EIG won't work for me anymore

IreneSwift

I started having trouble with EIG last summer. Since I had a lot of store content in the lots I made for the project I was working on at the time, I was making it in parts, intending to combine them when everything was finished. But during test games I ran with what I had in the main part, I kept discovering things I needed to fix, and some lots that needed to be changed. At some point, EIG started crashing if I put even one lot with store content in to the world. Most of the time it crashed while saving, but later on, it started crashing while I was building or editing the lots. Eventually, I decided to take a break and start playing again instead.

For my current game, I am playing in worlds connected with NRaas Traveler mod. I decided I wanted my active household to move to one of the worlds I had previously made in CAW. So I set up the world in the game, adding in a base camp, and removing a few community lots I don't need, to add in ST lots, which I had not placed in it when I built it, and populating it. But when I moved my sims there, the game took them to the unedited world. In the process, I discovered a lamp post out in the middle of a grove of trees, so I decided to take it back into CAW to fix that, add a base camp, and populate it. But every time I take it into EIG, when I save it, it crashes.

Nothing I have tried to add has any store content at all. I've even removed all store based lots, like the bakery and archery range I made, and replaced store world rabbitholes I had originally used with ones from the base game, or EP's. Then I placed the base camp, which is totally made of the base game log cabin blueprints, so no store content. EIG crashed while saving, and has every time I've tried to do anything.

I don't understand why this is happening. I had no trouble at all when I originally made the world. I've even uninstalled CAW and reinstalled it with a fresh download, in case the program had somehow gotten broken along the way. But it still crashes.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I could do to fix this problem?

Rflong7

Hi

EIG doesn't like store stuff. There comes a point when there are too many lots with any amount of store stuff install, and EIG won't work.

I had to find a way to allow CAW's EIG to work with all my Store Stuff - which I never did. It just won't.
The more you fiddle, the quicker it will hit that breaking point.

Make a backup save of your CAW files, then mess around with them...
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/737094/only-testing-adding-lots-when-eig-will-only-crash-from-store-limit/p1

IreneSwift

Thank you, @Rflong7. Those instructions look pretty complicated, but I think I can follow them one step at a time as I work on my project. I'm glad you didn't give up, and that you are so willing to share your methods with the rest of us.

IreneSwift

I am now playing Sims 3 exclusively on my laptop, and have just started working in CAW on it as well. I've generated a game folder just for CAW, with no store content, because I couldn't use EIG at all, right from the start of the project, with no lots installed. I read in an older thread that the amount of store content installed in the game can overload EIG just from trying to load it all. If I wait to install any store content into that folder until I'm ready to add the lots that use it, and only add in a few such lots at a time, would that be more likely to allow me to eventually get everything into my world that I want? I won't be using anywhere near all of it in this world anyway.

Damienf519

@IreneSwift,
Stuff like that is a good reason to limit the store content. I usually just use free store content for my worlds, and it is pretty hard for me to avoid not doing that especially if I want to make a festival grounds for my map because important things like Christmas Trees and Jacko-lanterns are otherwise missing from the game

IreneSwift

@Damienf519 There are certain store items I like to have in all worlds I play in. I have an archery range, a small bakery, a simple greenhouse, and a small dance studio I want in all of my worlds. In my current project, I want to keep the community lots small, so I used the smallest City Hall I have, which came from a store world, Riverview, I think. I also like to add basketball hoops and climbing walls to some lot in the worlds I play in. If I can't get those in in CAW, it's not too big of a deal to add them in a starter save. I have to make starter saves for custom worlds anyway, since I can't populate them in CAW, because my residents have pets.

But the world I was referring to in my opening post was originally exported with all of those lots, plus a wedding chapel I made using stained glass windows from the Prism Art Studio, the pet store from the store, and the Serenity Retreat. I didn't have any problems exporting it back when I made it, several years ago. I was disappointed, and still am, that I couldn't fix it in CAW without losing the store content.

Damienf519

I use save games files as well, because I’m afraid of mods and that’s the only way to pre populate them without them