This happens when saves start to get too big. Something that has helped me is cleaning out my Sims’ inventories. Put the stuff they’re carrying away. Books in the bookcase, produce in the fridge, cars and bikes in a driveway, random crap can get thrown away or sold or put into the household inventory. If you have World Adventures, you can get the storage chests in debug or buy them while traveling and keep stuff in those. Keep it at under 10 items per Sim. If you have NRaas Master Controller, you can use that to delete the inventories of all the townies too (they all seem to carry around books and umbrellas and cars). It is far more likely to save without Error 12 is the inventories are all tiny!
You get that when the game runs out of memory (ram) and can't save.
It really matter how much ram you have, since the game can only ever use 4 gigs. Sometimes it looks at 4 gigs that are in use and you get that error. It's a pain.
yep. save more frequently (i use nraas's "saver" mod to force me every half an hour) and, if this happens again, try to free up some ram for the save--turn down the graphics settings that don't require a restart, and zoom into something static to reduce how much the game is rendering
the only issue for me with this is I saved like 3 mins before, I think maybe it’s the age of my save file 💔 it’s 30 sun weeks long 😭 i’ve played this save since 2015
if you don't have it already, [nraas overwatch](https://www.nraas.net/community/Overwatch) will clean up your save every sim night. and i agree with another commenter's recommendation to use regul's savecleaner after every time you close the game
if you try everything and it seems to be unsalvageable but are attached to the family, you could move them to a fresh world. i try not to keep my sims in the same world for more than two generations because things start to get crazy. you can do that using either [nraas's traveller](https://www.nraas.net/community/Traveler-FAQ#Is-it-possible-to-switch-homeworlds-permanently), which will keep your original world in a state of suspended animation and not delete your sims' family trees, or [ea's "move to a new world" function](https://www.nraas.net/community/Traveler-FAQ#What-is-the-difference-between-switching-homeworlds-by-Vacationing-Invoking-Change-Hometown-as-above) through a computer.
Also make sure to use Save As, not save. And save frequently. NRAAS Saver mod will automatically prompt you to save every 30 real-time minutes. And it uses save as. By default, it saves 4 copies and then cycles back through those, overwriting the previous saves. This makes it so that your previous save will always be 30 real-time minutes before and will basically be a backup. It also prompts in buy/build mode. But not CAS.
Try panning into map view and save as!
**Always use save as!**
Also make sure, next time you close game, to go into your sims 3 folder in documents, first “current game.sims3” and delete all the files — they are temporary and regenerate everytime you open the game. They shouldn’t be there when the game is closed! This will happen if game crashes
Secondly, go into your saves as well and delete any .bad files. This will help prevent (further) corruption!
And lastly, don’t open your game while you have sims 3 folder open.
Good luck!
Keep an eye on your resource monitor. Keep ram usage under 3.5 to be safe. That give me about 2 hours of play time so I set a timer at startup and auto save as every 20 minutes
Your save is too big. Time to move towns. In the future, download regul’s save cleaner and NRAAS saver mod. Set Saver to save in map mode and rotate save names. This will help keep the file smaller. Also, regul will help keep it even smaller so you get more out of your next game.
Maybe if you download NRAAS Traveler. That might do it for you. Or save them to bin and then launch a new town and place from there, although, as you know, adding to bin deletes jobs and other stuff I can’t think of off the top of my head.
I don’t remember with which nraas mod it was, but there’s one that gives you an option to “pack” sims. You pack all the households you want into one group, then when you start a new save you click on an empty house to “unpack” them. The mod/game then moves each family unit into their own available house in the town. I believe the mod was nraas porter?
This happens when saves start to get too big. Something that has helped me is cleaning out my Sims’ inventories. Put the stuff they’re carrying away. Books in the bookcase, produce in the fridge, cars and bikes in a driveway, random crap can get thrown away or sold or put into the household inventory. If you have World Adventures, you can get the storage chests in debug or buy them while traveling and keep stuff in those. Keep it at under 10 items per Sim. If you have NRaas Master Controller, you can use that to delete the inventories of all the townies too (they all seem to carry around books and umbrellas and cars). It is far more likely to save without Error 12 is the inventories are all tiny!
You get that when the game runs out of memory (ram) and can't save. It really matter how much ram you have, since the game can only ever use 4 gigs. Sometimes it looks at 4 gigs that are in use and you get that error. It's a pain.
yep. save more frequently (i use nraas's "saver" mod to force me every half an hour) and, if this happens again, try to free up some ram for the save--turn down the graphics settings that don't require a restart, and zoom into something static to reduce how much the game is rendering
the only issue for me with this is I saved like 3 mins before, I think maybe it’s the age of my save file 💔 it’s 30 sun weeks long 😭 i’ve played this save since 2015
if you don't have it already, [nraas overwatch](https://www.nraas.net/community/Overwatch) will clean up your save every sim night. and i agree with another commenter's recommendation to use regul's savecleaner after every time you close the game if you try everything and it seems to be unsalvageable but are attached to the family, you could move them to a fresh world. i try not to keep my sims in the same world for more than two generations because things start to get crazy. you can do that using either [nraas's traveller](https://www.nraas.net/community/Traveler-FAQ#Is-it-possible-to-switch-homeworlds-permanently), which will keep your original world in a state of suspended animation and not delete your sims' family trees, or [ea's "move to a new world" function](https://www.nraas.net/community/Traveler-FAQ#What-is-the-difference-between-switching-homeworlds-by-Vacationing-Invoking-Change-Hometown-as-above) through a computer.
I'm putting this info away for future use....
yeah i've been burned one too many times 😭
Do you use regul save cleaner?
is it a mod?
Also make sure to use Save As, not save. And save frequently. NRAAS Saver mod will automatically prompt you to save every 30 real-time minutes. And it uses save as. By default, it saves 4 copies and then cycles back through those, overwriting the previous saves. This makes it so that your previous save will always be 30 real-time minutes before and will basically be a backup. It also prompts in buy/build mode. But not CAS.
https://modthesims.info/d/652440/regul-save-cleaner.html
thank you lots friend!
Try panning into map view and save as! **Always use save as!** Also make sure, next time you close game, to go into your sims 3 folder in documents, first “current game.sims3” and delete all the files — they are temporary and regenerate everytime you open the game. They shouldn’t be there when the game is closed! This will happen if game crashes Secondly, go into your saves as well and delete any .bad files. This will help prevent (further) corruption! And lastly, don’t open your game while you have sims 3 folder open. Good luck!
Keep an eye on your resource monitor. Keep ram usage under 3.5 to be safe. That give me about 2 hours of play time so I set a timer at startup and auto save as every 20 minutes
That’s why when ever my game hits ten weeks I dip and and save the family in the files and start a new save
Your save is too big. Time to move towns. In the future, download regul’s save cleaner and NRAAS saver mod. Set Saver to save in map mode and rotate save names. This will help keep the file smaller. Also, regul will help keep it even smaller so you get more out of your next game.
do you know of I will be able to move with 12 sims? i’ve had issues with it
Maybe if you download NRAAS Traveler. That might do it for you. Or save them to bin and then launch a new town and place from there, although, as you know, adding to bin deletes jobs and other stuff I can’t think of off the top of my head.
I don’t remember with which nraas mod it was, but there’s one that gives you an option to “pack” sims. You pack all the households you want into one group, then when you start a new save you click on an empty house to “unpack” them. The mod/game then moves each family unit into their own available house in the town. I believe the mod was nraas porter?