Tools / Valheim

Valheim World Recovery

World won't load, or a .db/.fwl got mismatched, truncated, or you restored the wrong one? A Valheim world is a matched pair - <World>.db (the world) and <World>.fwl (name, seed, spawn) - and the game keeps .old backups. Point this page at your world folder: it pairs the files up, ranks every copy by save time and integrity, picks the newest intact pair, and hands you a clean, ready-to-upload world plus the launch argument.

Valheim 1.0 changed the save layout, and this tool reads both. A 1.0 world is its own directory holding _main.N.db2, _main.N.fwl2, _main.N.ok and a pile of .chunk files, where N counts up on every save and several generations are kept side by side. The tool lists each 1.0 world, picks the highest generation that finished writing (the one with an .ok), and shows your pre-1.0 .db/.fwl, which conversion leaves in place, as what it really is: a frozen rollback point from before the update, not a newer save. One limit: a completely empty world folder contains no files for the browser to hand over, so the tool cannot see it at all. That is normal, not a lost world - it just has not been saved under 1.0 yet, and your legacy files beside it are intact. For each 1.0 world the tool also reads the newest completed save's _main.N.chunks index and checks that every terrain file it names is on disk: the Could not find file ….chunk failure is exactly a name in that index with no file behind it, and the tool supplies the missing files from a backup folder, or from the same piece of terrain at another revision. What changed, in full.

An update or a mod changed your 1.0 world and you want it undone? Pick the folder that holds the world and its <World>_backup_auto-<date> folders. Each backup is a copy of the whole world from one moment, so the tool offers them newest first and zips the one you pick under your world's name. It will not roll back to an older _main.N inside the live folder: every save there shares the same terrain chunk files, so an older one would mix two points in time. Before your next mod update, copy the world folder somewhere safe and you will always have a clean point to return to.

Valheim 1.0? If the world select screen says Missing DB, that is this exact problem: Valheim found the .fwl and no usable .db beside it, so the world lists but will not load. Drop the folder in below and the tool will find the intact pair. A world tagged [Old Format] is a different thing and needs no recovery: it is a pre-2022 legacy save, and Valheim converts it once you use move to local or move to cloud and then fully quit the game. Backups of a legacy save carry the same tag, which is normal. Full guide to both.

Your save never leaves your browser. It reads only file names, sizes and modified-times to rank the copies, copies the chosen pair's bytes into a zip locally, and never modifies your originals - the zip even keeps the files it would replace as a backup.