Cannot upload my sims and lots to the Exchange

[ldubinlittle]

Good afternoon!

I have spent months rebuilding my town that I lost and have been trying to upload my Sims and houses that I have created to the Exchange so that I can re-download them later, as a backup to saving everything on my external hard drive. I have all the the lots and Sims saved to my launcher and when I try to upload them they show as successful but they are not in my Studio. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong!
1. They are all brand new lots and the names are unique and have never been uploaded before.
2. I only have 15 items uploaded into my Studio so I am well under the amount I am allowed to upload. (I also deleted a bunch of stuff I no longer wanted to make sure there was room)
3. I am careful about the custom content I uses, and some of the lots had no CC at all.
I'm just not sure what I am doing wrong. I would appreciate any insight!

[MrsFlynn]

It may not be anything you're doing wrong. There have been reports that the exchange is having problems both with uploading and downloading for the last long while.

However, see Crinrict's article below for some tips that might help.

Can’t upload to the Exchange
http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2014/02/cant-upload-to-the-exchange.html

[ldubinlittle]

Thank you for your reply! So..I've already tried his suggestions, still not getting anywhere, big surprise! After I uploaded the stuff to the launcher, they showed up in an Export file under documents/electronicarts/sims3/exports. Or something like that. If I back this folder up and save it, I should be able to use them in my game at a later time? Or is there a specific way to save them so I can download them later?

[MrsFlynn]

I usually just back up my entire Sims 3 folder to an external drive and rename it something like Sims3Backup. When I want to use a specific family I copy their .Sims3pack files from the external drive to my current Sims 3 folder.

You cannot install files in the exports folder. Family, houses and community lots that you want to use again will need to be copied or moved to the downloads folder to be installed.

[ldubinlittle]

Thank you! I'll just make sure I back all these up again! Thanks!