Technical Issue - Sims Missing From UI

[Micler]

Hi, everyone! I logged into my dynasty file today after a month or so, and was greeted with a technical problem. I wasn't sure how to really explain it, so I took a screenshot. I can't expand the bar on the bottom of the screen, and none of the sim buttons on the side are visible, which means I can't click on any of them. Also, the needs bar is a weird minty green.



Hopefully someone will know a way to fix this problem. Thanks for the help!

[Twinmum]

Not sure how to fix it other than to suggest that you exit the game and restart it (the game, not your dynasty). Is it like this with other game files too or just this one?

[Micler]

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I exited the game several times, and also restarted the computer. Nope, I opened another game file and it was normal.

[Noodles]

Have you been travelling? Looks like a travel bug to me.

If exiting the game and restarting doesn't help, you could try going to edit town, change active family to somewhere else and then right back, without actually having to play another family. I managed to fix disappeared sim (who lost their icon from the left) like that. I'm not sure if this would work in this case, because my lost sim was not only gone from the icons, he was invisible too.

Of course, as it is a dynasty file you aren't allowed to do that I guess, but I think you could ask for a permission to try that to fix a bug.

[Micler]

I haven't gone travelling for a long time in that game, and I think that they only went once. Thanks, I could try that! I'm not really trying to do an official dynasty, so I'll try whatever I can. Would that make them lose relationships or anything?

[Noodles]

No. If you change 'active household' to another family, it doesn't remove anything from your original... they stay living on their house like normal, and if you switch back right away, they won't have time to "do" anything. What I mean is that if you were to play another family for a while and let your original take care of itself, they might do some things due story progression.

If you were to copy the household to the library and then delete the original (which might fix this as well), then you would lose all the relationships with the townies, as the new copy would be a new household in a sense.

(sorry for this bad explanation, I'm in a hurry! But I hope you get it fixed!)

[Roxanne07]

Can you go a previous save, maybe? Just delete the original save at Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Saves. Then, rename your backup folder, so if it's Dynasty.sims3.backup, delete the ".backup" at the end, and open your game again.

[Seabody]

Can you go a previous save, maybe? Just delete the original save at Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Saves. Then, rename your backup folder, so if it's Dynasty.sims3.backup, delete the ".backup" at the end, and open your game again.

Adding to this, are there any save folders with ".bad" at the end? Specifically the save file for your Dynasty?

[Micler]

Thanks, everyone!

@Noodles- Oh, I see! I'll have to try that.

@Roxanne07- I tried that, and it worked for a while, but then it crashed. Now it's doing the same thing as before.

@Seabody- No, there isn't.

[koda733]

Yeah, I had this problem before, only that this happened right after traveling to Shang Simla, and there were no visible promised wishes.
Did you create a backup file before this happened?
If you still have the data for installing The Sims 3, maybe this could help:
Before anything, copy-paste the Saves file from the EA folder to any place where you will remember.
Then uninstall EVERYTHING. After that, install the game as if you just got The Sims 3.
After that, locate your EA > Sims 3 folders.
Now that Saves folder you copy-pasted before? Copy it into the Sims 3 game.
I don't know if this will work, but this helped me with the *Unable to start, reinstall base game* problem.

[Roxanne07]

I tried that, and it worked for a while, but then it crashed. Now it's doing the same thing as before.

Have you tried doing a factory reset?

[Micler]

I've been busy with exams this past week, so it took me a while to try all of these.

@koda733- Thanks for the advice! I did the complete uninstall/reinstall, but it didn't fix this problem.

@Roxanne07- I tried that, but it didn't work either.

@Noodles- Switching households, and then switching back, didn't fix the problem either.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm not sure what else to try, now.

[Cathair1]

I hate to be a party pooper, but you may just have to go simple and delete that family. I realise that this might be a Dynasty game, or you just got attatched to this family - I have been quite troubled when I have to abandon a certain family do to an annoying bug - but sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do.

[Seabody]

My suggestion would be to create a secondary Dynasty file and use twallan's Overwatch and/or ErrorTrap on it, to see if that corrects it. If it does, then you could ask Metro if you're allowed to do the same to your official file, to fix this bug.

Edit: I reread this thread, if you're not doing an Official Dynasty, you can just use the Mod anyway.