Freezing on Close Screen & Mailbox wont work?!

[karinadb]

I originally thought my problem was due to mods but after doing a clean slate and then one by one copying folders over to see what was causing the issue I realized it was my household itself.

What keeps happening is I cannot close down my game. I can save but when I quit it gets stuck on the blue screen with the plumbob circling continuously. If I do a save & quit the same thing happens except on the save screen. I keep having to do a hard shut down through task manager but I'm seeking answers so I don't have to always do this.

As well, anytime I try to do the "testingcheatsenabled true" cheat it doesn't work on my household when I click the mailbox (works fine on people) but if I change to different families the cheat works. On top of that, I'm pretty sure any gems, rocks, whatever I've been sending to get smelted or cut haven't come back. I haven't seen my mailman or paid bills in a while.

I absolutely do not want to lose this game, I've worked hard on this family so restarting is not an option. I'm hoping someone else has a solution. I noted in the "saved" file there was a ".bad" file which I don't see for any of my other saved families. When I got rid of it, the game still didn't work.

I've tried moving the whole household with house and then placing it back on the lot in edit town mode but that didn't work either.
I've tried deleting the mailbox and adding a new one through "buydebug" but even with "moveobjects on" the game wouldn't let me delete the mailbox. 

Really desperate for solutions here...

[MrsFlynn]

Using Quit and Save is known to cause issues with the game. Have you tried just using save or Save As?

If the mailbox isn't working on your current home lot, try moving the family to a different lot to test the mailbox. It may be that the lot has glitched some how.

Trying to delete and replace the mailbox messes up the lot and is not fixable as far as I know. When I somehow did that I didn't save and went back to a previous save. The other thing you can do is re-build the house on a different lot.

If you feel your save has corrupted you can save your household via Edit Town so you don't loose them. Left-click on the family's house and save them as household only.

The post below goes in more detail on how to save a household via Edit Town.

How To: Save a Household
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=19060.msg356789#msg356789

Once you have them in your household library, you can try them in a new save, in a new house to start, as a test to make sure things are working okay. If things are working, then you can move them. Providing their house or the lot their house is on is working properly.

The .bad file means that file is corrupted and can't be fixed. You can safely delete that file. If you have a .Sims3.backup file of your main save. Then your in luck, delete the .backup of the file For example:

Mainsave.sims3
Mainsave.sims3.backup

Again, delete the .backup part of the filename and you should be good to go. Launch the game, the save should be available at the Main menu to play.

[karinadb]

I've tried moving my family to a different lot, mailbox still didn't work.

I also tried to save the lot to my library, delete the lot, and move my family back into a new one and it still didn't work. My next step is to try and do this again, but do a "save as" so it's like starting a new game and see if it does anything different.

The save is working fine, I just can't quit or save & quit.

Will deleting the backup do anything as far as my issues are going?

I had forgot to mention I also can't travel between worlds. Like the quit screen, I got stuck on that loading screen as well.

[MrsFlynn]

Have you tried exporting your family and house, create a new Sims 3 folder and try them in a new save?

I find that when I'm getting stuck on loading screens that helps.

How To: Save Sims 3 Files From the Library (Exporting Files)
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=20751.msg380782#msg380782

Sims 3 Factory Reset (What & Howto)
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=20732.msg401814#msg401814

Deleting the mainsave.sims3.backup won't hurt. I usually do that when I'm backing up my saves. As all it is, is a backup of your main game save.

[karinadb]

I've done the factory reset, which is how I knew it was the household itself and not any of my mods.

Wont exporting get rid of all the aspirations as well as aspiration points I accumulated?

To follow up so far, I've done save as with copying my family and moving into a new house and still didn't work. My next idea is to copy household & house to the library and start a new game. That should keep everything I've done (aspirations, skill building, collections) correct? All I'm doing is just moving to a "new game", similar to the export process?

[MrsFlynn]

When exporting sim your saving all genetics, skills, collections, inventory and favorites. Wishes they have and family that aren't in the household will be deleted. But if you're trying to fix the game it maybe worth a try.

Go ahead and try a new game to see if that works. I was under the impression that you had already tried a new game and that was still not saving correctly. Leading me to suggest a factory reset. Basically a new Sims 3 folder, new save with the family.

Something else you can try if you haven't is try a different family on a different lot to see what results you get.

[karinadb]

The new game fixed all of my problems, even the quit screen issue. Only thing is I lost my aspirations and all of the relationships I built. It's bittersweet 

I wish there was a workaround to where I could've kept everything but I guess it's a give and take for a functional game.