Mac: Save loads normally but Save & Save As always fail (Error 21)
Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help because I've spent the last couple of days troubleshooting this very thoroughly, with the help of ChatGPT, and I've reached the point where I think this needs someone with Sims-specific save expertise. I think this may be an unusual save corruption issue rather than a standard Error 21. I'm on macOS. The problem My main save (around 29 MB) loads perfectly and appears completely normal. I can: Play normally for as long as I want Switch between multiple households Travel between worlds Enter Build/Buy Enter CAS Interact with Sims normally Everything appears to function correctly The only thing that doesn't work is saving. Both Save and Save As immediately produce: Error Code 21 The game failed to save. Error Code: 21 The save has several years of gameplay (it's my primary save and contains almost all of my Sims history), so I'm trying everything possible before giving up on it. How this started My game had been working normally until a series of events happened around the same time. I had recently moved my Mac's data into iCloud as part of setting up my computer again. I then attempted to place a household from the Gallery. After placing it, I discovered that it required the Lovestruckexpansion pack, which I do not own. Shortly afterwards I began experiencing Error 801, along with obvious world corruption, including: missing lots floating apartment objects missing buildings broken world terrain At that point the save was clearly unusable. To recover, I restored my Sims 4 folder from a backup that I had stored on an external hard drive and copied my recovered saves into that installation. After doing that, the world corruption disappeared. The game now loads normally and appears completely healthy. However, ever since recovering the save, it has consistently produced Error 21 every time I attempt to save. What I've tested I've spent quite a bit of time trying to isolate the cause. I've confirmed the following: No mods or custom content installed. Brand new games save normally. The game itself appears to be functioning correctly. The problem only affects this save. Multiple households inside this save all fail to save. Build/Buy works. Create-a-Sim works. Travelling between worlds works. I restored older backup versions of the save (ver0/ver1/ver2), but they all produce the same Error 21. The biggest clue I've found The most interesting thing I've noticed is what happens when I choose Save As. The game immediately throws Error 21. It never creates a new save slot. No new Slot_0000000X.save file appears in the Saves folder. The timestamp on my existing save also never changes. There are no new LastException files created when the error occurs. Because nothing is ever written to disk, it almost seems as though the game is failing before it even begins the save process, rather than failing while writing the save. Things that do NOT appear to be the cause: As part of troubleshooting, I've ruled out quite a few common causes: Mods/CC Game installation General save permissions (new saves work normally) A single household (multiple households fail) The save simply being unreadable (it loads and plays perfectly) My question is has anyone seen Error 21 where: the save loads perfectly, the world appears completely normal, gameplay works indefinitely, but both Save and Save As fail immediately, and Save As never even creates a new save file? I'm particularly interested in whether anyone has seen this after recovering from Error 801 or after placing a Gallery household that required a pack that wasn't installed. I'm also happy to upload a copy of the save if anyone is willing to inspect it. Thank you! FYI, I have backups of the save, so I'm comfortable sharing a copy of it privately if that helps diagnose the problem.
Tray files not loading in My Library
Title: Tray files not loading in My Library (Mac) — files valid, Mods works, everything already tested Platform: Mac (macOS) Game install: EA app Mods/CC installed: Yes (no script mods involved in this issue) Problem: Downloaded Sims (households) and lots placed in my Tray folder do NOT appear in the in-game Gallery > My Library. My CC (clothing .package files) in the Mods folder works perfectly and shows up in Create a Sim. Only the Tray content fails to load. What I've already tried (please don't suggest these again): - Confirmed all files are directly in the Tray folder, no subfolders - Confirmed each entry has all its companion files (.trayitem, .householdbinary, .sgi, .bpi, .hhi) — same file count, nothing missing or unpaired - Enabled Custom Content and Mods + Script Mods in Options > Other - Set Gallery > My Library filters to All category, and enabled "include custom content" / show items requiring packs I don't own - Deleted localthumbcache.package - Fully restarted the Mac (not just the game) - Repaired the game through the EA app Mac/iCloud specifics (possibly relevant): - My Documents folder is synced to iCloud Drive. I have two "The Sims 4" folders: one in iCloud Drive > Documents > Electronic Arts, and one local at /Users/daniel/The Sims 4 - I confirmed which folder the game actually uses by renaming both and launching: the game recreated the folder in iCloud, so iCloud is the active one - I moved Mods and Tray into that active iCloud folder. Mods loads fine; Tray still does not - Files are downloaded locally (no iCloud "cloud" icon) Key clue: Sims 4 Tray Importer detects all my Sims correctly from the same active Tray folder — so the files themselves are valid and readable. The game just won't display them in the Library. Question: Given the files are valid (confirmed by Tray Importer) and in the correct active folder, why does the game fail to load Tray content while Mods loads fine? Is this related to the May 2026 update (1.124 / May 21 hotfix) that reportedly broke content? Any Mac/iCloud-specific fix?saved household won't show up
