Profiles, saves and the ‘mod missing’ dialog: keeping an ETS2 or ATS career safe from betas, removed mods and updates

24 Oct 2026 · 3 min read · ModsDrop

Pictured: Renault T – Excellence Cab with 4K Textures and ZF Gearbox, from the ModsDrop library.

A trucking career is hundreds of hours in one profile, and that profile is a folder of files that mods write into. Most profile disasters in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator come from the same three moments: switching to a beta, removing a mod that is still in use, and an update that changes the save format. All three are survivable with a copy made in advance. Here is how profiles work and how to keep one safe.

Where profiles live

ETS2: Documents\Euro Truck Simulator 2\profiles\
ATS: Documents\American Truck Simulator\profiles\

Each profile is a folder with a long hexadecimal name (it encodes the profile name) containing profile.sii (the settings and the mod list) and a save\ folder with one subfolder per save slot, each holding game.sii and info.sii. If Steam Cloud is on for the game, profiles live in steam_profiles\ next to profiles\ instead, with the same structure. The game’s log, game.log.txt, and config.cfg sit one level up in the game’s Documents folder.

Backing up

Copy the whole profile folder somewhere outside Documents, with the date in the name. That is the entire procedure. Do it before switching to an open beta, before activating a map mod, before removing a mod you have been using, and once in a while anyway. Restoring is copying it back while the game is closed. A copy on another drive or in cloud storage survives a disk failure; Steam Cloud alone does not protect against a save that was corrupted and then synced.

The “mod missing” dialog

When you load a save and a mod that was active when it was made is no longer present, the game lists the missing mods and offers to continue. What happens next depends on what the mod provided:

A truck or trailer you owned: replaced by a default; the game tells you.
A paint job, accessory or part: removed from the vehicle, the rest stays.
A map: the truck may be somewhere that no longer exists. The game moves it, usually to a service point; the current job is lost.
Cargo or a company: the active job is cancelled.

None of it is catastrophic, and continuing is safe, but it is one-way: once you save, the save no longer references the mod. If you removed the mod by accident, close the game without saving, put the mod back, and load again.

Betas and save formats

A save made on a newer game version may not open on an older one. Joining the 1.62 open beta and saving there, then returning to 1.61, can leave the profile unreadable on 1.61. The copy you made before switching is the way back. Within the same version, moving between the beta and the release of that version is fine.

Mods and the profile

The active mod list and its order are stored in profile.sii, which is why two profiles can run entirely different mod sets, and why a new profile starts with none active. Creating a second profile for experiments costs nothing and is the single best habit for anyone who downloads a lot: test a new map or a big pack on the scratch profile, keep the main one clean.

Editing saves

Saves are binary by default. Setting uset g_save_format "2" in config.cfg makes the game write new saves as plain text, which is how people change money, experience, truck positions and the like with a text editor. It is also how people break profiles: a typo in game.sii makes the save unloadable. If you edit, edit a copy, and keep the untouched original.

Corruption and recovery

A save that fails to load with no missing-mod dialog is usually a crash during saving (the file is truncated) or a disk error. The game keeps autosaves and several quicksaves alongside manual saves; try an earlier slot in the same profile before reaching for the backup. If every slot fails, the profile folder is damaged, and the dated copy is the only route.

A routine

Main profile for driving, scratch profile for trying mods.
Copy the main profile before: betas, map mods, removing a used mod, big game updates.
Sell modded trucks and trailers before removing their mods.
Finish or cancel the active job before changing map or cargo mods.
Keep the downloads of mods that work. The mod that disappears from the internet is always the one your save depends on.