I have been playing this game for 4 years now. I got a new computer around the beginning of June and everything went fine. I did run into trouble where on one account the sims 4 wouldn't launch entirely and spent hours trying to fix that and was given the answer that ea doesn't know how to fix my issue but would get back to me soon. But I could play on my other windows account so I did that. Unfortunately I was not able to move my save files for some reason that is still unknown so there goes hours of stuff down the drain. Now my saves keep mysteriously being moved and have disappeared altogether even on this other account. The game runs fine but my saves are gone. I am extremely disappointed in the sims 4 and at this point it's no longer worth it to play because I keep running into crap like this. I've spent countless hours trying to fix it but I honestly have no interest in playing a game that has many bugs and doesn't work properly. If anyone can help me fix this problem I'd love to hear your suggestions but I've gone to numerous forums on this site, tried everything they said and still haven't been able to play my game without losing my saves. I think for the money being charged to own the fullest version of this game it shouldn't have this many issues.

@bridgerex26 I've moved your post to the Sims 4 PC tech section. Is it possible that OneDrive is automatically syncing Documents with cloud storage, and removing the contents of Documents in the process? Your saves are stored in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves; other user data is stored in this Sims 4 folder as well. The game won't be able to see the folder in OneDrive though, and if it can't find the folder, it creates a new one with no content. Please check OneDrive for a Sims 4 folder (likely inside an Electronic Arts folder), and if you find one, you can move or copy it to your desktop for safekeeping. Then disable OneDrive's auto syncing of Documents, put your saves back in the proper saves folder, and you should be able to play them again. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/choose-which-onedrive-folders-to-sync-to-your-computer-98b8b011-8b94-419b-aa95-a14ff2415e85?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us If this isn't the issue, please let me know; there are other possible causes of disappearing saves as well. And there are also ways to move the older saves to your new user account, if you'd still like to play them. But the first thing to do is keep your existing saves from disappearing.

I recently posted to a thread that was closed because it was first created in 2014. So I'm creating a new thread because I still have problems and questions.https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-4-Deleted-Saved-Game/m-p/9307591/highlight/true#M183587 I lost all my save files and yes there is a fix to keep it from deleting future save files but that doesn't bring back the hours of my life I've spent on the saves that were deleted. The game is not supposed to do this and is not advertised to do this so why is it still a problem 6 years later? You guys knew about this the same month the game was initially released. So my question is why is it not fixed? Why are you guys pushing out new content that people have to pay hundreds for if the game still has this big of an issue? Why is this not fixed in the patches? Why are you still ignoring this problem? When can people expect this to be fixed?

@bridgerex26 I've merged your new post with your other thread. The game doesn't generally delete saves, although there may be an occasional problem with migrating save data from the standard version of Sims 4 to the Legacy Edition. Much more likely though is a system issue, as described above.

Ok, so my onedrive is not synced, I made sure that wouldn't do anything before downloading the game. I don't have the legacy edition so that can't be it. And I've fixed the deletion issue, EA knows the sims 4 deletes saves because on that other thread people had that exact issue and EA could stop the future files from being deleted but not recover the old ones. I can play the game fine now, but someone who works for EA should fix this because this is a reoccurring problem from 6 YEARS ago. @puzzlezaddict I know you don't work for EA so I don't know if you can help from here, but thanks for your concern.

I'm having trouble getting my old saves back, they're not in my one drive, I'm missing like 4 households and 3 lots

My SIms 4 save files keep disappearing

12 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago
@bridgerex26 I've moved your post to the Sims 4 PC tech section.

Is it possible that OneDrive is automatically syncing Documents with cloud storage, and removing the contents of Documents in the process? Your saves are stored in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves; other user data is stored in this Sims 4 folder as well. The game won't be able to see the folder in OneDrive though, and if it can't find the folder, it creates a new one with no content.

