No sims, ghost town (sims 3)

[jamieptaylor]

all my sims have gone missing (animals too)

history
I clicked save then clicked to go to main menu.  I went on using my computer and ended up having to restart it,  Closed sims 3,  restarted computer.   Spent a bit more time online,  and did not start or get on sims 3 for a couple days. 

Shut off PROPERLY long way but saved and closed.   last night I booted the game. 

booted normal,  Main menu shows My city,  son's city, and daughters city.
(FYI,  sons city is fine nothing wrong,  daughters city fine nothing wrong they are both adults rarely on my computer)

I click on my city,  there is my gal that I have been working on for 7 months.   ALL her skills were finished but photography and scuba diving.  I needed to move to a 'water" city next time I played to work on scuba.   ALL degree's were obtained,  all songs, all books read,  again ONLY scuba/photography to finish both were 5,  even other hidden skills for things, find all items,  ALL the stupid little quests for each skill as well had very few to do.  Took that long to earn and move into that big house, fixes, changes, and decorated the way I wanted it.

I let her build skills while I watch TV and not actually actively playing the game it's playing to the side of me. and listen for "something happen" music, interact go back to watching tv,  she has been growing/training etc. so ya,  6-7 months,  I could prob finish the last 2 skills in a couple days.  That was the next to do. Move to where I can finish skills.

THE ONLY cheat I use daily is making needs static. When i created her,  I used the cheat to buy all of the stuff with life time happiness. that was 7 months ago.  The shift click/teleport here. I used the shift teleport me here to get around town,  I hadn't even set up or customized the town how I wanted it yet  (I build special hunting/park grounds for bugs, rocks, fishing, birds etc under buydebug).     

I'm heart broken... (ya I get game and ya playing to waste time,  but still invested a ton of time and heart ito her making her look etc.   her house was insanely done.  NO uploaded content (not done that since sim 1)   She is there on the "main menu" tab for my city,  click and go into town "no one". Town is empty of people.   NOT a single sim in the city anywhere at all not even animals.

I created her, I use her, I log off.   My son is an adult he hasn't played in a few weeks.  Daughter hasn't played since Dec.   But their towns are fine and all their simmy's are there. 
So IDK what to do,  I can't find anything online that "fits' my situation.  everyone has missing sim, two or ten.  but no one that's city has gone poof. 

She was not in middle of traveling, only time she left town was for all of the college degrees but thats been a couple weeks ago I finished those.  It's like someone used a command to "delete all sims" in my city and they are all just gone.   

the original version (black hair) of her is in folder but not the one i spent months on. (white/pink hair)

I was able to go into all her houses she has owned.  esp the last one that is the biggest on map,  all the customization are still there, even her meditation room, I worked on for a whole day.  She had lived in 2 other houses,  they are all the way I left them.  One even has food left on the table.

So please any help or suggestions,  and thank you for looking and reading.   


FYI,  "no one" was on my computer and no one did anything to it, game etc.   yes 100% sure.

I have all main expansions,  (have 1 or 2 of the content only ones)  She has not traveled outside of this city at all.  No man, no kids, no pets,  about 30-35 gnomes dead and alive all over the place (alive little creepy a$$es) I had one in the house and I kept putting him back outside and turning off the big TV (kept coming back in) well the next time she was stir crazy and went to the city park party.  I came home and there were 8 of them all over the game room watching TV)   

So the Gnomes are all over the yard, and the jerks have TV on again.   Everything else aside from gnomes is just as I left it when I saved and logged off.   Aside from all the people are missing. seriously like someone deleted all of them.  I have health problems NO one in my home would do that.

So open for ideas and suggestions.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@jamieptaylor  Don't worry about the extra questions; messing with a game folder is always a bit strange the first time around.

It sounds like you removed your entire game folder from Documents, launched the game, and adjusted the settings.  For the next step, and until further notice, you're leaving your old game folder where it is on your desktop.  Open the new game folder, the one that's now in Documents\Electronic Arts, and delete the same five cache files.  You should see something like this:

(Yes, that's macOS, but I don't feel like booting into Windows right now.)

If you don't see this in Documents\EA, that means your game folder is somewhere else.  Search for "deviceconfig" in a File Explorer window, and copy (crtl-c) and paste (crtl-v) the address into a post here, so I can see where it's landing.

