More Awesome Than You!

Four days ago I started getting Error codes 12 and 13. I know how to fix the problem when it arises: Just erase the .bad file and restart the game. But they're popping up left and right making it very hard to enjoy the game. I can't save.

And just recently, (starting last night), I've been experiencing crashes along with the error codes.

So, I did some research and I found out that The Sims 3 sytem requirement page does not mention my operating system which is Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit.

And I got thinking that maybe the problems I'm having with The Sims 3 is related to a compatibility problem. Does anyone know if this is correct? I tried running in compatibility mode but it's not working.

Someone mentioned I wait until another patch is released. And they also suggested I re-install the game. But other reports tell me that re-installing did absolutely nothing for their problems. (They're problems are identical to mine.)

I had AwesomeMod installed but I removed it thinking that maybe it was the cause of my qualms. But that's not the case because the problems returned today.

I was referred here to ask for help. I would appreciate any solutions to these issues.

Thanks.

I am also running on Vista 64 with absolutely no problems...probably something else.

Yes, it's probably something else.

Maybe it's mods? I don't have that many on though and most of them are just pattern mods, house mods and five mods that fix little things here and there.

Do you think the mods could be the blame? I mean, there aren't any updates for them and I did install that new patch.

Just wanted to add that I started to have the same crash today.  I have Windows Vista 64 bit too.  I had gotten these crashes back with the leaked version, and no mods.  I now have the retail version and only use Awesomemod.  This is my first error 12 crash since retail came out.  I am patched as well.

My saved file was marked as bad and was ruined.  The only thing was weird to me before the crash was I tried to use familyfunds cheat and it would not work.  I had testingcheatsenabled but for some reason it didn't work.  Then I tried to save and...blah.

On another forums that I'm asking help at is reporting the same problem. What gets me though is that a lot of people aren't experiencing these problems. It's like a 50-50 chance.

My sister has the same exact computer build as I do and she hasn't experienced any problems whatsoever with TS3. Granted she doesn't play as much I used to but that shouldn't make a difference.

This morning I was playing and everything went great for a bit and I thought my problems were over! But when I went to save, the game crashed.

Edit: Spelling

I think you mean granted, not granite. *giggles*

Yes, I do. Sorry about that.  :-\

How often are you saving? This has happened to me (the error and inability to save, not the crashing), but only after I forgot to save my game for a really, really long time. In that case, it was a memory issue, not a bug.

I got error code 12 whilst trying to save after changing graphics settings.

Mine was stupidly long...2 or 3 hours.  I was building and playing and totally forgot to save.  I normally save more often.  I imagine it is my fault. I am working on remembering to save more often!

Since the crash I have played a lot and have saved every time I think about it, and no crashes.

It may have been a memory issue a couple of days ago but it's definitely not one now. I was saving every ten minutes at least. Then I cut it down to five just yesterday because I thought of the memory issue but it still didn't work. Error codes and crashing were occurring. The crashing seems random though. I'll be able to save about ten times and then, BOOM, I get a crash.

I noticed that it happens almost every time I leave CAS. My two babies grew into toddlers and needed a better wardrobe so I took one into CAS and spent about fifteen minutes there, (I used to spend forty-five minutes dressing a Sim and I also spent hours making families with no problems), and as soon as I left CAS I clicked on save and the game crashed while saving.

I cleared all the cache and tried again and it still crashed. I saw a performance difference, however, after clearing the cache. Especially in CAS. It lagged pretty bad before the crash I mentioned above. But it went back to it's normal, sickly state after ten minutes.

Every once in a while I can get out of CAS alive and am able to save but that's only if I changed three outfits and no more. But, again, that's only occasionally. It still crashes often even if I only changed one outfit or none at all.

That's only one of the many scenarios I can give you. There are more. My Sims are sleeping and I go to save and the game crashes. It's as if it's random.

That's probably a memory issue that was mentioned above. But see, I remember spending countless hours on the game for two weeks just creating Sims and houses, editing the town, etc, and I haven't experienced any problems at all.

I don't know why they're popping up all of a sudden.

Have you checked your hardware? Is your computer recognzing all of your ram?

Purely conjecture, but maybe worth checking into...?

Another throwing in 2c to confirm it's not an x64 Vista issue - I've actually found that TS3 runs on x64 like it was made with x64 Vista in mind as standard platform...no problems at any stage.

Yes, my computer is definitely recognizing all it's ram. Here's my specs just in case you would like to know them:

Phenom II - X3 720 @ 2.8 GHz
eVGA GTX 260-216 Core
G.Skill DDR3 - 1333MHz / 4GB
Windows Vista x64 Premium

At the moment I'm checking all the mods that I have installed for updates, just in case that's the problem. (I compile a list with all the mods I've ever installed on all my games.) So, hopefully the problems will be resolved and I'll be able to start playing like a normal person again.


Thanks for your input. Other people are telling me the same thing. It was just a theory on my part that maybe a compatibility issue was causing it these problems but like everyone is pointing out, it's obviously not the case.

I just got back from the game and I experienced a crash. I played for five minutes then sent my Sim to the wardrobe. After spending five minutes there, (and editing all his outfits), I exited, saved, but the game crashed midway the saving.


I tried this exact same 'solution' but it doesn't work for me. I'd say out of the two hundreds time I've received the error codes only twice has this solution worked for me. At the moment, however, I'm not getting error codes I'm getting crashes.

I've noticed that I've been getting these crashes after exiting CAS. I like giving my Sims different clothes but every time I exit the wardrobe and go to save the game crashes. I have no idea why.

Maybe it's because of all the patterns I've been downloading? I have a lot of these blank squares in my 'Misc.' section of patterns. Nothing happens when I click on them, they're just there.

Does anyone think it could be a problem with the game not being able to read all those patterns?? I don't think so personally but I'll welcome any suggestions! I have a lot of them. About sixty patterns at least. Now, a lot of them are from packs and not just individual mods.

And I only download stuff from ModtheSims and the Sims 3 Official Site.

Tomorrow I'm going to removed the entire mod/package folder and then I'll see what happens.

This is reminding me of when I was playing with the Spore Creature creator. I could play for hours, creating the little monsters but as soon as I went to save the game would hang forever. I think it was something as simple as updating my graphics card, but I'll see if I can find out what the advice was, exactly.

[edit] I think that is all it was. Can't find the exact info, but I just looked at the Spore site and apparently the crashing issues in the CC was fixed with a patch.

Yes, I know. I never save & exit. I always click only save and I manually click exit. I could click save & exit in the past, (just last week), and nothing ever went wrong. Now, all of a sudden, I can't even click just save without it crashing on me.

Thanks everyone for trying to help me!! I appreciate it. I still don't know what's going on and if anyone thinks they have a solution then please tell me. I'm going to try some other things and if the problems are solved then I'll post an update on what I've done.

Thanks again.  :)

Edit: Added another sentence.

hmmm...if it is a memory problem then I probably won't have it. I've got 12 GB of ram and I am using the new Intel 8 proc chip. I've got 2 video cards running 4 monitors...sorry just bragging.

Ha ha! I'd brag too with a beast like that.  :D

Alright, I have an update of sorts for anyone interested:

It crossed my mind that mods were causing these problems.

I actually removed all of the mods except the patterns and the game has not crashed once. I played for forty-five minutes or so and did many of the things that normally caused me crashes. I did, however, experience the error codes but I kept on trying to save and finally it worked!!

When I came back later and played again I did not experience any crashes but, again, I experienced the error codes. This time, instead of wasting time trying to save, I went into "Edit Town" and added an entire house, tried to save and it worked, then I just deleted the house.

So, hopefully, the crashes have stopped completely, (I won't get my hopes up just yet because I did do this before), and hopefully I have a short-term 'solution' for the error codes until EA releases a patch that actually fixes something worth while.

Thank you everyone for trying to help me and giving me your advice!! It's appreciated.

I started having "unexpected error while saving" a couple of days ago and that also creates a .bad file in my saves folder, where the backup file should be - my game won't crash, but it won't save either and that looks as bad as crashing to me, as I'm force to quit... my operating system is Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
What I'm doing to avoid losing a lot of info is saving a lot often… but it's annoying the same way… when "unexpected error while saving" occurs I just quit, delete the bad file from the saves folder and play again.  The error says "look at the readme file for more information" or something like this… I searched for it in both program files and my documents Electronic Arts folders but can't find anything related or with the time and date of the error/s.

Hi. Can't be that, because I save often and also have that problem (without the crash, just the inability to save). I save every 15 minutes or every 30 minutes. But I did notice the error occurs when I've been playing for more than 3 or 4 hours… never in the first hours. At least, until now.

You can find the readme at Program Files>Electronic Arts>The Sims 3>Support>Readme. The readme gives absolutely no information on how to fix the saving problems though. It just says to contact them if you get the error.

At the moment I'm doing some more testing on why I had crashes. I removed some mods and now I'm slowly adding them back and I believe I found the culprit. I won't mention the name of the mod just in case I'm wrong. I wanna try it out some more.

I've had the error code 12 problem for quite awhile now.  Rather than crashes, my problem is that saving results either in code 12, or if it is successful, the save takes an excruciating amount of time, 10-15 minutes now, actually.  As for that one problem, I think it has something to do with save file sizes and the amount of sim weeks in the game.  Of course, the older the town, the larger the file.  Check your save files and see what size they are, I've noticed that around 55-60MBs, they become unstable.  I recall a similar problem with the base TS2, having something to do with memories and bloated save files.  The Prez fixed that problem before any patch did.  Apparently, this time, there is no time or there is disbelief or whatever, because I haven't been able to obtain assistance with the issue.  I seriously doubt that programmers nor creators have very large saves, simply because they're busy modding or creating and only have time to test their stuff in their test town... 

If you start a new town, you'll see that the save file is much smaller and you'll see that the error code 12 will not be an issue.  I can't attest for the code 13 because I haven't experienced it to date.

As for your crashes, delete *cache.package files in your documents\the sims 3 folder, move the mods folder, move your save files to a backup location, start the game, exit the game.  Put your mods folder back, move the save files you want to use back and all should be well.  I would avoid the older towns and maybe try a new one, just to see if the crash issue is resolved.

FYI, try this (http://www.simlogical.com/Sims3ToolsForum/index.php?topic=204.0) save file viewer, check what's going on within your files. (Ooo, and I just noticed that there is a new version with basic editing!)  For a look at what the viewer is, check this (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15605.0.html) thread.  Of course, I think the problems there, if they are a problem, is the cause of lag more than anything.

I've been having the same problem as Nimrod for awhile as well. I have my first Sunset Valley that I cannot play anymore; the saves there are ridiculously long, around 10 minutes or more. I had Aging and Story Progression turned off, don't know if that has something to do with the bug but I prefer to mention it anyway, we never know... Then I've started a new Sunset Valley with story progression and aging turned on; so far, it's going well. I've even played the second sunset valley longer than the first and still no long saves and no error code 12. I do hope it will stay that way! *fingers crossed*
As for the mods, I only have Awesomemod and Czezechael's one for same energy gain for all beds.

I'm getting the same problem as the op. The error codes and the crashing. I also have the almost exact same setup as him except my gtx 260 is the older 196 version and I have vista 64-bit. The game seems to get worse as the neighborhood gets older, because I don't have the problems for the first few hours of a new save.

Yesterday I had no saving errors. I have aging on and story progression off, so my sims are dying and new sims are only born if I say so. I'm trying to keep it balanced although I don't like the premade sims and tend to kill groups of them once in a while (when I'm bored). So I have less population than I had before.

That file size thing does not make sense to me… unless you have story progression off and aging off, the town is always the same size or smaller… yes, sims are born, but sims also die. Yes, new houses are built, but there's a limited number of lots to build…

Unless genealogical trees are as heavy as memories were in TS2… is it possible?

