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salamoore's avatar
salamoore
6 years ago

Saves Totally Deleted - Any Recovery Suggestions?

Hello,

I updated my game tonight and now despite having over 70 hours of gameplay, all my saves are totally gone.

I've already spent hours reading the threads - I am on a mac, I am not synced to any type of cloud, and I have searched my computer for the files in pretty much every way possible, from locating the new and old Sims 4 folders to searching the file extensions and general file names (i.e, Slot_00000002.save). I checked my trash and tried moving forward with a new sim so I could access the load game function, but nothing. Unless they got renamed somewhere, they are totally gone. 

I understand that EA is trying to comply with new apple standards about the location of certain files (https://simscommunity.info/2020/04/06/the-sims-4-new-update-coming-soon-changes-planned-for-mac-game-files/) but the saves are supposed to remain in the same location, so I don't understand why my saves were wiped. The cache folders were empty as well. 

I'm at a loss. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to recover the files? I've been playing the Sims for 20 years and literally have never had this issue or even had it suggested to me that I should back up my save files. I will moving forward but I really hate to lose all the effort I put into the game till now. 

mac

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  • rachaelnicolle's avatar
    rachaelnicolle
    6 years ago

    I am having the same issue. I have 20 years of experience with this game across all 4 versions and never have had this problem before. When I open the game my saved households aren't there. It doesn't matter how many times I click save or save household to gallery, if I quit the game or it crashes, when I reopen it it's as though I've never played any households in Sims 4 before. I'm struggling a bit to follow along with the advice you gave as it seems me and OP have slightly different results from the 1st terminal search, but these are the results I see from the first terminal search you suggested:

    rachaels-mbp:~ rachaelfox$ find ~ -type d -name "*The Sims 4*" 2>/dev/null

    /Users/rachaelfox/Applications/The Sims 4 Packs

    /Users/rachaelfox/Applications/The Sims 4.app

    /Users/rachaelfox/Applications/The Sims 4.app/Contents/Resources/The Sims 4.app

    /Users/rachaelfox/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4

    rachaels-mbp:~ rachaelfox$

     

    Any suggestions you have on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks 🙂

  • salamoore's avatar
    salamoore
    6 years ago

    @Bluebellflora 

    I ran the new terminal search attached a screenshot below. Looks like it pulls up files with "save" other than Sims files but if you see anything I don't, definitely let me know. 

    Unfortunately, I have no backups to pull from. It's silly because I keep all my files on externals so I never worry about losing data, but The Sims is the only game I play on my laptop so I just didn't think about it since I've never had this issue. Lesson learned haha. 

    I have used third party software to clear out temporary files in the past (CleanMyMac free version), but I think that was over a year ago and it didn't delete my saves then. I don't think I have run a cleaning it since the last time I played Sims 4 because I dislike the cleaning software and never upgraded to a paid version. It's possible it could have been run inadvertently, but unlikely. The Sims 4 update was the only thing I know for sure that could impact the files, so I don't know.

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    6 years ago
    @salamoore

    Sorry ☹️ Also, good to not use a cleaning app again, they're dreadful things and should immediately be uninstalled 🙂

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