Corrupted files
Hi, Last night my Sims 3 game never fully loaded. There is no panel showing in order to access the Sims Inventory, etc. Also, there are no character icons showing to control them. In EA Help, the ...
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@puzzlezaddictThank you so much. It worked. I've seen that recommended before, but I'm nervous deleting & moving files. Even renaming them. You explained the solution so well. Thanks a million🙂
Edit: I was able to play for a couple hours then it froze and did the exact same thing. New household and same thing.
@jeanmarie618 Even evicting sims and leaving them on the clipboard can sometimes cause problems, although it's not guaranteed to corrupt a save. In general, the only reliably safe ways to get rid of sims are to kill them or to use a mod (NRaas MasterController) to erase them from existence.
I'm not surprised that your backup eventually had the same issues—this kind of corruption doesn't usually happen all at once. The good news is that the backup is intact enough for you to work with it. You have a couple options from here. One is to add mods and hope they can clean things up enough to make the save stable going forward. These mods mostly do their work on their own; other than running a town reset, you'd just install them and not worry about them. Let me know if you're interested.
The other option is to pack up the households you care about and place them in a new save. Without mods, each separate household would be strangers to all the others, although sims within a household will keep their relationships. The new save should be stable for a while at least.
When you say a new household had the same issues, do you mean playing a different household within the same save, or a new household in a new save? If the latter, did you quit to desktop and delete the cache files before starting the new save? Switching saves at the Main Menu can transfer data, including corruption, from the old save to the new one. Additionally, please let me know where the save or saves are taking place.
Thanks for all your help. I suspect I screwed up somehow last night.
>>>The good news is that the backup is intact enough...
Maybe, although it was borked, as you say, upon launch.
>>>>>. One is to add mods and hope
I have been interested in mods for quite a while. I'm just afraid I don't have the technical aptitude to install them safely>>>>>The other option is to pack up the households you care about and place them in a new save. Without mods, each separate household would be strangers to all the others, ...
It's ok if they no longer know each other. The town's population is maxed out (no more living quarters available), yet my Sims don't develop love, nor hate, relationships. This is over several generations. They used to find their own partners or enemies (in other saved games from when I first started playing 2+ years ago). Maybe that happens when you change too many traits or skill them all up in charisma, etc. Darn, it took so long to skill up an entire town, lol.
Mostly, though, I want a way to save a town in which I already "updated" the homes and community lots/buildings. We can save each building lot individually, but that means having to place all of them with each new (different) saved game. I've read that updated towns are available (Eg. on Carl's website), but the instructions looked too complicated.>>>>When you say a new household had the same issues, do you mean playing a different household within the same save...
Yes... I think
>>>, or a new household in a new save? If the latter, did you quit to desktop and delete the cache files before starting the new save? Switching saves at the Main Menu can transfer data, including corruption, from the old save to the new one.
I remember I was surprised there even was a backup. I think I was hesitant to hit save for a long time. Then the game froze and I was clicking anything to try to get out. Wonder if I hit save. When the game freezes, do any of those mad clicks actually go through? The only way I know of to get out of a frozen game is to hit the Windows key and power off my PC.
>>>>Additionally, please let me know where the save or saves are taking place.
Not sure. I can't remember. It was late and I should have been sleeping🙂 I usually save after using Edit Town... so within same save. I also save when quitting for the night. "Save and Quit"
I got another reply from EA Help. Not sure if I'm allowed to post the instructions they gave here. I'll see if I can PM you. BTW, before I started doing your solution last night, I saved a copy of the backup save to my desktop. Oh, now I remember! I also saved a copy of the new saved backup. You had said to change the name. So, I did your steps all over (with the new save with new name) thinking the game would be fixed like before. But it was borked.
Ps. I'll stop killing them from the clipboard. I've only done that a few times.... when I accidentally added a Sim, or a family, that was already in game. Sometimes I just change their names, traits and appearance.
Edit: One more thing. When I initially got in the good backup, I remembered what happened when my game froze for the first time. It was when I was trying to change a Sims career. Everything was fine until I got to that Sim. I had skilled up the household and was promoting each Sim. The way I do that, since you can't cheat/promote within same career category, is to always change them first to the lowest level Alien job. It is just convenient to click that one. Well, this particular Sim couldn't change to ANY other career... after making her a low level alien. That itself was borked... should have been alien test subject. But she was an alien probe something.
So... last night I got to her and her career was still stuck at alien probe something. The rest of the game was fine. Hope that wasn't too wordy to follow.@jeanmarie618 It's not too hard, just a bit time-consuming, to place all your households and buildings in a new save. Since you could start the new save in the same world as the old one, you'd know that everything fit where it needed to go and wouldn't need to plan the town's layout. I'd skip the "updated" versions of the worlds, at least for now, unless you're playing in Isla Paradiso or maybe Bridgeport. The other EA-made worlds run well enough that it's not really worth the trouble to switch out the worlds.
However, it would be even easier to "rescue" this save with mods, if it's possible. Mods are really not that complicated to install; you just download and unzip some files and drop them in the appropriate folder. Here's a good guide:
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files
The mods I'd recommend to try to fix your game are ErrorTrap, Overwatch, and MasterController. I'd consider adding Register and Traffic as well, and Traveler if you plan on having your sims travel, but you can start with the first three and see what happens. You can find links to all of the above here:
ET and OW do their jobs on their own; MC doesn't do anything unless you use it to issue a command. In your situation, I'd add those, load the save (the backup copy, since it's less corrupted), let the game clock run for a few sim-minutes, and then use MC to reset the town. You can do this by clicking on City Hall and selecting:
NRaas > MasterController > Town Options > Reset Everything
The reset may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many issues it needs to repair and how fast your computer is. So don't worry if the save looks like it's locked up, or at least don't worry for the first 10-15 minutes or so.
Once the MC reset is finished, let the game clock run for a few minutes more, then use "save as" to rename the save yet again, so you know which one was MC reset, quit, delete the cache files, reload, and see how the save runs. The reset may fix a number of other issues, and for those that it doesn't, we can try to figure them out afterwards.
If you have any questions about mods, or really anything I described above, please feel free to ask.
I'd also like to know which packs you have installed, and which world (Sunset Valley, Twinbrook, etc.) you're currently playing in.
Thanks for all that info. I am going to try the mods. Do they help older PC's handle the game better? My PC handles it fine, but I worry about the hard drive... or whatever stresses a PC. The CPU maybe?🙂 I reboot my PC when I see things starting to get wonky. Assuming I'm running low on memory when that happens.
This is my PC:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz 2.71 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
The broken save is Sunset Valley. I run everything except Pets and World Adventures. I have both, but I read you should limit have many packs you run and I'm over the limit. I'll check which ones I run. For sure I run Seasons, University Life, Nightlife (not sure of the name)... I'll go look.
All the towns run fine, including Bridgeport. But I never bought the island one, after reading it had problems.