Also I've been thinking if saving all sorts of patterns and customized objects doesn't slow the game or creates other issues… I'm not doing it, I don't find it necessary, but can't help thinking about it because of the amazing quantity of stuff with no interest for download in the official site. Someone makes blue a pattern that originally was yellow and that's it - saves and shares it right away.

I have an update it seems that it's only Sunset Valley that is giving me the problems. I'm not sure why but my Riverview save isn't getting any errors at least not yet.

It's a smaller neighborhood than Sunset Valley is. I've read in other threads, and at other forums, that the size of your neighborhood affects the ability to save properly. It appears that size really does matter.

My fingers crossed didn't do anything... I had the error 12 last night in Riverview, I had to quit without saving. If it has something to do with the size, then that is one big bug. I wonder if I'll ever play my next generations... Looks like we're facing a sort of BFBVFS in TS3. hurray...

I was also getting the error 13 while trying to save, which I find odd.  It didn't seem to matter how often I saved because its occured within 10 minutes of a prior save.  This is frustrating because in my case, no matter what I do I can't get the game to recognize these corrupt files and as luck would have it, when resorting to a backup the game doesn't always progress in the same matter.   >:(

I don't profess to be a computer anything except user.  But what I did and it seems to have eliminated the problem, is now I pause the game before saving as opposed to saving while the game is progressing.  I haven't encountered the error since making this change.

I've been getting error code 12 for about 3 weeks. It started in Sunset Valley and was happening about every 5 saves, so I abandoned that neighborhood and started a new Sunset Valley which is about a week old and now every other attempt to save I'm getting error code 12. I've searched all over looking for an answer to this problem and can't find one. I wonder if anyone here has any idea's on why this is happening or if there is a fix or work around for this. I tried what someone suggested in a post saying go to an empty lot, do some activity in build/buy then try to save after, but unfortunately that didn't work for me.

I've been trying to help out people other forums with this issue, and it would be interesting to gather some more information and try a few basic things.
First thing would be to backup and then check your hard drive for errors, and fix any errors that are found.
One person with this error was running a RAID configuration (not sure which configuration though) so it would be interesting to see if this is significant. Also the OS may be relevant- I'm wondering if the game is failing to write because of permissions? Is anyone having this problem under XP?
Does it make a difference if the game is paused to save as reported by Heilena, and does it make a difference if the save game is saved as a new file as opposed to being overwritten?
Also, it would be good to check whether other programs are affecting the game saving- antivirus or firewall programs for example. Perhaps there could be a program that is seeing the savefile writing as malicious, and is blocking it? I would test with all nonessential tasks shut down if possible, and also test with a 'clean' game- does this occur with no mods/ custom content? The people I've encountered with this issue are all running with the framework and mods.
Another thing that occurred to me would be if there are any significant errors reported in the event viewer.

Did you change any graphical settings beforehand?

I just started to get this code 12 error. I have no hacks/mods intstalled in my game,  only the update, and I tried to save my game even less then every 5 minutes, and I still got the error, so it realy is not a memory issue. My computer specs are all higher than required, so I guess not a problem too. I wrote to customer support, so if I get any info, I`ll let you all know.

I started having these problems intermittedly a few days ago, and then they started ramping up.  I also noticed that I'd get weird texturing on some sims - Vita Alto's face was the same color as her hair.  I'm playing in Sunset Valley, but I have imported all the single male households along with their houses from Riverview into it (I know, tease all you want - I want choices for my main sim).  Anyway, I've also got some of the purchasable clothing and a furniture set.

This morning I tried dragging all the .package files from both the Downloads and Library folders onto Mr. Pescado's s3rc.exe file, and I haven't had that error since.  Perhaps it his just the placebo effect, I'll keep let you know if that error comes up again.  I'm not running Vista 64, I am running Vista Home Premium 32.

I have wondows home premium 64 bit and I am having crashing problems to desktop too.
I updated my drivers and tried a bunch of other stuff like turning off virus protection, doing disk defrag, etc..

I still didn`t get response from customer support.

I am starting to hate this game. I updated my drivers, used CCleaner, defragment, I always delete .cache files, I have Window XP, so I realy have no idea what to do now. I even reinstalled the game and ran it without the update, and I still get the Error Code 12.

I got a couple of error 12's today. My save file 1s 62.5 mb.

I`ve got answer from customer support. It realy does not make any sense to me. Won`t I loose ALL my progress including all changes I made in neighborhood if I do this?????

"Hi Lili,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts ,

I do apologize for the inconvenience it may have caused. I understand that you are having trouble saving your game proress due to this error message. I may suggest you to try the following troubleshooting process to correct this issue.

- Quit the game, if running and completely exit from the Sims 3 Launcher.
- Open 'My Documents'. If you're using Windows Vista please refer to 'Documents' folder instead.
- Double-click 'Electronic Arts' folder.
- Double-click 'The Sims 3' folder.
- Right-click on the 'Saves' folder and choose 'Delete' from the pop-up menu.
- Click 'Yes' when asked to confirm delete..
- Now start the game and try to save your progress. You should now be able to save in the game.

I hope above instructions helps! Please let me know if you are still experiencing difficulty while saving your game progress.
Delete my saves folder????  

That is an incredibly useless answer, since doing so would destroy all of your saved games, leaving you with no progress to actually save.

Yeah don't listen to EA support they are a big company who could care less about their players outsourced to hell probably. It's very upsetting this wasn't addressed in the patch because this time it's more than a problem for just the people who put 20 + tables with moveobjects floating over each other on their lots with 6th generation sims and ghosts, Not even taking into account min requirements for the game (or even worse playing on a shitty laptop) and with custom patterns then why their game is taking 20 minutes to save/errored out. /rant

Yes this crashing on save is annoying. I blame the cc in my case though because it wasn't happening before that. (removed 1 shit clothing pattern not as advertised crash seems to be subdue for now) and EA's shit job of removing player access to create content for this game making cc more likely to be incompatible with the game for a long time. This game unlike TS2 is more barred from modding with a vengeance - I am sure there is some Associate of EA monitoring this site, taking notes, so they can disable the mods here and try to make us PAY for mod tools come 1st EP.

If someone with an afflicted save wishes to come to grah and DCC me the file, or FTP it to one of my anonftps, I can take a look. Otherwise I am filing it as "could not reproduce".

Yeah, I totaly agree with you. I thought this solution is crap. I`ll write them back and see what answer I get. They needed almost a week to answer me on my first question    :-\


Moderator edit: stupid orange color and bolding removed

Stop writing in colors or I will have to hurt you.

Yeah I can.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bwrx5k
It gets error 12 about 1 time in 4.

Just for information, tizerist, I dropped your save into my game and managed to play it in several different families and save nine times with no error. I've been playing vanilla (except for some store stuff) and have yet to encounter the error 12 in my game at all.

Yesterday I got this problem as well. I lost a lot of progression.
I'll post my solution to the ERROR 12.
First, go to your Saves Folder & delete the one that has ".BAD" for example, my save file is "Phantomhive.sims3" so you have to delete this one "Phantomhive.bad.sims3"
Then I used CCleaner to fix my registry & it found problems with some TS3 files, they got fixed.

I don't know if this helped but I upgraded my video card driver too.

Anyway after that I have no longer the ERROR 12 at least for now.

Same here. I can't reproduce it today, which is a good thing I guess  :P

I had a file that threw Error 12s and 13s at me at perhaps 15 consecutive saving attempts. I finally gave up and started over from the backup file, which had been saved a few hours before. I was able to play just fine for a while longer (keeping track of the save file sizes, I had since passed the size at which I got the error before), but the next day started to get the exact same error again, when the save file size was perhaps twice what it had been when it had the problem originally. I've tried the Edit Town trick, as well as deleting the .BAD save files, neither of which has worked for me even once.

I suppose what I'm trying to say in a nutshell is that just because the problem seems to have vanished doesn't mean that it won't pop up again, at least from my experience.

I do this every time, but have no luck. The error keeps shoving every time I save.

With regards to the error code 12, I found this solution posted towards the bottom by qtvinsta about two weeks ago and wanted to try it before I posted.  I haven't had any problems with that code since.

A few pages back I posted that pausing the game before saving pretty much eliminated the error 13.  What I neglected to state is that I only got that error if my game wasn't at a complete stop, and the saves pause didn't seem to accomplish this.  But I haven't seen error 13 at all after this.

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t34706.html

edit to state that to my knowledge, this works for Vista users.

I pause before I save every time and am still getting error 13's, even though the .bad was deleted.
Just then I was saving (not quitting and saving, just saving) when the game simply crashed. No warning, no error messages. I never had this problem before I reinstalled TS3, I'm thinking perhaps it's an issue with the registry.

I dont understand the instruction of your link....  How/Where do you set the "bcdedit /set CONFIGACCESSPOLICY DISALLOWMMCONFIG" command?

Thanx

Sorry psycheee, just saw your question.

Click the windows button at the left bottom corner of your screen.  Where it says "start search" copy and paste the command there and enter. 

So there have been no fixes to this yet? Come on dammit. It's been so long, and gameplay is still hampered by these stupid crashes.

thank you I havent got the 12 error anymore but my game shut down... but it have save nevertheless...

Doesn't work  >:( I still get the 12 code error.

Like everyone else in this thread, I have been plagued by error 12. Not 13--haven't been blessed with that one yet.

One thing I can throw in, just in case this is AM-related:

On all games (AM installed but not ISM) that were error-12ed, some of my sims, after using the lifetimehappiness cheats, displayed ridiculously high numbers, like over 1 million lifetimehappiness points. Moreover, the points will increase while you watch by the thousands of points, in some kind of uncontrolled runaway effect. I finally concluded that once this happened in a game, I might as well start over from a prior save, because that neighborhood is hopelessly corrupted, and no kludge will save it.

I don't use the lifetimehappiness cheat anymore, and since then have not seen either the high numbers bug or the error 12. Not yet anyway. I'll update if this changes, and I hope this helps find a solution, or at least a workaround.

I have taken to keeping "pristine" start copies of my altered neighborhoods so I can start over again if need be, and I back up religiously, after every play session. If you're playing with regular EAxis stuff you need to do this, I think--more so if you're testing mods. And wonderful as AM is already, it is still only in beta, and we are the testers. So prudence always pays when you're walking the bleeding edge.

Got my first error 13 today  :(
I knew it was coming: error 12 has popped up about three times last night in Sunset Valley (which is about 70 mb) but the 13 happened on a relatively empty Riverview (population: 3, 26 mb) which hadn't been touched for days.

There seems to be no pattern...

I've had the #13 error message a few times, but I've never actually seen a #12 message. What usually happens when I try to save is the same thing described by several people here; crash during saving and a corrupted file that can not be opened anymore. Instead of a picture of the family and their house there is a blue question mark in the thumbnail. I did find a couple of .bad files in my saves-folder, but these are files I can actually open and play. One of the .bad files is a continuation of the other one with a new family added. Both of these families mostly functioned as townies, so I went back to the latest save of my main family that didn't have these two households added, and I managed to get one uncorrupted saved file after playing that one for a while. Not to jinx it, because I had finally gotten the special seeds planted, I tried saving my progress under another name, and it crashed again. Fun.

Firstly, lol.

Secondly, I have started having error #13 recently, when playing for a large period of time without saving. Hitting Main Menu and selecting Save at that point has allowed me to save a couple of times. If this is related to neighbourhood or save sizes, could ASM be creating vast swathes of information the game could be including into said save?

There sure are a lot of people that experience these error codes and some crashing.

Well, I have an update. Back when I first posted this thread I was having some serious problems and then it got worse. So, I re-installed the game but used the same gamesave file. Well, the error codes were completely gone but I was getting a crash every third time I would try to save. It didn't matter how short or long ago my last save was it just always crashed on the third time I tried to save.

