An Easy Way to Find Bad Files

[Sonshine]

Hi, is there an easy way to find bad files in TS3? I just d/led a bunch of stuff yesterday and now my game quits when I start to load a family. I did find a couple of TS2 files in there and removed them. Is it safe to put an empty DCBackup folder in and then replace the items in my original folder little by little to find the bad file?

[MrsFlynn]

I don't know of a real easy way to find bad files other than searching through the files that are causing the problem.  If the problem just started yesterday after downloading some files. Search through those files first.

1. Start by doing a factory reset. Sims 3 Factory Reset (What & Howto) and follow the steps in the post.

2. Once everything seems to be running smooth start by adding the files in little by little that you downloaded previously to find which is/are the bad files.

[Sonshine]

Well, what I'm doing first is that I sorted the files in the DCBackup folder by date and removed all of them that I added within the last day or so. I'm currently adding a few at a time to see if the game loads. If it does load, I remove those files to a separate folder. Hopefully, I can find the bad file this way. When I removed all the latest files, the game did load so I know the bad file is in that group somewhere.

[MrsFlynn]

Sounds like you're on the right path.

[Sonshine]

Well, I found 5 bad files like this! What a chore!!!!

[MrsFlynn]

Is your game loading now? The other thing I didn't specifically mention is that it might be a good idea to go through your mods folder to make sure there aren't any conflicts with mods and/or custom content. As those will make the game not load or play correctly as well.

[Sonshine]

Yes, the game loads now. This only happened within the last couple of days so I know it wasn't a mod issue. The only things I've added were clothing, hair, and objects. One thing else though is that I need to clean out my cache files. Always a good idea when working w/the files pulling them in and out.

[MrsFlynn]

I'm happy to hear the save-game is loading for you!! Yes it's a good thing to clear out game cache from time to time.

If I remember correctly, you mentioned you're playing with the Origin/download version? If so, deactivate Origin in-game helps with smoother gameplay. As it is known to cause problems.

--- Open Origin, Select Origin > Application Settings > Origin In Game and deselect to disable Origin In Game.

[Origin in-game is a feature that allows you to see friends online in-game as well as other game stats. However, It has been known to cause problems having this feature turned on.]

[Sonshine]

Thanks! Yeah, Origin has been deselected in my game for quite a while now. I don't remember where I read the tip, but that's when I deselected it. No, I don't have the download version of the base game, but I do have the download version of a couple of the ep's (ITF and Hidden Springs). I don't remember which other one at the moment, lol.

[MrsFlynn]

Okay, good!! Hopefully your game continues to run well without problems.

[Sonshine]

I was pretty tired when I wrote that, lol. It seems that nowadays, regardless of whether you have hard copies of the game or not, everything is online now and goes through EA. I don't even have to have the disk in anymore! So far everything is running good. I'll have to pay closer attention though in the future for the file saying TS3pack and nothing else!

[Sonshine]

Well, I'm finding out that what I thought were bad files seems to just be a conflict w/the world. I have been trying to play in Strangetown which is a custom world, but it is missing half the community lots that are essential. I tried transferring over some community lots from other worlds and the game crashed again. I'm not sure if the missing lots is b/c it was created in a town that I don't have like Lunar Lakes or if the lady just forgot to put them in there. I'm not sure, but I'm going to guess the former. I ran into this once before recently where a lady created her world based on Midnight Hollow which I don't have and it was missing half or more of the community lots. One other lady tried that same world and the community lots showed up for her b/c she does have MH. I'm going to go over and ask what world this town was created from.

[MrsFlynn]

Good idea to ask questions about the custom town/world from where you downloaded it from, as the creator should be more help, hopefully. I still haven't done anything with custom worlds. So I wouldn't be much help with them.

[Sonshine]

Well unfortunately, I've waited for a week for a reply and have not gotten any.   It seems like that website is dead and Strangetown is off limits for me. I have no idea what town it was made from, but as I said, I'm guessing from a town that I don't own. Maybe I can load the town one more time and copy the families and houses to the library and start and place them in another town from the list that I do own.

[MrsFlynn]

That sounds like a great idea - to save the families and houses to the library and add them to a new game.

Let me know how that works out for you?