thread All saved game slots empty
How to exclude the savegame in CCleaner:

thanks for the suggestion of the save, now for those of ccleaner.

1. Open ccleaner.
2. Options
3. "Exclude"
4. Add Folder
5. Search the save path, eg C:\Users{USERNAME}\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\{RANDOMWORD}\localhost\Program Files\Machinarium\machinarium.exe
check if the box is in | *.* |
6. Accept
5. Ready now can use ccleaner and do not erase your saved game.

For those using the BetterPrivacy addon for Firefox be Warned:

Thank you!  I think you may have solved it!  You mentioned that the saves are in Flash Player preference, and well, I have this addon in Firefox named BetterPrivacy, and it rids of Flash Player bits that web sites use to track and data mine, and it is deleting machinarium saves along with the bad, it seems (for confirmation, in the folder referenced)!  Disabling this addon seems to solve the problem (every time I closed Firefox, it deleted stuff in the Flash Player folder).  So, anyone with this problem, watch your addons in Firefox!    

[/MODEDIT#1]
[MODEDIT#2]
User "dune" gave a solution on how to use the Firefox addon along the game without disabling it:

You don't need to disable Better Privacy in its entirety.
With Machinarium running, switch to a Firefox session. Open up Better Privacy's options. In its "LSO Manager" tab, you will see an entry for machinarium.exe. Highlight the entry and hit the "Prevent Automatic LSO Deletion" button.
Better Privacy will now leave Machinarium's Flash settings alone, but continue to sweep away the bad stuff.

[/MODEDIT#2]
[MODEDIT#3]
If you're using Advanced SystemCare here's how you can exclude (similar to CCleaner) your Savegame from Privacy Sweep:

Today i lost my save files and i dont use this add-on nor ccleaner. The same happens with advancedsystemcare apparently, but there is no list of exclusion there.

Select "Maintain Windows" > Click on the Tab "Settings". Expand the tree view of "Maintain Windows" > Choose "Privacy Sweep". Now following the tree structure on the right go to "Other Applications" > "Aplication" > Uncheck "Macromedia Flash(5/6/7/8)". Apply and OK.
If you already scanned, do it again with the new Settings otherwise it will still remove the files.

[/MODEDIT#3]

[popsUlfr]

I made a thread a while back: http://forum.amanita-design.net/index.php?topic=281.0

Make sure you backup your Machinarium.sol before proceeding to private file annihilation.

[StarRoad]

Alternatively you can open CCleaner, go to "Options" > "Exclude" > "Add Folder" and include your "localhost" folder inside of the Flash "#SharedObjects" folder (explained in "popsUlfrs" post).
This will prevent any unwanted deleting of your Machinarium data and you'll still be able to clear all the other useless flash data that's stored.

[bgthigfist]

CRAP CRAP CRAP.

I just ran CC cleaner on my XP install to remove a crappy browser trojan that had prevented my antivirus from upgrading and removing it.

I hadn't loaded up the game since doing so and seeing if my game saves were gone....

On the plus side, I wasn't very far through the game, so it will be fun to go through those screens again.  The game is so beautiful and engaging.

[Aumakua]

argh i lost my saves too! i use ccleaner every day 
btw, the game is amazing, the concept art rocks!

[techyguy]

The game is awsome!  But this is not good at all.  I use CCleaner on my customers computers.  If flash games start taking this type of save route in the future, I am going to have complaints.

Please fix this in a patch if at all possible.

[Pumba]

AFAIK all flash games store savegames this way. So I wouldn't install ccleaner etc on customers' computers. Most users do not care about data-privacy anyway. They will happily keep all the "evil" cookies, DOM, LSO as long as flash games run fine. Sad but true.

[dimi]

Today i lost my save files and i dont use this add-on nor ccleaner. The same happens with advancedsystemcare apparently, but there is no list of exclusion there.

[popsUlfr]

Today i lost my save files and i dont use this add-on nor ccleaner. The same happens with advancedsystemcare apparently, but there is no list of exclusion there.

Select "Maintain Windows" > Click on the Tab "Settings". Expand the tree view of "Maintain Windows" > Choose "Privacy Sweep". Now following the tree structure on the right go to "Other Applications" > "Aplication" > Uncheck "Macromedia Flash(5/6/7/8)". Apply and OK.
If you already scanned, do it again with the new Settings otherwise it will still remove the files.

[dimi]

you saved my night popsUlfr !  thank you once again.

[fml]

It was nice to see an old post about this - not so nice to learn that the problem still exists.

Obviously something like this shouldn't happen, and obviously it's not very nice to have been played about 70% of the game and find out your save games are missing. It is a flash game, after all, but still it should save or backup your save files to a safe folder.
Too bad that I actually paid for it when it wasn't worth paying, no matter how small the price, I guess. Learned a lot, though, and won't make the same mistakes again. 

[ElseerRadak]

Hi,

I too use ccleaner. However on Win7 sp1 x64 I bought my game via impulse and I found my save games at:

%appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\#machinarium.net

so that is what I added to cccleaner vs the path the op provided.

HTH

P.S. Yes I posted in two places since that made the most sense :>

Elseer R