Tips for saving your corrupted saves (Including Error 12)

by **J.T.** Fri 27 Sep 2013, 14:48

Hello simmers,

Many of us have experienced a common problem: corrupted saves (which may lead to crashing and so on). This is the most dreaded of all and there are nearly no solutions for fixing this. Luckily, there are some tips for you to save the corrupted saves (if you don't know how to apply the mods shown below, visit http://www.games4theworlddownloads.org/Downloads/Guides/How_to_install_.package_files.pdf):

(1) Download Porter from www.nraas.wikispaces.com and apply it. Follow the following instructions:
1. Pause the game during Live Mode.
2. Click on the map tag or the roof of an occupied lot, and use the "NRaas \ Porter \ Pack" interaction
3. Specify the households and sims you wish to pack.
4. Name your Porter family and save it
5. Return to the Main Menu and start a new town
6. Select an existing household to initially play (it must be an existing family)
7. Pause the game and locate an empty house
8. Click on the map tag or the roof of the unoccupied lot, and use the "NRaas \ Porter \ Unpack" interaction
9. From the listing select your Porter family
10. Wait.
11. Go to Edit Town and switch to the household that you have just unpacked.
Note: After using "Pack": Do not enter "Edit Town" without first unpausing. If you do not unpause, the "Return To Game" button may be missing from the "Edit Town" window.

(2) Go to Edit Town and click on the household you are playing. Afterwards, choose "Save the household to library". You can either save the house along with the household or just the household. And then you can start a new save with the same household without losing all the progresses with your households.

If you are constantly receiving crashing (or Error 12) from these corrupted saves, you can either

(3) Download Traveler from www.nraas.wikispaces.com and apply it. Teleport your sims to another town with this mod.

(4) If your pc is 32-bit and has more than 3 GB RAM installed, allow your pc to allocate more memory. Type "Dixdiag" and hit "Enter" when you open up the Start Menu. The value after the line "Memory" is your pc's RAM. If you have more than 3000MB RAM. Allowing more RAM to be used by The Sims 3 by running "cmd" (command prompt) as Administrator.
When cmd pops up, try the following:
If you have 3072 MB of RAM installed, type bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 2560 and hit "Enter".
If you have 4096 MB of RAM installed, type bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072 and hit "Enter".
After that, restart your computer.

(5) Save your save-file as a new game (so you have a backup in case something goes wrong). Load the TravelDB.package in C:\Users\(your computer name)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves\_.sims3 using S3PE. Select all the _IMG files within the package and delete them. Save the TravelDB.package.

(6) You can also alter your saves in this way to prevent crashing and Error 12:
1. Save your save-file as a new game (so you have a backup in case something goes wrong).
2. Load the NHD file using S3PE
3. Select all the SNAPfiles within the package and delete them: At the bottom make sure the boxes for Display Names and Tags are checked. Also at the bottom, fill in "SNAP" in the Tag field (without the quotes)
4. Press the Set button, you'll see the SNAP field gets copied into the box below it
5. Tick "Filter Active". S3PE now only shows you SNAP resources
6. Highlight any of the resources and press Ctrl+A
7. Wait (patiently, depending on your system and the number of SNAPs) until S3PE highlights ALL the SNAPs
8. Press the Delete button on your keyboard
9. Save the NHD file.

Other solutions that might help:
(7) Open the folder C:\Users\(your computer name)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves. Delete any folders that are ended with ".sims3.bad".

( 8 ) You can also replace the corrupted save with a backup save by renaming the folder (name of the save).sims3.backup associated with your corrupted save to (name of your save).sims3. Delete the corrupted save that ends with .sims3 before doing so. You will lose some of the progresses.

I hope it helps everyone.

DO NOT POST ANY QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS IN THIS TOPIC. INSTEAD, PLEASE OPEN A NEW TOPIC IN THE APPROPRIATE FORUM-SECTION, EITHER "THE SIMS 3 DOWNLOADS SUPPORT" OR "THE SIMS 3 IN-GAME SUPPORT"! THANK-YOU-NOTES CAN BE POSTED IN THE SECTION WITH THE SAME NAME.

Note that any and all questions posted under this thread, will be deleted without any explanation or advance warning. We have the Forum sections dedicated to Support purposes, for a reason.

by Guest Wed 02 Jul 2014, 06:15

I realize this is an older thread, but I need to ask:

I have been trying to install Sims on my son's XP 32-bit 4 gb ram, and I've done the Nraas MODS to help, but I am having trouble with the bcdedit.

