Going for second term

[SingleMomSim]

My sim went to Uni and completed his first term, then went home.  I immediately queued him up to go to the second term.  The only reason he came home was because he went with his sister, who completed her degree and he didn't so the game sent them both home.

So anyway, he uses his phone to enroll in Uni, the game pans out to map view, and then the loading screen for Uni starts.  It loads.  I then have the option to choose a place for him to live, which I do.  I click the check mark to load the game, and nothing happens.  The check mark greys out but the camera never pans to him arriving at his new place.

My mouse doesn't turn into the circle or hourglass (like as if the game is thinking or loading).  Simply, nothing happens.  I can click on other properties, view them, click to make that his place, etc but the check mark to to load it is greyed out.  There is no option to save.  The little "..." on the bottom left-hand corner only has "Options" and something else, I can't remember exactly.  I finally decide I have no choice but to alt-tab to Windows and close the game manually.  When I load the game back up, nothing was saved!

Has anyone else had this issue?  What causes it, what prevents it, and what fixes it?  Obviously, it's too late for me to fix now but if it happens again...

Thanks!

[Shirin]

Has anyone else had this issue?  What causes it, what prevents it, and what fixes it?  Obviously, it's too late for me to fix now but if it happens again...

1. Somewhat - the game just randomly crashes on me
2. I don't believe there's a specific cause, it's code and sometimes other things will just interfere. I get game crashes just by alt-tabbing during a save
3. Save often
4. Not doing whatever caused it to happen.
5. Save often. In fact, your best bet when travelling (whether to a WA world or to University) is to save the file just before departure; when you reach the destination, save the file with a new name; and when you return, save the file with a new name again. (Ex: SMS1 > SMS1-UNI > SIMS1-UNI-post)

[Frey]

Did you try to reset the sim and/or the world?

If that doesn't work, you should check your save files to see if your files aren't corrupted. Go to Documents-Electronic Arts-The Sims 3-Saves. If you have a file that ends in ".bad" it means your file somehow got corrupted. I haven't bought University yet but in my experience, it sounds like the file got corrupted (not that I'm very computer savvy but my game gets bugged pretty often).

[SingleMomSim]

Yeah I knew better about the saving.  But let me clear, the game did NOT crash.  I was still able to click on things, select properties, etc.  I could even go into the options.  It's hard to explain.  The thing is, I RARELY have problems because I never use mods, simply because I don't like all the problems they cause and all the babysitting you have to do.  I use to use NRAAS but it caused too many issues and I'd rather not deal with them.  Anyway, I will take a look at the game file and see if it's corrupted.

Thanks for the replies!

[Ricalynn]

This has been really common since Uni came out but could happen prior to that expansion.  General consensus on the forum was that some of it was effected by CC of some type.   Most people cleared their caches, made sure to restart the computer and tried again.   

There are some people on the forum blaming the new .tmp files but I can't tell if there's any real truth behind that.  If you wanted to, you could remove the .tmp files and bypass the launcher to see if that allows you to go back.   Although, clearing the caches and restarting is what allowed me to do it after it happened to me recently.

[SingleMomSim]

I have absolutely no CC in my game.  I only install what I get from the Sims 3 Store.  Again, because I hate dealing with the problems that CC and mods bring.

I'm able to load the game still, it just starts from the last save. 

[Ricalynn]

Are you still having the grey checkmark issue though?

[SingleMomSim]

I haven't had a chance to play since it happened, but I will let you know.

[SingleMomSim]

Alright, so I just played through again, and got to the point where he went back for his second term and it worked.  I saved immediately after as well.  So everything's back to normal now!  Still don't know WHY it happened but I guess that's The Sims for ya!