Im just working on what should be the "finishing touches" of my first iPhone game. For some reason, when I save with NSKeyedArchiver/Unarchiver, the data seems to load once and then gets lost or something. Here's what I've been able to deduce: When I save in this viewController, pop to the previous one, and then push back into this one, the data is saved and prints as I want it to. But when I save in this viewController, then push a new one and pop back into this one, the data is lost. Any idea why this might be happening? Do I have this set up all wrong? I copied it from a book months ago. Here's the methods I use to save and load. - (void) saveGameData { NSLog(@"LS:saveGameData"); // SAVE DATA IMMEDIATELY NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0]; NSString *gameStatePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"gameState.dat"]; NSMutableData *gameSave= [NSMutableData data]; NSKeyedArchiver *encoder = [[NSKeyedArchiver alloc] initForWritingWithMutableData:gameSave]; [encoder encodeObject:categoryLockStateArray forKey:kCategoryLockStateArray]; [encoder encodeObject:self.levelsPlist forKey:@"levelsPlist"]; [encoder finishEncoding]; [gameSave writeToFile:gameStatePath atomically:YES]; NSLog(@"encoded catLockState:%@",categoryLockStateArray); } - (void) loadGameData { NSLog(@"loadGameData"); // If there is a saved file, perform the load NSMutableData *gameData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:[[NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0] stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"gameState.dat"]]; // LOAD GAME DATA if (gameData) { NSLog(@"-Loaded Game Data-"); NSKeyedUnarchiver *unarchiver = [[NSKeyedUnarchiver alloc] initForReadingWithData:gameData]; self.levelsPlist = [unarchiver decodeObjectForKey:@"levelsPlist"]; categoryLockStateArray = [unarchiver decodeObjectForKey:kCategoryLockStateArray]; NSLog(@"decoded catLockState:%@",categoryLockStateArray); } // CREATE GAME DATA else { NSLog(@"-Created Game Data-"); self.levelsPlist = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:kLevelsPlist ofType:@"plist"]]; } if (!categoryLockStateArray) { NSLog(@"-Created categoryLockStateArray-"); categoryLockStateArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:[[self.levelsPlist allKeys] count]]; for (int i=0; i<[[self.levelsPlist allKeys] count]; i++) { [categoryLockStateArray insertObject:[NSNumber numberWithBool:FALSE] atIndex:i]; } } // set the properties of the categories self.categoryNames = [self.levelsPlist allKeys]; NUM_CATEGORIES = [self.categoryNames count]; thisCatCopy = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithDictionary:[[levelsPlist objectForKey:[self.categoryNames objectAtIndex:pageControl.currentPage]] mutableCopy]]; NUM_FINISHED = [[thisCatCopy objectForKey:kNumLevelsBeatenInCategory] intValue]; }