Re: a serious error occurred while loading (name). we strongly recommend restart

Further to what I’ve written above, I tested to see if the wife could go to France and she can, so only Egypt is the issue. The error note specifically is “a serious error has occurred while loading ‘Foote 109.sims3:Egypt_0x0859db48’. It is strongly recommended that you restart the application.”

Foote is the name of the family I am playing and “109” refers to the amount of “save as”’s that I’ve made.

@Loretta88  Do you use any mods, or would you be willing to try some?  Additionally, would you be comfortable loading a fresh instance of Egypt rather than the one your sim has been visiting?  The error you're seeing could mean that this instance of Egypt can't be recovered, although I wouldn't say that at this point, before you've tried any mod-related interventions.

Cannot even begin to express how grateful I am you replied at all, never mind how quickly.

I have many, many mods; Master controller, story progression, traveller, woohooer, shooless…those are the main ones I remember. If I can use any of these to fix the issues then that’s amazing, but not at all against any other mods that will

Oh and in your response to whether or not I would mind her starting Egypt again, I wouldn’t mind at all as the only Egypt mission she’s done is the one that starts in China, so starting Egypt again wouldn’t bother me

@Loretta88  If you don't already have NRaas ErrorTrap and Overwatch, please add them now.  And add DebugEnabler as well: its Fix Homeworld command may help with the sim husband's job issues.  You can find it in the City Hall or Sim menus under "Sim..."; please keep in mind this command should only be run in the homeworld, never in a vacation world.

Please also run a MasterController town reset: click on City Hall and select NRaas > MC > Town Options > Reset Everything.  Then use "save as" to rename the save, so the original stays intact as a backup in case you need it later.

Before and after running these commands, please delete the five cache files in your user folder as well:

• CASPartCache.package
• compositorCache.package
• scriptCache.package
• simCompositorCache.package
• socialCache.package

Let me know whether the husband sim can go to work and get paid after you run the Fix Homeworld and Reset Everything commands.  If not, there are other interventions you can try as well.

If the above doesn't help with the travel issue, try removing Egypt's .nhd file from the save folder.  In Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Saves, each save has its own folder, and each folder has one .nhd file per world that has been loaded in that save.  There will also be a smaller ExportDB.package file with Egypt in the name; remove this as well.  Doing so will let the game load a new instance of Egypt.  Load and save your progress (using "save as" to rename) in this save once after removing these files and before your sims travel so that ET and OW can do their cleanup.  Then quit to desktop delete the cache files again.

I want to note for anyone else who reads this that if you're going to remove these files from a save, it's critical to have ErrorTrap and Overwatch in place to clean up any stray data that results.

Thank you for all of this info and advice and I will try it the next time I come to play and I’ll let you know how it goes…

…in the meantime do you also have any advice on what to do when you try to save and get an error code 12? I’m no stranger to an error code 12 which is why I save at the end of every Sim day but this buggy family has seen a lot more error code 12s than any of my others.

@Loretta88  As you may already know, Error 12 is an out of resources condition, usually but not always related to Sims 3 going over its RAM limit.  The 32-bit Mac version you're running unfortunately has a limit of 2 GB rather than the ~3.7 GB of the Windows version, so that's the likely cause of your Error 12s, and it can be quite difficult to manage.  I remember from my days playing this version that even a new save could use 1.5 GB memory, so you don't have a lot of room to work with.

One thing you can always do is purge RAM.  This isn't a cure-all and usually only frees up a little bit of memory, but that can sometimes be the difference between the save succeeding and not.  Here's how to do it:

https://bluebellflora.com/resetting-ram-during-gameplay/

Please keep in mind that both the system's and the game's memory use matter: Sims 3 won't even be able to use its theoretical maximum 2 GB if your computer has less free RAM than that.  So shutting down unnecessary apps can also help, especially if you only have 4 GB memory installed.

Aside from that, the typical suggestions are not Mac-specific.  The single largest resource hog is memories, so I'd suggest disabling that system entirely unless you really enjoy using it.  (In that case, use a mod to control the number, e.g. "No or fewer automatic memories" by velocitygrass.)  Disable the interactive loading screens and the in-game shopping experience as well.  Don't open Origin at all while you play.  When your sims travel, save/quit/reload immediately before and immediately after: travel transitions use more memory than live play, as you might imagine given that an entirely new world needs to load.

Additionally, it can help quite a lot to build in a new save, or even a custom empty builder's world.  Building takes extra resources, especially if you spend a lot of time using Create a Style, and going from that back to live play often causes problems.  A new save uses less RAM than an existing one, so the game has more room to maneuver.  You can always place your completed builds in your existing save when you're ready.

This page has more useful tips.  You can ignore the ones that clearly only apply to Windows, but many are universal.

https://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE

So I tried adding all the mods you recommended (errortrap, debugenabler etc) and when I tried to load the game I got an error message that read “it looks like you have installed an unofficial game modification that does not match your current version of them sims 3. We recommend either uninstalling them or get updated versions of them - otherwise you may experience crashes or serious bugs” and it was at this point, and because of what you’ve explained about error code 12, that I decided it’s finally time to splurge on a new computer 😂 I’m amazed that I’ve been able to play this long a 2011 Mac at all so I think it’s really time for an upgrade.

Thank you so much for all your help though and I hope at least other people can results from this help!

@Loretta88  If you downloaded the wrong version of ErrorTrap, that could explain the error.  So could not having a fully-updated game.

Regardless, if you've decided to get a new computer, now is a reasonably good time to buy, at least for Windows PCs.  Let me know if you'd like help picking something out.  I can take a look at anything you're considering, or, if you prefer, I can list a few suggestions.  In the latter case, please list your budget and country as well as any other details that matter to you: laptop or desktop, storage space, etc.