Community Concerns with Save File Issues - October 2025 Update

"...corruption reports predate packs like The Sims 4 For Rent."

"...data also suggests it’s likely tied to overall save complexity rather than unit count alone."

My takeaway from this is that the game is buckling under its own weight; that simply playing the game (having complex family trees, a lot of clutter, etc.) will cause corruption. 

With statements like this, I’d honestly prefer radio silence. Makes things feel rather hopeless and like these issues should have been addressed years ago, instead of releasing more DLC, which in turn added more bugs/corruption issues.

I really hope we all learn a valuable lesson from all this, because it's incredibly heartbreaking watching my favorite franchise crack/crumble under its own weight of too much DLC/corruption.

Thank you for this information! It is Appreciated!
Obviously not everyone is going to agree with this, but as someone who appreciates communication both in my personal life and even here, it really makes a difference, it does seem quite smart to go over previous things you all were able to fix, and learning from that, it means you are going in depth to see if anything can be similar or maybe the issue has been hiding underneath a fix for a while maybe something changed. Maybe some don't see as well how it is going with no visuals of what's happening, and I'm normally a visual learner, so I get that, but I'm also a little bit aware of coding and some of the other things explained so I can see the progress being made. 

I will say this clearly, when there was no communication, people rioted! And now that there is, they are not happy with it. I disagree with them! Continue to communication with the Sims Community! It is appreciated so much! And explaining in detail the steps you've tried, and knowing that more save files are needed to help the ongoing investigation is something people with these issues need to know!! I myself don't have this issue, and I don't know anyone who does. But I appreciate ya'll being this open and explaining the process! It's important! People need to know that there is a process, and that it can be a hefty one with going back, recreating, etc!

Thank you

If part of the problems is because there are too many objects on a lot, why not develop a tool to limit the number of items that can be placed on the lot? So that people can build with the security of not weighing down the lot.

Thank you so much for the transparency, highly appreciated!

When I tested the pre-ForRent patch on my long term save, I was testing it with 2 computers, one on that patch and one with the patch before that installed, and I was able to verify that on the exact same save, certain already existant lots were endlessly loading on pre-ForRent-patch but not on the patch before that. Something in that code change caused many of our builds in the community to stop loading. That should prove that it can't be a certain build item from For Rent, but rather ForRent's code that has changed how builds are processed.

The same was true for endless loading from gallery builds - before the pre-ForRent-patch builds were not crashing / endlessly loading, I never had that happen in multi years of heavy gallery use. But after the patch this became a very common regular outcome. It highly suggests that the build processing changed in that patch.

The same happened to Sims 3, only a lot sooner. It's why they also introduced the pack selection tool at some point, running all packs together was too much for the game really. 
You can blame Maxis, but seriously what some people put in their saves ( 40+ generations, 70GB mod file, replaced all lots in all worlds with super cluttered lots , use mods to increase sim count and even MORE units than the game usually allows) is also kinda crazy and at some point you're going to hit a wall. 
In Sims 3 after 3 generations the game starts to suffer already, and with every new pack I used to make a new save because using an old save with the new pack was also trouble. 
You just knew these things, what the limits of the game are. 
But now people expect there to be no limits and Creators are always pushing them with challenges and stuff like a 1000 chicken coops, then watch the game struggle for fun. 
If the game struggles, it's going to break at some point. And then people are crying to EA. 
There's plenty of bugs in the game that you can blame them for, but just don't crazy push the game and you have a lot less issues usually.  And for the love of the gods, get rid of Onedrive...it's the cause of so so many problems with the game when people's saves are on a cloud service that just deletes/adds files willy nilly. 
That said, we should have had a Sim5 by now. Having the next game was also the the savoir of Sims3. 

They had this way back in Sims 3 on Console, and it was so frustrating having a limit on everything. This was the main reason I started playing The Sims on PC. It's not something I would want to see in our beloved Sims games on PC.

I strongly disagree with your assessment that DLC is causing the game to crumble. I read this as a endictment on players who bloat there saves and over use mods. File size can be a problem even for people who only own Base Game. If every lot in your game is packed full of high polygon count CC your game is going to fall apart at the seams. Modders and CC creators do not at all adhere to best practices in how they create their content. They don't have to because there are absolutely no consequences for creating extra high polycount swatches FOR THEM. You don't see players blame CC/mod creators. Ever. They blame Maxis. Frankly if it were up to me I'd fully support Maxis banning the use of CC/mods. I think every game that allows it suffors for it.

There's no point in putting unlimited items on the lot if it's going to overload the game and you're going to have terrible performance later. For me, it's much more frustrating that the game gives you a lot of freedom but in the end the price of that freedom is that it doesn't work as well as it should. Sometimes people forget that this game is from 2014. It's better to have item limits per lot and have it work well than to be unlimited and have these problems we have. People want a lot of freedom and then when the game can't handle it, they come here to the forum and complain that they're having problems.

Almost as if all those clutter kits might not be such a good idea 🤔

My heart goes out to the dev team that is between the anvil of the big suits at EA and the hammer of the playerbase that will never be satisfied and lose sight about how more daunting of a task it is to keep such a complex game from crumbling under its own code than maintaining even the most complicated mod around here. 
Thank you for communicating what is going on, i truly appreciate that you're doing your best at doing better than in the past and also explain to us what is happening clearly, and without sugarcoating it. 
Good luck with the investigations, and don't crunch it too much!