So, I made a new gamesave and still nothing worked.

Well, I finally got a hunch as to what might of have been causing my problems. I downloaded a mod, (file), that empties Riverview and Sunset Valley. I got the one that keeps all the parks and work places but the houses are gone---it's for builders.

Well, I totally removed that and made a brand-new save, but still used the same family, and I'm happy to save I haven't experienced any crashes or error codes at all. I have a family of eight that are constantly performing tasks in the home, I play for hours and hours, and I've got a ton of mods.

Also, my previous files are actually just about the same size as my gamesave right now. So, I'm waiting for some problems to arise because of that. Hopefully there are none though.

I've heard of bloating being mentioned on other forums and I was sure that was happening to me but for some reason it hasn't hit me on this new file yet. And I've been playing it for two weeks now.

I'll post an update if I start receiving the error codes and crashing again.

Well, spoke too soon. My game was working fine for two weeks now and then I posted that update earlier but my game just started acting up again.

I spent a couple of hours playing tonight, (and, yes, I saved often), when the error codes starting popping up again. Then I got a crash. Ugh...

I've noticed that my games crash when they enter the 30mb range. It never got past that.

Nin_the_Destroyer I saw your post before last about after cleaning out all the housing you were able to save for an extended amount of time.

I also get errors 12 & 13 back and forth, but no crashing. It used to be every once in a while then more more and often, as everyone else reports. I did notice that after downloading more houses and placing them in my neighborhood, not only did my game render less fast, and slightly slow down whilst scrolling ,and zooming, the errors popped up more often. And it wasn't a problem for me at first because I could go and delete the .bad file. However now, that doesn't even work.  :-\
My file is at 46mb and it takes about 5 times of saving and deleting .bad, after .bad file, that I either accomplish saving by clicking "Edit Town", and using the option of "Do you wish to save or continue?" and I click "Save" which sometimes it will take it. My game currently is minimized because the error 12 popped up and I thought I really needed to go back and read this whole thread.
My computer is high above the necessary specs, but as reported before that doesn't seem to matter. I will be taking out numerous houses in my town and then trying and tricking it into saving once more for the sake of my family. I believe we're on to something about the file sizes, and I'm curious to know if there's a way to decrease save game file sizes? Could you use a compressor on them? But if so wouldn't the file just revert back to it's parent size after resaving? Or would simply taking out houses and some families cause the file to take up less room?
I'm also wondering what makes a file so large? Someone mentioned before, does the family tree have anything to do with it? My family that I'm currently playing and having continuous error messages, is starting on they're fourth generation. In fact after she was born; my error messages presented themselves a lot more often, to where now I all but can't save.

The biggest question for me is; Will EA even bother to fix this in their next patch? To the looks of it, the fix will have to come from them?
By the way, might I mention how depressing this matter is to me. As of now it means no legacy families, or continuing generations, which for me that's one of the greatest joys.  :'(

Edit: Sadly enough, I jinxed my game. Earlier I said I had not had crashes. But just now, in an attempt at tricking it into saving I clicked "Main Menu" and it asked me do you want to save, I clicked save. Maybe 90 seconds later into saving it crashed.

My game never crashed but yesterday I got back an old problem that I cannot even remember how it was solved the first time - Windows cannot close TS3. It seems that something hangs eternally and I have to switch the computer manually. Yesterday I tried something new and I forced the screen back to desktop by clicking the windows buttom. It worked and I got back the possibility to use Task Manager to try to close TS3. Got only "Program is not responding". Tried again and again and finally got Windows to close TS3. This happens now everytime I play - everything is normal and never crashes but cannot be closed. I don't know what kind of error is that but it is not related to saving. I don't lose anything in the game and next time it starts without any problem.
I thought that it could be caused by the last mods I added but no. I took one by one out and it doesn't change a thing.
Yesterday also I included some skins in the game, also a penis mesh. But they were not there when the first case happened.
It is really a bore when you have to put in and out things that you really want to have and the cause is something related with the game self. The worst is that everybody has different issues because we use different systems. I use XP Professional 32 bits.

If you have a neighborhood that does this, I can take a look at it, but the last times I've checked, I've never found anything.

I had the error 12 and 13 problem--including .bad saves, crashing, and neighborhood loss--about a month ago and noticed that it only happened after a long gameplay session--I'm talking about 7+ hours.  Neither the frequency of my saves, or the length of time between them seemed to have any effect on my tendency to get error codes.  So on days when I intended to play an indulgent amount I started exiting the game after 6 hours or so and then restarting it.  Since coming up with this strategy I haven't had a 12 or 13 error code since.  Perhaps this could be helpful for the rest of you.

EDIT: I play a vanilla game, no CC except for store items I used my points for.  I have 4 gigs of RAM.  My neighborhoods were in the 55mb range (approx.) when the errors started.

if it can help finding the  "guilty", I only get the 12 error code with windows vista 64 bits. Erasing the bad file, then changing anything in my game do nothing. Dont seem to have any pattern. So i have to wait not too long to save and restart...

I really would like to be able to investigate what is wrong with my borked hood. It is the second time I lose a hood that I worked much on it. I'm not any internet expert and don't really know how to send about 40MB of data to another person. Here we have very easy way to do it, we have mobile units that can host 500GB data and be phisically transported.  Don't have a clue how to use the FTP address gave me by Pescado. It is OK anyway. One day I will learn to make it self cause I'm sure all hoods will be lost anyway at every EP.
Repetition must be EA's best.

I think that is very helpful, at least to me. Because the particular time that I was being constantly smacked with error after error, was when I had played my game for about five hours, then left it on screensaver and gone elsewhere for a while. Once I came back I wanted to move my elders into their retirement home, cause my house was full, so I did and added another house for some other members. Then I tried to save, which didn't work, and I came here, then went back to my game where I pressed save and boom it just crashed.
Also when times I am trying out mods and removing and adding custom content, I turn my game on and off, sometimes entering a house and saving. I don't remember getting error messages then.

I will most definitely be trying this method, of playing for about 5 hours at most and then restarting the game. I'll report back here with what happens. I'm hoping this will work!

This started happenig to me about two nights ago.  I had turned on my game and had to do something unexpected,and forgot to turn it off.  I returned about five hours later and played for about ten minutes before I saved and it threw an error 12(I haven't had a 13 or a crash).  I was very careful to save frequently and not use-save and quit.  I did it again last night so I'm pretty sure it has more to do with how long the computer was on verses how much was being saved.  My game is about 77MB.  I run Sims 2 with 9 gigs of CCs and the Megahood without crashing or major slowdown.  My computer isn't new, but it was made to run the Sims well.

So I'm thinking we might have the answer?... You will most probably get errors 12 & 13 if your game runs on for an extended period of time. Not sure what might cause this though.
I remembered something from sims 2 also. When I'd play sims 2 for a very long time or leave it on for a very long time, I had no trouble with saving, but my game would become slower and jerk the screen when I tried to scroll, until I'd get annoyed and quit. But when I restarted it, it was always back and performing fast.
I think this is just the way of a machine. It's why people are urged to turn off their computers when not in use, for fear of viruses, and it's good for it to cool down and rest. (unless you have a mac, which can't get viruses)

...for fear of viruses?! Dude, just disconnect from the internet if you're worried things might download themselves.

Current uptime: 19d 11:45. I had to reboot a while back for some updates to take.

Oh yes, yes, disconnect blah, blah.
I not ascared of the big bad virus though.

I was talking about the poor folks in my real world family who barely know how to connect to the internet. Heck, they barely know how to turn on their computers. And in that case it's best not to use big words and just tell them to turn the dang computer off.

Boo hoo? They presumably know how to connect if they can get online, tell them to do the opposite. It's not that hard. You can use a metaphore of hanging up a phone if you like. It's not like I'm asking them to install Awesomemod or reformat their computer or something at least moderately difficult.

Hey, I was just giving a reason why some people turn of their computers. I turn mine off cause it would get overheated.

No, you were spouting on about how computers aren't meant to stay on all the time as though that had anything to do with sims 3. If it is related to how long the game's been running, it's probably not collecting its garbage, letting things pile up until it crashes the game. Bad coding, not some intrinsic property of computers.

I don't care what you and your family do with your computer, but it's patently untrue that computers need to be shut down every night. If you want to spread misinformation, do it on the BBS XD

I think that is exactly it.  I could leave my computer on all day and nothing will happen.  It's when the game is left on whether you are playing or not.  I do think some kind of garbage is building up.  I use the launcher and the internet is connected, do you thinkk that it is EA calling home that is causeing the problem??  Anyone getting this and aren't connected?

I don't think that we have the answer just yet. Because there were times, of testing that I did, when I'd do nothing but sit there for five minutes letting the Sims do there own thing, then I'd save and I got a crash. I did this process many times with my old gamesave which was 35mb and it would still crash or just get a bunch of error codes left and right.

So, yeah, it's not a matter of playing too long and not saving, at least for me it's not.


I agree. I don't think it's "taking the garbage out" either and thus causing the game to get error codes and crash.

You know what, that's what I do. I love to just spew misinformation all over the place. The walls, the park, the space shuttle... everywhere.

My misinformed self agrees with this. :D



Edited for too much niceness.

You know, my parents for years and to this day still insist that electronics "need a rest". I have tried many times to explain to them this is not they case but they simply will not hear of it!   :D

I got error 13 code today when I was saving.  What I was doing before the error was decorating a house while looking at HGTV Dream House web site's 360 view of a room.  My game did not crash after the error so I checked on the files and saw that a back up had been made just a few minutes earlier and the current game file was marked as bad.

So just out of curiosity I closed my browser and waited a second to let it all unload then I did save as "different name" and it worked.  I played a minute more and saved and it continued to work.  The new save is 42 MB in size, and the back up (which is just 10 mins earlier) is 48 MB in size.  I barely did anything in between the back up and the new save and it is smaller?

I had been playing for about 4 hours and I have Awesome mod, Pescado's FPS limit file, the new hairs, patterns and various other crap.  I am always paused when I save and I did a save not a save/exit.  I recently reinstalled the game, all patches installed and I have a decent computer (everything can run comfortably on high).  As far as I know my drivers are all up to date.  My house is hot, I live in the damn desert, but I never noticed it over heat.

I hope the file is still okay..I worked a long time on this dang house to make it look like the Dream House :(

I've been having Error codes 12 and 13 almost every single night for the past month.

In my experiences, one thing I did notice is that Error Code 12 involves mostly sims and Error Code 13 are lots.

My main suspects in my case for Error Code 12:
1. Sims that I'm currently playing gets bugged somehow that their stats could not be saved. I tried moving the suspected sim out of the house and into a new lot and the game saved normally after he got settled into the new lot.
2. Sims in my graveyard are very bugged. Anytime I managed the graveyard after 3 sim days playing it's 85% sure that error 12 will pop out. Tried stuffing them all back into the mauseleum I still get error 12 after 5 or more sim days. What led me to suspect the graveyard where when I try to go to edit town and move the lot and replace them back the game crashes to desktop. (my graveyard has more than 150 sims and still adding)
Edit: Confirmed last night that the bulk of my error 12 experience are ghosts in the cemetary. When I typed "fixall" with the Awesomemod I keep getting the message "# of Phantom Butts Kicked" (# being the number of ghosts). UNless I'm mistaken I'm assuming the phantom are ghosts since, bugged sims has their names written.
3. Lots with bugged sims. When moving the graveyard does not crash the game. Moving some other lots will, sometimes it's the theater sometimes it's the park.

For my experience with Error Code 13:
1. Everytime I get this error I just go to edit town mode and move and replace the lot the error code gets resolved. However, in most cases, after reseting the lot I get error code 12 afterwards.
2. In most cases, the bugged lot in my experience is the one I play the most.

