Corrupted Games

[Miss Estella]

One of my main problems with sims is that I can never play a game for long because my game files get "corrupted" to where on Main Menu it's picture is a blue house with a dotted sim waving next to it. When I click to play it says Error and suggests restarting the game. I do but I can never get my games back. My computer, although it doesn't like to run my sims 3 games and crashes it at least once every time I play, is up to date and I have all the patches. I've got all the packs except Showtime, Outdoor Stuff, and Master Suite. I've lost a lot of beloved sims this way- please help!

Forgive me if this topic is in the wrong place or if there's already a thread for it. I'm still exploring the site.

[Noodles]

I'm sorry I can't be a real help for you, but this type of thing has happened to me only when the game has crashed while saving. That has corrupted the file the way you mentioned, at which point there was no way to fix them... Has your game crashed while saving? I recommend to never use the option to 'Save and Exit' from the menu, but to Save separately and then shutting down the game. The game has crashed two times when I've tried to Save & Exit, corrupting the file, so I stopped doing that.

To avoid losing sims when the files get corrupted, you could try going back to a previous save. The game creates a backup file automatically, so if something goes wrong, you can try and go back to your previous save. Instructions are here: http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,6.0.html

If you want to be extra careful, you can create multiple save files by yourself. Every now and then, use 'Save as...' to create another file of the same game. Then, if the worst thing happens (both the game and the backup get corrupted - I've had this happen), you won't lose everything.

I'm sorry I can't suggest anything to help fix your game crashing and corrupting files, I really don't know what the reason could be. I hope these tips were still helpful.

[Miss Estella]

Thanks Noodles.

My game hasn't crashed while saving, just during the actual gameplay. I might try your tip about saving and then just choosing quit, usually I save and exit. Funny you should mention that link, because I was just there on that link earlier as well as on my computer trying to restore a legacy game that I loved. It didn't work at all. As of save as, that's what I did before it corrupted- changed it to 'Martinez Gen 1' instead of just Martinez as the game name.

[xFezIsAFreakx]

Are you fine with mods? I couldn't for the life of me fix my crashes and corrupted files before I installed ErrorTrap and Overwatch by Twallan. I'm usually not in favour of looking to mods to solve problems before trying to attempt non-mod fixes, but you'll probably have a hard time looking for a non-mod solution. ErrorTrap literally stops files from corruption, and Overwatch cleans up your game so it'll be less buggy and it'll speed up considerably.

[Miss Estella]

My computer has never been able to handle custom content and I thought mods were the same thing. I don't think I've ever looked at those sort of things, or downloaded anything.

[xFezIsAFreakx]

My computer has never been able to handle custom content and I thought mods were the same thing. I don't think I've ever looked at those sort of things, or downloaded anything.

Mods aren't really the same thing.. Although if your computer specs aren't good, that may be the reason for your crashes right there..

[Miss Estella]

Well yeah, but my crashes aren't that much of a problem in my opinion because I just go right back on and I save constantly. It's just every few days another of my games will be unplayable and "corrupted".