I haven't played in almost 8 months. When I tried to load up my last game I got an error saying, "A serious error has occurred when loading [saved game]. Please try restarting the application." I only keep the last 5 saves in my save folder; everything else I move over to a backup folder. I get the exact same error regardless of which save I try to use. There have been no hardware changes since I last played and I'm running the same OS. Anyone know what might be going on?
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-- You are out of drive space. How large is the drive that the game is installed on and how much space? Is the user game folder, that is your Documents folder, on the same drive or a different one? Is Windows (I'm assuming Windows and not Mac here) running from the same drive?
-- You have files open that the game needs to use, even if they are just open folder windows in Windows Explorer (for all the issues Mac players face, this isn't one of them and only applies to Windows). Or you might have content files open in a package editor like S3PE, if you ever do CC or mod package editing. Also try rebooting the computer to see if that frees anything up that might be locked for some other reason.
-- You are running an illegitimate copy of the game. But then it probably wouldn't have worked 8 months ago either, so unless you tell us otherwise we can hopefully rule that one out.
By the way, can you startup the game and begin a new save, then load that one up, or does the same thing happen?
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Rebooting didn't help. I can't see anything in Details that would be causing an issue - nothing new from 8 months ago anyway and I've closed all folders. Also, I open the game by double-clicking on the Sims 3 game file, not on Origins (though Origins still opens).
If my copy of the game isn't legal then EA has some explaining to do.
Starting a new game and saving then opening again worked fine. I also noticed that the load bar that appears fills up almost instantly right before I get the error message; much faster than the bar loads otherwise even with a game with few expansions.
I wouldn't put any stock in the progress bar that displays when the game starts up at all. Even on a properly working set of saves, many of us notice that the bar randomly zooms all the way across sometimes then spends all of the usual time on the last bit, yet other times it progresses more uniformly. It really doesn't mean anything useful.
Just looked this error up on the Sims Wiki and I think we've hit all of usual causes except for one -- saved game names too long. Unusual or unexpected characters in the saved game name could probably do this as well.
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:A_Serious_Error_Has_Occurred
If it's not that, have you cleared your user game folder's cache files lately?
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Do the saves that aren't loading still have their Meta.data file in them? If not, try copying the one from the new game to one of those and see if that gets the older save to load. That is, provided you are certain all of the EPs it needs are loading up as per above.
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I tried all the things listed in the link you provided except for installing the third-party software (which I hate doing) and still getting the error. I'll try that if I have to but so much third-party stuff is borderline malware that I try and avoid it whenever possible.
All of the save files still have the meta.data extension in them; both the old ones that aren't working and the new one that is.
Other than that, or going through EA support on the TS3 Answers HQ forum, afraid I'm fresh out of suggestions on this one.
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I also see that I have two folders in Document (3 if you count the Create a World tool) - one is called TheSims 3 and the other is just Sims3. The content is similar but not identical. Sims 3 show multiple files of Riverview, Lucky Palms, and Barnacle Bay (none of which show up as available when starting a new game). TheSims 3 shows one file for each world. TheSims 3 appears to be the file that the game is trying to use as that one has today as the last time it was modified.
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After getting rid of the old game folders and copying things over, the old saves are working again. A corrupt file somewhere, I assume?
I remember (vaguely) that there were certain files that it was good to delete or backup somewhere else to keep game performance solid but I don't remember what they are.
The default resolution for the game is 1024x768 but I have a really large monitor and that resolution is kind of crummy. Any harm in switching to 1920x1080?
CasPartCache.package
compositorCache.package
scriptCache.package
simCompositorCache.package
socialCache.package
Many of us run the game on 1920x1080. Puts more stress on things, but it really depends on your graphics card as to if it can handle it well. I wouldn't push it on a weaker card or a integrated graphics chip.
If you do have a modern, dedicated graphics card I hope you have its fps rate capped. TS3 does not have a built-in fps limiter. For other forms of game file maintenance, we have a page full of them worth taking a look at over here. Some of them involve NRaas mod usage (of course), others do not.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+For+Better+Game+Performance
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I have many of the NRaas mods but, after 8 months, I'm having trouble remembering what I did back then.
I use Adaptive V-Sync on my Nvidia card which (supposedly) kicks in if the framerate gets too high or low.
Note that vsync is only supposed to work in full screen mode, not windowed.
And you're welcome, glad you got the game folder thing all sorted out.
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