@Anniek1n Do you have any mods installed? If so, please remove them, or rather create another new Sims 3 user folder and don't add back the mods.
Exiting to the Main Menu and subsequently trying to load a save is not a good idea in general because the game retains some data from the previously-loaded save. Having said that, the process doesn't typically produce the result you're seeing.
If you use the EA App to launch, please repair the game: open your App game library, click Sims 3, and select Manage > Repair. Then close the App, kill the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager, and reapply the Alder Lake patch. Don't make any other changes, at least not yet. If you don't use the App, please let me know the source of the install: disc, Steam, or something else.
Instead, load the game, create a new save, have a look around to make sure the world has loaded properly, save your progres, and quit entirely. Then reload the game and let me know both whether you can load your existing save and whether you can properly start a new one.
If either one doesn't work, please let me know where you installed the game. Within the EA App, you can see the file path under Sims 3 > Manage > View properties. Please also let me know whether OneDrive is running on this computer, even if you never use it.
Thank you for your advice, unfortunately I am still having the same issues.
Not sure if this is relevant but I have expansion packs and on the first load up of the game after deleting my Sims 3 folder from my Documents, I have the Into the Future loading screen. On the second load up of the game it is just the Sims 3 loading screen.
I cannot access the new save nor make a new one.
I do not have One Drive but I do have Google Drive that is syncing a lot of my files, I did try turning this off as well as anti virus and none of that worked either.
I wonder if the path is the issue as I have a weird set up, mine is:
E:\Games\The Sims 3\
@Anniek1n The install location should be fine. It sounds like the problem is that your packs keep getting deactivated, as if you'd unchecked them in the launcher. Normally, the loading screen that shows up is always the one from the newest pack installed; the base game loading screen is only used when no packs are present. The absence of packs would also make it impossible to load any save dependent on the data from one or more packs.
The strange thing here is that you're apparently not doing anything to disable your installed packs. The info on which packs the user has activated is typically independent of any files in the user folder; the last time I tested, it was stored in Internet Explorer's cache data. But even if you were inadvertently clearing Edge's IE mode data and therefore disabling your packs, or some other program was deleting the data, that wouldn't explain why the packs are active again in the new folder.
At any rate, try deleting one file or folder at a time from the Sims 3 user folder to see what's causing the problem. The idea here is that if a whole new folder makes your packs load properly again, the reason they don't load is something within the user folder, not that folder itself. I'd start with the individual files that have "launcher" in their names, then try SigsCache.