There are some more causes for these error code. I'm thinking that it could also be a custom content that failed to be save. mostly mods. I did get bugged sims when I removed a not-anymore used mod. These sims really bugged my game even after death until I deleted them off.

I also tried running the indie stone mod compatibility checker and found that many hair mods are incompatible, the list was so long, that I'm still deciding what to keep, the mods or the error codes.

The most tiresome part is trying to find the buggy sim or lot. Reloading the game is much faster. I wish there was some command that resets all the sims and lots into their neutral state just like the "resetsim" command.

It just came to mind that premade tombstones in the graveyard are tagged in use (day or night, ghost or no ghost present in the lot) whenever you try to edit the lot. I don't know if there is a relation if you move them around the lot would cause the errors.

Edit #2 : While searching for a possible cause I came across one of my uploaded sims in the sims 3 website and the file size is 26.3 Mb just for one sim! (For reference : http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=903285)

One possible cause could be that custom content and mods also gets attached when sharing lots or sims. So it's possible that one could be downloading conflicting mods unknowingly through these shared content. Virus and spyware may also be attached to unwitting victims.

Will probably clean up my downloads and mods and see what happens from there.

Edit #3 : For the first time, I tried using the Awesome Story Driver last night, to my surprise I did not encounter a single error 12 or 13 until I started messing around with the EAxian Debugging Codes and got my first error 12. Though I get more "Phantom Butts Kicked" every time I use the fixall code every hour, got from 9 to 28. Just updating and maybe the information might help.

Here's an update from me as well though it's not an answer to our solution: My gamesave didn't go very high in size because I can't save much anymore. I've just about reached the limit of when I can save. Someone said something about "gamesave bloating". I know next to nothing about this stupid issues but could gamesave bloating be the problem?

And if so if there something that could fix it?

I canceled my pre-order of TS3: World Adventures because I'm not interested in playing a game when the progress can't even be saved...

Exists, but I choose not to publicize it because it would be counterproductive to debugging, as people will start abusing it as a panacea.

I'm getting crashes almost hourly now.
If its not a save-crash, its  a CTD. If I get past that, its an error 12.
The all round stability has become awful.

I see, glad it exists. maybe one day it would be helpful for last resorts.

-----

Just for update, I have been studying the cause for the error 12 and 13 through gameplay and so far in my case it's caused by bugged sims.

These are some of the things I found:

1. Some playable ghost sims does not have a tomb on their inventory and they have been living for generations as an elder. One was around 510 days old with the "Long" lifespan setting. Triggering him to age up with cake or the debug code does not result to anything. So before I get a message from the Indie Stone driver that the so-so sim is getting old, that sim has around 3 days left before going to the afterlife. Which is probably why I get error 12 every 3 days.

2. Grim Reapers extracted from the NPC pool as playable causes the flagrant error messages and error 12 gets unpredictable. Unpredictable in the sense that some interactions will and sometimes will not cause the error 12. Maybe it's from the v1.2 update, I'm not really sure.

3. My overpopulated graveyard is also a risk for error 12 whenever I "manage the dead" or just move an existing tomb. I'm if it is relevant, but the graveyard has more residents than my town (Excluding the NPCs and I have 0 townies). I'm quite sure that there are also bugged dead sims on that lot.

4. Sims aging up, giving birth or dying may seem to contribute. Everytime I try save before these occurances the error pops up. Either that has any relation or I'm just unlucky.

My current analysis is that there's an interaction that these bugged sims make before the error 12 pops out. Whenever I restart the game (even after an error 12 occurance 1 real-time minute after saving) the game seems to work well and saves okay for a while longer than the last error. It seems to me that something gets reset when you quit the game and restart it

I also think that maybe the EAxis Story Driver may have some interactions that forces the bugged interaction more than the AwesomeStory Driver.

This is so far my experiences. I hope this information could be of help.

Edit: Just last night I got an interesting find. I got an error 13 then after reseting the lot it turned into an error 12. I found that some of the fish in my fishbowls lost their ownership. The fishes now registers Perfect  [Fishtype] "Store bought" instead of "Caught by [Sim Name]". Wasn't able to get some photos of it before the game crashed to desktop.

Well, I've gone a week without an Error 12. I've left my game on all day and proceeded to play two hours till saving.  You won't believe what ended up helping (after doing all the suggestions).  I never thought of checking my graphic options.  The game installed it on high and I changed it to medium.  I guess it will get to a point when I will have to change it to low.  Hopefully by then I will want to start a new neighborhood.

I've also gone about a week and a half without an error 12 or 13. I haven't played for more than 3 or so hours. I also went in and took out a bunch of houses, which only helped my save game file size slightly.
My graphics are on all on high, except for no reflections, tree quality is turned down and also the amount of lots around the current lot that are rendered is at 3. I turned them down a while ago, because my game started to drag a little.

It's good to hear that reducing graphic quality helped in your case. I tried this also until everything was low, did help by adding 3 sim days before the errors started poping up.

Already cleared out my cemetery, removed all the custom hairs and stuff. Little improvement at the start but still no lasting results.

Well after getting  about one error (any type of error - 12's, CTD etc) roughly every hour, I've decided to move my self-sim to a relatively CC-free Riverview whille my Sunset Valley is on hold until I know how much I can eradicate - or lessen - the problem.

In this Riverview, all that remains are my hacks, skins for sims, and store sets. Anything potentially crashy has been removed to desktop for now.
I appeared to have a couple of crash-free hours finally, but its worth noting that my RV is much smaller than my SV (about 40% size wise) so I can't make a direct comparison.

I am hoping that it will be down to hair or clothes more than a certain decorative mesh, as they are much easier to slot back in without all my decorating having gone to hell.
Anyway, it will take a couple of days before I will be able to see any sort of pattern, so I will have to report back then.

Just retested and must admit that error 12 and 13 has some relations also graphics and the number of objects in the game world. I removed around 12 houses and replaced them with building shells (no or very minimal interior decorations) the game seems to perform as if it was a newly created town. I have not encountered a single error 12 or 13 for 9 hours straight.

Also I noticed that my save file has decreased from 139Mb to 126Mb. Saving time is around 10 sec less than before and quitting the game is 1 minute faster.

The houses I demolished are heavily decorated which could probably be one of the reasons for slowdowns within the game. My guess is that there is a EAxis limit inside the game (either by saving time, number of renders, number of objects ... etc.) that triggers the error 12 and 13 codes. I could be wrong, but this is the only logical cause I can think of now.

Just a thought. If there is someone who can analyze the bad save files to see where mostly the break happens during the save process it may likely lead to the real source of the error codes. So far the bad files ranges from 40% to 80% of the good save file in my case.

I also suspected this, and still partly do.
My very first error 12 came from changing graphics settings and then trying to save. The game tells you not to do that, so I wasn't surprised by that one. The first month or so was error 12 free, then its just been a gradual drip, then a stream of errors.
There was one occasion, however, when an semi-empty town also threw an error 12.
But on this occasion I merely loaded the empty town from Main Menu after a 12, and did not boot up again from fresh.
Can anyone else confirm this? That going from a troublesome error 12 town, to the main menu, then loading a good town still causes the error in the good town?

And on a side-note, what a friggin liberty  >:(
EA know enough about these problems to actually give them numbers, so why can't they at least tell us not what to do?
Come on EA, out with it: what's the difference between a 12 and a 13 then? Hmmm?
And where are these details in the readme too?
They have DETAILS and they're just sitting on them.....WTF??

Anyhow, I may even try moving all my lots from my SV into a new, ultra clean SV. Perhaps those 3 and a half months of straight  play has just built up too much memory cloggage. It happened in TS2 with the memories, and we all know what deleting sims from the simbin used to do in TS2. Something so casual that probably three quarters of us did it without giving it a second thought. Darn.
Is there an easier way to get around 90 lots into a fresh town without sending them all to lot bin one by one? :P

My game also performed slightley faster, and my save time decreased a whole lot. Probably about 10 seconds as is yours. Yesterday I played my game without quiting for about 6 or 7 hours and never got a 12 or 13.
My game file size also went from 47mb to 41mb.

Just though I'd add in some more specifics and reports.

Just an update, tried once again today with all the graphics settings maximum possible for my video card. So far no error 12 or 13, only a crash to desktop after a "resetsim" command on a bugged sim who the supreme commander tagged with a red icon in map mode. who I don't have an idea who that sim was. resetsim made the theatre unable to use the "perform concert" interaction then on the next day the stadium also prevented the "perform concert" saying that there is a player sim performing. I removed the bugged rabbithole and replaced a new one, the game crashed to desktop less than 5 minutes later.

Increasing the graphics setting from low to my current setting (all high, only edge smoothing is off, my graphic card's max setting) the save game is 1Mb more than the low setting, so it's now 127Mb.

Overall, the major changes I made that made a significant impact to my error problems was removing the overly designed and wonderfully crafted houses downloaded from various sites. Maybe the houses were bugged or maybe EAxis just wanted players to use more of the houses they packaged in the game.

Will try with a higher graphics setting one of these days just to verify.

I believe your on the right track. I just experienced my first Error code 13 after downloading and plopping in two  homes (a 40x30 and a 60x60) , the process took all but 15 minutes and when i tried to save before returning to my game i got the error. So for 13, the time played theory can be tossed out which leaves me to believe it definitely has something to do with some undetermined Eaxshit limit involving number of renders/objects in a hood.

I restored my old save prior to placing the lots and installed both of them one at a time, saving after i placed each. The smaller lot didnt cause a problem but when i put in the larger lot (the 60x60)  i got the error. I started a new hood to see if it had something to do with the large lot itself (the creator used a few cheats for some design elements) but the game saved fine. My original hood has a lot of highly decorated homes i created and few ive downloaded and since the error only occurs in my packed hood i'm left to believe theres a limit of some sort that is being exceeded when i place the large lot.

Edit: link to the lots incase anyone was wondering
http://www.thesimsresource.com/members/bmertens65/downloads/details/category/sims3-lots-residential/title/Beach%20Bungalow/id/907306/ (http://www.thesimsresource.com/members/bmertens65/downloads/details/category/sims3-lots-residential/title/Beach%20Bungalow/id/907306/)

http://www.thesimsresource.com/members/bmertens65/downloads/details/category/sims3-lots-residential/title/The%20Manchester/id/909998/ (http://www.thesimsresource.com/members/bmertens65/downloads/details/category/sims3-lots-residential/title/The%20Manchester/id/909998/)

I got an error 12 again, I think this time may have probably been a bug. I haven't been able to reproduce it yet to verify.

It began with one of my sim repairing a broken tv and got electrocuted to death, while the grim reaper was reaping that sim. an elder on the same lot expired, another grim reaper came and reaped her. during the second reaping, I directed another sim to repair the TV while a townie from somewhere expired. The new sim repairing the TV also got electrocuted and died. I'm assuming the fourth grim reaper came.

After that the error 12 resurfaced. I did some clean-ups that I normally do which did not resolve the error 12. Until finally, I went into edit town mod and moved and replaced the current lot reseting all the sims and the ghosts in that lot (I rarely do this method since I always CTD while saving). I don't know if that resolved the error 12 since I got an infinite save loop.

Terminated the game and reloaded it, the game was normal again afterwards.

Though this is probably a rare occurrence, but it's just weird and amusing that I had to share, it was a shame I was not able to capture it on video.

9/10 EDIT:
I guess the game is out to prove me wrong. The error 12 and 13 is coming back with a vengeance. Setting the game at the very lowest setting didn't correct the problem (my game now looks like TS1). Every method, I tried in the past does not work either.

One thing that was significant, whenever the game is being saved and one of my sims are performing concerts inside the theater, the theater's perform concert becomes deactivated and keeps saying a player is playing and won't go away for days.

