Baldur’s Gate 3 can’t save bug: how to fix syncing issues

If your game is stuck at “Currently syncing,” we might have a solution

Baldur’s Gate 3 just had its full release for PC, and naturally, everyone rushed to play the party-based CRPG, causing Steam to crash for some users. Even if you managed to purchase and download the full game with no hassle, you might have fallen victim to a nasty bug that prevents some players from saving their progress.

Many Baldur’s Gate 3 players took to Twitter and other social media sites to vent their frustration with the “Can’t Save Right Now Game Is Currently Syncing” issue, which in extreme cases could wipe your entire progress in the game.

Here’s what might be causing the “can’t save” bug in Baldur’s Gate 3, what you can do to fix it, and some tips on how to prevent it from happening.

What is the Baldur’s Gate 3 can’t save bug

Users have been reporting that as Baldur’s Gate 3 is trying to autosave, the game gets stuck at the “Syncing Cloud Save” message, leaving users unable to manually save their progress, as manual save and load options are disabled during cloud sync.

For some users, Baldur’s Gate 3 could become stuck at “Syncing Cloud Save”, and naturally, manual saves and loading are disabled in the main menu.

Larian Studios

This has caused many players to lose progress, and have to replay long sections of the 150-hour game, and in some cases completely wiping their progress and forcing them to start over from the character creator.

How to prevent Baldur’s Gate 3 can’t save bug

Most saving issues in Baldur’s Gate 3 right now seem to be caused by syncing glitches when the game tries to upload a save file to Steam Cloud or developer Larian’s cross-save sync service, so if you don’t plan to play the game across multiple PCs or Steam Deck, you can do yourself a favor and disable Steam Cloud and maybe turn off cross-save inside the game for now. Ideally, you can do this before you start your BG3 campaign.

How to turn off Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam Cloud sync

You can quickly disable cloud sync for BG3 from the Steam client app before launching the game:

1. Right-click Baldur’s Gate 3 in your Steam library and click Properties
2. On the General tab, turn off the toggle under Steam Cloud that says “Keep games saves in the Steam Cloud for Baldur’s Gate 3”
3. Start Baldur’s Gate 3

The game uses Steam Cloud to upload save data so that you can play on multiple PCs and the Steam Deck, and keep your progress across devices synced. 

Turn off cross-save in Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate 3 also uses your Larian account to sync your progress, so you can continue on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles when Baldur's Gate releases for those. You can turn this off by going into the in-game settings and unchecking the box next to “cross-save”. Then restart the game.

How to fix Baldur’s Gate 3 can’t save bug

If you’re just starting the game, make sure you do a manual save as soon as possible, so you don’t lose the character you created and any initial progress. Baldur's Gate 3 is full of surprises anyways, so it's always good to do manual saves and quicksaves as often as possible.

If you have cloud sync and cross-save enabled, pay attention to the autosave status messages in the upper left corner of the screen, and make sure you restart the game as soon as you notice it’s stuck at “Syncing Cloud Save”. This way you'll minimize the progress lost since the last successful save, as you won't be able to do a manual save during this instance anymore.

Here’s what to do when you get the can’t save bug:

1. Exit the game if it’s still open
2. Right-click on Baldur’s Gate 3 in your Steam library and then Properties
3. Go to General and under Steam Cloud tick the only option there off
4. Then, go to Baldur’s Gate 3’s app data folder on your PC and delete or just rename it. You can usually find it here: “C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur’s Gate 3,” where “username” is your Windows user name.
5. Launch Baldur’s Gate 3 again

Developers Larian have also posted a saving issues support article that you can check out on the Larian support website. Some recommendations to prevent saving issues include closing unnecessary open apps before running Baldur’s Gate 3, tweaking your antivirus and firewall settings to treat the game as a trusted app, and solutions for specific antivirus software, including Windows Defender, Avast, and AVG.

If you are running into this and any other problems with your Baldur’s Gate 3 game, a general recommendation would be to have Steam (or your client of choice) verify the locally installed game files. This could take some time, but will fix any issues with your BG3 installation.