Backup not loading previous save

simsfanatic9 · March 2017

So the title says it all, but let me add more information.

I was growing impatient with not being able to adopt this beautiful wild horse. So... I cheated, and I did shift+click, add to household. Well by doing that, I do not have certain actions available with the horse. These actions include brushing the horse and reinforcement. Also, I cannot change the saddle and stuff like that. I have a feeling it's because the game still thinks it's somewhat of a wild horse and not adopted. I want to go back to a previous save before I added the horse to the family using cheats.
However... Here is my problem. After doing lots of research, I thought I found the solution. Move the current save and load the backup. However, the backup file is the current save. It's not the previous one. Is this normal? How do I load the previous save? Is there a way I can make the horse wild again or just somehow adopt the horse, so I can get the interactions I need? I do have NRAAS installed if that has any options.

igazor · March 2017

You have to change the extension on the backup save folder from the default of ".backup" to ".sims3" (without the quotes), otherwise the game selector seen at startup won't recognize it.

But if you have already done that, check the modification date/time of the nhd file of the world that was active inside of each save. That would be the name of world plus some goofy hex codes, and it must be the nhd file, not the much smaller ExportDB package that often appears alongside of it. The modification date/time cannot be identical for both saves, but if they are really close then that means you had saved twice in rapid succession and the slightly older backup save just isn't old enough to be helpful. Either that, or had made two saves with the game clock not running, so loading up the slightly older one doesn't seem to take you to a different place in time.

It is up to us as players to make saves more often and keep more than one copy on hand for when things like this happen. I use SaveAs and rename each save slightly by sticking a number on the end, so can have as many as 10 prior copies of my ongoing game (admittedly that's more than most people would need). Eventually I cycle over the already used numbers or just delete the oldest ones.

The NRaas Saver mod acts as an alarm clock to remind you when it's time to do a Save As, based on real time or sim time as per how its options are set, and will suggest the next numbered Save As in line if you also set its options that way. But without doing these things ourselves somehow, with or without Saver, I'm afraid there are no other backups to a saved game in TS3.

Have you tried doing a MasterController > Advanced > Reset Sim on the horse (not the testingcheatsenabled kind) to see if that helps?

I believe if you retreat to Edit Town, you can Evict the horse to make it homeless again. Then back in Live Mode as quickly as feasible so before it wanders away, use MasterController Add Sim on it to add it back to your household. There is no "Adopt," that would be for horses in the adoption registry which are not wild ones. I'm not confident this method is really going to fix anything, though.

simsfanatic9 · March 2017

They are within 3 minutes of each other. But I never save that close together. And I highly doubt I saved right before adding the horse to the family and then right after. I am one to forget to save after a few hours. But it doesn't bug me too bad. What is the ExportDB package? That is the previous day, and I would LOVE to boot up that day. I know for a fact the horse wouldn't be on there. Is that a usable file or no?

I will try the reset thing to see if that works. When I added the horse, it was named Wild Horse still and it was shaky trying to get things to work out well. I will let you know what happens.

simsfanatic9 · March 2017

Using the reset through NRAAS worked! I now have all the options I would for a normal horse! Thank you so much! You saved me big time!

igazor · March 2017

Glad to hear it!

Could have saved you some time if I had offered up that advice first, but I still think that taking over Saves management is valuable if you care about your ongoing games.

For future reference, the (usually very small) ExportDB.package files associated with each nhd file are not usable by themselves. They are temporary storage locations used by the game during travel transitions and are not important otherwise.

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Backup not loading previous save

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