Re: All of my households disappeared

Nope, I don't see the blue rectangles anywhere. The entire map is empty. Here are some screenshots that might be helpful (I'm sorry that the game is in Czech haha, I wanted to change it somehow ages ago but figured out it'd be too much of a hassle to do):

On the main screen, the outline of the character next to the "Continue" button is empty.

The recently played household still shows up in the Saved games section.

The household list is empty and the map too.

The message bar shows empty character outlines and no names.

I should also note that I use mods and CC build mode items and clothes.

The tray importer shows my households, even the kid of the Haley family that they recently had when I last played.

Is this fixable? Should I try deleting mods? I'm afraid that it'd mess the game up even more.

Also, I might try importing the households into a different save somehow (I have no idea how). Do you think their skills and relationships save here too?

Thanks! (I am going crazy honestly, I spent so long playing and perfecting my characters)

@BlueberryCZ  Please remove all your mods, as in, move the Mods folder to the desktop, and delete localthumbcache.package.  Try to load the oldest backup save you have, and let me know whether it helps.

If you see the same symptoms, don't save your progress.  In the game options, disable SDX drops, quit, restart, and check again.  Your issue sounds somewhat like another one that had to do with SDX drops, although not identical, so it's worth testing this.

Please also let me know whether a new save is affected as well or loads normally, just for comparison's sake.

Tried everything and nope, bad luck for me.

I attempted loading an old save (beginning of 2023) of the same game and all the households were fine, so there has to be a problem with the specific recent save of it.

I tried creating a new save and it was fine, it created me a Sim without any problems.

@BlueberryCZ Do you have a recent Last Exception file? Or one generated by Better Exceptions or MC Command Center?

Yep. And it apparently has a problem with babies (most of the text mentions babies and their skintones)? And also the SNBank Mod (if I understand it correctly).

@BlueberryCZ Could you upload the most recent LE file? There's a paperclip just below the "compose" box here. Also, if you have a Better Exceptions or MCCC report, I'd love to see one of those too, please.

Here it is! The first one (lastException_63843955383) was from 17:03 (which I believe is from when I turned the game on without noticing that something went wrong and just went to build), the other one is from 19:40.

Unfortunately, I don't have BetterExceptions. How do I get a MCCC report?

Thanks!

Edit: It doesn't let me share the files? "Correct the highlighted errors and try again. The attachment's lastexception_63843964842.txt content type (text/plain) does not match its file extension and has been removed. The attachment's lastexception_63843955383.txt content type (text/plain) does not match its file extension and has been removed."

@BlueberryCZ You'll find MCCC reports in the MCCC folder in Mods. Try attaching that file.

For the LE file, maybe one from earlier in the day will load.

I don't have a MCCC folder unfortunately (kinda shocked too, considering I had MCCC).

This site for some reason does not let me upload the .txt file. I tried converting it to pdf, hopefully it is going to work now.

@BlueberryCZ Do you have MCCC set up to import Sims from Tray into your game? And do you use any custom skins or default baby anything? It looks to me like perhaps something went wrong during this process and the result was that instead of importing a Sim, they're all gone.

The MCCC file will be in the same place as the MCCC mod files are, whatever folder you have them in. That might just be Mods, or you might have it one deeper.

I prrobably don't. Also, I don't think I'd ever download any baby-related mods? Slice of Life does not edit babies like this, nor Dynamic Teen life or WhickedWhims.

Here's my mod folder btw. I might be blind, but I can't find the MCCC file and I'm starting to be worried that I had an outdated version of it.

@BlueberryCZ The MCCC files are all the ones there beginning mc_ - the mod consists of multiple files. But you also have a LOT of issues in here. You've got old versions of a LOT of mods -- almost everything I see there with a version number there's an update for. You've got duplicates of mods (the same mod in a folder and not in a folder). Unless you deleted Slice of Life yesterday and updated it to the revised version that just came out, that's broken. But part of your issue *could* be that there are Tray files in the Mods folder. Those files ending .householdbinary, .hhi, and .trayitem go in Tray, not Mods. Regardless of what the cause in that Mods folder is, it's almost certainly there, and can be resolved so it doesn't happen again.

So, here's a workflow for you:

1. Move those files to the Tray folder.
2. Move the CC - hair, clothes, body parts (not sliders), furniture, decor objects - to folders on your desktop. (We'll come back to those.)
3. Delete the file called localthumbcache.
4. Make a list of your mods that are left in the Mods folder by creator and name, and then delete them.
5. Use the list to go get new copies of the mods, after checking if they're actually broken rather than having a working copy. See Broken/Updated Mods, including "Previously Broken." This is also a good time to pick and choose mods you're actually using.
6. For each mod you redownload, read the installation instructions; they might have changed. In those installation instructions, focus on when you have to pick and choose between files, what other mods you need to have, and what mods conflict with it. Organize your mods into folders, so that you aren't using a mix of folders and not-folders. You might want to look at the examples in How to Use Mods and CC .
7. After the mods are done, test in game. You can load a previous version of your save for this.
8. Then copy the CC back, but take this opportunity to check for duplicates and organize the content that's inside those CC folders.

Yeah, I probably messed up by hopping straight into the game (I last played last summer lol) and not checking the mod updates. :/ I'm going to check everything and do as you said, thank you! Rn I'm honestly scared to download anything because of the CC malwares going around, but I'll try to be safe.

How could the Tray files have gotten into there? I don't recall ever moving those files there.

Thank you so much!

@BlueberryCZ Some mods come with tray files as part of how the mod works. When you download those, you need to put the tray files in the right place.

I've got advice on save mod/CC downloading in How to Use Mods and CC . If you have any questions about what to look for beyond that advice, I'm happy to help.

Tried moving the tray files into the tray folder, and unfortunately Windows tell me that those are duplicate files and only one of them was not a dupe.

Working on the CC right now.

Edit: Nope, nothing work, the households are still gone. Should I try using Tray Importer to at least get them back somehow, or will that mess the game up even more? :/

@BlueberryCZ  I don't expect this to make the households come back. You'll need to load an earlier version of your save for that, and that will only help if you didn't save over it too many times. The goal here is that when you do have a version with your Sims in it, it doesn't happen again.

Aaalright. I probably have bad luck, because the earliest save is also already messed up. 

What can I do to be able to play? I thought it was possible to import the Sims (just like people import Sims from the internet) and I'd just have to accept the fact that all of their lore is gone. Unfortunately, all townies are gone too, so this is not an option, right? :/

@BlueberryCZ If you don't have a recoverable save with your Sims in it (and do test that with an empty Mods folder!), you'll be starting at "New" in the Main Menu. If you have Tray versions of your Sims, you can import them from your Library. Premade Sims will be regenerate at starting levels.

It's really frustrating to have to start over for sure ☹️ I just did it in '23 after many years with a save that corrupted beyond where I felt like actually dealing with the process of recovering it. I took a few of my favourite households from my library into a new save instead, and I'm actually playing a premade house for different in it right now.

I do advise keeping a regular folder backup so you can go more than 5 saves back. For most cases, that's enough to recover pretty fully from. In others, it's enough to help you recover more content to import into your next new save.

Okay, thank you sosomuch! I'm gonna have to accept the loss haha.

Alsooo, do you think it's possible to export my houses into the new save?

@BlueberryCZ If the old save loads the World Map, yes! You do, though, have to go to the World map, load each build you want in Build/Buy, then save it to the Library from there. Placing them from the Library onto the map in the new save is faster, thankfully.