Error 12 is ruining my whole experience...

[Phyrie]

Hi,
I've been playing Sims 3 for quite a while, and have been enjoying the World Adventures Expansion pack immensely.  However, in the last couple of weeks, I keep getting an "Error 12" message when trying to save, and the game will not save.  In the save file the file names change to end with  *nameofgame*. bad!  They are even calling themselves bad!  Is this a virus, or crappy technology or what?  I am thoroughly discouraged.  I work my butt off creating a beautiful house, a nice family with well rounded, talented members and then lose an entire evening's work due to "Error 12".

Can anyone help me, or is this game going to be chucked in the garbage, with a demand for my money back from EA?  I hope not, I love this game!

Phyrie

[Pam]

Hi Phyrie!

I get an Error 12 sometimes, too.  In fact, I just got one about an hour ago!  In my case, it doesn't happen every time I try to save.  Only every now and then.  I make it a habit to save OFTEN during the game, usually every Sim day.  However, when I do get this error, I just quit the game without saving and then restart it.  I lose my last little bit of gameplay, but it's not a disaster.  Regarding the file that says ".bad", you can restore your previous save of the game.  Instructions can be found on this thread.

Other suggestions that are circulating (not confirmed, but worth trying):

1.  Zoom out to map view, zoom back in, then try to save again.
2.  Possible memory issue.  Try freeing up some space on the drive that runs Sims 3.
3.  Freshwater pond may be too deep.  Remove it and try again.

And as always...

1.  Do you have the most updated version of the game?
2.  Are you running custom content, mods, or third party downloads?
3.  You may need to reinstall your game.

Either of these could also be the problem.

If all else fails, you may have to email EA Customer Support.

[RockinRobin]

I think there's another way to get past that too.....to save the game as a different name. Instead of just clicking Save...click Save As...and name it something different.

[Pam]

In my case, Save As causes the Error 12 just like Save does. 

[RockinRobin]

Hmmm...well that was the only way I was able to save one of my games the last time it happened to me. Luckily, <knock on wood> I haven't had that error in awhile.

[Swede1992]

Save error 12 is a world cache failure, so here's a tip I use: Set High Detailed Lots to something as low as possible. This does not affect the game play any more than you just barely notice it when you span across another building, but makes the game much, much easier on the world cache (thus severely limiting the instances of this bug)!

Otherwise, if you're a computer geek you could try to increase the allowed RAM to like 4GB instead of the 2GB that's used no matter what computer you've actually got. Unfortunately, I'm not a computer geek so I cannot help you with that, but I've heard of people that have got that working!

[Phyrie]

I'll give that a try.  Thanks, Swede1992. 
But the more I peruse the forums, here and at EA, the more I see posts of people totally frustrated with this error, and absolutely not one single word from EA to help us.  This is customer service at it's worst.  The amount of money we pay for these games should guarantee us at least a reply from these people.  It's disgusting how we're treated by people who depend on our business to make a living!

Phyrie

[Pam]

I understand your frustration.  I really do.  But the best you can do is save your game often and hope that EA will release a patch to fix the problem soon.  In the meantime, we're not going to have EA flame wars on this forum.  It doesn't do any good and it brings down the mood.  I'll be making a change to the forum rules to reflect this.

[Phyrie]

"Save my game often"?!  I'm sorry, Pam, but I don't think you've read this thread.  The problem is that we CAN'T save.  That's what the Error 12 is!

No one is flaming anyone else here.  Unless you consider complaining about an obvious design flaw, and receiving no help from the designer, flaming?  I don't think you can flame a company, though.  They must participate to be flamed, and we KNOW they aren't participating.  LOL!

I'm not sure what you mean by "making changes to the forum rules".  Do you mean that you want to change forum rules so no one can object to flaws in the game?  Perhaps rather than just say "it doesn't do any good" we should try something that DOES do some good.  I have no idea what that is, but perhaps collections of the posts on this topic, sent en masse, might make EA pay a bit of attention.  Anything is better than nothing, isn't it?

But I have a feeling that just making disgruntled players toe the line isn't the way to accomplish any real change.  I just want to be able to play my game, without Error 12 or any other error, for that matter.  I work hard on my Sims (as I'm sure everyone here does) and to have hours of work killed by one of these errors, without any explanation or help from the game designers, is not much fun at all.

