The Main Menu in my Sims 3 Game is Empty

[tmhchimerical]

I've been playing this game for a long time and never came across any issues. I was even playing it yesterday and it ran just fine. Then, all of a sudden, I reopened it last night and when the main menu came up to select which saved game I wanted to open, it was empty! Everything was empty. The options menu was empty. My saves don't show up. The towns don't show up. Even when I try to click on "New Game" or the check button, nothing happens. I have a picture of it, but this won't allow me to enter one in. I've never seen this happen before and I can't find any forums with the same issues. When I go into my documents to make sure everything is still there, it is. My saved games, worlds, screencaps, everything is still on my computer, but not on my game. The last thing that I did was install some custom clothing content. Thinking that maybe that had something to do with it, I uninstalled all of it, but it still came up empty. Any ideas?

[rumbutter · Accepted solution]

i have automatic updates turned off as when there is a patch i back up my saves etc before dling a patch just in case something goes wonky,you probs shouldn't need to uninstall and reinstall there is way to do a factory reset before having to go to uninstalling and reinstalling everything if you found your saves folder open up the electronics arts/the sims3 if the sav game folder is missing from there then just copy and paste the save folder you found back in there start your game and check your saves launch (open your save folder to make sure your saves are there first and that that folder is not empty )

will post this in the helpers corner for further advise as to the other foldes DCcache.DCbackup etc

http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/06/tutorial-resetting-the-game-to-factory-settings-without-reinsta...

[rumbutter]

to post a screenshot upload the image to imageshack or photobucket or some image shareing site then c/p the link to here see if this can help you

http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/09/error-saves-are-gone-options-are-reset.html

[tmhchimerical]

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k277/davidsfiance/IMG_2799.jpg

I ran through the list of issues. I'm wondering if it's a patch issue. Although, I'm setup for automatic updates, so I'm not sure if one went through and everything went crazy. However, my saved games are still under my EA folder and my World Caches, but my "CurrentGame.sims3" and "InstalledWorlds" folders are empty. My "DCBackup" and "DCCache" folders still have files in them, so I'm not sure what is going on. If I uninstall everything, but have my "Saves" and "WorldCaches" folders and files saved somewhere else, then reinstall and replace those folders with my saved ones, do you think that would work?

[rumbutter · Accepted solution]

i have automatic updates turned off as when there is a patch i back up my saves etc before dling a patch just in case something goes wonky,you probs shouldn't need to uninstall and reinstall there is way to do a factory reset before having to go to uninstalling and reinstalling everything if you found your saves folder open up the electronics arts/the sims3 if the sav game folder is missing from there then just copy and paste the save folder you found back in there start your game and check your saves launch (open your save folder to make sure your saves are there first and that that folder is not empty )

will post this in the helpers corner for further advise as to the other foldes DCcache.DCbackup etc

http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/06/tutorial-resetting-the-game-to-factory-settings-without-reinsta...

[tmhchimerical]

Thanks! I found the way to reset it without installing. I think something's wrong with my saves folder. I reset the game and all of my expansions were still intact and everything. Then, once I replaced the new saves folder with my old one, i restarted the game and it went right back to square one. i have a feeling that the custom content that I downloaded was corrupted. At least I have my games back, just not my saved ones. But that's not the end of the world I suppose. Haha. Thanks for all of your help!

[rumbutter]

FAB really happy to hear this :Dand your back playing and welcomes