90% of Sunset Valley lots gone after returning from vacation.

[Death-Jester]

I have this exact same problem.
At first, I thought it was a conflict with AwesomeMod, because I was playing an old Sim which was using AM before the expansion came out.
But now it's happening to my newly created Sim too
Everything as fine yesterday, I played the sim a lot, got most of his skills to max, and then decided to build him a new house. I moved him into an empty lot, and built him a big house, fully furnished. I had not sent him on vacation yet.

Only then did I notice that the house next door to my new pad was a blue square in the world. Going into map view shows the same problem on most of my houses, a quite a few of the rabbitholes/parks. This is Sunset Valley by the way.

I tried moving my Mods folder, and deleting all cache files. I also moved my Downloads and DCCache folders, and tried reinstalling the mods in the downloads folder through the launcher. Nothing worked.

Until there is a solution, I think I'm stuck on this game - there is no point making yet another sim if it'll only end up happening again.

[Cerridwen]

OK, I'm starting to get pissed off.

I played for several hours with my new Sunset Valley, loaded different families, sent some on vacation, and no blue lots.   Thought my issue was resolved.   Saved my Kent family after returning from France, checking to make sure no lots were blue.  Then loaded the Single Moms family, redecorated their house, gave them makeovers, played them for a while, did not send them on vacation as they are broke.  Checked to make sure there were no blue lots, saved and quit.  

Loaded up the game today, entered the SingleMom's saved game and entered to find 90% of the lots blue.   Backed out, restored the save where I was in the Kent household and the game was fine.  

Decided to delete yet again, all my cache files, reinstalled everything via the launcher, tried to load the SingleMom saved game.   All blue lots.   I just can not seem to figure this out.  
What is scary is that the game looked fine when I saved it, but upon re-entering it was totally borked.  
I'm trying figure out what I might have done between the Kent save and the Single Mom save that would have caused this.  The only thing I can come up with is that I did do a save on a color combination in CAS on a custom lipstick.    I'm thinking that may have possibly done it.  

I will now test this and report back.  

REPORT - I have saved a color combination on a custom lipstick, restarted the game and am not getting the blue lots. 

[Death-Jester]

It seems there are people on the official forums with the same problem, and it sounds like it's a problem with the new patch. I suspect we'll have to wait for EA to admit their mistake, get their thumbs out of their arses, and sort it out.

[Slymenstra]

Blue lots are showing up for me now all the time.  The game looks good as I am playing then I save and then quit, and when I reload it the town is blue pools.

I am still deleting things and reinstalling things to see if anything helps.  At least it gives me something to do until Awesome Mod is upgraded...ugh I hate The Sims bugginess.


EDITED TO ADD:
Something I just noticed.  The saves that are fucked up ALL created backup saves.  The ones that work did not make backup saves.  I don't know if that means anything, but just something I noticed.  Anyone else see that happening?

Another EDIT:
I think we have to chose SAVE AS and rename the file totally different from now on until they fix saving.  Doing SAVE or even SAVE AS and writing over the previous save corrupts the save and creates a backup file.

So I am going to try SAVE AS - new name each time and see what happens.  So far so good.

[Death-Jester]

Let us know how you get on. I've been using Save As on this Sim since I made him, using the format "SimName Save 1", then "SimName Save 2", to create some redundancy in case of a problem. Unfortunately both saves have the blue box problems. The only save on this sim I have now that isn't messed up is from so long ago I can't be bothered loading it up unless I know for certain it's going to work.

[Cerridwen]

I'm wondering if it is a corrupted save issue, if the new patch will resolve it.  I really hesitate to load yet another patch on top of an already f-up game.  

Death-Jester - are you saying that you are doing a Save As and are still getting blue lots?

I do not ever do save as.  Perhaps corupted saves could be part of it?  If the game does an auto save when loading a vacation destination, and again when returning home, perhaps during this process it's corrupting?  I'm not super technical so I don't even know if this is possible.

sylmenstra- My saves all seem to create .backup folders whether they are fucked or not.  I'm currently playing a not blue lot game it has a .backup.  

Edit-
Fuck it.   I just installed the newest patch.   Whatever happens happens.  I'll post findings later.

[coconnor]

I'm not sure, but I think there is something about not removing the old .sim3 back-up save files that are causing/contributing to this issue.  Please see the threads I linked, below:

See the following threads with information about the save errors:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,17258.0.html; and

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,17236.0.html

I believe these threads could solve your problem with the save files.

