Please use this thread going forward: Save Game Corruption (Disappearing Lots/Error 800 or 801) | EA Forums - 5037272
I haven't played this game in months due to the 'exclamation error' bug over the lots but i do come back to this thread on occasions to see if EA cares about their customers enough to fix the issue....however we can all agree that they don't give a ####.
The bug will soon be exposed to all gamers who have been playing Sims4 long enough and at the moment everyone in this thread is treated like an annoynace to the EA team whilst they work on fleecing their customers to spend more money on packs/expansions...it's a business without a soul.
If it helps anyone, one way to reduce/remove the exclamation is to start deleting lots that aren't precious to you in worlds that you hardly play in. In my case i bulldozed all the lots in Moonwood Hill (didn't like playing with werewolves) and bulldozed all the losts in Chestnut Ridge (didn't like horses/cowboys). I don't remember deleting the households but i did evict them from the properties.
Also what helped was reducing the number of residential rental units. If possible, don't build/use any Residential Rental Units other than the ones that came already prebuilt in Tomarang. I think i had less than 10 Residential rental units across my whole game and i found that by reducing the number of units (turning them into shared spaces) this also helped remove the bug.
In summary i found that the trick was to start bulldozing lots you dont care about and reduce the number of residential rental units. After you delete a few of these just check in your game to see whether the 'exclamation error' is reducing across your save and if so, keep doing it until everything is back to normal. Be warned though, adding lots and units back in again after doing this will bring the errors back.
I think the error is affected by 2 main things. The first is the number of lots in the game. EA haven't coded the game to allow for this level of expansion and this issue will only be exacerbated as they continue to add more expansion packs. The 2nd issue is the objects you have in the lots. The more objects/clutter you have the more the problem worsens. Thats why bulldozing the lots is important because you are also deleting objects at the same time. I don't think the number of 'households' is the issue however I haven't tested whether deleting households has the same affect as deleting lots.
Hope this helps someone, but if all else fails do what i've done and leave the game in the dustbin until EA resolve the issue :-)
@Sumchen thanks so much for keeping me updated.. I wish it was better news 😭 but *sigh. I think @nathaneous1 could be onto something though guys, maybe it has to do with us overloading and ea hasn't coded for this. So I was hoping to get as many responses to this post as possible to see if others have a similar setup and maybe ea would have a better idea as to where the problem is coming from and possibly be able to fix it. SO PLEASE ANYONE WHO HAS A SIMILAR SETUP AS MENTIONED BELOW, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT 🙏
Please respond if..
1) If you guys have reached the 99 cap for rentals (you'll recieve a message if you try to go over this number, it'll tell you that your at your limit) OR respond if you're pretty close to that #. (If you don't know what im talking about, it's the number of rental units PER SAVE FILE. Not rental lots, but actual units, and it's across every world. So if you could count how many units you guys have total, that's the number im looking for.) I personally had reached the 99 cap right before the issues started. I went back and deleted a few back in the day so I now have a total of 91. I know this number will be a little difficult and annoying to get, esspecially for those using the cheat to have more rentals per lot, as it doesn't show you the number when you hover over the lot, instead it says in red that there are more than 6 units, then you'll have to select the lot and count manually 'sigh' Also while counting I totally forgot that the little rental icon on the lot changes to a regular icon if you already have a landlord assigned for the lot or have played the lot 'sighx2' i rlly had to hover around in every world to be sure i wasnt missing any lol BUT! maybe we could be onto something guys so push through! ✊️
2) if your using the cheat for 'more units per lot' this allows more than 6 units in one lot. I'm currently using this cheat in several of my lots
3) if every single lot in every single world is filled or close to it. Full meaning, you have built there, or the lot was a pre-existing lot to the world. Empty meaning, it has no buildings. I found that some of the standard or pre-existing parks in game had a few trees, some beaches had a beach towel, I would count these as empty due to their low clutter count. After counting mine, I only have 8 empty lots total, and for me, 8 lots out of my 293 total... thats not very many empty lots, and if you add in the idea that several of those lots are rental lots with my 91 unit count, with sims filling all the residential lots 😵💫😵 my game must be pretty dang heavy. Btw I counted that 293 lots myself so the number could be off by a few, I have every world and googling how many lots was giving me different answers but anyways.. this also fuels my hunch, as right before the issue happened I was going through every world, filling every lot with homes, rentals, and every other lot type etc. And moving sims in, my sims and gallery sims so my worlds would all be full and bustling with each world having fun places to go, sims to meet, and stuff to do. But please do comment if most of your lots are full, regardless of how many worlds you have. (Also I don't mean full as in full of sims, I just mean buildings and build items in general, in any lot type, bars, homes, clubs, etc.. I hope this makes sense)
4) This one may or may not matter as much but, anyone who has atleast most of the worlds, because as @nathaneous1 mentioned, if it's a bug to do with overloading the system, I would imagine it'd be simmers who have a heavier game file. So more worlds = more lots = more sims etc. So anyone who has atleast 17 or 18 of the 22 worlds. THIS IS NOT INCLUDING BATTU OR SIXAM etc. Counting worlds that you can choose from residential worlds menu, and vacation worlds. But it could also be that each expansion is coded with how much it can handle, and going over that amount by adding rentals, too many sims, etc. Idk how the code works but you guys just go ahead and let me know, I'm curious if there's any simmers who've encountered this problem but only has 6 or 7 worlds, I'm thinking base game comes with 5? Willow creek, oasis, newcrest, magnolia promenade, and windenburg? But it's been so long now that i don't recall. But yea I wonder if those with fewer worlds, therefore less lots, less rentals, and less sims are having this issue.