If you do have the new folder where it's supposed to be, once you've deleted the five cache files, you can delete the Saves folder (highlighted) as well.  Then open your old game folder, the one you moved, right-click on the Saves folder in there, and select Copy.  Then open the new folder again, to the same place as above, and right-click and Paste your Saves folder.  Don't transfer anything else over, and don't install anything, again unless your glitched save takes place in a store or player made world.  (If you're not sure, just let me know what the world is called.)

Now launch your game again, and try to load your save.  Let me know how it looks, and we'll go from there.  You don't have to save your progress; this is just a test.

[puzzlezaddict]

@jamieptaylor  It sounds like the save just glitched out on its own.  Maybe you were over the RAM limit when you saved—TS3 is a 32-bit application and can only use ~3.7 GB of memory before bad things start happening—or maybe there was something else corrupt about the town.  There are so many things that can go wrong with this game, sometimes it's impossible to pinpoint the cause.  And errors build up as a save progresses, so the glitches usually strike only after we've become very invested in our sims.

The first thing to do is to delete the five cache files in your TS3 game folder in Documents.  This probably won't help on its own, but it's worth a shot and won't cause any harm.  In fact, while you're troubleshooting, you should delete them every time you quit the game.  For reference, those files are:

• CASPartCache.package
• compositorCache.package
• scriptCache.package
• simCompositorCache.package
• socialCache.package

If that alone doesn't help, and it likely won't, move your entire game folder out of Documents and onto your desktop.  Launch the game to the Main Menu, change all your game options to their preferred settings (they'll have reset), and quit.  (Delete the cache files.)  Then open your existing game folder, right-click on the Saves folder inside, and select Copy; right-click inside the new game folder and select Paste.

If your existing save takes place in a store or custom world, i.e. not one that's automatically installed with the game or one of its packs, be sure to install that world as well.  But don't add anything else to this folder.  Just load your save, which will now be available at the Main Menu, and see whether the sims have reappeared.  Don't worry if you get a message about missing objects; this is just for testing, and you don't need to save your progress.  If the game looks fine, you can transfer or reinstall the rest of your content in your new game folder and continue playing.

If your save is still missing all its sims even in a clean game folder, the save itself is corrupt, likely beyond repair.  There are a few other things you can try though.  The first is to load a backup save.  Even if you don't have one, TS3 keeps the files from the second to last time you saved.  Inside Saves (in your new game folder as well as your old one, since you copied the entire thing), you'll find a folder labeled with your save's name plus a .backup extension.  So if your save is SunsetValley, its folder will be SunsetValley.sims3, and the backup will be SunsetValley.sims3.backup.  Rename the backup and delete the extension (i.e. SunsetValley1.sims3), and it will be available to load from the Main Menu.

If this doesn't work either, there's one more trick that's a bit more complicated; let me know if you need it, and I'll write it out.

And if you do get your save, the normal copy or the backup, to load in working order, the first thing you should do is use "save as" to rename the save.  That way, the game will create a new save file under the new name instead of overwriting the existing file, so you'll have a backup in case of (another) emergency.  It's a good idea to use "save as" often, so you always have backups to use.  I do so at least once a sim-day, keeping the last 4-6 files and deleting the older ones when I'm sure I don't need them anymore.

The other thing you should do is save your sim to the bin.  If you want to preserve her house, evict her and save it separately.  (You can quit without saving after you do this.)  You may find that this save is only temporarily functional and soon glitches out again.  In that case, the best way to move your sim is to place her, and her house if you want it, in a brand new save.  The in-game moving mechanism (through the phone) tends to transfer data, including corruption, from the old world to the new one.  Be sure to quit to desktop and clear your caches before loading the new save; switching at the Main Menu can transfer corruption as well.

[jamieptaylor]

Ok i'll let you know, following your lead for everything.

I don't know where those files are so may take me a bit.

*taps head* bad brain lol. Please keep your fingers and toes cross, I'm a wreck here.

[puzzlezaddict]

@jamieptaylor  Everything you need to move or delete is in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3.  None of this touches the game's program files, which are in a different place.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask for clarification.  I'll check back in a few hours.  And, of course, good luck.