[Death-Jester]

Death-Jester - are you saying that you are doing a Save As and are still getting blue lots?

I do not ever do save as.  Perhaps corupted saves could be part of it?  If the game does an auto save when loading a vacation destination, and again when returning home, perhaps during this process it's corrupting?  I'm not super technical so I don't even know if this is possible.

sylmenstra- My saves all seem to create .backup folders whether they are fucked or not.  I'm currently playing a not blue lot game it has a .backup.  

Edit-
Fuck it.   I just installed the newest patch.   Whatever happens happens.  I'll post findings later.

Yes. I have 2 saves, named "SimsName Save 1" and "SimsName Save 2". I alternate between the 2 of them when saving, so I always hav a backup in case something goes wrong. Problem is, both saves are buggered.

coconnor - I checked those links. There is no mention of the new folders which the saves are no in, which leads me to believe the 'fix' is a dated one from before the patch.
Also, I have no .backup files at all, borked town or no.
But I'll give it a try and let you know if it fixes anything.

[coconnor]

coconnor - I checked those links. There is no mention of the new folders which the saves are no in, which leads me to believe the 'fix' is a dated one from before the patch.
Also, I have no .backup files at all, borked town or no.
But I'll give it a try and let you know if it fixes anything.

brownlustgirl mentions the folders in her posts in the second thread I linked.  The game will not create proper back-ups in the new folders unless the original files are deleted or moved out of the directory.

[Death-Jester]

coconnor - I checked those links. There is no mention of the new folders which the saves are no in, which leads me to believe the 'fix' is a dated one from before the patch.
Also, I have no .backup files at all, borked town or no.
But I'll give it a try and let you know if it fixes anything.

brownlustgirl mentions the folders in her posts in the second thread I linked.  The game will not create proper back-ups in the new folders unless the original files are deleted or moved out of the directory.

Yeah, I noticed that after I posted. The problem is this part:

"Delete ANY .sims3 files (not folders). These include the sims3.backup files. I only had .sims3.backup files."

I don't have any .sims3 files in my save directory! Not even in the new folders.
I got that far with the guide, but I can't go any further, because for all intents and purposes, I haven't done anything (other than copied a few files into a different folder)

[coconnor]

Just a thought, but do you have the saves or back-ups in the original save file for the base game?  If so, you could try deleting (or moving) those.  I assume the new saves are under the file directory for the expansion pack.

[Death-Jester]

Just a thought, but do you have the saves or back-ups in the original save file for the base game?  If so, you could try deleting (or moving) those.  I assume the new saves are under the file directory for the expansion pack.

I'm not sure what you mean. The old (pre WA) saves are in the same folder as the new (post WA) saves, Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Saves.
The only difference is the old format used to just be a single .sims3 file, whereas the new format seems to be a folder with the same naming as the old (ie savename.sims3), but inside the folder are 5 files (a .nat, .data, .nhd, and 2 .package files).

[Slymenstra]

Okay this is what I did so far.  I deleted ALL saves in my folder.  Made a new Town (used Sunset Valley).  Made 2 new sims and moved them into one of the newbie lots.  They went on an adventure and came home.  This entire time I did not save once.  When they came home I did save as and quit the game.  Loaded it again and everything looked intact.  Did a few more save as and quit, played around in edit town, changed their appearance, decorated etc.  Save as each time no backup folder created.

Then I decided to throw in a curve ball and I planted down a prebuilt house from the library (one I had made yesterday). I moved my Sims with the phone to this house.  I did Save AS and quit.  Came back and all blue lots.  Those few lots that are for newbies are all that is left.  And they had happened to have lived in one of those in the beginning.

So does the game autosave when you move, get married, move in, etc?

UGH...so save as is not working.

[brownlustgirl]

coconnor - I checked those links. There is no mention of the new folders which the saves are no in, which leads me to believe the 'fix' is a dated one from before the patch.
Also, I have no .backup files at all, borked town or no.
But I'll give it a try and let you know if it fixes anything.

brownlustgirl mentions the folders in her posts in the second thread I linked.  The game will not create proper back-ups in the new folders unless the original files are deleted or moved out of the directory.

