Save files corrupted Sims 3
I have a very nasty problem with my Sims 3 game. When I tried to save my game I got error 12, which means the file i'm trying to save on is corrupted. I've had this problem before and could always fi...
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Thank you very much for sharing this method. I tried this with two of my corrupted save folders. Both of the new saves load up, and I get back to the family I quickly created for testing. However, when I go to edit the neighborhood I see none of my families or lots, only the default ones. Do I have to move other files back into the Sims 3 folder to get my content back? Or have I just lost all my sims and lots now?
@dmacay95 Okay, so it probably is the .nhd file that's corrupted. (Sometimes it's a different one, and the only way to find out is to test.) You can try the reverse though—clean game folder, start a save in the same world, delete the new .nhd file, drop your old one in—to see if it helps. If it does, save the game and make a backup. It may be that your save will fail to load again soon, and in that case your options are to either pack up your families and drop them in a new save, or use mods to try to fix the world. Both are more likely to work in this backup save than in the one you keep playing forward.
Besides, keeping backup saves is a good idea in general;—you never know when something will break. I use "save as" to rename my saves at least once a sim-day; this creates a new save file rather than overwriting the old one. I keep the last 4-6 copies and delete the older ones when I'm sure I don't need them.
I repeated the process and, as you said, moved in the .nhd file from the corrupted saves. I've tried it with two of them and sadly they both didn't load up. I'm trying to understand. I mean was it even possible to have all my stuff back with a newly created .nhd file?
@dmacay95 The original technique was for recovering the sims that were active the last time you saved the game. I didn't realize there were other sims in the town that you also wanted back. The data for each save is spread out among several different files, and any one of them could potentially be the issue. So, if you want to experiment, you could use the same approach as before to replace one of those files at a time, testing to see if you get a usable game that includes all the sims you care about. Unfortunately though, it's possible that the data you want is already too corrupted to recover.
I'm sorry that there isn't a more useful way to approach this. The unfortunate fact is that saves get corrupted, and sometimes they're too far gone to repair. In the future, aside from keeping backup saves, you might want to look into adding mods to clean up your game. There are a few that don't change gameplay at all, they just remove bad data and reset stuck situations when necessary. It's the only way many of us have been able to maintain games over a number of generations without having to periodically transfer our sims to a clean save.
Okay thanks so much for explaining! I was a little confused because in the documents folder of the Sims 2 you actually have your sims and lots saved in multiple maps but now I understand that the Sims 3 works different. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that all the content is in those save files, it's weird :P
I will also try to test the other files then. So does that mean that if you create a new and clean .nhd file, you still can have your content back or is that unclear?
That might be very useful, thank you. Do you know any of these mods?
Thank you so much you have no idea how many hours I’ve been trying to fix my game that I spent hours literally hours on I was about to cry and I saw your conversation and it helped me a ton I got my stuff back and I am so glad I literally was about to cry I am in debt to you
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