[jamieptaylor]

Ok puzzle!!

do I put that file back in documents after I reset settings and all that fun stuff?  wish there was a chat program here lol

I moved folder/booted game,  set to default...  closed game...

none of the cache files you said above are anywhere to be found,  or did you mean different ones.

then do I put the folder back?   (sorry not a sharp day for my brain ,  somedays brain works well some days.... not so much sorry)

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@jamieptaylor  Don't worry about the extra questions; messing with a game folder is always a bit strange the first time around.

It sounds like you removed your entire game folder from Documents, launched the game, and adjusted the settings.  For the next step, and until further notice, you're leaving your old game folder where it is on your desktop.  Open the new game folder, the one that's now in Documents\Electronic Arts, and delete the same five cache files.  You should see something like this:

(Yes, that's macOS, but I don't feel like booting into Windows right now.)

If you don't see this in Documents\EA, that means your game folder is somewhere else.  Search for "deviceconfig" in a File Explorer window, and copy (crtl-c) and paste (crtl-v) the address into a post here, so I can see where it's landing.

If you do have the new folder where it's supposed to be, once you've deleted the five cache files, you can delete the Saves folder (highlighted) as well.  Then open your old game folder, the one you moved, right-click on the Saves folder in there, and select Copy.  Then open the new folder again, to the same place as above, and right-click and Paste your Saves folder.  Don't transfer anything else over, and don't install anything, again unless your glitched save takes place in a store or player made world.  (If you're not sure, just let me know what the world is called.)

Now launch your game again, and try to load your save.  Let me know how it looks, and we'll go from there.  You don't have to save your progress; this is just a test.

[jamieptaylor]

lol!!

I totally went into one on desk top and looked that the 5 files did not recreate..... *face palm*

honest I'm not this dumb... I've been doing computer since mid 80s before they were even cool

[jamieptaylor]

I do not have any unique or player made anything. Like i said up top, I have not used custom content since sims 1.

I keep messing up, working on it... give me like 5 min

[jamieptaylor]

Puzzle,

   It's fixed,thank you!!  I have her back, have to save her to community folder asap.  But it took over 20 minutes for the game to load,  Not thinking I went out of the game to main menu to save her,  and trying to get back in again.. already been over 20 minutes and not even half loaded this time.  Any suggestions for this?

[puzzlezaddict]

@jamieptaylor  It's never a good idea to exit to the Main Menu and load a save from there.  The game doesn't release all the RAM used in the previous save, and you can also end up transferring corruption from the first save to the second.  The latter is not an issue here, since you're playing with the same save, but the memory use probably is.

At this point, I'd just force quit: crtl-alt-delete to bring up the Task Manager (hit tab if the game doesn't want to cooperate), find TS3.exe or TS3w.exe, whichever you have, and End Process.  Since I don't think you've spent any time rebuilding this game folder, you could just make another new one and start the process over again.  (You can delete the new game folder, as long as you still have a copy of your Saves folder in the original game folder to use.)

The fact that it took 20 minutes to load the save means that it really is time to grab your sim and get out.  The world you've been playing in is probably close to glitching out on you again.  In case you're not sure how to do it, once you've loaded your save, click on the three dots in the lower left corner of the screen and select Edit Town.  Then click on the map tag of your sim, find the folder icon, and click it to save her to the bin.  Don't save her with the house; that's just asking for trouble (corruption).  If you want to keep the house, evict your sim, click on the house's tag again, and save it separately.

This saving process will create a file in Library inside your game folder, so you should have one each for your sim and her house.  You can tell them apart by their timestamps—you saved the sim first.  You probably want to backup these files elsewhere, for safekeeping.  You can rename them however you want, as long as the .package extension on the end remains intact.

Once you've saved your sim and maybe her house, quit to desktop, delete your cache files again, start a new save, go to Edit Town, place the house if you want it, and then move in your sim.  Then you can play forward in a fresh save, without all the issues from the previous one.  Keep in mind that she won't know anyone in the new town, but she'll have all her skills and money, and she should also keep any job she has, provided the workplace she needs to use already exists in the town.  If it doesn't, just place the appropriate building in Edit Town before you move her in.

I know this is a pain to deal with, but the fact is that saves get corrupted over time.  Without mods to clean up the bad data, it can be almost impossible to avoid issues, and the only thing to do is periodically save your sim(s) to the bin and place them in a new world.  It does get easier the more you do it.