The Sims 3 crashing in a peculiar way
hello! while playing the sims 3, i've encountered a major issue which has been ruining my game ever since. the matter is, my game is crashing... not just randomly crashing, always after some time. wh...
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@ziekinka Delphy's Dashboard is good at detecting conflicts but not necessarily at finding corrupt custom content. So cc might be the culprit here, although there are other potential causes to look into first.
Please keep ErrorTrap and Overwatch installed, and also install NRaas MasterController. When you load one of these saves, let the game clock run for a few sim-minutes, then click on City Hall and select NRaas > MC > Town Options > Reset Everything. This could take a few minutes, depending on the size and complexity of the world and the speed of your computer. When it's done, use "save as" to rename the save, quit to desktop, and delete the five cache files in your user folder:
- CASPartCache.package
- compositorCache.package
- scriptCache.package
- simCompositorCache.package
- socialCache.package
Then reload the save and see how it runs. Once the game clock is running forward, put Sims 3 in windowed mode (but don't minimize it), open the Task Manager, and let me know how much RAM the game and your system overall are using.
Unfortunately, what you mentioned here is exactly what I had tried right before posting my message. I forgot to mention it previously, but I always used to clean up my cache files too, remove the 'featured items' folder, clean up the save with Regular Save Cleaner after quitting the game, and also playing in the windowed mode has become a habit of mine since a couple of months already. On my most recent save I've noticed that my game would crash around 8a.m. in game, so before I had started the thread, I did everything as you mentioned – reset everything with Nraas Master Controller (I've also been using MC on a regular basis for quite a long time), however this caused my game to crash again right after everything got reset. that was the moment since which i cannot open the save file for more than a few seconds, so it's really difficult to spot the RAM as well – the game turns off before i can even click on anything after loading up the save.
Should I try looking at the RAM on another save file or try to look for a piece of cc or a mod which could possibly casue this behaviour? i've got quite a lot of it (around 2GB in my mods folder and almost 4GB in my downloads folder) so i suppose trying one by one would be a bit tedious, however i could always try. also, if some cc was the problem, i should also check the ones from the downloads folder, downloaded using the launcher, right?
@ziekinka If the game is crashing at or around 8 am every time, that suggests that a sim is trying to change into a corrupt work or school outfit and crashing the game as a result. That's not the only possible cause, of course, but the first step is definitely to test with no cc present.
The simplest way to do that, in turn, is to create a new Sims 3 user folder and copy your save into that. Rename the existing one in Documents > Electronic Arts, open the launcher to spawn a new folder, and copy over the save and your NRaas mods, but nothing else. The only other exception is if the save takes place in a Store or custom world, in which case you'd need to reinstall that world. If it's a custom world and comes with cc, please try to uninstall that cc through the launcher before testing the save.
If this helps, then you know the issue is something in your old folder—maybe cc, maybe another mod, maybe some other corruption—and you can start testing that content in the new folder. Let me know if you need help with the process. If the save still crashes, then try the backup instead: the folder with a .backup extension in the same Saves folder as the original.
Thank you so much for the suggestions! I've run a few tests and I think I have come closer to the root of the problem. I've tried running my game with no mods or cc from the Mods folder, only with Nraas, as you mentioned, and at first the game would still crash. However then I tried running the it without custom/Store content THROUGH the launcher option (simply disabling all the CC from the Downloads folder) and I met with no crash, everything seemed to be alright.
I've been trying different combinations and I realised that as long as I have that option checked in the launcher, my game doesn't crash even with all the mods and custom content from the Mods folder. Unfortunately as soon as I decided to check how the game runs with only one single piece of CC from the launcher (I tried a few times with different categories; once a Store world, once a download lot, a custom texture, a custom object or a piece of clothing from Store and the result would always be the same), it crashes.
I am pretty convinced now that the issue is somehow connected to that Downloads folder. Is there a chance that my launcher is broken or that I lack some file which might be crucial to run even the legally purchased Store content (not to mention CC made by Internet users – an instant crash in both cases with various pieces) or a lot/family downloaded through the Exchange?
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