Re: Error code 16 after new windows 11 update.

Removing OneDrive didn't completely fix it for me, but clearly had an impact on my end. What are your computer specs? I'm going to do a bit of troubleshooting since I'm a little more technologically minded and see if I can't find anything interesting myself

Something curious I'm noticing, in the saves that do work, a .backup folder is not being generated, testing running every EXE connected to Sims and EA Launcher as Admin to see if that has any effect, if so, this may simply be a weird permission issue.

Edit: Giving everything admin permission does not appear to help at all, going to take a deeper dive into 22H2 and see if it changed anything with how the documents folder is managed or how permissions are managed there for file R/W.

@tommy61157  If you're using "save as" and renaming the saves rather than simply using "save," you won't see any .backup folders.  Those contain the data from the second-to-last time you saved under a given name, as in, the previous savename.sims3 becomes savename.sims3.backup as it's replaced by a newer save file.

I'm curious whether using "save as" vs. "save" makes any difference here.  It's possible that creating the .backup, or deleting the older .backup when there's a newer one (i.e. the third time you save under that name), sets off a permissions issue.

For Me, using Save As has been, a little more successful (though not much) Thanks for the information.

Talking to some people online, they indicate that this build is really hammering 32-bit builds of games with issues, dang it EA, just release 64-bit Sims 3 already, LOL

Going to mess around with troubleshooting over the next couple days, I will report any additional findings here

Edit: Quick note, I don't have any antivirus, and setting exceptions for all Sims directories in Windows Defender does not seem to affect the issue.

 My PC Specs!

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics 3.80 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
Device ID FC871D8E-C68A-4459-B02F-E56971AB8CAF
Product ID 00342-21989-25501-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch Pen support

So, I have no idea what to make of one thing I just found, looking into the .bad folders, the first time a save fails, it generates a save that actually works and it is actually not a bad save, but all future attempts during that session generate empty .bad save folders like you would expect from a .bad type save. I.... literally don't know what to make of this, It sounds like there's some bizarre permission issue, would really love to know if 22h2 changed how permissions work in the documents folder...

Edit: Testing a promising fix, if this actually fixes it though, I'm going to post the fix and then go run away in the woods from the sheer stupidity of it

Edit 2: Bah, nvm, thought I had it

Edit 3: The above reported behavior seems a bit more inconsistent than I thought too, hmm, needs more investigation, sorry, trying my hardest here.

I appreciate you looking into this so deeply! Keep up the good work and Let me know if you need anymore info from me!

@Sabillad and anyone else still having this issue, have you checked all Windows security settings?  Specifically, someone else found that Sims 4 was blocked under Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Block history, and I'm wondering if Sims 3 is similarly affected.