Please use this thread going forward: Save Game Corruption (Disappearing Lots/Error 800 or 801) | EA Forums - 5037272
@karoschmitz A patch a couple of months back eliminated the exclamation marks without eliminating the problem, so you can no longer use looking for exclamations as a way of checking whether you have the bug or not, sadly. I have been periodically loading into particular lots in Willow Creek and Newcrest that tend to break first for me, just to check whether the surrounding lots look like defaults or like the stuff I've placed. That's about the only way to check for this now, I'm afraid.
@rachelwolfeThanks a lot for the hint!! When you are checking in Willow Creek and Newcrest, is there a pattern about which lots tend to break first? Are these especially big lots or just always the same lot locations? I wonder where I should load into to see if I have this issue yet, I randomly loaded into 1 per neighbourhood in Willow and Newcrest and all surrounding lots still look like the one I had placed. Is it mainly these 2 worlds where it's good to check regularly? And are you visiting them in live mode or build mode when you observe the surrounding lots to be wrong?
I can answer some of your questions. For me houses disappear when there are too many lots/sims in the worlds. There is some kind of threshold of lots and sims for when the game gets buggy and the lots disappear. I haven't found out when this happens exactly and I don't play with big lots.
My workaround with this issue is to not play with every pack and to delete lots in worlds I don't use. It's best to just focus on a few packs and worlds and then you should be save from this game corruption. The more packs and worlds you use, the faster your save will get corrupt. Hope this helps.
@karoschmitz The ones that tend to break first for me are Oakenstead in Willow Creek (most common) and Asphalt Abode in Newcrest. But I've seen other people further back on this thread say it started for them in Magnolia Promenade, or I think even in Del Sol Valley for one person, so it isn't completely consistent--but it's not completely random, either. Lots of people get Oakenstead first, specifically. So I guess check there on occasion?
@indywaraThanks so much for sharing! 🙏
I remember Sims 3 had this work around that it asked you to only use a few packs at a time, but for Sims 4 this has never been communicated by EA, which makes me think it is not intendend that way and will hopefully be still a bug they fix. (fingers crossed!)
The main reason why I buy all packs is to have more worlds in my save and all the gameplay additions to extend my gameplay with at the same time. It would be really really sad to have to remove packs, especially as I only play with 1 save (I'm playing rotationally). It wouldn't be an option for me, but then again when the save corrupts I would also try to find ways to save it, even if it meant deleting some lesser used lots..
But ultimately I think I would stop playing, as this would be an issue that frustrates so much, that it would outweigh the happiness and relaxation of playing.. 😔
I wonder if it is naive to hope for a fix from EA after all this time now..
I wish EA would at least communicate to us, what insights they have so far - what the actual limitations are, so we can work around them instead of risking to ruin our saves because they didn't share their information..
More bad news from EA. Looks like they won't be working on this bug on the next update.
See also the last several pages of: :
@karoschmitz I just load the lots in build mode, and look for whether the surrounding lots look like defaults or like what I've placed. This is super easy to spot in Newcrest, because if the surrounding lots are blank again, I've got the bug. Oakenstead is more common to break first, but more tricky since there's only one other lot in that neighborhood, so you have to make sure you replace the Spencer-Kim-Lewis house with something really distinctive in order to check there.
Has anyone who hasn’t downloaded lots from the gallery had this bug? The gallery seems like very much a common theme
Clearly all saves always keep the copy or original lots. That makes me think that, for each lot, the game is only storing a reference to the new lot. Perhaps, when the new lots are downloaded from the gallery, it stores them differently somehow, and eventually loses the reference.
It would be quite common to do a check/condition like this in the code: if reference is not null then grab the referenced object. Else, grab the default. That would explain why it reverts to the default.
I haven’t played this game for ages, so honestly can’t even remember if any of non-gallery-downloaded lots was ever corrupted (most of my lots were from the gallery)
From the latest patch:
Memory Efficiency
Various enhancements have been made to save memory across all platforms, helping the game run more smoothly and reducing crashes.
Would anyone be willing to test if this helps with any precorrupted saves or corrupted saves?
The reason I ask is because a lot corruption may be tied to memory, especially with how protobuffers are handled by the game. Updates in regards to memory may not help fix already broken lots but if someone has a save that they know is close to corruption, they may be able to test if the changes have prevented corruption from occurring
Unfortunately the new update hasn't fix this bug. I tried putting another lot in Willow Creek and right away my other lots disappeared and turn into default lots.
