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b5vegg17o3gp's avatar
b5vegg17o3gp
Seasoned Newcomer
2 months ago

All my saved games are gone

Hi,

So i paid for the seasons extension, and at first it didn't want to download at all.

I have tons of free space on the disc, and the extension requires about 1.3 Gb

After several attempts to download (it just didn't start), I decided to just restart my laptop and try again. After I restarted it, the seasons extension finally got downloaded, but when I enter the game, I see only a "New game" option, with no "Resume".

I tried "Repair" command on EA app, but it didn't help at all.

What do I do to get my progress back? I've been playing for 300 hours already, as the banner says. But all my saved progress is gone.

downloads
ea app
expansion packs
launching
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    21 days ago

    b5vegg17o3gp  Do you still need help?

    Felexsu  sonatastern  It's possible that this coincided with Windows changing the location of the Documents directory, which is where Sims 4 looks for user data.  For example, the locations could have swapped between these:

    C:\Users\your username\Documents
    C:\Users\your username\OneDrive\Documents

    Without knowing what your particular old and new locations are, I can only speculate as to why.  But if your Documents directory was NOT in OneDrive previously and is now, it's likely because of a Windows update that asked whether you wanted to automatically back up your data.  If you said yes, Windows would move the Documents directory to the OneDrive folder above and start syncing its contents.

    If this isn't the case for you and you'd like to know more about why this happened, please list the current location of your saves (that the game is reading) and where they were previously.

    • sonatastern's avatar
      sonatastern
      New Novice
      20 days ago

      That's what I was afraid of. Coincidentally, that happened when I turned my notebook on, and the OneDrive started to backup (previously it asked to and I said yes). The original folders have a error to synchronize with it, so after Felexsu's answer I looked it up on my Explorer and all my Sims 2, 3 and 4 were "duplicated" yet empty, like if it was the first time playing them.

      Even tho were duplicated, Sims 4 and 3 were empty in the new one, and in this case I didn't lose my CC and saves. But I lost everything in my Sims 2 folders.

      The only way to prevent this is turning OneDrive off, right? Because to make it the cherry on top, my OD keeps warning me about errors that it couldn't sync - .exe files only and I can't even delete the notifications and inside the Explorer there is a error icon very annoying.

      And yes, it was everything you said. OD - Personal and just Docs. That was so frustrating. And then the EA App gave me trouble again, fixed, yet was another headache. 

       

  • Felexsu's avatar
    Felexsu
    New Novice
    2 months ago

    The same thing has just happened to me! Hopefully someone knows because idk what to do now 😭

  • Felexsu's avatar
    Felexsu
    New Novice
    2 months ago

    I got it back! I think my computer created a new Electronic Arts file in my documents with no save files in, so I found my old file and took to contents of that save file and pasted it into the new file and it appeared again! Hopefully it's the same for you as it was the same situation but different pack downloads.

    • sonatastern's avatar
      sonatastern
      New Novice
      21 days ago

      Thanks to your reply, I was able to verify and then put all in their places, but I still wonder why the game/app duplicated the files. I have The Sims 2 and 3 also installed, but the misplaced things for them were the games’s configuration. Saves and custom content remained with their respective folders.

      I know that The Sims 4 had two recent updates. And for me, the EA app is always giving trouble. The app doesn’t open, or sometimes when I try to run it “computer can’t locate the file”. 

      The app just bugging around like that isn’t funny. I was about to cry, seriously, I put so much hours on my households. I mean, I had the backup files and still had the “original” folder before this happened, but it’s another thing to open our games and the saves are not there.

      I truly hope that the person who opened this discussion had resolved it too.

      And like I said, I wonder why. Because it was all fine a couple of days ago.

      • Felexsu's avatar
        Felexsu
        New Novice
        21 days ago

        Glad I was able to help, I’m not sure why it bugged out so badly but I can only assume it was maybe a buggy update as it seems multiple people have had this issue. Luckily there was a pretty easy fix to it 😅 Hopefully the OP did also see this and get their game fixed though 😊

  • sonatastern's avatar
    sonatastern
    New Novice
    21 days ago

    I hope you had resolved this in the best way possible. I did what the player below said, but trust me, save your saves, I almost lost mine literally. 

    The exact same thing happened to me today. Opened, noticed that my custom loading screen was off, and then the game opened like it was the first time I ever played it. No resume, no custom content turned off.

    I have The Sims 2 and 3 and they too had this problem. New folders created, configs restored, like I had installed the 3 games and was playing for the first time.

    then I opened my explorer and it was all there in their folders, and thanks to the explanation below I checked and found new folders.

    Like… what??? Why. Just. Why?

    long story short, I’m manually putting everything in place, but I still don’t understand why the app duplicated. And the worst thing is to “move” everything again and having doubles of everything.

    erasing is out, because if we get the “original” files back and I lose everything again? For real.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    20 days ago

    sonatastern  I have the option to choose which folders OneDrive can sync as well, for example Pictures but not Documents.  Other users have reported not seeing that option, which may have changed with Windows 11 (I'm deliberately still on 10).  But fundamentally, yes, the only way to prevent OneDrive from messing with and possibly deleting your data is to stop it from syncing said data.

    What .exe files is it trying and failing to sync?  There shouldn't be any in Documents, but perhaps you've installed one of your games into Documents?  That's a problem by itself, for multiple reasons, so please let me know if this is the case and whether you need help moving the game elsewhere.

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