As a fan of Stardew Valley, I was excited to start playing the game with my brother in multiplayer mode. However, our excitement was short-lived as we encountered an issue that disrupted our gameplay. In this article, I will share our experience and the solution that finally fixed the problem.
The Issue: Inventory Displacement
After playing for over 100 hours without any issues, our game started crashing erratically. The main problem we observed was with my character's inventory. When cycling through the three "pages" of my inventory using the tab key, items would automatically be displaced by one box each time. For example, if I had an item in Box 1, after cycling through three times, it would now be in Box 2. This happened regardless of whether my inventory was full or not.
Error Logs and Crash
The error logs we collected showed the same message: "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection." The crashes were unpredictable, occurring at various times during gameplay, including when opening chests, dismounting from horses, or farming.
Solution Found
Two years after our experience, another player shared a solution that fixed the issue. The problem was caused by empty slots in my inventory. To fix this, I had to fill my inventory with junk items, making sure every slot had something in it. Then, I ended the day and downloaded the latest version of Farm Foundry, a cheat engine for Stardew Valley.
Run Farm Foundry
To use Farm Foundry, I loaded my saved game and chose the Backpack option from the 5th button. This allowed me to see every item in my inventory with a settings button in the top-right corner. I clicked this button and deleted each item until all empty slots were gone. Finally, I saved the edited save file and reloaded the game.
Result: Fixed Inventory
After following these steps, our gameplay experience returned to normal. The inventory cycling issue was resolved, and we could continue playing without any further problems.
Lessons Learned
This experience taught me that even though an issue may seem unique or specific, it's always possible that someone else has encountered the same problem and found a solution. I hope this article will help other players who may be experiencing similar issues in Stardew Valley.
References:
- Octoberforth (2022). Two years too late, but here we go…
- Another player (2020). Same issue, different solution
- ericanoel6 (2016). Inventory glitch: Saying Inv. is full when it is NOT.
- Pierre's backpack mail not triggering : r/StardewValley