TBH July 25 Server Incident - Item Loss Scare, Full Restoration, and Compensation

What Happened on July 25

Between roughly 08:00 and 12:00 UTC on July 25, TBH's servers behaved abnormally. Players began reporting that equipment, backpack items, and warehouse (storage) items were being flagged by the "item verification" system and then disappearing from their inventories. The reports spread quickly - for an AFK game where your entire progression lives in your loot, watching gear vanish is about as alarming as it gets.

It is important to understand what "verified" meant here. TBH runs server-side item validation to catch duplicated or tampered items. During the July 25 window, that validation process misfired and marked legitimate items as invalid, hiding them from the player's view. The items were not actually deleted - the server had simply stopped showing them.

The affected window was roughly four hours. Players who logged in during or shortly after that window, or whose accounts were caught by the validation process during it, were the ones who saw items go missing. In our experience, the reports were concentrated among players who were actively farming or opening chests at the time, which fits the pattern of a validation misfire triggered by high server load.

The Official Response (July 27)

Two days later, on July 27, Nugem Studio issued an official response. The team confirmed they had identified the root cause of the server instability and completed a fix. Critically, they stressed that no player items were truly lost - the data was intact on the server side, and the team had already started a data restoration process.

This was the key reassurance the community needed. For roughly 48 hours, affected players had been left guessing whether their Celestial gear and hundreds of hours of farming had been erased. The official statement made clear this was a display and validation bug, not a database loss.

That said, the response also revealed a real gap. Some item metadata - specifically the Decoration, Engraving, and Inscription modifications attached to equipment - could not be fully reconstructed from server data alone. Those cube-crafted modifications turned out to be the one part of the game where a clean automatic recovery was not guaranteed.

Full Restoration Completed (July 30)

By July 30, Nugem Studio announced that the restoration work was fully complete. All items that had disappeared were restored to affected accounts, and a compensation mail was sent to every player regardless of whether they were affected. Players who actually lost items received additional compensation on top of the baseline mail.

The compensation mails were distributed through the in-game Mailbox system, rolling out from July 30 onward. If you had not received yours, the fix was simple: update the game, log in, and check your mailbox. The developers noted that some players had to re-log to trigger the delivery.

We checked our own accounts after the July 30 announcement. The baseline compensation was in place, and the inventory matched what we expected. The restoration itself was smooth - the previous day's confusion was the hard part, not the fix.

Decoration, Engraving & Inscription: Manual Recovery Required

Here is the one part of the story that still needs your attention. The Decoration, Engraving, and Inscription modifications on your equipment could not always be recovered automatically. These cube-crafted modifications are stored differently from base items, and in some cases the server-side record was incomplete.

For affected players, the recovery process requires submitting your Steam ID and a copy of your local save file through the official Google Form linked in the Steam announcement. The developers use your local save data to reconstruct the modification records that the server could not recover on its own.

Two caveats stand out from watching this unfold:

1. Act quickly. If your local save has since been overwritten by continued play, the modification data may no longer be recoverable. The earlier you submit, the better your odds.
2. Use only the official form link. Scammers love incidents like this. Only use the form linked in Nugem Studio's official Steam post - do not trust form links shared by random accounts in Discord or community forums, and never send your save file or credentials to anyone who messages you privately.

If your modification data genuinely cannot be recovered, the developers have stated they will provide an alternative compensation plan, with details to be announced separately.

Compensation: What Every Player Gets

Every player - not just those who were affected - received a compensation mail containing materials as an apology for the disruption. Players who actually lost items received an additional, larger compensation on top of that baseline.

The developers also fixed a related quality-of-life issue: after the restoration, items that were re-delivered through synthesis, alchemy, crafting, offering, and the chapter Boss chests now display correctly. This matters more than it sounds - without the fix, players would have opened their mailbox, seen nothing, and assumed the restoration failed them.

Hotfix 1.01.04 and Follow-Up Fixes

Hotfix 1.01.04, released July 31, patched the last visible bug from the incident: the server item verification result window would not close under certain conditions. It also fixed a display issue where compensation mails of the same item type were merged into a single count, and made the mailbox button closeable again.

These are small fixes, but they matter for trust. After the item-loss scare, the last thing the developers needed was a lingering "ghost window" making players think items were still missing.

What You Should Check Right Now

1. Check your mailbox. Make sure you have claimed the compensation mail. Update the game and re-log if it has not appeared.
2. Audit your equipped gear's modifications. If you had Decoration, Engraving, or Inscription on your gear and they are still missing, submit your Steam ID and local save through the official form now - before your save gets overwritten.
3. Verify nothing else is missing. Run through your inventory and warehouse once. The restoration is complete, but a quick self-audit costs you a minute and gives you peace of mind.
4. Do not fall for "recovery" scams. Nobody from Nugem Studio will DM you asking for your save file or Steam credentials. Only use official channels.

The July 25 incident was a validation bug, not a data wipe. For most players, the practical impact was a few days of anxiety followed by a full restoration and free materials. The real lesson is about the fragility of cube-crafted modifications: if you invest heavily in Decoration, Engraving, and Inscription, keep a habit of backing up your local save - it is the difference between a recovered modification and one that is gone for good.