Six hours down the drain... Any way to prevent this in the future besides the obvious?

Jalida

Hello builders of worlds,

So, I have been working to revamp my Walnut Creek world and bring it back to life by cleaning it up and removing old lots and updating with newer buildings that have been added to the game since 2010.

The first 3 hours went great and I made some good progress then saved and all was great.

The 6 hours that followed however did not go so great. Made a ton of progress when I realized that it had been 6 hours since I last saved the world. I usually attempt to stretch between saves as long as possible since it can take a really long time to save a world that has a lot of lots on it. So, when I realized it had been 6 hours I thought I'd better save.

And of course during the save process Sims3.exe has stopped responding popped up on my screen, basically nuking the last 6 hours that I put into the world. As you can imagine I was not a happy camper.

Anyway, I've got that off my chest and want to ask a question or two to try to help eliminate any issues when I give this another go later today or tomorrow...

1. Is there anything that I should be avoiding doing when working on my world, for example are there certain objects that I should simply avoid because they are known to cause the game to crash during a save?

2. The longer between saves, I assume the more data that is going to have to be written out to disk, is there some amount of time or amount of work that many people put into their worlds where they know it's time to save because Sims3.exe can't handle more than a certain amount of data to be saved at one time?

Thanks

Damienf519

Jalida,

Its probably a really good idea if you save more often and remember to back stuff up in multiple places from now on. Might also be a good idea to save each of your lots to the library before you save the map as well, assuming you're working in Edit In Game. I've run into a lot of problems trying to get it to save in EIG, while working with create a world.

auntielynds

Ditto what Dammien said. I ALWAYS save a copy of the lot I'm working on multiple times while building. The question I ask is "How pivelled off will I be if the game crashes right now?" :shock:

Metallifan

Just a tip: Sometimes a "Stopped responding" warning will pop up when you save. I get it quite often, but it does (usually) go away if I wait it out. You should still save more often, but really if it does pop up, let it sit for 5-10 minutes and see if it goes away. When I get said message, I usually see it disappear after 2-5 minutes. It seems to be caused by clicking your mouse in the program while it's attempting to save. I guess the program is just trying to process so much information at once that windows thinks it froze.

Rflong7

Oh, crud!

Yes... I've got so many backups and renamed backups it's kinda hard to remember which is the actual one without opening the world (dates don't mean a thing to me). :XD:

I've found that working with the terrain paints too much, like painting and erasing and painting more, without saving soon can cause the game to close or get the memory error issue when saving.

Normally it's when I get one area just the way I want it-- I save.

Quailhogs

What Damien said is pretty much what I started doing. Every several minutes while building a lot, I save it to the Library in case CAW crashes (deleting an earlier version so that it doesn't waste space). Also, CAW is more likely to crash if you re-texture every item (if the wait cursor reverts back to the generic Window's cursor, the game is likely to crash soon, so immediately save your lot to the library). The process is actually very annoying, but it beats losing hours of progress and chucking a nearby stapler on your desk at the wall.

Docsprock

Sorry for your loss. I understand completely.

But, 6 hours is too long between saves. I go 2 hours max, then save and go freshen my drink, stretch, or something for a few minutes.

Simlirious

I am not a world builder so can't help you with that, but here is a tip that sounds so obvious yet it took me years to start using it when working on bigger projects: Get yourself an egg timer and set it to an hour. Just in case you forget to save every few minutes you still get the call from that little thing and then reset it back to an hour, again and again.

As I said: it sounds so obvious it is nearly insulting to suggest it, but it's usually the most obvious solutions that are missed the easiest.

Anyway, I feel for your loss and wish you the best of luck without any more disasters like that. Keep up the good work for the rest of us too lazy or without enough time to make our perfect worlds.

Reachsims

I don't use CAW but for building lots I do the same thing, Simlirious. I set the timer on my microwave for 30 minutes and I also set the egg timer for 30 minutes because sometimes I ignore the microwave beeping; I just assume my coffee has been reheated. Having two timers set is best for me.

I used to go an hour but with the increasing instability of the game, 30 minutes is the longest I go between saves. And Jalida, I'm really sorry about your lost six hours' worth of work.

Frogeems

Hey... So, I feel you. Just over an entire 12 hours down the drain for me. Had a whole Bridgeport-like city that has been reduced to a few crooked roads with some asphalt paint. Is it just me, or does it take longer to save every time you do? I always run edit in-game mode, but every time I save and quit, my screen keeps flickering and it takes painfully longer to save each time. Hence why I don't save often.

Rflong7

@Frogeems wrote: »

Hey... So, I feel you. Just over an entire 12 hours down the drain for me. Had a whole Bridgeport-like city that has been reduced to a few crooked roads with some asphalt paint. Is it just me, or does it take longer to save every time you do? I always run edit in-game mode, but every time I save and quit, my screen keeps flickering and it takes painfully longer to save each time. Hence why I don't save often.

Hi

Yes, it takes a long time to save in EIG. It will take longer and longer to save as you add more and more lots.

Don't build your lots in EIG (through CAW). Get to the point in your world to where you are ready to build, package and export the world, then build in Game.
Make sure you save each lot to the bin now and again as you are building. Delete the old saved from the bin once that lot is complete.
You can add lots to your world in EIG in batches, if you want. Depending on how many lots you build.
You will have to uninstall your build version before you can install another version of that world; such as the completed world.

And yes, the program flashes as it saves. You can actually watch and see which lot is saving as it flashes - sometimes.