Another thing I noticed is that many of my lots has unmovable tombstones/urns (even in build/buy mode, the same as the default cemetery) both community and residential, I believe these tombs are from sims who died at that lot and the game failed to move them to the mausoleum. Most of them are above 5 generations old. I'm not really sure if that's the cause but around that generation I started getting these error codes.

I'm now contemplating of removing all the existing lots (except the one I'm playing) and replacing them with the default lots (lots only) when the game started. Not yet decided whether I'll retain the existing townies or rapture them and let the game make new ones.

I'm fully convinced that these errors and CTD's are caused by the file's size. (Gamesave bloating??)

I've been doing some random tests these past weeks and I've noticed that every single time my game reaches about 35mb it renders my game unplayable. Literally. I can't save anymore.

Like the others here on this thread I removed houses, mods, Sims, etc, and it reduces my file size. But as I start to play more and build up my generations of Sims the gamesave gets bigger and goes back up to 35mb and, well, you know what happens.

I don't know how to fix this. I'm stuck. Sadly, I won't be buying the Sims 3 expansion pack until this problem is fixed. I don't care who fixes it just as long as it's fixed. I've got better things to do with my time instead of wasting it playing a game that won't save.

I mean, really, we have to ruin our towns and get rid of practically everything so we can keep on playing for another week. There's only so much we can erase! Soon the game will be empty and worthless to play. I play Sims because I like making generations. Can't make generations when you gotta keep erasing Sims.

I hear ya Nin.  I have been playing the same neighborhood for a month and my file size is 48 mb and I just started to get Error Code 12 and  CTD all the time.  I've gotten so used to the crashing that I save with Autosave every 15 minutes and if it is a good save I copy the file and move it to another folder.  This way I only lose 15 minutes, but it sucks!  I have been able to keep going and I really like my neighborhood, it is starting to really feel alive with all of the AwesomeStory things running.

Whenever the file does not save the file size is several MBs different (larger) than the last save.  I can't see any rhyme or reason for things that are going on in the neighborhood to make it not save.  I've tried making the houses just have beds, kitchens and bathrooms.  I've killed off anyone I disliked and the npcs regularly.  I run all the clean up codes for the town.  I turn everything off in the background of my computer.  I turned down the graphics...you name it I tried it.  Nothing works.

I am investigating what the cause of constantly growing save files is.

Just finished cleaning out the neighborhood. Restocking the neighborhood

I have only 1 lot left with 8 sims and no other community and residential lots remaining. I still get error 12s. This is getting ridiculous.

I have retried the clean up process and these are my savefile sizes:
Starting 128 Mb
Removed Neighbor sims (raptured and destroyed NPCs and townies) 116 Mb
Cleaned up lots except for player lot 85 Mb
Restored Default Sunset Valley empty residential lots and community lots 95.3 Mb
Dumped default sunset valley residents with houses 122 Mb
Ran the game for 1 minute real time 123 Mb

edit: Starting a blank sunset valley is already 34 Mb
so the 51 Mb may consist of the following sizes for:
   8 sims (maybe 1-3 Mb)
   the House (3-5 Mb)
   the rest might be town data (genealogy, sim location markers and such.). I would guess 20-30 Mb might be for dead sims, since only the urns/graves are deleted not the sim itself.

It would be nice if there's a mod to regenerate deleted/missing urns and gravestones from dead sims.


Right now I am really tempted to delete the Sunset Valley.Objectcache file in the main game directory. The file is 979 Mb. I'm just guessing it is similar to the files located in the worldcaches directory.

Edit: deleted it. The game seems to run okay. Saving is okay, no errors so far (crossing fingers). Textures seems to load slowly around 1 minute to load moving from room to room. Quit the game, so far the file has not regenerated. Will check the town tomorrow if there are any changes without this file.

Edit 9/12: I've been reading in some forums that this Objectcache file causes installation problems for some users. could it be also possible that this cache does not get refreshed resulting in the error? So far from what I experienced, this file stores the texture data of objects, thus making the rendering smooth and unoticable as the game focuses from room to room. Only objects textures appear gray and blank, sims are not affected, probably they are in another file.

Also the objectcache file is standard at 979 Mb upon installation which in my guess probably is the limit cache size available. I'm not sure what will happen if a blank objectcache file is introduced, would it increase in size during use or a worthless decoration in the cache folder.

The Riverview cache is more dynamic, if you erase the cache, the game regenerates 2 files whenever you re-load a save game. If sunset valley also has this kind of a file maybe the errors could be reduced.

EDIT #3 Making a blank objectcache file the graphics and textures ran smoothly, the town's textures seems fully rendered. I quit the game and checked the objectcache file is still 0 Mb, but what surprised me is that there were 2 new generated files in my worldcaches folder. Before it only had 2 both for riverview, now Sunset Valley_objects.package and Sunset Valley_sims.package files are generated.

Now I'm thinking maybe without these files that I'm experiencing error 12 and 13 as my file size goes up. Does anybody else who are experiencing error 12 and 13 lack these files also?

EDIT #4 With these 2 new cache files my save and quitting time has been reduced to 1/4 of the usual time for me to undergo these actions. Could it really be that error 12 and 13 as well as long saving times are attributed to generation failure of these 2 files when starting a new town?

Right now my save game size is 126Mb the Sunset Valley_objects.package is 117 Mb and Sunset Valley_sims.package is 50.5 Mb

I just check (have been getting error code 13) and i am missing the 2 sunset cache files too. Im going to try out your method now.

On a completely unrelated note. In my .bad save town, the sim i created spawned a NPC double and became friends with herself and can even invite the clone over to hang out. I want to save this town more than ever now that sims can self generate clones :)

Update: i thought this had fixed the problem but the next day got an error code 13. However, the game does load up and save faster now.

How do you create a blank SunsetValley.ObjectsCache file?

EDIT: Used a lower case c for the word cache, and it works now. Wowee, minor details are everything  :P

Testing this now then.

I have not to date had an error 12 or error 13 in my game, so I thought I'd test to see what effect Steele's findings have in my game. Firstly, my Sunset Valley.objectCache file is the same size as it originally was- 979Mb. My game is not writing to this file, and the only world cache files I had were for Riverview.
I replaced this file with a zero byte file named Sunset Valley.objectCache, and ran the game. I had a Sunset Valley_objects.package file created in my World Cache folder, but no matter how long I played for I did not get a Sunset Valley_sims.package file. I did not enter CAS at all though. I noticed no difference in speed of rendering in my game- it was fairly quick before, and seemed no faster with the Sunset Valley_objects.package as the cache file once it was fully built. I'm guessing that the game is designed to normally use the Sunset Valley.objectCache, and if this is damaged or corrupted in any way then it will generate the package version of the cache in the userdata folder instead. It seems possible that the cache information that varies from the Sunset Valley.objectCache file is stored in the compositor caches that reside in the userdata folder, though I don't know of any way to see what these files contain. My version of Sunset Valley varies very little from the original; I have left all of the community lots and most of the residential lots as they were, and have just built on vacant lots. Therefore that may be one of the reasons why I've not seen any save errors; it seems strange to have a cache file that is referenced by the game and yet not written to. Perhaps the ideal situation would be for the Sunset Valley.objectCache file to be used as a template for generating the Sunset Valley_objects.package, as it took a long time to cache the information initially.
I'm not sure why I couldn't get the sim cache to generate. If anyone is having the Sunset Valley.objectCache written to, it would be interesting to see what happens if they make the file read only.

I've had a code 13 two or three times. Now I'm saving every 30 minutes, just to be sure.

EA knows about these problems because the codes are mentioned at the end of the readme.txt file that comes with the game.

You could be onto something there.

just a thought then, if a player bulldozes their town bit by bit, the replacement buildings will mean that the game has to cache the new information for Sunset Valley, but if the cache file is always 979mb, then it could just be a dead - or unreachable - file.
The cache information fails to, well, cache  :P and problems are perhaps arising from this.

Does anyone get 12's or 13's in Riverview by the way?

I did the replacing the cache file, and my game only created the objects file not the sims file.  I tried going into CAS and making people, it never appeared.  I am still getting error 12s, a few CTDs, and once a totally frozen game.  I have never played Riverview, so I can't say if I would get error 12s there.  I should try that out.

Each time I noticed my file was saving at 47 mb, then when I would get error 12 I would check the bad file and it was 57+ mbs.  When I went back to my last save and played again doing exactly the same thing the file size saved at the regular 47 mb.  So I think there is an error somewhere and it is blowing the file size up.

My only solution has been to set my game to autosave every 15 minutes using 2 save file names.  When I get a good save I immediately go and copy the file to another folder.  This way I only lose 15 minutes and so far that has worked well for me.  What a sucky error.  Like groundhogs day!

Sorry, I made some mistakes in the my earlier post. Seeing the timestamps on the files Sunset Valley_objects.package and Sunset Valley_sims.package the file was saved when before I inserted the empty objectCache file. So basically, these 2 package files are a replacement if the objectCache file is damaged.

Also another mistake, when you replace the objectCache file either the 979Mb or the empty one. The game accesses the empty objectCache file over the created package file. Though the performance is the same.

The Sunset Valley_sims.package file is delicate. Everytime you erase this file to refresh the cache, you risk crashing the game. If the game fails to generate enough space for this cache. Your sims will turn invisible and some may refuse to do any interactions and eventually hanging or crashing the game.

One thing I noticed is that the objectCache file is static and cannot be written, I'm thinking that it's sort of a virtual drive / pagefile that allocates 1Gb for the game.

Comparing it to the 2 package files these two are dynamic, they change size in every time the world map is loaded. The trend I see on these files is that they get bigger every use.

When the 2 package files are available and you replace the objectCache file, The game seems to run faster for me at the expense of disk space. One thing I also noticed the package files will become static once the objectCache file is detected. It's very hard to tell (within my ability) if they are being accessed as additional cache for the game or not.

I'm not playing riverview so I could not compare if riverview has lesser events of error 12 or 13. But one thing I noticed in the last 2 days testing, I have lesser error 12 or 13 than I was having before. The main difference is that to before I get error 13s more than 12 as compared before. Whenever I try the my previous methods in correcting error 13, error 12 then replaces it.

One thing I am observing now is the behavior on what actions or interactions promote the errors.
 -The common actions I made that resulted in errors in repetitive tries is when I add more decorations to the existing home or planting some money tree seeds.
 -One common event in my case results in the errors, it is when 5 hours before or after any sim in the lot ages up.

I've just finished searching through the other forums on what others are doing to resolve the errors, and one thing suggested was to change households and save from there. Seems logical since even just 1 household left in the map, I still get the errors. If this method works, my current suspect right would probably be either:
1. There is a really buggy sim in the lot causing the error.
2. The lot is so big (obejcts, textures, etc.) that the cache could not allocate enough memory.
3. Lot size could also be a factor. Before I was playing on the 5x6 lot beside stoney falls then I transfered to a 6x6 lot. I get more errors on the bigger lot than the slightly smaller one. I'm not sure if players playing a 4x4 or smaller lot get the errors also.
4. EA needs to fix how the game saves.

Honestly, I dread the thought that it is the saving engine that's faulty. I could just image the save file size on EP7 could reach 1Gb+. Then again, I might be dead from stress and high blood if this problem isn't resolved after the 2nd EP is released.

Funny thing is EA is very silent about these error code problem. I think maybe they also don't know what's causing the problem and they're trying to learn from the players. Or they are all busy trying to make World Adventures to work and stop crashing.

Another thing I am planning to test is to create a new map and stop aging and keep an eye on the save file size. My purpose is to see if playing with the same population increases the game size, then replacing population as forcing a certain number of sims to expire. And also log if error 12 and 13 occurs if the neighborhood population is controlled.

