Member Avatar for Hopp3r

So I've come across a problem more than once and it'd be a ton of help if I could get this figured out! So there are several instances where I've wanted to open a file with notepad or notepad++ to change values or something (mainly with videogames). The problem that I've come across is that sometimes when I open up a file such as a .PROPERTIES or .SII extension, instead of seeing the normal text like a ton of other people are capable of seeing, mine is jumbled and encoded.

For example, the file I am trying to edit "game.sii" is supposed to have a list something along the lines of
"total_distance: <number>
undamaged_cargo_row: <number>
service_visit_count: <number>
gas_station_visit_count: <number>
emergency_call_count: <number>
ai_crash_count: <number>
truck_color_change_count: <number>
red_light_fine_count: <number>
total_fuel_litres: <number>
total_fuel_price: <number>
money_account: <number>
current_career_level <number>
current_career_star_count <number>
"

but for me it looks like:
捓䍳ম꛴慼䭉묔匢腾ঔ淀쫇㵧䖚࠻喴ሧ鞳搆⒆혡ꘒ滻눕숐ፗꌖ䣾鶵攐齴鰪み嵼ⶆ㬆荇걕࠯ᅏȪ⨧挬摷吀궺ꓧ穘ↀㄅ涓縌藫Ṭ건䤾Ḑ眶츦䰈敝ԉ౧╁能ᦇᲑ褠 etc. etc.

I can't for the life of me understand why my notepad wouldn't read this file but so many other people have had success with it. Any help is appreciated & thanks for your time! :)

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Dani AI

Generated

ran into a common symptom: a .sii file that looks like garbage in Notepad/Notepad++. That display usually means the file is not plain text — the content can be using a different character encoding, packed inside an archive or compressed stream, or actually binary/encrypted. 's extension-swap is harmless but won't change the file bytes; it only changes how Windows chooses a default program. 's point about encryption may be correct for some game versions or modded files, but it is only one of several possibilities.

Quick, practical checks (keep a safe copy of the original first):

  • Try different encodings in Notepad++ (Encoding menu): UTF-8, UTF-8-BOM, ANSI, and the UCS-2/UTF-16 options. Some text files are stored as UTF-16 and will look garbled if opened with the wrong encoding.
  • Inspect the raw bytes with a hex viewer (HxD or similar). Common signatures reveal format: a leading bytes sequence 50 4B 03 04 means a ZIP/SCS archive, 1F 8B means gzip. Archives can be opened/extracted with 7-Zip to reveal inner .sii text files.
  • Run a text-extraction tool (strings or a hex-editor search) to see if readable fragments exist. If readable text appears after extraction/decompression, the file was just packaged or compressed rather than encrypted.
  • If the file shows no readable segments and no known header, it is likely encrypted or a proprietary binary. In that case a game-version-specific tool or community modding utility is required.

Cautions and context: editing save or game files can corrupt profiles or violate game policies. Always work on copies and keep timestamped backups. When a file truly is encrypted, community modding forums and versioned tools are the usual route for safe decryption; prefer well-known community projects over unknown executables.

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Member Avatar for anthonydaly

Have you tried to change the extension to something recognisable like ".txt", then edit the file, then change the extension back to ".sii"?

Member Avatar for Hopp3r

No dice. Still looks the exact same.

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