From what I learned in the official forums and reading around several sites, the new patch shouldn't make backup folders. If you have back up folders, they should be deleted cause it confuses the save process. Slymenstra has stated making new "save as" folders is your best bet to continue playing a certain family. Rename the "save as" Your Town 1, Your Town 2, etc will save the one family you are playing. I wouldn't switch families right now cause it may cause the blue water lots. O.o

That is all I can report about things as they stand now.  Tsk, tsk EA. Can't even write code to save games properly.

EDIT:  I don't have WA installed, I am giving a patched base game prospective.

[Slymenstra]

So this is frustrating but I will add what I just did so maybe someone can solve the problem.

I removed my Mods folder and the framework.  I kept my sims content installed through the launcher.  I followed the same steps as my above post and NO blue lots.

My sims look ridiculous but at least they kept their premade house.

So what the hell does that mean?  I had followed the steps to placing the framework and mods folder in the new WA folder and everything was working and showing up.  Something borked in the framework or the custom content or how the game saves this?  Anyone using CC and Mods and NOT having this issue?  Any word about needing updated framework or anything?

I am going to slowly add back CC and see if it is CC.  I know when things go wrong it is usually the CC.  I just love my pretties though.

[Death-Jester]

Personally, I think it's just a fuckup with the patch. Too many people have the same problem, but different things seem to fix it (or not!). I'm just going to hold off until either EA sort it out, or Pescado does

[Cerridwen]

I just returned with my Sim from China after updating to 1.7/2.2  and the neighborhood was nearly all blue lots again.   I was so hoping the new patch would fix that but I should have known better.   

[daisylee]

I have the same problem and have been reading all I can here, at TSR, MTS, and the official site. I have a totally legit game and I had to do a complete reinstall to patch and add WA which would not install without the update. I have all patches released to now.

I have tried old saves, new hoods, backups, legacys, every type of save possible. I can get a Sim to a vacation and back. Sometimes the Sim returns to a blue lot and sometimes not ....... but then the hood is borked with the blue lots next time I go to play it.

Nothing is working. I can get the lots back only be starting over with one of my backups I made before installing the EP, and then it goes haywire after a vacation, no matter what I do.

[Aeval]

Damnit!  I played all day today and had no problems ,even after visiting Egypt and quitting the game once.  Then boom, it's back.  The only thing I can think of that I did differently was that I used the testing cheats.  Anyone else noticing a correlation between "testingcheatsenabled true" and the lots borking?

[Cerridwen]

Aeval - I do not use testing cheats enable EVER and I get blue lots.   I do use kaching, motherlode, fadeobjects off, and moveobjects on.   These are not testing cheats however.

I have now after getting blue lots again after the 2nd patch, removed all my Resource.cfg and Mods folder completly. I also removed all my Non EA created CC from the game, via deleting the caches yet again, and reinstalling only EA created objects.   I do have custom homes installed but they do not contain any CC, so I left them.  

Edit to finish my post-

First thing I noticed after restarting.  Up till now the spawn rate for collectibles in Sunset Valley was crap.   Before WA I had collectables all over the place, pretty easy to find.   After I installed WA, I could barely find any bugs or rocks or gems anywhere. They were there, just very few of them.   I thought it was a new game thing, like EA now wants you to collect on vacation or something.    After removing all non EA downloads and restarting, I right away noticed that all the rocks and gems were spawning as normal.  I cannot fathom what CC would have caused this to happen as I only had objects installed in the game before this.  NO MOD files.   And no modified Objects either.  Just basics like tables, chairs, decor and CAS stuff like shoes,hair and makeup. 
I reloaded the previous "good" save and sent the same sim to china again.   Kept her there the full time, returned and no blue lots.   I will continue to keep playing this until I either blue lot again or I feel that I can say that something CC wise is causing this. 

Oh and for what it's worth, I have the latest patch and am still getting .backup saves in my Sims3 folder.   So the very latest patch doesn't seem to be stoping that from happening.

[Slymenstra]

Well after HOURS of going through my CC I have narrowed it down to Lemoncandy's various clutter/plants etc.  I still need to now go through these items to see what one.  I have 76 Lemoncandy items to check.

What I did was took everything out of my Mods folder.  Created a new town, moved in my people from the library into a newbie house and then edited town, added my premade house onto a lot, and then reentered my new people, had them "move" with the phone to this new house.  Before I ALWAYS got blue lots.  With no mods I can save with no blue lots.  With all my mods, blue lots.  So I started section by section removing them.  FINALLY it appears to be a file from Lemoncandy.  Without those items but everything else I can save with no blue lots.

