My player has disappeared

[leftybob]

I mostly play in career mode. ...Trying to replicate the PGA tour season as closely as possible.
While playing the tournament at TPC River Highlands, the other day, the game froze! I could not do anything to make it come back so I turned off/ rebooted the computer. When I went back into links and tried to go back to career mode, my player had disappeared!
Consequentially, it wanted me to start a new season?
When I went to the list of players, my playing name was gone! However, when I typed in the name I was using, it said I could not use that cuz that name already existed?? Catch 22.
I cannot get back into the old season without that name, but it has disappeared, but I cannot put that name back in because it tells me that name already exists.
If I put in a different name it wants me to start the season all over again
Anyone have any suggestions to either fix this or get around it?
Thanks for any advice/solutions you can offer

[Adelade]

I guess your player file probably got corrupted, that really sucks unless you have a backup of it.

.PIN files tend to be located at C:\ProgramData\Links 2003\Players - ProgramData is a hidden folder, turn on showing hidden folders in File Explorer if you cant see it. If you are on Windows XP however, the file might instead be at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Links 2003\Players according to Armands spreadsheet.

If you have manually stored a backup of the .PIN files somewhere, try replace the .PIN file with your player's name (dont have Links running while you do it).

If you have Windows restore activated to take automatic backups, or have a manual windows backup saved, right click the .PIN file, and click "Restore previous versions" to see if you have any old version of the file to choose there.

[leftybob]

Thanks Adelade for that info.
I tried that" restore previous versions" in program data. It said there are no previous versions available! I also tried creating a restore point one week before this happened and still nothing.
I guess I am doomed, huh?

[dwg]

Restore points are only for installed software a PIN file is not part of the program as such, hence a restore point would not help. It really needed some type of data file backup.

[Adelade]

I believe you can choose to backup normal files too with Windows Restore, but then the backups become large and I doubt many do it.

[Adelade]

If it was me, I would probably try this: Delete the PIN file (or rather, cut it out and save somewhere else) from the Players folder. Then open Links anew and see if it will let you create a new player with the exact same name (most settings shouldnt matter, but try to use the same ones you think you had before anyway, at least the Player Skill Level) then see if Career Mode will let you in.

[leftybob]

Thank you again Adelade for your helpful suggestions/replies !
This last one of deleting/ cut and paste is working at the moment.
Once I took him out and then followed your suggestion of starting anew using basically the same name and settings as before....has worked!
Player history is back. This season in career mode is back and even the tournament I was playing( ie TPC River Highlands) is back!
Thanks again! Much appreciated!

[Adelade]

Nice, yeah Career Mode history/statistics are stored in a different file and location (normally C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Links 2003\Career), but you probably lost your previous player statistics for that player under Options > Player Stats.