Phyrie

[Pam]

Of course I've read this thread.  I have to ask if you read my post about suggestions to help with the problem.  I encounter an Error 12 sometimes, but it's not every single time.  Are you telling me that you can absolutely never save your game?  Ever?  Or did you lose a few hours of play in an evening because you got an Error 12 when you tried to save after an extended period of time?  Did you try any or all of the suggestions I made? 

Perhaps I used the wrong term when I said "flame war" but you knew exactly what I meant.  It's one thing to object to a flaw in the game, and it's something else again to turn a thread into a gripe session that ultimately accomplishes nothing.  The purpose of this forum is to help and to entertain.  However, there are simply some things we can't help with.  We can't fix Error 12 for you.  We have no pull with EA.  There are other places where you can complain about EA to your heart's content, namely their forum on the official Sims 3 site.  But that's not what we're doing here. 

Have you tried contacting their Customer Support?  You've made no indication of it in this thread.  I'm quite certain EA is aware of the Error 12 problem.  They may not broadcast everything they are doing, but they have shown that they are aware of things and that they work to fix them.

Thanks for your input about all of this and I hope that some of the suggestions made here will help until the problem is corrected by the developers.

[Phyrie]

Pam, I tried everything single thing you suggested, and more.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game more times than I can count.  I've tried everything I've been advised to try.  I've updated all drivers, although my computer is only a few months old.  My computer is plenty powerful enough to run any game (Intel Core i5 Quad Core 2.66 GHZ processor, XFX Radeon HD 5850 725MHZ 1GB GDDR5 video card, 4 GB RAM).  

Sometimes I can save, sometimes I can't.  It's usually after hours of play, and several saves (I DO save while playing, as I've been burned with the game randomly crashing to the desktop for no reason too, but that's a WHOLE 'nother issue...)

I have contacted EA.  They won't answer me.  So I don't know if they are aware of this problem (how can they NOT?) or if they just don't care.  The more I went looking for answers, here and at other sites, the more threads I found complaining about this very same issue.  HUNDREDS of them, maybe thousands, I don't know.  At the Sims 3 official site there are 525 messages with "error code 12" when you search the forums.  But not ONE message from EA about this issue.  How can this be?

I understand that this is a User forum, and you can't speak for EA.  I didn't expect you to.  But I didn't expect to get in trouble for complaining about the lack of action by the company in my own thread!  There was no "gripe session", there was just me, expressing my frustration.  If that was against the rules, I'm sorry.  I tried to find a copy of the rules, but I don't know where to look.  Maybe you can steer me towards it, so we can avoid this kind of thing in the future?  I don't want to annoy or upset anyone.  I just want to play my game without all these problems.  I'm sorry if I was out of line.

Phyrie

[Swede1992]

Phyrie, on a side note: The game resets the world cache every time you fire up the game, so that's why you're only experiencing after hours of play when those lousy 2 GB are filled. Therefore, and I know this sounds wrong trust me cause I've been down this route before, but you may actually want to consider restarting your game from the desktop every hour or so to save you the trouble of losing some progress when you finally want to save. This effect is not a figure of one's imagination, but it really takes the game to have been up and running for a couple of hours before this error occurs.

[Phyrie]

... restarting your game from the desktop every hour or so ...

Haha!  I'll have to set an alarm to remind me.  I tend to lose myself, and at some point, glance up blearily at the clock, "It's 2:00 a.m. AGAIN?!"  I really have been much more diligent about saving OFTEN, although I keep forgetting to save before going on vacation.  I did it THREE times last night!  *sigh*

Thanks for your help.

[TGBlank]

Error 12 can also be caused by neighborhood corruption or bloatage. Moving your sims to a new neighborhood (not recommended) or just starting a new game SHOULD solve the issue. If you close & start the game and run a new neighborhood and STILL get the save issue, then you have some other problems there.

The sims 3 is not a perfectly stable game, the neighborhood may remain playable for a handful of generations, but it will eventually get corrupted, bloated, and go down in a giant ball of fire. This is inevitable.

[Pam]

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