[ARCHIVED] Orange/Green Exclamation signs over lots / Houses disappear

Because EA/Maxis is actively IGNORING this thread and the others around corrupted saves/lots/games, my advice to friends and family who also used to love The Sims is: STOP all purchases of ANY DLC!  The game code appears to be collapsing under its own weight.  Save what your can and back up those saves to another location/drive/storage etc.  Yes there will be some tempting new offers as EA continues to milk this franchise to death.  However, adding new content/packs/etc. appears to break the game badly especially if you already have a lot of other DLCs installed. 

I believe the reason they aren't responding here or on social media or Reddit, etc. is because they KNOW it's the end of the line and don't want to admit it publicly till they squeeze the last dime out of us.  

See also:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Houses-Lots-disappear-Error-800-or-801/td-p/4620279/highlight/false/page/63

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Endless-Loading-Crashing-when-trying-to-load-a-certain-lot/m-p/14222408/highlight/false#M303671

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/FIXED-Corrupted-R-rental-lot-Map-doesn-t-load-anymore-White/td-p/13299392/highlight/true/page/43

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/FR-Corrupt-rentals-cause-white-Screen-when-loading-world-Patch-1/td-p/14137190

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Game-Issues/Subject-Persistent-Save-File-Corruption-and-Error-Code-800/td-p/14230383

https://www.reddit.com/r/thesims/comments/193ov48/do_not_put_down_units_from_for_rent_in_your_save/?sort=new

https://www.reddit.com/r/thesims/comments/1cljuns/i_think_for_rent_broke_my_savefile/