Re: Every sim in town is gone
@Hokzi Unfortunately, if your backup save is also corrupted, there may not be much you can do. This is why so many people use "save as" instead of "save" to generate new save files—I currently have about 30, which is admittedly too many but definitely makes me feel more secure.
Before you declare this game a total loss, though, it might be worth trying a couple of troubleshooting approaches. The first thing to do is to delete your cache files from your TS3 folder in Documents. For reference, they are:
CASPartCache.package
compositorCache.package
scriptCache.package
simCompositorCache.package
socialCache.package
Then load the game again and try to reset the sims. (If you're playing modless, this is the only in-game step that I can think of.) Hit crtl-shift-c to open the cheat console, then enter "resetsim *" (that's an asterisk) without the quotes, and every sim in town should be reset, if they're somehow still there. You can also try one sim at a time, with "resetsim firstname lastname." Save as with a new save name, quit, clear the caches again, and reload.
If this doesn't work, you can also try pulling your entire TS3 game folder out of Documents. When you launch the game again, a clean folder will spawn with no content. Copy your save to this folder (you can right-click to copy instead of just moving it, and that way, you'll have a spare) and load the game. If the sims don't show up in town, try the reset cheat again, save as, quit, clear the caches, and reload.
If these steps don't help, though, I'm not sure what else you could try. Unfortunately, sometimes saves glitch out, and there's really not much we can do to recover them.