One thing I might also consider trying is to move to a smaller low cost lot and observe the game performance. My current lot of 6x6 has a furnished value of 1.5M and unfurnished value of 400k.

I'm putting out these information that maybe a pattern might be established or additional ideas that was not considered or already tested that did not work.

It's a straighforward cache of the neighbourhood and lot textures, seemingly.
Can you confirm then, Steele, that the test you have done have all been using the same savegame? So, you do not necessarily get an error 12 or 13 if you start a new Sunset Valley game? Is this hood varied very much from the original Sunset Valley?
It is curious that you get the sim cache file whereas slymenstra and I do not. Tizerist, do you get a Sims cache file?

Yep, as soon as I removed the 979mb file, the two Sunset Valley files appeared, and have been getting larger.
I am in the middle of moving the sims and lots in my SV to a completely fresh hood. Only 3 lots from 93 remained in that hood, and 0 sims, so quite an overhaul.
I'm hoping that the fresh hood, without the 'history' of the EAxis sims and lots will be more stable when the mass imigration is complete. But I must do it slowly, so that I know at which point the errors come back up, if in fact they do.

Here's a little update to the error code issues i've had pretty much since June, which is the month I installed the game. After trying everything I could find to fix error code 12 with no luck, and after installing a new radeon 4870 x2 and still getting error code message, I decided to turn down all the in game graphic features except the sims detail which I've left on high level and since then have only gotten one error code 12 message in two weeks, which is a major improvement for me when you consider I was getting error code 12 messages on every other save and even got to a point of getting the error message on every save.

As much as I hate the look of the game with low level detail settings, its the alternative to not playing at all, or starting a new hood every week.

And just a side note, an Alienware tech who happened to be a hardcore gamer, went into my sims game via remote access and after troubleshooting for 4 hours on the phone to find a fix for the hard crashing and graphics issues, the tech believes the issue is with EA and the fact that the game is incompatible with alot of the graphics cards and also vista 32. Basically they need to make a patch to fix the things  that are causing the errors.

Two players on another forum who were having error 12 issues were using Radeon HD 4800 with XP, and Radeon HD 4850 with Vista Home. There are many others, but I don't know their specs. I'm running XP with an ancient Radeon X1600, and I have no problems at all. Perhaps it may be useful to list specs here, further to diana's information?

Im running xp 32 with a 4850 and have never had a error code 12.

I have error code 13 which has something to do with me having added 5 custom lots and 2 eaxis with 2 families (all to empty unconverted residential lots) to my previously unmolested sunset valley. Got the 13 a day after adding the last two custom lots.

Yes it is the same savegame. In many ways the hood has already very different from the original Sunset Valley, though even restoring the original building and residents. Behind the scenes there's a lot of junk underneath, description data of 12 generations of dead sims and other historical data.

If you have the empty objectCache file or the original 979Mb file, the package files will not generate or update. I made a mistake on my 9/11 post, I did not check the time stamps of the file.

In my experience, trying a new sunset valley game does not get an error 12 or 13. Though there are some players who report that they have these errors a few days after making a new hood. Also there's another player who's playing Riverview and she claimed that she gets more frequent error 12 or 13 than her legacy family in Sunset Valley.

For some computers the graphics is causing the problem. In my case, it does not work, setting it to low level makes the game look like a 3D version of sims 1. It's a collector sim's nightmare without the collection helper reward. You won't see the rocks, bugs or butterflies without it. Nighttime is more worse all you see is black in unlighted areas.

I have a niece who's also playing using a laptop. She's been playing sunset valley with aging at epic and un-updated game. No hacks only items from the store. So far she hadn't encountered the error playing since June 2nd. I might take a look at her pc when she brings it one of these days.

I am running Vista Home Prem 64bit, 4 gigs of ram, and 2 GeForce 9800 GT.  I have tried the turning down the graphics to crap level and I still get the error.

One thing that I noticed is whenever my Sims "break up" with a Sim and I go to save within a couple minutes of that, I get the error 12.  I was wondering if this has anything to do with it, since with Awesome Mod the sims in the neighborhood are constantly in and out of relationships with the awesome story driver.  Maybe one of them broke up before my save activated.  I also error a ton at birthday parties after the Sim aged.  My neighborhood currently is played Legacy style and they are on their 3rd generation set on Epic aging.  There are 111 sims in the hood.  I do have a ton of custom houses and have edited several community lots.  My Legacy house is 30/40 lot and has a ton of shit in it.

I don't know the first thing about coding so I have no way to find out anything, but I hope this may help someone.

The two new files are updating for me, they are getting larger. I thought  it made them generate, not stopped them from generating?  :P

The two files are getting larger as the need for cache rises. Sorry for any misunderstanding, in my case, if objectCache file is present, the package files will not generate or update. When the objectCache file is removed, Sunset Valley will generate and update the package files in order to be playable. Same as how the game treats the Riverview hood.

What I do not understand in EA's logic, is why put 2 different cache methods if both will work. And why it is different for Sunset Valley and Riverview. Make me wonder which one of these 2 cache methods are more stable.

So far my package files stopped growing at 280+Mb for the object cache and 160+Mb for the sim cache. Which makes me think that the 979Mb has sufficient allocation for the base game.

That's what I also believed in the beginning, but it's so random that I cannot trace what action, event or background apps that's causing the error. But the most common noticeable occurrence in my part is whenever I make additions to the house or when a sim ages.

I'm not also sure if it has to do with some CCs from TSR. The weird stuff is that I find patterns and clothes from TSR loaded into my game that I did not install. I have not been adding new custom content except for Awesomemod updates after purging all the downloaded houses from my game weeks ago.

it's possible that the game may have a unwritten maximum object per lot basis. Or a maximum number of sims per neighborhood dead or alive. With an empty neighborhood except for my legacy family/house. I still get error 13s.

I also think that the game retains all the data for every sim who lived in the hood. In preparation that you might want to resurrect a dead sim back to life. Deleting the tomb stones still retains all the data, The only data that gets broken is the fish caught credit, especially if the fish outlives the sim. Discovered celestial objects record seems to be localized to the sim who discovered it, so if the sim dies it just get buried somewhere. Written books credit gets overwritten if the new author re-uses a book title, the credits for the original author might get overwritten or dumped somewhere in the code. The other information seems to be left intact with the sim data. Sims deleted by the Awesomemod "Destoyall..." command or the NRAAS supercomputer seems to delete all data of the sim.

Oh, the game will also have more frequent error 13s when you are able to make the grim reaper to become part of the household after the update. grim will still vanish physically but spiritually he's still in your lot. all you'll see is his foot shadows and his head when you use the pie menu. If you want the invisible man in your game, that's one way of achieving it.

I think the one is there if the other fails. It is only by corrupting the original object cache file that the object package file is created. If this file is broken for any reason then the game rebuilds the cache elsewhere, as a contingency.

Yes, I agree that it is for contingency. But why only for Sunset Valley? What about Riverview?

Edit: it just came to me, maybe Riverview was not supposed to be released with the base game. Perhaps it was intended as an add on with the EP. Due to the leak they were forced to release it as a marketing ploy to encourage people to get the original. Thinking about it now, I remember that there were some complains and problems from the players about Riverview.

Funny, I just answered my own question.

Edit #2 Made some observations on the save file sizes. Whenever Error 13 occurs, the save file is 95-98% of a good saved file. If Error 12 occur, the save file size is roughly 58-69% of a good save.

Also Error 13 is resident in the memory and will not go away unless the problem is resolved, or it becomes an error 12, or you reload your game. Going to the main menu and reloading a previous save file will not resolve the problem, you'll get the error 13 when you try to save.

So error 13 may largely be a corruption in the cache or memory. And in the readme says that it's a Post-Save Callback failure, would probably mean that the game saved with errors in it, hence, the almost complete file size.

For error 12 the pattern in my game seems to point to a problem in the current played lot. It could either be a sim with bad description. Debug code "fixall and resetsim (simname)" does not help, NRAAS supercomputer "reset lot" interaction also no effect, Moving and replacing the lot to reset the lot and sims crashes the game most of the time.

Another observation is my ghosts seems to cause some of the problems. I found one of the experimental debug codes which fixes the aging states of sims. Upon running the debug code, I got 14 bad sim descriptions corrected and 13 of them are ghosts of the default sunset graveyard. The game ran 3x longer than my average play time before the dreaded error 13. And the error 13 is somehow triggered by a ghost spawning in my lot. The ghost did not spawn physically, the music played was for ghosts and burglars, since all my sims are still awake then it can only be a ghost.

After reading through most of your posts i think we can all come to the safe conclusion that this game although fantastic in concept is profoundly flawed in execution. To have hours of work of building an interior planning and designing and gameplay sunk into some ridiculous errors and crashes popping out every 15 minutes is appalling. I knew something was gonna be wrong with the game development when i read that "Sims 3 is being pushed from the original release date in Feb to June 2009". The official statement was that EA wanted more anticipation lol, but everyone with common sense knew that something was wrong, and that the game was not yet ready to release cause of lack of furnishing. Even with the extra 6 months core errors, like the limited music channels, instability, memory leaks and the goddamn error codes were not solved. I'm not blaming any dev in ea for this, i bet they did the best they could, but look at the gaming community now desperately trying out to sort out their problems and doing their job. Outside ppl work out solutions for the work pusher problem and the music and these blasted errors that are becoming a frustrating nuisance and whatnot. It's been months since the release and i would have thought solutions to each and everyone of these problems would have been found by now. Too bad. Luckly, you guys are persistent and have admiring resolve in making your game and the game of the rest of the community improve as best as you can. Keep at it :)

Some additional information:

When error 13 strikes, going back to the main menu and reloading an earlier save file of the same neighborhood, error 13 will still persist.

However, instead of loading the same neighborhood (in my case Sunset Valley), I loaded Riverview, the game saved fine.

After saving a few times in Riverview, going back to the main menu and reloading Sunset Valley, error 13 is still there.

Now, it's now clear to me that the problem is somehow resident within the cache files. With the object.package and sim.package caches has bloated to 208Mb and 216Mb, I may try some more experimentations on it. Namely, delete the files while the game is loaded and see what havoc happens.

Edit:
Another thing to try before that is to replace the objectcache file and see if all these 3 cache files will stack.

I've been browsing the default.ini and sims3.ini file in the game directory and there's a lot of memory limit values specified. It's possible that these limit is what's enforcing the errors to persist. Since if memory and cache usage hits the maximum, it may affect additional processes like file saving. I'm not very sure what values to set for the cache limit sizes. Anybody willing to try and suggest.

In the default.ini file these entries, I think are relevant.
[Script]
Multithreaded=1
HeapSize = 30720

[Resources]
CacheBudget=209715200

[FrameDatabase]
BlockSize=30720

[CAS]
CompositorCacheSize = 104857600
SimCompositorCacheSize = 524288000
WorldCompositorCacheSize = 524288000
SimWorldCompositorCacheSize = 524288000

[Config]
DBCacheSubdirName   = DCCache
DBCacheMaxSizeMB   = 200
CrashDumpLocation = \\nido\crashdumps\Sims3
ExportBinSubdirName = Library
InstalledWorldsSubdirName = InstalledWorlds
InstallationRequired = 0

And in the sims3.ini file:
[ResourceSystem]
MemoryUsageLimit = 20000000

The values may differ with different computer setups.

The only way to resolve error code 13 once you get it is to save your sims and homes to the bin and create an new sunset valley.

I did this, and out of pure curiosity i placed back all the custom lots and all 5 of my family lots in my new sunset valley, exactly where they were in my old error 13 sunset valley just to see is i could reproduce another error. So far i haven't gotten an error.

I should note: In my error 13 hood the lifespan was on epic and there had been no deaths in the town since i started playing. There were however a lot of births which may or may not have contributed towards the error. My new town is the default sunset valley with all the eaxis sims (much smaller population) and homes unmodded  with the exception of the lots i had to bulldoze and replace with my upgraded versions of the default homes which i was playing in, in my old town. The custom homes went back into their empty res lots.