Of course this means CC you may have but I don't, can be the cause too.  So try to go through the CC and see.

It's late and time for bed, so I will have to go through Lemoncandy's files tomorrow.  But some of them are extracted items, so maybe they are conflicting.

My files all start with lemonc_

I really do hope this is the cause, since it can be fixed!

[shadow]

I have blue lots after a save. I do not have WA but I do have the latest patch 1.7. I have the additional problem of at least one sim in each house freezes soon after entering that house or one is frozen all ready when the house is entered. They don't unfreeze. I do have the latest of Tallwan's super computer, career mod and story progression but, of course, no AM. The one house that has a child and toddler, the new interactions do not work. I do have quite a few lemoncandy items. I'll remove those and see what happens. Why can't EA do things right? They have to patch a patch!    I thought patches were supposed to fix things not break them. 

[Cerridwen]

OMG slymenstra, you may be on to something.   I also am obsessed with LemonCandys plants and clutter.   Try the plants i think first.   I'm pretty sure the last blue lot save  I had placed one of her floor plants that was extracted from Sims 2, the fig tree floor plant maybe? in one of my houses just before I got a blue lot save, after having many saves before that with no problem.  

I had eleminated about 3/4's of my CC (obscure creators, hack/mods)  but had kept her stuff in because she was such a "known" creator and has such quality work.  Plus I love it to death.  

I also had some clutter from BabaYaga that I believe they extracted from sims 2 as well.  Or at least it looks like it came directly from Sims 2.  

I also need to go to bed now but will start testing this after work tommorrow.    

Shadow - if this is indeed a problem with CC files it is not (in this single case) EA's fault.   There are plenty of things you can blame them for, but this may not be one of them.  

YES! YES! YES! YES!   It's lemoncandy's files.   I put ONLY Lemoncandy's stuff in game.  Launched it, everything was fine.   Edited a house.. added plants, changed colors .. did everything BUT place one of lemoncandy's plants.   Saved and exited.   Reentered the game and it was fine.   Then I placed a single lemoncandy plant.  The fig tree that has the description "From Sims 2.".  I did nothing else. I saved and Quit, reentered and BLUE LOTS.  I've never been so happy to see a blue lot.  I'm now going to start retesting all my other CC, but I think that's it.  I too am wondering if any object regardless of creator, could cause the blue lot issue if they were extracted from the Sims 2.  

Update- I place the following CC into a house, saved and exited and returned to an OK game

TS2toTS3Converswion_HolySimolyAmaranteLoungeSuite- includes chair, loveseat and sofa - from Club Crymson
MTS_HugeLunatic_1025062_HL_KarlstadSeating- includes chair,loveseat and sofa from MTS
MTS_Menaceman44_1027305_MM_PlainBlinds - single tile and two-tile blinds - from MTS
Xerendipity_FantasySwirl- coffee table from Sim National
Xerendipity_Bathtub+Japanese
Xerendipity_Romantic Tub - both baths from Sim National

All were able to be placed on a lot and saved with no blue lots. 
I will start a post in the "good CC" thread as I continue to test.   

[Death-Jester]

I too had lots of Lemoncandy's plant mods. I have removed them all, and I'll see if it fixes it at all.

Edit:

*Sigh* no luck I'm afraid. I took out all of the Lemoncandy mods I had, started a new game, and moved my sim + house into the new town.
Everything seemed fine for quite a while, I was using my normal method of 2 saves, and switching between them. But then , when building a swimming pool, I noticed that the placement was acting up a bit (the pool ladder would not be placed correctly, and the pool floor decoration vanished when I tried to place it in the pool). I saved on a completely new save, and exited the game.

When I loaded up, all 3 saves (my normal 2 and the last individual save I made) had the blue box error.
Now I'm faced with 2 choices - keep going in this broken town, or move and once again lose all my relationships.
None of the saves have .backup or .bad files or folders.

[shadow]

Shadow - if this is indeed a problem with CC files it is not (in this single case) EA's fault.   There are plenty of things you can blame them for, but this may not be one of them.  

CC may be the problem now but the CC worked before the patch and now it doesn't. The patch screwed up the CC; the CC did not screw up the patch.