Interesting findings. I have also done extensive investigation with my game when I experienced save corruption which started for me right after I installed the For Rent EP and I found out that it was directly related to the # and size of lots that I added to my game. For me, nothing related to downloading from the gallery. I "save as" the game often so I was able to go back to a save file where the Willow Creek Archive lot had not disappeared and recover my save file by deleting unused default lots that I did not need to reduce the "bloat and amount of high polygon objects" in my larger builds and then continue to play the game normally until I installed the Lovestruck and Life & Death EP's last December. When I installed these EP's, I did not notice what was happening at first, but I noticed that when I loaded into one of my lots in Willow Creek, the Sims that were in the house I expected to see when I loaded in were all outside on their phones on an empty lot and the house next door to them that was supposed to another one of my houses I added to the game was actually a default house that came with the base game. I was terrified and could not immediately diagnose the problem because I received no error codes, no orange triangles above lots that had disappeared, and other than many of the houses I had added in Willow Creek, the game performed normally. I also forgot to mention that before this happen, I did a test where the Willow Creek Archive lot was corrupted in build mode but when I had a few of my Sims travel there in live mode, the lot was there intact and functional! I forgot what steps I took to correct the problem with the my Sims house that had disappeared but I was able to redownload it from my library and then I went to each of my Sims houses, about 91 at the time because I have 727 played Sims in my game and getting rid of Sims was never going to be an option for me to avoid save corruption. The problem as I kept checking out all of my Sims homes and whether I could load in or not was that houses next door to my Sims in the world that were supposed to be my houses were actually the default houses but if at exited and relaunched the game, my houses would next door would actually reappear so I thought it was a mod issue causing this until I read articles in Reddit that this was another sign of save corruption so to verify that my save file was corrupted, I checked the Willow Creek Archive lot in Build Mode which is where save corruption always starts in my game and it actually was wiped clean! Then thinking that my save file corrupted because I added Lovestruck and Life & Death, I used James Turner's method to remove the 2 packs from my game and then went back to a good save file I had just before I installed the 2 packs and restarted the game and the Willow Creek Archive lot was present and intact in build mode.
So, later to test my theory that the game had a limit to the number of objects that it could hold before it would start to go into what I call "self preservation mode" to start deleting objects to this limit would not be exceeded which triggered save corruption for my game, I deleted 40 of my Sims houses (all of these houses were houses I had downloaded from the gallery originally built by other players when I did not know how the build houses when I first started playing the game back in 2021) and left the houses that I built from scratch. I then used MC Command Center to combine the Sims that no longer had homes with the Sims that still had houses left so that resulted in most of my homes now having 16 to 24 Sims per house which is how I play the game today with no save corruption. I then copied this save file from my Desktop PC to my Laptop PC and turned Lovestruck and Life & Death back on and just as I was expecting, my game worked fine without save corruption because I had deleted almost half of my builds but kept my 727 Sims. My Desktop and Laptop PC's are very powerful gaming PC's so this may be one reason I can add so much to my game and not experience problems because my save file is currently around 120mb but it has been as high as 123mb. Right after I deleted half of my builds, my save file was around 94mb but as I used MCCC to combine households, my save file increased from 94mb to around 112mb and then just going in and updating all of sims and adding some smaller builds my save file grew to 123mb.
However, recently I tried building a house from scratch on the 64x64 lot in Chestnut Ridge and as soon as I reached a certain point in the build, I started experiencing intermittent "forever loading screens" which I know sometimes is a sign of save corruption in my game but not all of the time so I loaded into the Willow Creek Archive lot in Build Mode to make sure it was still there and intact and not missing any items and I saw the dreaded message that you see that indicates your save file is corrupted: "Items Removed - One or more items may not be installed on your computer or the EA Account that is currently logged in does not own these items. One Build Mode item has been removed". If you ever see this message in one of the Willow Creek Community lots in Build Mode, your save file is corrupted and if you keep playing the game, you will reach a point where you can no longer delete lots because of this and then you may trigger 801 codes or not be able to load into lots. So, when I saw this, I just uploaded my partial build to the gallery so I could download it later when I had more "space" in my game and deleted it in game and went back to the save file just before I added the lot and all was good!
A few weeks ago, I had save corruption pop up again when I was adding books to bookshelves in my Sims homes so I just went back to a save file before I started doing this.
I also used Artificial Intelligence to help me remove the "metadata" from lots that I deleted but still contained the metadata and this is how I reduced my save file size from 123mb, which is when I experienced save file corruption by adding the books to the bookshelves, to now down to around 120mb. Basically, I just went to all of my deleted lots, wiped them clean including the terrain paint, and then turned them into "generic" lots which helped reduce my save file size because I did not know that when I bulldozed the lot, there was still metadata that the lot contained that adds to save file size. Reducing my Sims inventories also helped in reducing the # of objects (or polygons) in my save file which triggers save corruption once you reach that unknown limit of "polygons" which is what AI calls it.
One more thing, after the Lovestruck and Life & Death scenario that resulted in me spending hours upon hours to "save corrupt proof" my game so that it would remain playable, I complete have stopped updating or adding any new content to my game since January and will not add any more content or update the game until the save corruption issue is resolved. If I had not been laid off my job last summer, I would have never had the time that it took for me to troubleshoot, diagnose, and fix my game after save corruption without starting over from scratch which is not an option for me because save corruption could still creep back up even after starting a new game! Also, I emphasize "my game" because what worked for me and my experiences may not be applicable to anyone else because there are too many variables related to save corruption like mods, platform hardware, combination of packs and kits installed, etc. I still think I benefit by having powerful PC's and by having 2, I can always revert back to a game that is still good on another PC if I mess up testing out something in the game on one PC.
The biggest advice I can recommend to players that I use to avoid save corruption is, 1) "save as" your game as much as possible even if you end up with hundreds a save files because it's easier to delete the ones you don't need as opposed to losing game progress because you have played in a corrupted save file for too long! 2) Always, always load into the Willow Creek Archive lot in Build Mode as soon as you start the game to check that everything is still there. I have found out the hard way that loading into the lot in build mode while you have already started playing the game is worthless because many times, I did this and saw that all was good and then came back and loaded into the lot after restarting the game and the lot was missing items! 3) Always "Load Save File" as opposed to "Resume" when restarting a game 4) Always delete the "localthumbnailcache" (can't remember the exact name) and other cache files before restarting a game. This always makes my game run smoother because I have found out that as this "localthumb~cache" size increases, the slower the game runs. This file can also be very helpful in detecting a corrupted save file because if you are in game and you check the size of this file and it is 0KB, your save file may already be corrupted! 4) If you see any weird behavior in your game, even weird stuff with Sims, I recommend "save as" your game, shut it down immediately and clearing cache files, and restarting the game and immediately check the Willow Creek Archive in build mode to make sure it did not start "corrupting".
I will always and forever have to use the steps above when I play my game as a safeguard to avoid losing saves to corruption, even after the game is fixed.
