Re: Missing person when travelling

by puzzlezaddict
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Original Post

Missing person when travelling

★★ Novice

I sent one of my sims travelling to france. When I got there it was empty and my sim was not to be seen. I couldn’t have any interactions at all and had no idea what to do. I clicked on a house and it took me to Build Mode. I closed this and it took me to edit town and I couldn’t find my sim?  After this it wouldn’t let me click on any households. I clicked on the top left symbol “home” and it took me to my home town but I couldn’t click on my active household. I closed the whole game and now it just shows my game but without my household. I’m not sure why it’s not showing up and where my family have gone. It won’t let me play anything and when I click “return to game” in my home town it brings up the loading page and goes back to home town or France town editor. I’m completely stuck! Help!! 

Message 1 of 4 (491 Views)

Re: Missing person when travelling

@Jessmaadge  It sounds like you already saved with the game in this state, and from your screenshots, it looks like you never made any backup saves.  However, if you only saved once, you may still be able to recover your save by using the automatic backup that TS3 itself creates.

 

Go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves, and you'll see two folders.  One will be labeled with your save name, and the other will have the same name but with a .backup extension.  So if your save is IslaParadiso, the folders will be IslaParadiso.sims3 and IslaParadiso.sims3.backup.  Delete the .backup extension from the second one and change the save name (e.g. IslaParadiso1.sims3), and it will be available to load from the Main Menu, where you currently only see the one blank save.

 

If this works and you see your sim again—this would be before you tried to travel—use "save as" to rename the save right away.  This will create yet another new save file, so you can experiment with it and still have one backup if you need it.  You can try traveling again; maybe it will work this time.  If it doesn't, quit without saving and let me know.  I'll write out steps you can take to increase the chance of your sim getting through the travel transition intact.

 

If your sim doesn't show up in the backup save either, that means the saves are corrupt.  There might be a way to get your sim back, involving swapping files within the save folder itself, but there's no guarantee it would work.  Still, if you'd like to try, let me know and I'll show you how.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 2 of 4 (480 Views)

Re: Missing person when travelling

★★ Novice
@puzzlezaddict YOU ARE A GENIUS. It’s worked 😭 it took me back to way before I went travelling. I’d love to have my sims actually go travelling but I’m too scared now.. Thank you so much :D
Message 3 of 4 (459 Views)

Re: Missing person when travelling

@Jessmaadge  You can still try to travel, if you want.  Just don't save if there's a problem.  And make sure you've used "save as" to make a backup copy of the save, in case something goes wrong later.  That way, there's no risk—worst case scenario, you're in the same place you are right now.

 

To help with the travel transition, you'll want to decrease the stress on the game engine as much as possible.  Here's how:

  • Empty your sims' inventories as much as possible.  A few items is fine; a hundred is not.
  • Use "save as" to rename the save, then quit (without saving) immediately before you want to travel.
  • Load the game just to the Main Menu.  Turn off memories, the in-game shopping experience, and the hidden object interactive loading screens.
  • Lower all the graphics settings to the minimum.  (You can revert to your normal settings after the travel transition.)  Now quit the game again, without loading a save.
  • Delete the five cache files in your game folder in Documents: CASPartCache, compositorCache, scriptCache, simCompositorCache, and socialCache.
  • Empty out everything in FeaturedItems as well.
  • If you play through Origin, sign in and then put Origin in offline mode.  Now disconnect your computer from the internet—turn off wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord.
  • Now launch your game, load the save, and send your sims to the future right away, as soon as the game clock starts moving forward.

If this doesn't work, then you can reload and try again.  But without mods, there's always some risk of the travel transition failing.  How much of a risk will depend on a lot of factors and isn't always easy to predict.  Still, as long as you make backup copies of your saves, there's no harm in trying.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 4 of 4 (453 Views)