5) Anyone who has maxed out or even gone over the recommended family bin number, if you don't know what this is, refer to the little number at the bottom right corner of your 'manage households' or as many call it, the family bin, it should say 'sim count' and there will be a number. Also, in game options, many player opt to have the 'unlimited' option set in max sim count. This is found in options, gameplay, max sim count. This fuels my hunch even more due to the fact that the drop down tab does say '200 max recommended'. But I've always played unlimited. My sim count is 304, so 100 over the recommended value, and that's obviously because I chose the unlimited sim count option. So please let me know what your sim count is and if you've selected the unlimited option.
6) if you use any mod that allows for more sims than 8 in your household.
This post took me a long time to compile so if you guys could please please please respond. Rather you have just 1 or even none of these scenarios. It's all useful info ea might be able to use to help us. If your fed up however @nathaneous1 post had a work around that involved deleting and bulldozing a mass majority of lots and clutter per lot etc. Or dumping the game all together lol but even if you do decide to do that, (deleting things not putting the game in the trash lol) even a response from everyone letting us know if that worked long run for you would be helpful! Let's either debunk this theory or aid in proving this is the issue so ea can help! Btw I've read many of the recent posts so I promise I'm not just pulling this idea from my hat lol
My only hope.. unfortunately.. is if ea can solve this, sadly when I try to bulldoze lots like @nathaneous1 suggested.. my game crashes 😞 but maybe it can work for you guys, either way please, any info we can give ea and eachother is useful. Thanks guys
@BouncyFoxx What nathaneous1 said is not really something new. A few people already said this. Even before Ea said they are unable to recreate the bug.
So (i hope) EA should be aware of that possibility. But anyway, since i still hope they will fix it and i am grateful for everyone investing their time into helping i will start with answering your questions and i hope more people will so we can finally collect similarities. Thank you Bouncyfoxx and Nathaneous for not giving up and trying to help here.
1) I never reached the 99 cap of residental rental units since the bug corrupted my first save when i had placed around 70. Since then i deleted Residental rentals in my saves whenever the bug came back because its also helping for a short time in my game, like a few people also discovered. But this also means i had to delete residental rentals ever since the bug first occured in my game and never placed new ones, so it does not stop there. after some time the bug comes back and i have to delete another one.
2) i am not using the cheat for 'more units per lot. And i never used it in my save.
3) When it first occured i had 3 empty lots. All other where build on. Now i have 15 since i had to delete so much, which is also not so much but i really hate to have so many empty lots in my save. i like it full and lively.
4)I have all worlds since i own every pack.
5/6) Idont use mods to have families with more than 8 sims and never did. And only a few families have 8 Sims in it, I am more likely to play with smaller families.
Like i said, the bulldozing workaround works for me. but only a short time. i still have to check for the bug before every saving.
I also think its the overload stuff like you two also mentioned because the game keeps generating objects and sims in the background all the time.
So it makes sense that i have to delete more and more stuff every time because the game keeps generating.
I hope they will find a solution soon. Since, if this really is the case and more people will buy more packs with worlds (and we are going to get a new one soon) this would mean more people will get the bug and potentially lose their games.
