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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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.@jeanmarie618 Your computer can actually handle running all Sims 3 packs together on ultra graphics settings, although water and high-detail lots should be turned down to lower the stress on the game engine. (I play with those on "mirrors only" and 2, respectively.) Your processor wouldn't be under any undue stress unless it's overheating while you play, and your hard drive should be completely fine too. You also have enough RAM to support Sims 3, which can only use 4 GB, although it's a good idea to not run too much else while you're playing. The warning about not running with all packs is a bit overboard and totally generic—everyone playing through Origin sees it—and doesn't apply to your system.
The only component in danger, so to speak, is the graphics card, and that would be from running Sims 3 at excessively high framerates. It's not that the card can't handle the load of the game, it's that generating extremely high fps isn't good for GPUs in general. And turning down the graphics settings or disabling certain expansions will actually raise framerates: since the game becomes easier to render, the graphics card is now capable of rendering more frames per second than it could before. This is why it's critical to manually cap fps; if you haven't done so and want help with the process, please ask, and let me know whether you ever play in windowed mode.
By the way, World Adventures is one of the lowest-impact expansions, so adding it wouldn't have much of an effect on how your or almost any system handles the game. Pets is the most demanding EP, but like I said, you should be able to run it.
I'm not sure whether you've done this, but don't ever disable an expansion and then load a save that has been played with that pack active. That will definitely corrupt your save even if you do everything else right.
NRaas mods help Sims 3 run better, but most of their impact has to do with keeping saves from getting corrupted. The effects can include lowering the amount of RAM a save uses in that errors get handled before the game engine falls all over itself trying to resolve the problem, but the mods don't do a whole lot to help borderline systems. However, since your system is far from borderline, the issues you're seeing are almost certainly about your saves and not your hardware.
Glad to hear my PC has enough stuff for Sims 3🙂
>>>>>This is why it's critical to manually cap fps; if you haven't done so and want help with the process, please ask, and let me know whether you ever play in windowed mode.
I don't know how to manually cap fps. I'd like to try.I only play in full screen. In other games over the years I used full screen because I liked it so much more, but now that I'm getting older (63) my eyesight isn't great.
>>>>>By the way, World Adventures is one of the lowest-impact expansions...
Good to know.
>>>>>....don't ever disable an expansion and then load a save that has been played with that pack active.
Not sure if I've ever done that. If so, it was an accident.
A couple weeks ago I got a message saying items were missing. It wasn't from a missing expansion pack. They were the store bought items. I was tired and not thinking and hit save. What a mess. The game substituted stuff everywhere. I knew to always check which expansions are checked off to load, but didn't look to see that store bought items were showing. Now I don't know what caused that, but I always wait until I see the store bought items in the downloads window. They don't appear immediately like they used to.>>>>>NRaas mods help Sims 3 run better, but most of their impact has to do with keeping saves from getting corrupted.
I'll read up at your mod links tomorrow & get back with you about that.. Grandkids woke me up early today & were here all day.
Thanks much for your patience. Very kind of you🙂
Here is what is installed in that save:
Ambitions
Generations
High-End Loft Stuff
Late Night
Seasons
Showtime
Supernatural
University Life
Like I said, I left off Pets and World Adventures, but I didn't realize I had eight packs installed. Surprised my PC is still running☹️ I already killed one (older) PC playing Sims and this one may be next.