I decided to try to get those 2 other cache files to load since I was only spawning the objects and through some deleting I got both files to spawn, and removed any cache in the main directory (The sunsetvalley.objectcache thing).

Now I do still get a few error 12s but not nearly as much as I did when I had the ObjectCache file in the main directory.

I am still erroring at Birthdays, and my save files are still going from 47 mb to erroring at 57+ mb.  It's become beyond frustrating. I'm really tired of playing the same damn 15 minutes over and over again.  I just hate to have to start a new neighborhood when I just got started and like this one.

Yes that is the easiest way if you're not interested in keeping legacy and family history. There are players who play the game because of the legacy aspects of the game. Putting families into the bin erases all family ties outside of the household.

Unless someone comes up with a legacy saver mod, legacy players will not opt for this method. I, for one have 15 generations and playing on long scale. It would really be a big waste of time and effort to lose all that, without trying to preserve it.

The game has some issues with aging. I have sims that are already in their graves and the game tells me that they are too old and nearing death. I even have a sim aged from YA to Adult and the hair loaded is for children, so that sim is walking around with her hair on her waist.

Try saving 1 day or 1/2 day before or after aging. Sometimes it will bypass the aging glitch.

Out of curiosity, what did you delete to get the sim cache spawned?

Well I had at first created a blank Sunset Valley.objectCache.  This spawned just the Sunset Valley_objects.package not the sims.  So I deleted the blank objectcache and the objects package and just loaded the game that way.  After I loaded the game I now have Sunset Valley_objects.package and Sunset Valley_sims.package in the World Caches folder.  I found I had less error 12s (I do not get error 13s currently)

Then out of curiosity I added back the original Sunset Valley.objectCache that came with the game.  I error 12ed left and right.  So I redeleted it and I am back to just a few.  And by a few I mean I had the Sims on for 4 hours and error 12 came only twice, while the other way it was almost every save.

Result: not possible. The game locks all the cache files to prevent outside access or deletion. The game accesses all riverview and sunset valley caches at the same time.

Can't really determine if it stacks since performance is the same.

Changing DBCacheMaxSizeMB from 200 to 2000 does not seem to have any impact.

Will be testing CacheBudget=524288000 and see what happens

Please disregard my previous post since code 12 is back in full force, regardless of all the low graphic settings.  :'(

How do you create a blank objectCache? I'd like to try that too because i'm really starting to hate this game and hope there is something that works to make these errors right before I just walk away from the whole thing, which I'm on the verge of doing.

It's so mind boggling that a big compary like EA would release the world's supposedly most poplular game with such deep flaws, like not being able to save a game like the sims 3. Its so senseless, and to add insult to injury they hold back all the crappy objects they should have added to the game at its release but opted to sell them at EA online store for things that add up to a small fortune in the end for their customers. And then they have the nerve to be silent about these error's. How do they sleep at night?

Diana, I just out right deleted the file Sunset Valley.objectCache in the main folder.  This spawned the other 2 cache files in the World Cache folder.  Back this file up first since we might need it if there is a patch.

I still get error 12s but it seems way better than with the other file.  I'm not a coder so I have no idea what is really happening, just going by how things work.  These cache files are being updated because the time stamp and sizes change...not sure what it all means.

It would certainly make sense to have a dynamic cache rather than a static cache. I can't figure out exactly where the sim information was being cached before the dynamic caches are generated though- perhaps in the compositor caches?

Wrong! I did that. Copied the household with the house to the bin, started a new EA default Sunset Valley, put the lot in, tried to save: Error 13.

Slymenstra, I deleted the objectcache and no new cache has been generated in the folder it was deleted from. Also it hasn't helped lessen the save errors, i'm still getting them on every save. No matter what I've done so far the game won't save anymore. :(

Oh I should have been more clear.  The 2 new files will generate, well for me they did, in Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/WorldCaches.  I run Vista.

Nothing generates in the folder where you deleted the first file.

Hmm that sucks it does not help you.  Maybe it doesn't help at all anyway and I was just lucky.  I don't know what else to say to help.


Added:
You know my SimCompositorCache is the same size, and time stamp as the newly generated Sunset Valley_sims package.  So maybe it does get saved in there too.

And yes I still get error 12s.  But for some reason I get very few compared to the other file.  Maybe it is corrupt sims and they just happen to have behaved while I played.  I'm not much help.  I was going to start a new neighborhood and see what happens.

Slymenstra- I managed to get the Sim cache to generate as well as the object cache- thanks for the instructions. I've played for a while with the two, but haven't noticed any improvement in render speed, it seems just the same to me. I'll play a while longer to see whether I notice improvements with time. What I'm trying to figure out really is if it is worth doing this if you aren't seeing the error 12&13 in the game. I'm glad you are seeing an improvement- but you're still getting the errors from time to time?

Slymenstra, I just checked the Documents world cache folder and yes, thats where the new caches generated. I noticed you said your new cache file sizes were at 0 kb which isn't the case with mine. The newly generated objects cache is currently 447,993 kb and the sims cache is 510261 kb. Not sure what that means though.

Simsample, just wanted to let you know I'm the same person you've been helping with this problem over at n99, thought i'd mention that.  ;)

Ah, didn't recognise you! I wondered how it was going. :)
For the cache sizes, it's the newly created Sunset Valley.objectCache which is zero bytes; the two in your World Cache folder are dynamic and so will change size as you play.

Just for update. Every adjustment I make with the Default.ini file seems to make the errors worse.

It seems the caches does not purge or refresh while the game is running. It can be that whatever is being loaded into the cache is more than what your physical memory can handle and the cache does not have enough resources to bloat up to the requirement.

or

We may be looking at a bad install. Since there are many claims that the Objectcache files are damaged during installation, it could be possible some other files are also damaged.

or the game is really just half baked, the additional months delayed on the release date might not be enough for them to fix all the problems.

If someone knows of a cache purging debug command in-game, the information would be helpful to try out this theory.

Edit: Changing the values of Default.ini definitely increases the occurance of error 12. It probably has acceptable increments for it to work.

Another thing, when the TS3 launcher is launched, all the cache package files are accessed but not modified. When the game is launched without the launcher, only Riverview's cache package files are accessed. Sunset Valley's cache package files are not accessed until you load a Sunset Valley save file.

the sim cache package file is modified whenever some sim actions occur even just walking 2-3 steps. the object cache package is modified when you change something (changing pattern and color will modify the file) on the object or an object is created like books. Using an object for example sitting on a dining room chair does not modify the object cache package file.

Well the two dynamic caches are now bigger than the static one when combined.
It's now 997mb compared to 979mb. Wonder how big it will get.

Since I'm not getting into more progress with the packaged cache files, I decided to re-install the game and run it vanilla with the exception of the store items.

The game runs more smoothly and less errors appearing. My errors are back to error 12, I don't get error 13s so far.

Now there's a catch. Once you run the game you'll get lots of weird glitches and problems. I think the problems are already there before re-installing the game.

These are what I found:
1. Some save games will not load.
2. Any save game which is recent that also loads, the buy mode is blank, meaning the UI is missing. And only your saved household is missing that UI, the other townie household has their UI. One solution so far is to ignore the problem, save the game and reload the game. A number of tries will restore the UI. Mine restored on the 2nd reload.
3. Some townies may appear to exist in map mode, as well as edit town mode. However, the sims are no longer available. Whenever you access the lot, the game just hangs in infinite loading loop. Reloading the game after the hang seems to correct the issue.
4. Upon re-activating Awesomemod, some sims may cause a flagrant system error saying that there is a food item that reports null when accessed. The error ceased when the sim moved on to the afterlife.
5. I still get messages of dead sims aging up to old age and tells you to visit them before they expire.
6. I have a carpool that has no driver waiting for days for a townie to go to work. Towderelicts does not clean it because it has a npc driver with no thumbnail waiting in the car. Also the nuke option of the awesomemod is missing (using the 9/19 awesomemod)
7. I also have townies with no traits and no favorites and a physical clone (they look exactly the same from hair to clothes, even age only the name is different and they have no family) to another in-born townie. They bug the game when invited to join the household. Error 12.

Some other not mentioned incidents may happen since we all don't play the same style and what's loaded are not the same.

So far my theory for error 13 is a failure in the game to refresh the cache, either the file that clears the cache got damaged, or it's because of a bad installation of the game or the game is really bugged that it really does not purge old data.

Error 12 could be some bad data that was bypassed during the previous save or gameplay.

Overall, the recovered saved game still has some more bugs. I'll probably do another rapture and wait until all the current generation are dead and buried and move the household to another lot and see what happens. Since not every one is having error 12 and 13 there must be a common trend to all these.

These are the trends that I'm trying to isolate:
1. Conflicting mods, that appear to be working fine but in the background, it's causing lots of havoc.
2. Custom Content: Converted hairs, Store stuff, Custom stuff... etc.
3. Downloaded contents from other players. (this was my problem is TS2 that made my game unplayable, Never had the pleasure of playing the game past university. This may also be my same problem now, am in the process of removing other stuff in my neighborhood.) Not to scare anybody, in my case in TS2, some has some nasty hacks inside them that really ruined the game. Now in TS3, I'm getting TSR items along with the downloaded sims and houses, they seemed okay except for clipping issues. I'm not really sure if they are causing me problems, but it's better to be safe and determine later.
4. Bugged missing sims. Before I was using the NRaas supercomputer to recover lost and missing sims/toddlers along with the Awesomemod. It did not help in error 13s but it might be helpful against some error 12. I will put it back tomorrow and observe the difference.
5. The lot could also be bugged, where the reset lot function of the NRaas supercomputer appear to be helpful. It's useless against error 13s but may try it out again against error 12s.

Edit: to reduce assumptions, the newly installed game is patched at c 1.4.6.00001

Edit #2: This is so far what I found based on scouring the neighborhood for the source of the error 12.

1. Homeless Townies are disappearing and appearing at different days and they have not aged. Basically they will disappear today without moving in to any houses. Then they will appear again as homeless townies. With the awesomemod, when listing listhomeless only the service npcs will appear on the list then townies will appear some other days then disappear again.

2. Sims dead for 14 generations are also appearing as homeless townies but they are ghostly and reflects their state of death. Funny though, their tombs were deleted a month ago.

I think that these problems are already encoded within the save file, it will may depend on when the game cannot tolerate the problem that the error messages will pop up.

If someone can prove me wrong on this, it would be a most welcome news.

My friend has been having this problem a lot recently, but she never did before she installed the patch.

I can't remember when the patch was out, and if it was after this thread was made, then I'll be looking pretty stupid, but has everyone who experienced this error got the patch installed?

Steele, I'm having a hard time with your post working out what you tried before you put custom content back in, and whether the game was patched or not. Did the 'Store Stuff' you installed include anything custom (like hair converted for use by toddlers)? From what I can make out, most of your issues (and in Sims 2) seem to occur when you add custom content/ mods.

My problem started a few weeks after the first patch was installed. It was when I removed a mod that I wasn't even using.

Sorry for any confusion, After re-installing the game. I immediately patched it and installed everything that the store offered (only store items, hair, sets, clothes ...) Most of my issues started when I added custom contents and mods, I figured since some of the other players are saying that they have this error issues even without mods or custom content, I'd start from there.

One of my first test was to re-use my old save game and see if there was an installation failure since my last install, or a mod may have inadvertently damaged some files in the game.

The other test I plan to do is set create a new town and set the aging to the shortest possible time and try to bulk up the town to the same level I have and compare the difference.