I logged into sims yesterday, and it wasn't letting me click on any object or sim. I did some research and someone on an ea forum said to fix this glitch, I should move my electronic arts folder from finder to desktop. I did so, and when I started up sims again, everything was gone as if I had just started the game. My mods were gone as well, but what I really care about is my household. Both of my households are gone. I tried copying them into a new sims file, renaming it, and placing it back into finder, but my old saves are nowhere to be found.Lost All Saves / Video Card Issue
First issue that happened was after going into EA like normal to open sims 4 I got the message that the game was already running (which it did not seem like it was) and then got a pop up with something like “do you want sims 4 to access a folder on this computer” (I can’t remember the exact wording) and I accidentally clicked no. After that, when opening sims I get the message “UNRECOGNIZED VIDEO CARD Your video card is not recognized in our database. We have optimized your graphics settings for improved performance.” Along with this message none of my saved games show up and the main home screen opens prompting me to create a household as if I've never played before. After searching around online I tried what I thought was a simple fix to rename the sims folder “sims_old” and reopen the game and then copy the saves folder from “old” over to the new sims folder that is created. When I did this weirdly the only game that loaded was one from 2018. I have no mods installed and I checked my I cloud storage to set it to not save my game to the cloud. Compared to any actual gamer I am not great with computers and this is really the only game I play so I wanted to get advice before I mess things up any further. I’m so mad at myself because I’ve spent over a year on the current house / family I have and don’t want to lose everything. Let me know if there is any additional information that I can provide to try and fix this, any help is very appreciated! Edit: I also have now made sure to allow The Sims 4 permission to access the Documents folder, still having the same issue of only seeing the very old saved game === Graphics device info === Number: 0 Name (driver): Intel HD Graphics 615 Name (database): [Found: 0, Supported: 1] Vendor: Intel Chipset: Vendor: 8086, Device: 591e, Board: 00000178, Chipset: 0002 Driver: Intel(R) HD Graphics 615, Version: 0.10.32.48 Driver version: 48 Monitor: 00000000 Texture memory: 1536MB Vertex program: 4.10 Pixel program: 4.10 Hardware TnL: 0 Opt. features: +sab +a8l8 -rgba16f +r32f -bc4 -bc5 -rawz -intzProgress and Saves
I had to switch my icloud account on my mac to the one I use on my phone, the one on my mac was my moms. By doing this I lost my progress, once I realized it did this I logged back to the one I used for the game and my progress is gone but the hours played and all of my purchases are still there, but every time I upload the game, it is only giving me an option to hit "new game" I have copied and pasted my saves folder into my desktop and into the EA > Sims 4 Folder and still nothing.
Multiple main menus under same account?
I could really use some help, as I am not very tech savvy! I deleted sims 4 around a year ago and just redownloaded it recently, none of my old worlds/games had saved, so I just started fresh. Now, after this new update, all of my old games have come back and my new ones are nowhere to be found. All of this has taken place on my only origin account. Is there any way I could combine these saved sets of games or at least get the new one back? Does this have something to do with my iCloud or the way my Mac downloads maybe? Idk pls help.
Lost sims 4 saves after updating Mac mini m4 to 26.2 Tahoe
Recently bought a M4 Mac mini and moved my Sims4 saves from the previous windows 11 install that I had been playing for many years. Every thing was fine and saving game progress was fine. I decided to do a system update in Sequoia the update finished but it was not actually an update to sequoia it was actually an upgrade to Tahoe 26.2 everything seemed fine until my wife launched the game the next day and had no option to load games so her saved games appear to be gone from the documents folder. I was told that the saves may have been moved to the iCloud Drive I checked and nothing appears to be there. I did nothing but choose update when I did this I did not select any options I was actually not given any to select anyway. Also, my desktop which had been completely empty now was covered in files but they were years old and from a Mac that I had not used for years and it was in my office at the school I used to work.