Please check OneDrive for a Sims 4 folder (likely inside an Electronic Arts folder), and if you find one, you can move or copy it to your desktop for safekeeping. Then disable OneDrive's auto syncing of Documents, put your saves back in the proper saves folder, and you should be able to play them again.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/choose-which-onedrive-folders-to-sync-to-your-computer-98b8b011-8b94-419b-aa95-a14ff2415e85?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us

If this isn't the issue, please let me know; there are other possible causes of disappearing saves as well. And there are also ways to move the older saves to your new user account, if you'd still like to play them. But the first thing to do is keep your existing saves from disappearing.
bridgerex26
5 years ago
I recently posted to a thread that was closed because it was first created in 2014. So I'm creating a new thread because I still have problems and questions.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-4-Deleted-Saved-Game/m-p/9307591/highlight/true#M183587
I lost all my save files and yes there is a fix to keep it from deleting future save files but that doesn't bring back the hours of my life I've spent on the saves that were deleted. The game is not supposed to do this and is not advertised to do this so why is it still a problem 6 years later? You guys knew about this the same month the game was initially released. So my question is why is it not fixed? Why are you guys pushing out new content that people have to pay hundreds for if the game still has this big of an issue? Why is this not fixed in the patches? Why are you still ignoring this problem? When can people expect this to be fixed?
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago
@bridgerex26 I've merged your new post with your other thread. The game doesn't generally delete saves, although there may be an occasional problem with migrating save data from the standard version of Sims 4 to the Legacy Edition. Much more likely though is a system issue, as described above.
bridgerex26
5 years ago
Ok, so my onedrive is not synced, I made sure that wouldn't do anything before downloading the game. I don't have the legacy edition so that can't be it. And I've fixed the deletion issue, EA knows the sims 4 deletes saves because on that other thread people had that exact issue and EA could stop the future files from being deleted but not recover the old ones. I can play the game fine now, but someone who works for EA should fix this because this is a reoccurring problem from 6 YEARS ago. @puzzlezaddict I know you don't work for EA so I don't know if you can help from here, but thanks for your concern.
Simslovergirl11
5 years ago
I'm having trouble getting my old saves back, they're not in my one drive, I'm missing like 4 households and 3 lots
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago
@bridgerex26 I honestly don't know why the files would disappear on you. I've seen many threads about saves disappearing, but among the people who come back, almost all of them find their files in cloud storage (OneDrive or iCloud) or elsewhere on their computers. I've never had this issue myself, so it's difficult to track what triggers it; I don't even know where these files are landing half the time, because people just say "I found them" and leave it at that.

I would love to know what fixed the issue for you in particular, both out of curiosity and in case I see it again. Given that this is a recurring problem, you'll probably want to back up your files periodically, just in case. Of course you shouldn't have to, but it's best practice anyway, and besides, there are enough other reasons saves disappear or get corrupted that aren't EA's fault, anything from an extremely broken mod to hard drive failure.

@Simslovergirl114 Are you missing several households within existing saves, or several saves of one household each? Are the lots missing from your in-game library, or from within the saves?
Simslovergirl11
5 years ago
I'm missing several households within, the lots are missing in the saves, they're in the gallery but I don't want to take them from there and put them back on the empty lots, I also have a household that I'm doing a let's play with but the house that I used was in Del Sol Valley but I redesigned it and now the redesigned house is gone and no where in my library or gallery
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago
@Simslovergirl114 Are your saves otherwise intact, as in, are they mostly up to date with the progress from the last time you played them? The question is whether you're looking at older versions of those saves, from before the new households and lots were placed; or saves that are recent but that have disappearing content, for some reason.

For the first possibility, open a File Explorer window and search for Slot_* (with the asterisk), which should turn up any save files on your hard drive. If you find saves that have recent dates and are possibly not being read by the game, click on one of them, select Open File Location (above the list of files), and let me know the full file path to that particular save.

If your saves are up to date but households or builds have disappeared from them, try loading a backup save. Use the manual method here:

https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2014/09/save-games/#wiederherstellen

And make copies of the saves and the backups, in case you need them later.
bridgerex26
5 years ago
@puzzlezaddict I fixed the issue thanks to the people in the thread I linked. But I can't recover the saves, the first place I checked was on my onedrive but there's nothing there, I've searched the computer which is how I found them once before but the saves aren't anywhere on it. Again I'm just upset because this issue dates back to the game's release and I'm posting on here mainly because I want EA to fix the issue so this doesn't happen to future players. I do backup my saves which is why I found this odd because all traces of the saves are gone and I've backed them up to numerous locations. I don't have mods, so they didn't cause anything, and this computer is brand new so hard drive failure shouldn't be an issue either.
Simslovergirl11
5 years ago
The saves are up to date but the most recent households that I made are not showing up and thank you for the help