@pinknails122 For whatever your save name is, you'll see a folder with that name and another with the same name plus a .backup extension. For example, if your save is SunsetValley, you'll see a SunsetValley.sims3 folder and a SunsetValley.sims3.backup folder. The first is from the last time you saved; the second is from the second-to-last time. If you rename that folder and delete the .backup extension (e.g. SunsetValley1.sims3), you'll be able to load it from the Main Menu.
If you happen to have multiple save folders with the same name, check their modified dates: right-click and select Get Info and look at the "Modified" entry. You should be able to tell which one is the newest and put that aside, then test the older one(s) individually if necessary. As long as you don't have two folders with exactly the same name, they can all be in the same Saves folder.
So, I did all that and loaded the game and now I have no games available to open. Its as if its a new install and I'm starting from scratch! Ugh.
I have the files under save though so why is this happening? Why can't I ever play Sims w/o having issues left and right? Lol.
@pinknails122 It sounds like your saves are now not in the location the game is reading. Maybe you moved them from the correct location to a different one? You can try putting them back where you found them; you'll know at the Main Menu whether they're loading.
I had to have moved them to a correct location bc I moved the files in the only set that had "Saves" as one of the folders to my downloads area (temporarily). So all the correct files are the ones I transferred to the downloads area to free up iCloud. The other "EA" file set had only 5-6 folders and were all empty before I moved anything so it must of been some glitch or remnants of a previous installation that I did almost 2 weeks ago since I was having trouble with a different issue. Maybe I forgot to delete all EA/Sim/Origin related things before reinstalling everything. I don't know but I feel like I did everything correctly.
@pinknails122 There are a few ways you could go about this. The most straightforward one I can think of is to create a new save and see where it lands. Call it testsave , exactly that, and quit the game. Restart your computer, launch Sims 3 again, and see whether you can load that save. If you can't, then the issue is likely iCloud moving files to cloud storage, and you need to disable that:
https://bluebellflora.com/2017/02/06/sims-3-and-sims-4-not-loading-save-games/
If the save is available, that's great: you just need to put the other saves where this one is. Run Terminal find command to find its location:
find / -name "testsave" 2>/dev/null
Terminal is case sensitive and will also only search for something with the exact string in quotes, so if you name your test save something else, change the command accordingly. The point is, wherever this save is, your other saves need to go there too.
Because I lost my other games I just created a new game, family, house, etc and it seems to run fine. I still can't load Twinbrook as it freezes while it loads, that's a huge bummer. That was a separate issue I had before this current issue took place though.
@pinknails122 I'm not sure what's going on with Twinbrook. If you're loading it with the Pets expansion present, some error in calculating pet routing might explain the issue, although that's just a guess based on how pets and houses with foundations don't always get along. You could also try deleting and reinstalling Pets: open either Applications > The Sims 3 Packs or Users > your username > Applications > The Sims 3 Packs, move the EP05 folder to the desktop, and you'll be able to redownload the pack.
