Save Corruption Fix

You probably got this error when you tried to open a saved game:

"A serious Error has occurred while trying to load Appoloossa.sims3. It is strongly recommended that you restart the application."

if you did, there is a fix. I'm sure loads of you went online to find a solution but no fix, but I'll tell you this, DON'T GIVE UP!

so how do you fix this problem?

First before starting, copy and paste your corrupted save on the desktop just in case you have to restart again and you have a copy. This is achieved by going to My Computer -> Documents -> Electronic Arts -> Saves

From that window you can see all these folders:



These folders are the saves that you have currently in your game. Now go to the file you have problems with (The save with the error in it.) and copy and paste to your desktop. Just in case something goes screwy.

When I had this problem, I noticed by looking at the other saves that worked and my corrupted one is there was something different about it.

There was an extra file, it had the same ending to it, -export.



Corrupted file



Non-Corrupted file

We want to deal with the corrupted file, with the -export.

So go and restart the game and make a new save. MAKE SURE THE NEW SAVE IS IN THE EXACT TOWN YOUR OLD CORRUPTED SAVE WAS. Now, don't waste time, just name the family whatever and place them wherever. Just save the game, put something like test or something as the save name. Save and quit.

Go back to the Electronic Arts folder and go to the saves folder again. Go to the save folder that has the same name of the game you just saved.

Once you go to that folder you will see these files.



The ones you want to copy are these:



-1a5tf1I3.dat
-Meta.data
-TravelDB.package

After copying and pasting them to your desktop, go to the corrupted file,the save file that you had the error happen in and take all these files and put them on the save, replace the old ones with these. Make sure you take out the -export file out as well.

Then just restart your computer and restart the game.

What you will see in the main menu is a save with the same name of the new save you made before, but it has the picture original sims you lost, and just an outline of a house. Just load the save and you should have your old save with everything in tact.

Make sure you DOUBLE SAVE after opening up the old save. You can do this by going to the edit town, and did save as and do a new save and normal saving. So now you have the normal save you always save with and another one just in case the game decides to be mean and do it again. It's going to be an old save, but at least you have your old data and saved.

I just wanted to post this, in hope that it can help someone that was like me that it seemed nothing worked, but there is one last solution. It happen again, but I think this is a good last resort.

I hope this helped!

EDIT:

I noticed that in our new files from the newer games have two town saves for two reasons:

1) One or more sims are in University: I suggest that people do the same trick as I typed above but make sure you put the sims (The ones that you were told to just make a new game and put in the same town the corrupted file was),to university. If they are poor, do the motherlode cheat, so they can go to university. and Just save and quit after they arrive. Then keep following the steps as I typed above.

2) You move sims from one town to another: Just do the same trick, as above, but instead just move them to the same town you moved from; ex: I made a family in Twinbrook but moved them to Moonlight Falls, then do the same thing to the new game sim save and then save and quit after they arrive. Then keep following the steps as I typed above.