Sims 3 Crashing on Mac

@rif3j0qhpi1h  Deleting a sim is a great way to corrupt a save.  The cheat only deletes the sim's body, not the rest of their data, which remains and can wreak havoc as time goes on.  So if you have a backup save from before you deleted the sim, please revert to it.

For the rest, how did you move your sims to the new town?  Do you use any mods or custom content?  If so, let me know what; you can post screenshots of the files if listing them would take too long.  Please use cmd-shift-4 to take the screenshots.

Hi @puzzlezaddict , thank you for the response! 

I moved the sims to the new town using the in game options - I don't have any mods or custom content downloaded at all.

I think you're right about the deleting sim thing! I deleted my sim's imaginary friend a while back, so that's probably why it started crashing in the first place.

I don't think I have a back-up save, but thank you helping me with this anyway.

If I delete the game and reinstall it, will that fix the issue? I know my sims will be gone but I don't mind restarting.

@rif3j0qhpi1h  This issue has nothing to do with the install; only the save data is affected.  If you want to abandon the save, that's easy enough.  Start a new save and it should be fine.  Just make sure you're loading only that save, that you're not switching between saves at the Main Menu.  That should never be done for any reason—it's an excellent way to corrupt the second save you load.

If you'd like to try to rescue some sims from this save, you can save the household to the library and place it in a new save.  If you want to keep the house, save it separately.  So you'd evict the sims in Edit Town, not with their house, then save them from there, and possibly save the house too if you want.

An imaginary friend that has never animated can be safely object-deleted.  One that has animated, as in, you get the "wants to look around" notification, has become an actual sim and can only be deleted with mods, just like other sims.

Thank you @puzzlezaddict - I've saved the sims the way you said, the house too.

Do you think it would be okay to delete the old game/save? And then start a new game/save without any corruption.

@rif3j0qhpi1h  You can delete the old save or not; it doesn't matter, and a bad save can't affect any others.  The only exception is the one I mentioned, where you exit the old save to the Main Menu and start the new one without quitting to desktop first.

Going forward, I'd suggest using a few mods to keep your saves running well.  They're not critical in the short term, but they're the only real way to keep a save intact over the longer term.  (I have a seventy-odd week save that's still totally fine, and that's not all that uncommon.)  The save-preserving mods are all from NRaas, and you can read about them here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-Common-Game-Fixing-Mods-Hero-Approved/m-p/9838855#M244208

If you want to delete an imaginary friend in the future, be sure to do so right away, before the doll takes on a life of its own.  If you wait, or you want to delete another sim, use NRaas MasterController's Total Annihilation command to remove all the data related to the sim.

Hi @puzzlezaddict 

I've never used any mods before - can I ask if these are safe for mac? I'm worried about risking my laptop running slower.

I'm having a little issue with the game again unfortunately - the camera keeps shifting by itself. For example, I use my arrow keys to move the camera, so if I press my right arrow key it won't move, then will randomly speed to the right of the screen without stopping. Do you have any advice for this? The only way I can fix it temporarily is by restarting my laptop and origin.

Also, the game randomly closes by itself? I had this issue with my old save and now it's happening again. Could it be because I got university life and world adventures too? I have no idea what the problem is.

Thank you for your help.

@rif3j0qhpi1h  The mods I linked don't add any meaningful overhead to the game, and in fact they improve performance by cleaning up junk that could otherwise cause problems that take the game engine extra resources to resolve.  (Some issues the game can't resolve on its own as well.)  For example, Overwatch will reset a stuck sim before the game itself does, and when there's a stuck sim, the engine will fall all over itself trying and failing to reroute the sim.

For the camera issue, camera controls in this version of Sims 3 have always been problematic.  The only real suggestion I have is to shift the camera by right-clicking instead, or edge scrolling if you play in fullscreen mode.

For the crashing, is this in a brand-new save, or one that you've been playing for a while?  What world are you playing in?  Please also list the full specs of your Mac—everything under About This Mac including the OS and except for the serial number—and the expansion packs you currently have installed.