My Sims disappeared!

[revolution724]

Hi all,

I'm having an odd glitch.  I was playing merrily along when all of a sudden, I couldn't see one of my Sims anymore.  Then I couldn't see another one in the same family - I would click over to her, and see the effects of her actions (she was building a SimBot, and I could see the hammer and sparks flying), but not the Sim herself.  Very strangely, it was the two women in my family of five Sims who turned invisible.  I can see all of the guys.  I tried restarting my game and even rebooting my computer, but they're still invisible.  Any ideas what could cause this or how to fix it?

Thanks!

Edit:  Okay, I should have searched before posting, but I still have questions anyway.  I did not get any Error 12 messages prior to this happening.  It was not related to travel.  I am playing a Dynasty - does that bar reloading from a previous save?  And how DO I reload from a previous save?

Second Edit:  Now I lost one of the men.  I think it's spreading.

Third Edit:  Oh no, I found where Carl explained how to load from a saved game but my backup has the same problem.  The only good file I have where I can see everyone is X.sims3.bad.  Which is from last week.  Argh!

[Veldmuisie]

Revolution, it is not going to stop.  This happened to my dynasty in Bridgeport before the game completely blew up.  Are you playing Bridgeport?

[Mirtrione]

This happened to me just now, only it got progressively worse until my Sim didn't appear on the main menu screen at all (I only controlled one, so that was my whole household in effect), and when I went to play after I restarted my computer, the game menu (with all the skills, mood, EVERYTHING) disappeared.  I can see other Sims getting on with their lives in the martial arts school (where my Sim was last seen) but can't do anything.  My mouse can't interact with ANYTHING on the screen.  Tried the resetSim gag as well, but it seems to have forgotten that my Sim existed.

Super **ed off, because I got her really far.  This happened whilst she was travelling to China, but she lives in Bridgeport.

If anyone knows how I can possibly fix this, let me know.

[revolution724]

No, it was Riverview!  Sigh... guess it's another startover, glad I hadn't written up the story this time.

[Veldmuisie]

I am so sorry this is happening to you.  I uninstalled all my beautiful custom content,  even though everything I had was official.  I also removed all my previously saved games and I only play in Twinbrook.  Not sure which part fixed it, or the sum of which.  But it is better than having to uninstall & reinstall everything so it's worth a try.  Good luck!

[AriaGirl77]

This happened to me once, but for me it was immediately after travel.  It sounds like a corrupted file, and it might not be due to any third party custom content.  The only CC I have are items from The Store, and I still had the problem w/ the disappearing sims.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is start over.  Hopefully your next game will be ok. 

[revolution724]

Yes, I don't have any CC either.  Oh well. *sigh*

[Mirtrione]

I don't have any CC. Don't do all that.  I did try going to my back up file, but even though my Sim was okay at the time that file was saved, it effected her there as well.

I uninstalled and re-installed everything.  I haven't attempted to put her back in the game.  I wiped everything and am starting from scratch.

[Castaras]

I had a problem with a sim disappearing in my dynasty - going to edit town, then removing and adding him to the household solved it for me. Dunno if that'll help you. :/

[Sportsfan]

I had this problem after installing the generations patch. I found that sending them to some other lot seemed to fix it for the time being.

[Figwit]

The travel system is flaky since the Generations patch.  If you are brave enough to chance your sims travelling then save and save again.  It may still go bad because you might save some travel corruption and not even know it.  You would be best advised to save a game before you go travelling and then don't overwrite that save.

[catlover]

Unfortunately I think this is a nasty bug that is affecting many of us. I have been having this issue in a couple of different forms in my game. Every bug I have come across has been reported on the forum, so I think it is something we are all being hit with. After spending a lot of time searching the forum and Sims Site, in my opinion, I don't think these glitches have anything to do with towns or traveling, mummies, vampires or Simbots. This seems to be something that only EA can fix with another patch. We just have to grin and bear it and wait patiently for EA to fix it.

I'm not saying I have the answer or that I am right, I have just spent a lot of time reading post after post on both sites and it seems like it is similar to old glitches but with new annoyances. What is sad is when you lose hours of playtime and progress. The only solution that has worked for me is to force the game to shut down and go to a previous save.