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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@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?
@dmacay95 I haven't experimented enough with swapping around the files within the save folder to be sure exactly what information is stored in each. (Some of it is obvious, but not all.) But the .nhd file is the big one, other than TravelDB if your sims travel a lot. So I would imagine that most of the data you want to preserve is in there, unfortunately. If you can't find some working combination of files that includes the .nhd, you might not be able to recover the save.
Just in case you didn't know, the sims you create in-game are also saved to Library when you exit CAS, as are any lots you save after building them. Anything that has an entry in the in-game bin you see in Edit Town also has a Library entry. The sims there won't have progressed though—they'll be the same clean slates they were when they came out of CAS.
The save-preserving mods are all from NRaas.
- ErrorTrap and Overwatch work together to clean up errors, corrupt data, and stuck sims. ErrorTrap is the only core mod on this list; be sure to get the version that corresponds to your type of install (Origin/Steam/disc).
- MasterController loads a very long list of commands for you to run. The most useful for the health of your saves are the ones to reset sims, objects, lots, or the whole town at once.
- Traveler replaces the broken travel transition with its own and makes errors much less likely.
- Register controls the Service (maids, repairpeople, burglars, etc.) and Role (assigned to role-giving objects, like cash registers) sims. You may or may not need it, but it's very helpful if you notice issues with either type of sim.
- Traffic prevents the unnecessary excess spawning of vehicles. If Overwatch is reporting on hundreds or thousands of vehicles cleaned up every night, or your town is overwhelmed by ice cream trucks, Traffic will shut that all down.
All of these mods work just fine on default settings, so you can drop them in your game folder and not pay too much attention. ErrorTrap in particular creates a lot of reports, both in-game notifications and scripterrors in your game folder, but those are mostly just it doing its job; there's no reason to worry unless you're having issues with your save. In that case, you can take the scripterrors to NRaas and ask that someone read them for you. The people there are very friendly and helpful, and someone will let you know what's going on, and what needs to be fixed.
