Sims 3 Unable to transfer saves from one macbook pro to another

Question

I have been at this for weeks and am really struggling, any help would be much appreciated!!!

So a couple of years back my old macbook pro (2011, either el captain or sierra I can't remember) crashed due to hard drive damage. I was able to have most files recovered onto a hard drive by IT experts, including my sims 3 saves and entire Electronic Arts folder.

I am desperate to get my sims 3 up and running again, so I borrowed my sisters macbook pro (2012) to reinstall the sims 3 and move my saves across hoping to get my old game back. It took a while to get the sims 3 and my chosen expansion packs up and running (expansion packs are: Ambitions, Late Night, Showtime, Pets, Generations and Seasons). The game itself and the packs run brilliantly, I am able to load and create new families no problems at all, however when I move my old saves from the hard drive over to my current Sims 3 folders on the borrowed macbook, the families names will show up in the select a family, however there is no image and I am continuously getting the 'A serious error has occurred while loading ' The dennis family.sims 3'. It is strongly recommended that you restart the application'. Or the error 'The dennis family cannot load this save game. It may have been saved with expansion pack data that is no longer present on this system'.

I have tried absolutely EVERYTHING to try and overcome this error including renaming the back up, copying the meta. data package from a working game on this mac, unlocking files to read and write, uninstalling CC, you name it I have probably tried it. Nothing seems to be working at all. I am a bit confused as to why as I deliberately borrowed this laptop as it was a similar model to my old one that I used to play these families on, so was hoping it would transfer easily because of this as it would share the same properties, however nothing seems to be working.

I have a sad feeling that perhaps nothing is working as the saved files from my old game have potentially been damaged in the recovery process, however they have been stored on the hard drive as 'good files' so I'm expecting they should work?

If they are damaged, does anyone know how to recover these files?

Many thanks for reading and hopefully someone has a solution, as I am desperate to get these old families back and running!

puzzlezaddict · Answer

@LaurenTe&nbsp; It's possible that these saves are corrupted, not so much that the game can't recognize them as saves but enough that they can't be loaded.&nbsp; However, there are a couple things worth trying before giving up.&nbsp; The first is to check that you really do have all the same expansion packs installed and loading on the other computer.&nbsp; Start a new save, go into CAS or Buy mode, and click the button to filter by pack.&nbsp; You'll see each installed pack listed, so you should know right away if one is missing.&nbsp; Make sure you've installed all the store worlds you had before as well and that they're loading, i.e. you can start a new save in one and it actually loads properly.

The other thing to try is moving only the .nhd file from an old save, specifically the file for the sims' homeworld, into a folder for a new save that takes place in the same world.&nbsp; (This is the inverse of what you tried with the Meta.data file.)&nbsp; The other files within a save folder are replaceable with the exception of TravelDB.package, but that only has to do with foreign worlds.&nbsp; If sims in the previous save traveled at any point, I'd suggest adding NRaas ErrorTrap and Overwatch to clean up any stray data left stranded by the missing TravelDB, but you can wait until you find out whether the save actually loads this way.&nbsp; Or you can try adding back TravelDB in addition to the .nhd file, but please try the .nhd alone first.

If neither of these works, feel free to send me your save(s) via private message, and I'll see whether I can load them on either of my Macs.&nbsp; Please list the packs you own as well as any store worlds, and I'll mirror your content.&nbsp; If I can't load the saves, then it's likely they are in fact too corrupted to use.

laurente · Answer

@puzzlezaddict Thanks so much, have sent you a couple of messages via inbox

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Sims 3 Unable to transfer saves from one macbook pro to another

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