Re: Sims 3: Sim icon blank, can't interact with Sim

Copy from .backup to .sims3? Or copy and set aside, and copy .sims3 and put in .backup?

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@Gardia wrote:

Can you try this please, tell me if it helped.

Go to your saves folder on your Documents / Electronic Arts / The Sims 3 , see if you have a file in your saves folder that has the exact same name as the game you're currently playing but ending in .backup  If you do, then copy the files in that folder and replace them with the ones on the folder that has the name of the game that you're playing but ending in .sims3  After you do this, the game should load normally. 

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Thank you! It worked! Much appreciated.

I have the exact same problem as sujichan. But there is a slight difference. I have 3 gameplays in total.(The first one) My sim parents did attend the university as well and are now back home in sunset valley. I removed 3 children from boarding school and now live at home. The other 3 children are still in boarding school. When I enter in the gameplay, first it was a blank green icon that were suppose to be the 3 children that came back from boarding school. The 3 children were acting weird. They were suppose to be sleeping in their beds in my last saved game, but then they started appearing and reappearing on the screen. They would have the (Zzzz) icon like their sleeping but then they would still be walking around like were not sleep. One of the children would be floating outside like their sleeping on the bed. The worst thing of all was I couldn't control them at all. And I even tried to reset all of them. Plus, All three of their names changed. For an example one of the girls name was suppose to be Diamond McGraw, but now its Tina Gaines. Which makes no sense at all. The sim parents are the only ones that are controllable and working.

I cleaned the university  disc and thought that the disc was the problem and restarted. The second time I played that exact current game. I was able to see the 3 children this time. But they still uncontrollable and did the same weird things. So I googled. Someone said that the sims have too much in their inventory and thats why the game is not working properly. So I took a majority of items out of the sims parents inventory, it didn't work. Then, I tried what you suggest copy and replace , and replayed the game and that didn't work either. Is there a way to fix my problem? I would really appreciate it, if someone can help me solve this.

I still have the no interactions available icon ☹️

Someone told me that the way to solve this is to go into edit town, save your household into the library, evict them and move them back in from the library. this worked for a while but when it glitched up again i tried bulldozing complicated lots, and that worked even better for some reason? I guess so much of my computer's memory was going into the mansions i had built for my sims that the sims themselves couldn't do anything. idk

So do I copy the .backup files to the .sims3 file, and delete unneeded files, or the .sims3 files to the .backup files and delete unneeded files?

@Leighbaby13  Rather than delete anything, it's easier and less risky to just rename the backup file, deleting the .backup extension and giving it a name distinct from your normal save.  So if your save is called SunsetValley, its save folder will be SunsetValley.sims3, and the backup will be SunsetValley.sims3.backup.  If you rename the backup to SunsetValley1.sims3, you'll be able to load it from the Main Menu, and hopefully it won't have the same issue that your current save has.

If you still run into problems, please start your own thread and describe exactly what's happening.  This thread is quite old.

Years later I finally downloaded hidden springs for some sims 3 fun, and this has happened to me did the whole uni thing, and got her to lvl 10 career and went to Egypt on her return home she was walking around in circles and had no icon not even the boarder of it couldn't click anything her name was changed when I hovered over her in the game, and quit without saving, still didn't work, tried reset sim her actual name nothing happened did reset sim her new name she just vanished then  tried edit town still didn't work found this forum tried the copying back up files and it worked but she has fallen back to lvl 9 career and hasn't gone to Egypt yet ☹️ but I'm sooooooo thankful all my hours of building up her career and skills and uni degree is still there thank you so much!!! 😍

@Jaydrichele  That's great to hear.  Going forward, it's a good idea to periodically use "save as" to rename the save so you have backups should you have other issues.  (The previous save will remain intact under its old name.)  You can delete the oldest backups when you're sure you don't need them.

If you use mods or  are interested in trying, NRaas Traveler makes the travel transition a lot more stable, and ErrorTrap and Overwatch clean up errors and corrupt data in general, making this kind of problem much less likely.

Since this thread is quite old, I'll lock it here.