Sims 3 current game is missing!

Fixed it, all. For future reference to anyone who has this issue... Go to Mt Documents/Sims 3/Saves. Right click and copy the saves folder, then paste it somewhere such as your desktop. Then it's best to change the file name so you don't get it mixed up with the original (sims 3 backup saves for example). Then go back into your saves and there should be a name of your game with the extension .backup. Remove the .backup part of the name and change it to .sims3. That way, your game will know which game you want to load.

That's how I fixed my game!

The .bad files are attempted saves that failed and can just be deleted. The game cannot load them and even if they could run, they would be damaged anyway. They should always be gotten rid of.

It's not necessary to move the Saves file out to get rid of bad saves and change a backup save to a proper .sims3 loadable one by renaming it, although yes you can do it that way if you want to.

Note that you can only have a finite number of (good) saves actually in the live Saves file. Seems to vary by player, but the limit is somewhere between 50 and 80. Beyond that, the game save chooser will not see or offer them up for play. Additional saves should be stored elsewhere until needed, many of us limit the saves in the live Saves folder to less than 10 to reduce clutter and stress at the time the game starts up.

I had that happen a few times with my saves after social workers took children away and the saves either threw Error code 16's or got so corrupted like the one where my family's baby got taken that it became unplayable and refused to load in the end.I just started over with new games and began learning to use save as though it didn't help when the saves glitched from other causes and I was enventually forced to started adding Mods.I also never overwrite my saves and always use save as and make a new file each time.I also move the files to a holding folder system later outside of the game.

My work around:

Copy a working saved game to your desktop
Copy files out of save file that will not load
Delete files in the working save file folder while game is at the select a world screen
Paste copied files into the now empty working save file folder
Load the working save file
Once you load the game save all important lots and families (Re-Saving under a different name will not work)
Close game
Restart sims3
Load a new world
Place families and lots in new world
Save new world

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~EA_Joz