Also i hope they will not see this case as solved since a bulldozing workaround is working for some people.
I would be very sad if i only can play sims in half empty worlds.
Thanky for your time and effort guys!
Yep, as @Sumchen said, we discussed this in this thread several months ago, and EA had a chance to read this. It was also often recommended here to simply keep your lots number low, and limit the use of residential rental.
However, this is obviously not a real solution, and I myself stopped playing the game completely around half a year ago. Even though I have bought all DLCs up until For Rent, I’m fine with saying goodbye to sims 4 forever, because it is simply not worth the hassle.
EA will most likely not fix this; they will probably recommend to not play with all DLCs installed at once, and I hope that someone will sue them for this. Because I would have NOT bought all the DLCs if I knew that I couldn’t play with all of them together (I play with just one save switching families, I don’t create new saves from scratch, and I have no interest in doing so).
It’s a scammy company. They think that they’re maximising profits, but they are simply shortsighted. Long term they are going to lose, that’s for sure.
@Sumchen @LauratkoK thanks for letting me know guys, my hopes were just set on the idea that maybe if a lot of us started digging deep into how many of this and that we were all working with.. maybe ea would try a little harder at looking into certain aspects.. im not a game tester, designer, or code reader but I have a feeling the people who try to recreate the bugs are doing so on a typical vanilla based game, having all the expansions we specified but not truly having 'lived in' worlds.. with many lots full of buildings and residentials full of sims.. I mean, if we send our save files to them.. do they play them? Look at the code? No clue.. I just thought maybe if we keep giving them our statistics, like numbers of how many packs, full lots, rentals, sim counts.. vs. explanations and scenarios, idk.. maybe it might probe them into thinking a different way or trying something new 😮💨 but hey.. maybe the more people who send in their answers to my questions.. the more posts there will be, part of me wants to say.. they can't ignore us forever but 😅 this is ea we're talking about.. but if ever there was a time to push more posts out it would be now when their so called 'bug fixing team' is newly created.. and I also hope ea doesn't find this to be a good work around. It's not. Deleting the things we built, not being able to play with everything we've purchased.. and I actually can't even use this work around.. my game crashes when I try.. and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Not trying to sound like a groaner or repetitive, sorry if I did guys lol but I guess I just wanted to see if anyone was willing to push out one final attempt while ea's bug team is newly formed 😮💨 maybe if 50 pages becomes 100 they'll care.. 😅😅😅 oh I feel like I shouldnt have said that.. pls help us before the thread reaches 100 pages ea dear lord 😂 meanwhile I still log in like an addict to get my free crap I can't play with lol don't forget your battle pass free items guys.. maybe one day we will get to play with them.. thats what I tell myself anyways 😅 welp, ppl feel free to respond to my questions, if even for just $#!t$ and giggles.. maybe more info will = fixes.. or more pages will = fixes.. or not lol not much else we can do anyways.. except throw the game away as you guys suggested 😂 meanwhile I'll keep playing coral island and animal crossing while I wait.. and wait.. but once paralives and inzoi comes out.. and this still isn't fixed ._. Yea at that point I'll get my trash can ready. on trash day. Lol
Hey there, it's been a while since I last chimed into this thread. It's been quite the rollercoaster and it's really been disheartening to see that after 50 pages of people voicing this specific problem, that EA has nothing to show for it and still says they are unable to recreate the bug. I believe as more worlds are released, this issue will grow more and more, people are rewarded for purchasing all of the EP's, GP's and worlds with their savefile corrupting. For me I am at the very threshold. I cannot place a lot made by a talented CC builder friend of mine otherwise both Tomarang and Willow Creek will begin it's corruption.
I'm hoping that there will eventually be a fix but for the time being I cannot purchase or play with any new content that introduces a new world.
I've been recently having this issue as well. I just got For Rent a few months ago and this issue has been plaguing my game since then. I noticed as soon as I place residential rentals or edit a lot to have rental units on certain lots, whole neighborhoods in Willow Creek get a green ! above the lots. If I load in, the houses are gone or default. I've removed all of my mods and it still does it. I've messed around and it seems some lots are ok to place the rental units but many of them delete totally unrelated houses. It's really frustrating to have to keep checking Willow Creek for corruption after placing lots or messing with existing one. It's really disheartening and sad to see that this thread is 50 pages in without any kind of real resolution.
