I recently downloaded the sims 3 on a new laptop and have not been able even load into the world. Since this was a new game, I had no previous saves but every time I tried to start a new game and select the world it said : A serious error has occurred while loading <name of the world> It is strongly recommended that you restart the application. I followed the instructions on other threads with similar problems such as starting the game without expansion packs, turning OneDrive off, turning the antivirus, putting the Sims 3 folder on exception from being scanned by antivirus and creating a new user but nothing worked. The only thing that worked was the suggestion for changing the folder name from -Documents\Electronic Arts\the sims 3 to something else. After renaming the folder, I installed all my content again, i loaded up the game, a new folder automatically titled "the sims 3 was created, and I was able to play but i had to download and install all my cc again (all CC came from the official ea store) . I was able to select the world, got to CAS and quit the game and went back in to see if it worked after exiting and it did. On my second time launching i was able to play for a few hours and saved my game. However the next day when trying to play I encountered the same error except it changed the error referencing the world to referencing the save. I am running the sims on windows 11
ReginaReyes Creating a new admin Windows account should have worked just as well, in that your previous Sims 3 user folder wouldn't have been in play. Did you transfer your old Sims 3 folder to the new account before testing, or install any content into the new folder? Or maybe the account wasn't local, for example could you have linked it to an email address? Or perhaps you tried some other troubleshooting step afterwards, like changing antivirus settings, and then needed a new user folder as well?
I'm not trying to say you made a mistake in the process. The idea for me is that understanding exactly how this was fixed, temporarily at least, will help me figure out how to address the ongoing problem.
If you play with no added content at all, do you still get the "serious error" the next day you try to play? I realize you don't want to go without this content, but it's a useful test.
As a side note, "custom content" refers to content created by third parties: CAS items, objects, anything that is not part of the game itself and isn't a mod. Content from the Sims 3 Store is called "Store content." I understand exactly what you mean, but this distinction may be helpful when googling for your issue or trying to explain it to someone else.
Also worth noting I did receive an error 16 when trying to save my transferred save but that was easily fixed by selecting save as instead, not sure if this was caused due to the copy/pasting from the old folder that was being updated with one drive
Thank you!
I originally copied my downloads from my previous folder to the new one created when launching using the new user so perhaps that was it? When I tried installing all the store content downloaded it said it was unable to install as my game was not up to date so I started the game without it but I was still receiving the same “serious errors” message as before when starting a new save. I ended up deleting the Sims 3 folder all together, downloaded the store content manually from the sims 3 website, installed everything from the launcher and was able to play. The only thing I copied were my old saves as not to lose progress and there seems to be no issues. I’m on day 3 of playing under a new computer user, Microsoft antivirus is running but Onedrive isn’t installed on this profile
ReginaReyes Thanks for all the info. I don't think your downloads should have caused this problem, unless you were trying to load a save that took place in a world you'd installed and that had become corrupted. In most cases, the save would simply be unavailable, but sometimes the world is corrupt enough not to load but not so much that the game recognizes it can't be used.
Anyway, let me know if you need any further help with this issue or anything else.
