No sims, ghost town (sims 3)
all my sims have gone missing (animals too)
history
I clicked save then clicked to go to main menu. I went on using my computer and ended up having to restart it, Closed sims 3, restarted computer. Spent a bit more time online, and did not start or get on sims 3 for a couple days.
Shut off PROPERLY long way but saved and closed. last night I booted the game.
booted normal, Main menu shows My city, son's city, and daughters city.
(FYI, sons city is fine nothing wrong, daughters city fine nothing wrong they are both adults rarely on my computer)
I click on my city, there is my gal that I have been working on for 7 months. ALL her skills were finished but photography and scuba diving. I needed to move to a 'water" city next time I played to work on scuba. ALL degree's were obtained, all songs, all books read, again ONLY scuba/photography to finish both were 5, even other hidden skills for things, find all items, ALL the stupid little quests for each skill as well had very few to do. Took that long to earn and move into that big house, fixes, changes, and decorated the way I wanted it.
I let her build skills while I watch TV and not actually actively playing the game it's playing to the side of me. and listen for "something happen" music, interact go back to watching tv, she has been growing/training etc. so ya, 6-7 months, I could prob finish the last 2 skills in a couple days. That was the next to do. Move to where I can finish skills.
THE ONLY cheat I use daily is making needs static. When i created her, I used the cheat to buy all of the stuff with life time happiness. that was 7 months ago. The shift click/teleport here. I used the shift teleport me here to get around town, I hadn't even set up or customized the town how I wanted it yet (I build special hunting/park grounds for bugs, rocks, fishing, birds etc under buydebug).
I'm heart broken... (ya I get game and ya playing to waste time, but still invested a ton of time and heart ito her making her look etc. her house was insanely done. NO uploaded content (not done that since sim 1) She is there on the "main menu" tab for my city, click and go into town "no one". Town is empty of people. NOT a single sim in the city anywhere at all not even animals.
I created her, I use her, I log off. My son is an adult he hasn't played in a few weeks. Daughter hasn't played since Dec. But their towns are fine and all their simmy's are there.
So IDK what to do, I can't find anything online that "fits' my situation. everyone has missing sim, two or ten. but no one that's city has gone poof.
She was not in middle of traveling, only time she left town was for all of the college degrees but thats been a couple weeks ago I finished those. It's like someone used a command to "delete all sims" in my city and they are all just gone.
the original version (black hair) of her is in folder but not the one i spent months on. (white/pink hair)
I was able to go into all her houses she has owned. esp the last one that is the biggest on map, all the customization are still there, even her meditation room, I worked on for a whole day. She had lived in 2 other houses, they are all the way I left them. One even has food left on the table.
So please any help or suggestions, and thank you for looking and reading.
FYI, "no one" was on my computer and no one did anything to it, game etc. yes 100% sure.
I have all main expansions, (have 1 or 2 of the content only ones) She has not traveled outside of this city at all. No man, no kids, no pets, about 30-35 gnomes dead and alive all over the place (alive little creepy a$$es) I had one in the house and I kept putting him back outside and turning off the big TV (kept coming back in) well the next time she was stir crazy and went to the city park party. I came home and there were 8 of them all over the game room watching TV)
So the Gnomes are all over the yard, and the jerks have TV on again. Everything else aside from gnomes is just as I left it when I saved and logged off. Aside from all the people are missing. seriously like someone deleted all of them. I have health problems NO one in my home would do that.
So open for ideas and suggestions.
@jamieptaylor Don't worry about the extra questions; messing with a game folder is always a bit strange the first time around.
It sounds like you removed your entire game folder from Documents, launched the game, and adjusted the settings. For the next step, and until further notice, you're leaving your old game folder where it is on your desktop. Open the new game folder, the one that's now in Documents\Electronic Arts, and delete the same five cache files. You should see something like this:
(Yes, that's macOS, but I don't feel like booting into Windows right now.)
If you don't see this in Documents\EA, that means your game folder is somewhere else. Search for "deviceconfig" in a File Explorer window, and copy (crtl-c) and paste (crtl-v) the address into a post here, so I can see where it's landing.
If you do have the new folder where it's supposed to be, once you've deleted the five cache files, you can delete the Saves folder (highlighted) as well. Then open your old game folder, the one you moved, right-click on the Saves folder in there, and select Copy. Then open the new folder again, to the same place as above, and right-click and Paste your Saves folder. Don't transfer anything else over, and don't install anything, again unless your glitched save takes place in a store or player made world. (If you're not sure, just let me know what the world is called.)
Now launch your game again, and try to load your save. Let me know how it looks, and we'll go from there. You don't have to save your progress; this is just a test.
