'A serious error has occurred'

[charliedey]

Hello Guys, 

You can give following steps to try once. It can help you there in order to fix this error. Here are the steps below: 

1. First of all, please quit from game if its still running.
2. Go to your Documents library, right click the Electronic Arts folder, and click Properties.
3. Untick "Read-only" that shows under general tab and click Apply button.
4. It will show you "confirm attribute changes" popup window.
5. Select "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" (this may be selected automatically), and click OK.
6. Close the Properties window and start your game. You should now be able to load your savegame.

Best of luck!!!

[mikrolactaki3]

I am not sure where to post this but when I load a save that has been corrupted before, do I get the Serious Error message or does my saved game load properly from the last time it saved?

[crinrict]

Have you tried ? It really depends what corrupted.

[mikrolactaki3]

I am talking about a saved game I saved about a month ago in Roaring Heights. When I saved (apparently the saving time was taking a ridiculously long time to complete and I knew it was Error Code 12). I tried to get to Edit Town but when the Windows 7 cursor showed up I found out that my game had stopped working. Had nothing to do with the message that says "Windows 7, Build 7600, This copy of Windows is not genuine." which happened to me two years ago and especially in CAS. 

Then checked my Saves folder. There was a file with the extension .bad and deleted it. Restarted my Sims 3 game, the corrupted save was gone and it was the save from the last time I saved in Roaring Heights with the Capp family being my active household. And found out that overpopulating the town with households that I made and households from the family bin and not invisible/stuck Sims or multi-selected portraits!

My other saves load perfectly but I do not know if the specific save can load because I am afraid to see this message when it loads.

But I haven't really tried it.

[crinrict]

Yeah, Error 12 has nothing to do with this specific error.

You'll actually get a message saying 'A serious error occured'

The one with .bad won't load. It gets created if you get one of the save errors.

You can always make backups of your saves and then try.

[mikrolactaki3]

Does it mean the game will stop loading at a certain point and then the screen will go black (if I play in fullscreen mode) or gray (if I play in windowed mode)? And referring to the backups question, I can make backups of my save files in both my computer and my removable drive, but seems to be a problem with my computer trying to recognise my removable drive.

[crinrict]

I'm sorry but I have troubles understanding you (english is not my mother tongue).

Do you actually have this error message ? Do you have any issues after reloading the save with error 12 or is this a theoretical discussion ?

Theoretical is fine, I'm just unsure what your question is.

[mikrolactaki3]

I personally do not have this error message as all my saves load properly and I am not sure about this one that I am referring to. I had a similar problem three years ago in my laptop, while I tried to save a game that was in Sunset Valley but I didn't know if there was an Error 12. It just wouldn't stop saving. It loaded properly but when I installed Island Paradise in July 2013 I had experienced a crash to desktop when the loading bar was at almost 20%. And when I reloaded it again in September 2013, it loaded properly but later on I experienced some sort of issues with multi-selected portraits. Before re-loading that saved game in Sunset Valley, made backups of it in an external drive, deleted all the pictures of the FeaturedItems folder and set the specific folder to read-only in order for me to avoid crashes.

But when I saved in Roaring Heights, it took more than an hour to save. Knowing that I'd experience Error 12 for the very first time. After that my game had stopped working with a crash to desktop. After that I deleted the .bad folder and my game is now reverted to a previous save. (Referring to this specific one, not Sunset Valley)

It loaded properly before the corruption. And best thing about this saved game is that I didn't travel to any exotic destination (Like France, China or Egypt) or send one specific Sim to University. If I got the whole family to travel and stored tents in any chest I would get this blank house thumbnail problem.

Otherwise I can try starting a new game in Roaring Heights with the Capp family and save before I make changes to the house/members of the family. But if the family thumbnail in the Main Menu turns into a house and the house thumbnail staying as it was, what do I do? Do I get the Serious Error message or the game loads properly?

[crinrict]

As I said above, just try. Error 12 is not related to this error afaik.

Backup your stuff and then try

[mikrolactaki3]

I have had the Roaring Heights saved game for about a year which means that after the Error 12 (happened about five months ago) I decided not to play it because I thought that I could get the "Serious Error" message while loading the saved game which had been restored at a previous save date.

There is a 99,9% case (to me) that the town that the error 12 occurred might have been corrupted when it comes to loading it again and starting a new game from scratch and because of that I need to reinstall Roaring Heights again, I think.