I am running as Admin and when I type it out (as J.T. has shown) I get the following error message, "bcdedit is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

Any ideas what that means?

by **The_gh0stm4n** Wed 02 Jul 2014, 15:15

deblake60 wrote:I realize this is an older thread, but I need to ask:

I have been trying to install Sims on my son's XP 32-bit 4 gb ram, and I've done the Nraas MODS to help, but I am having trouble with the bcdedit.

I am running as Admin and when I type it out (as J.T. has shown) I get the following error message, "bcdedit is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

Any ideas what that means?

It means that doing this thing in Windows XP is a bit different than in Windows Vista or later versions. Do it this way (though it's a bit of a hassle):

1) Open the cmd prompt.

2) Type attrib -r -h -s \BOOT.INI and hit enter

3) Make a backup of this boot.ini by typing into the command prompt copy \BOOT.INI \BOOT.INI.backup Normally, that file should be then in C:\Windows, but I may be mistaken (in my case, it was in a subfolder inside Windows, can't remember which one though...you may also use the search function if you can't find that file).

4) Open BOOT.INI in notepad, with the command prompt: notepad \BOOT.INI

5) The file should now open in notepad; and the last line should look somewhat like this: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

6) Modify the last line so that it looks like this: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB /userva=2990

The "2990" is not exactly 3 GB, but I'll get to that too, in a moment.

7) SAVE the changes to the document, and then close the notepad.

8. With the command prompt, type in attrib +r +h +s \BOOT.INI

9) Re-boot the computer.

Keep in mind that generally, in order for you to be able to use full 4 GB of RAM (for a single application, like TS3), you'd also need to have a 64-bit CPU (do some googling about whether the laptop's CPU is a 64-bit one, if you're unsure), and a motherboard that supports "memory remapping", besides a 64-bit operating system. Again, for the motherboard, you may also have to do some additional research; however, I guess that most "modern" motherboards have such a function implemented, but I can't give a warranty on that.

If you eventually find out that your hardware fulfills these prerequisites (64-bit CPU and motherboard that supports memory remapping), you might want to consider going for Windows XP Professional x64 - the 64-bit Windows XP version; look on Piratebay.

This tweak I described can help you increase the RAM available for user applications (games, etc.) from 2GB to (about) 3GB. Also, the value 2990 might be better for your system stability; which is my next point.

Another risk of doing all this is that you might encounter system stability problems, like bluescreens, or other stuff. The idea is that you're basically removing RAM from the system, and "shuffle" it to an application like a game. And if the system doesn't have much RAM anymore, then you might run into problems. Of course, that's a simplified explanation.

But there is no real point in using 32-bit operating systems, for most "contemporary" games. What you need (or at least what is recommended), again, is at least 4 GB of RAM, a 64-bit CPU, a 64-bit operating system, and a motherboard that supports this "memory remapping", otherwise this whole "increaseuserVA"-thing makes no sense at all.

Be warned about this...and if you want to learn more, feel free to open a new threead in the appropriate forum section.

The Sims Plumbob 1

//EDIT

Should you encounter any issues, reverse all the steps that I mentioned. And it's a good idea to use GameBooster too, for freeing up system resources. Moreover, keep in mind that the naming conventions for this motherboard-feature can vary, so the feature's name isn't necessarily "memory remapping", in all cases. It can be something else too...

by Guest Mon 07 Jul 2014, 09:34

Thanks Carlos, I did save the information that you provided for possible future use.

I thought since my son's PC was a bit slower and low RAM (video card and processor was decent), I thought that I would take off Sims 3 from his PC and install Sims 2.

There had (thus far) been no issues with Sims 2 on his machine and when he wants to play Sims 3 he uses my PC.

by **The_gh0stm4n** Mon 07 Jul 2014, 22:24

deblake60 wrote:Thanks Carlos, I did save the information that you provided for possible future use.

I thought since my son's PC was a bit slower and low RAM (video card and processor was decent), I thought that I would take off Sims 3 from his PC and install Sims 2.

There had (thus far) been no issues with Sims 2 on his machine and when he wants to play Sims 3 he uses my PC.

Sure, no problem. If you ask me though, messing with 32-bit operating systems is far too much of a hassle - with too few benefits. So for a PC that is (also) used for gaming, especially from more "recent" games, a hardware upgrade and/or a 64-bit operating system is advisable, at least in the long run.

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