Visual Novel Maker – Solving Some Problems with Project Migration

For the longest time I’ve been confined to v1093, because I couldn’t migrate my project over to more recent versions. Even though we’ve been warned multiple times that we might not be always able to migrate, this one sat wrong with me for quite some time.

Recently, I’ve been able to complete the migration process to the most recent (not beta) version, and to not be that “I’ve solved it, but will forget to tell you how” guy, I’ll share what helped me in this instance.

How the Problem Looked

Note: Credit goes to ITAndroMedian

In my case, VN Maker would try to open the project (or rather, the copy of the project, I don’t want to lose this one), tell me it needs to migrate, then tries to load all of the assets in order to re-save them in the new format – and during that process of loading assets, would freeze solid.

No progress, the only choice is to kill the VN Maker. VN Maker did make some changes (I checked through Git), but nothing that would prevent the project from opening in the old version.

What Ended Up Working

1. Create a new project in the current version of VN Maker;
2. Go to the folder of your old project, then /data;
3. Select and everything EXCEPT for /lib folder and SCRIPTS.js;
4. Paste everything into /data of your new project;
5. Start VN Maker (current version) and open your new project;
6. VN Maker would like to migrate and should do so without a hitch;
7. Close the project, then copy /resources into the new project;
8. Open the project in VN Maker and check if anything broke.

This should do it.

What Can Go Wrong?

I have no idea.

It could be that in your case loading process stops because of a different file. In that case, repeat the process above but don’t copy the suspect file.

It could be that one of non-copied files or even SCRIPTS.js or something in /data/lib contains something vital you wrote and you don’t want to lose it.

As much as it pains me to say this, if you want to go through with migration, you’ll have to make sacrifices. Maybe write down the custom logic you had there, so you’ll be able to re-enter it when you’re done.

It could be that you have some different problem, or you have a different solution, or you know way more about the subject. In that case, let me know in the comments. Or write your own guide.

I hope this would help someone.