@steviempaterson If you're willing to try a few mods, please start by adding NRaas Traveler, ErrorTrap, Overwatch, and Register. Traveler replaces the fragile EA travel transition with its own, ET and OW clean up corruption and stray data in the background, and Register manages the assignment of role sims. Register isn't normally on the list of recommendations for a broken travel transition, even though it's helpful overall, but in testing other players' saves, I've noticed that it identifies and fixes a number of errors when the homeworld is loaded again.
If you're new to using mods, here's a guide to installing them. The process works the same in macOS as in Windows.
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files
If that doesn't help, or you'd prefer not to use mods, the other step you can take is to lower the stress on the game as much as possible during the travel transition.
- Empty out your sims' inventories as much as is reasonable. Having a few items is fine, but not much more.
- Save the game immediately before you want your sims to travel.
- Exit to the Main Menu and lower all the graphics settings to the minimum. Turn off the in-game shopping experience and the interactive loading screens as well, then quit to desktop.
- Delete the five cache files in your user folder (listed above) again.
- Take your computer completely offline. You can sign into Origin and put it in offline mode before disconnecting your computer and launching the game.
- Load the game, and once the clock has run for a few sim-minutes, send your sims traveling right away.
- Once they arrive in their destination, use "save as" to rename the save, then quit. If you want, you can first exit to the Main Menu and raise the graphics settings again, but be sure to quit to desktop before reloading the save.
If this doesn't work either, I can take a look and try to fix the save. Just upload it somewhere (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and either link it for me here or send me the link via PM. I'll try to get the sim back home. Please do finish up whatever tasks, including graduation, you want your sim to have accomplished, and save your progress a sim-hour or so before it's time to go home. And let me know what store world(s) you have installed. I probably can't install everything you own, but the worlds themselves are easy enough.
