Where all my maps go?

First off, just want to say what a fantastic mod & great community this is. I'm definitely in for the long haul.

Got a problem with my character though, logged on today,and after spending about 20hrs mapping the known systems to make trading easier,I find I have no map information, not even the system I'm in.

Do I have to start from scratch? Is this an intermittent problem that will keep re-occuring? Anything I can do from my side to prevent it happening again?

I do like the exploring side of the game, but if I have to keep re-treading the same old ground to build my map database up every couple of weeks, it's going to wear thin very quickly.

If it is going to keep happening is there any form of 'legal' mod that I can use to at least put the basics in for me? (Main planets, 1 or 2 house systems.)

Thanks in advance.

Logged back on after a couple of hours and everything is back. Phew! Thanks Chief. Must be a server/connection glitch. I'll know not to panic next time.. Cheers!

Nope. Getting it again, been logging on and off all night, and no info again. Even on the chat screen all systems showing as ????. Damn this is annoying! Anyone else get this (hopefully intermittent) problem?

Cheers guys, just tried that, full re-install of FL then CF & still the same problem, just noticed this time that nothing is showing on the scanner display either; Getting a distance & symbol but no names. Looks like my laptop has decided it doesn't want me to play this game anymore. Can't think of anything else to try (apart from bouncing the f*cker of the wall, won't solve the bug but will make me feel better!)
There's no way I'm gonna spend another 20 hrs mapping just so it goes again.
Was nice flying with you guys. I will pop in from time to time & see if it's resolved itself like it did last week, but I'm not holding my breath. Looks like it's back to Counterstrike for me (& I'm crap at that!)

Thanks for the help.

Nope. Can't do it. I like this game too much to admit defeat and walk away! OK, I bit the bullet & started a new game (same MPID.) Now all ships in NY have no names, just ?IDS & a price, so I'm guessing I didn't do a clean install. As far as I know I uninstalled everything, then started from scratch. Should I have nuked all the FL directories & mod manager as well to be on the safe side?
RGHawk if you can remember what you did I'd appreciate it.
Darkstalker, if you can remember what RGHAwk did, same applies

(One good thing about starting from scratch though; I can get rid of 'Highway to the bloody danger zone!' Damn! that tune gets very annoying very quickly.)

Without fail, although I did have a qf.trojan that took me a fortnight to shift, was a browser hijacker rather than a file destroyer though, still, might be the culprit as only the MP game was affected. Doing a full wipe & re-install & crossing fingers......

YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's done the trick. Got all my info back & all bugs disappeared! That qf.trojan must've been the cause after all.
Thanks again for all your help guys & I'll see you out there!

BASTARD!!!! Spoke too soon! Exactly the same has happened again! I give up. It takes over an hour to do a full re-install & there's no way I'm doing that every time I play. I shut down to watch the football, booted back up without running anything else & no ship/map/solar info again. F*ck!
Gonna try & log on via LAN or direct connection see if that does the trick, failing that it's either vanilla or uninstall. After playing CF I don't think I could go back to vanilla though. Crossing fingers.... AGAIN! [2]

That did it, direct connection seems to solve the problem. Hopefully that will be the end of it now. Didn't realise how much I enjoyed this game until I was on the verge of uninstalling it. R8R (& the other modders) you are a genius! (genii?)

See y'all up there