The second test was sort of postponed when I was welcomed with a bulk of bugs and errors that was not noticeable prior to the re-installation. So I'm right now trying to recover any salvageable part of the old game and slowly isolate the bugs and remove them. (I figured that posting my progress might help in case someone encounters the same problem, or get someone's experience in this problem for possible solutions)

For the mods I downloaded, yes I get random of custom contents buried into the files. There was even a mod that really emptied all the information of 2 of my sim's skills window. The tab and the skills are active but when you check the skill details the whole page is blank. (in TS2 there are some houses that contained lots of custom careers without any residents in them, that really screwed up my loading time to an hour per load.) as you can tell I haven't learned from that lesson.

I also failed to mention, in this new installation I haven't activated Riverview, so basically, the Worldcache folder has not been generated. My observation is that the Riverview cache is being accessed when you run the game, regardless if you are playing only Sunset Valley. It may be a memory hog that may contribute to error 13. Until the save errors in my previous save is corrected, I cannot yet determine if having the Riverview cache removed will help or not.

And Sorry if I may be rambling or not making some sense. Just tired and frustrated.

What would be a good test would be to drag your Documents\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3 folder to the desktop, remove your mods folder and then fire up the game to see if you get the errors when totally vanilla, with no store items, mods or custom content. I would start a new savegame too as opposed to putting an old one back in- this will tell us straight away whether you are going to be able to play with no errors, or if this is purely influenced by either computer software or hardware.

Yes that's a good suggestion.

My main priority was to recover first my legacy save game. Cleaning almost all the major buggy sims, hence eliminating everybody in town leaving only 2 sims left (my legacy family), moved them to another lot and played the game (turning off Awesome Story Driver and the Unified Billing to repopulate the neighborhood and reduce homeless bums.) So far been testing it for a day, no error 12 or 13 on normal playing. I only got error 12 when I introduced sims from Riverview into the hood that are on my household bin. So far Riverview is still off and no caches from Riverview is generated.

So far my goal is complete for my legacy family (19 generations in all), Tomorrow I'll set up the configuration as to your suggestion and compare results.

My new SV cache files seem to have hit a ceiling of  511,946 kb (objects) and 510,130 (sims).
It doesn't fluctuate any more, since about a day ago I think, and I had my first error 12 today in the newer hood, with about 30% of the lots still to go in there, and about 60% of the population still to go back in.

Mine too, tizerist- the same size as the Riverview caches.

Have you been deleting yours?

No; that's over 3 or 4 play sessions I suppose, they just got larger until they topped out. Everything is working fine, I've not noticed any change in render speed as it was pretty quick before, and I've never had any save errors either. Are there any reasons to delete them?

No no. Just wondering if others had been deleting theirs, with it being a static figure and all.
But as I checked back into the folder the figure appears not to be static after all. Its now 512,743 (objects) and 509,981 (sims) which is about 1 mb more than before. So it will fluctuate (eventually?) but not much.

Hey I've been lurking this thread since I started getting error code 13's.
I'm not very good with the technical side of this issue, however I'll fill you in on what I've noticed and I hope it helps.

I used to have all the store items installed in my game, and played Riverview- error code 13. So I reinstalled my game and patched with v1.2.7. I installed the Indiestone mod and full store content and Riverview. Played Sunset Valley- error coder 13.

Finally I reinstalled the game patched again with V1.2.7 and installed the Indiestone mod. I did not install store content or Riverview.

I have now been happily playing for 2 weeks with no error code, as to before when I occurred them within the first three days.

Steele mentioned that it may be a problem with custom content, and from what I've experienced it was.

Hope that helps, sorry I can't be more technical.

Great to see you guys working on the problem :)

Yes it's good that you're trying to work out the problem, but I never had the errors or my game crashing. Touch wood!
But then I'm only into my second generation, as I like to swap households.

I only have 2 mods in my game and some of the EA store furniture ( what I DL from PMBD), but no CC hair, patterns, furniture, sims or houses and certainly nothing from TSR!

My game isn't patched ...I never patched any of my Sims 1 or 2 games either and never had a problem.

I'm also not connected to the internet on that PC, because of this I don't have a store version installed...but a torrent one.

I'm running XP Home Edition on a Pentium 4, 3.5 GHZ with 2 GB of Ram and a Nvidia 7300 graphics card and I never had a problem with the game.

I hope you guys find a solution!

One thing that may be worth trying that may help is to re-install your game.

If you are playing Riverview, try not to turn on Sunset Valley and Likewise, the same if you're playing Sunset Valley. Maybe having both neighborhood caches active while playing is draining your pc's resources. So far this helped in my case.

The test for the vanilla game with no CCs added except for the patch, may take a while to bloat up the neighborhood. Without the awesomemod it will take double the effort since the vanilla game will delete random sims basically erasing them from the game like the "Destroyall..." command of the Awesomemod. Perhaps it's the game's way of cleaning up to avoid over bloating the save game. I need the patch because it will take even longer since the unpatch game deletes more sims randomly, the patch reduces the randomness of the deletion but it still randomly deletes sims.

I mentioned in a earlier post that i've been getting error code 12 messages since the the second week of June, two weeks after installing for the first time, and back then there wasn't much information out on the code errors and so have tested alot of things to try and resolve this amazingly stupid error message. I've played totally vanilla, no CC, no hacks, no patches, etc., and even did a manual uninstall/reinstall and still got error code 12 messages under those condition's. So at least for me, the error codes have nothing to do with CC.

I think there are compatibility issue's with the OS and the video cards. I know there's a web page that EA has where you can go and test to see if your computer spec's are compatible with the game and well mine supposedly far surpassed all necessary requirements. But now I'm starting to think what they claim to be compatible and what they actually know is compatible with their game is two different things. I say that for the simple fact that the error codes exist in the first place. They need to make a patch to fix this.

My current impression with the errors has something to do with the base game itself. Adding CCs and other stuff just accelerates the process. My objective is to try and isolate what's really causing these errors. Otherwise in the eventuality that  EP5 comes out, we'll be looking at a 1 GB save file with unresolved error saving problems (that is EA doesn't add more problems along the way, though it is certain that there will) the game will be unplayable to most of us having these error problems.

Upon my current situation with the game, the errors has a certain pattern that triggers it. I currently believe these are the triggers that starts the errors in my experience:

Error 12:
1. After re-installing the game, my common error 13s were replaced by error 12s. Since my population has greatly been reduced by the Awesomemod and the Unified Billing feature, it was more easy to track that there were sims disappearing and reappearing who never ages (they must have advance tickets to go on World Adventures).
2. My ghost having aging problems also. This caused me to delete my graveyard to prevent them from appearing.
3. My sim descriptions always gets damaged. Three days ago I was plagued with townies that has no traits, no favorites and obvious clones (from hair to clothes) of other townies, so many of them looked alike. Fixing that, Two days ago it was the attack of the invisible sims. And yesterday, it was townies when added to your family become un-selectable (their portait will appear on the family but cannot be accessed or selected (even with cheats)).
4. There is a new bug in my game, the Awesomemod "Nuke" option is gone. Since no one is complaining about it so I deduce that it has some problems with my game itself.

Error 13:
1. Aging states of sims. For some reason 85% of the time a sim ages on your play lot +/- 5 hours of the aging process will result to error 13
2. Adding new furnitures in a overly decorated house + the factor of playing the game for at least 20 real time minutes will also produce error 13. A newly loaded game will not have the error 13 assuming you are decorating the same items from the previous error 13 experience, adding a little bit more decorations, I get a 50/50 chance of it will error.
3. Whenever ghosts appear on my play lot the game, I'm sure to have error 13 when they leave.
4. Also noticing that world caches are accessed regardless of you playing that neighborhood or not at a point which I believe, you're computer's extra resources gets used up and the dynamic caches stop increasing in size. That's the time my error 13 shows up. There are times the dynamic caches will start increasing again, it did also stop the error 13 temporarily.

There are more that I cannot remember at of these moment, some I already posted earlier. I think isolating what causes this errors would be helpful on determining a solution.

Yes I forgot about this. To save time on testing, I'll try to focus more on the above mentioned conditions. Thanks.

In my point of view, what EA says as compatible is based on what configurations they have when they tested the game. Since there are many different OS, driver versions, hardwares and supporting softwares, the combinations are endless and there are sometime subtle incompatibilities. That produces unique and unexpected errors. I even had a experience that the motherboard chipset version was incompatible with my graphics card processor, all other programs, games worked well except for a single game whenever a cinematic would play the whole program will go crazy.

I think the biggest problem with these errors is that the solution seems to be voodoo solutions.  I haven't had an error 12 for a month.  I can't tell you what fixed it.  I tryed everything and some combination of something worked.  I'm inclined to think that maybe my screwed up Sim died.  It has seemed to fix itself like the splash screen crashing.  I also went a week with my game crashing the moment I pressed play, Although, I do think that Prescado probably fixed that.  There is a lot of problems with corruption so don't get too creative with fixing.

I agree that sometimes a sim does get screwed up and when he/she dies or moves out, the game will become normal.

well, i had a good 2 week run - close to three - without any error code 13s after creating a new town and moving everything to the bin (can save family lines if you move all the related sims into the same house before packing it to the bin, has to be 8 or less of course). Was decorating one of the vanilla homes i modified, one of my best imo, then auto save kicks in and boom! fuckin error fuckin code fuckin 13.  And its all over. i hate this game.

a strange note: in my new town all the sims i created befriended magically generated clones of themselves at work and at school. I had one even move in with themself.

This is a normal EAxis-based nuisance, sims left in the library tend to replicate themselves into the neighborhood. To fix this, you need to select the "real" one and type "nukeimpostors". Then purge your library of all sim famblies.

From my latest tests and observations, these are the common trends that is visible in my game for the errors.

ERROR 13
There is a limit for the game where there is a maximum number sims, objects and lots allowed for the world cache. Loading the game, starting positions and conditions are loaded into the cache initially so with a high number of sims and lots will reduce allowable cache space. Every additional actions/reactions of any sim in the hood will be logged into the cache. Also textures and graphic details are also recorded into the cache. In which some players reports lower error 13 instances with lower graphics detail.

My observation is that the game only purges items and unlocked wants and other stuff that's being cleaned up during 12am and 5am (perhaps there are other cleanup times that I do not know of). So basically stuff are not deleted becomes somewhat persistant until deleted and meanwhile eats up available resources. I believe saving is also recorded into the cache since my cache timestamps reflect the time where saving is in progress. It is possible that inadequate resources causes the post-save callback error (error 13)

After re-installing, I haven't tried adjusting the resoucecachebudget if it can in place store the texture and graphic detail data to lessen the load of the cache.

ERROR 12
So far, what I can determine here is a random data bug where the game randomly allows and disallows. It's very hard to guess whether there is a number of allowable bugs or there is a certain bug that the game actively screens. The bugs can range from sim descriptions, stuck object/sim bug, missing object/sim/texture (The "?" tiles in my game is a result of a failure load in textures, somehow the game forgets the textures (especially custom textures) and just replaces it with the "?" tiles.).

In all my attempts, an error 12 often couldn't be resolved except for a re-load of the game. Somewhere between the last save and the error 12 is a event that caused it. It could also be possible of an erroneous cache writing or data overlap that is related to error 13. It often did confuse me that reseting some lots replaces the error 13s to error 12s.


Aside from playing around with the resoucecachebudget, the solution seems beyond my abilities. If someone can confirm these findings and someone with better knowledge of the codes could thinker with it perhaps we can find a better and permanent solution for this problem until the next EP or update screws it up again.

After reading JM and steeles posts i may have found a work around for error 13, also it could just be a fluke.
In short, you can try what i did in the same order after the error occurs:

1) delete the .bad
2) nukeimpostors (may not be necessary, but its what i did at the time see update)
3) clear all locked and unlocked wants from the active household (based on steeles observations this would make sense at to what fixed the error)
4) save again and no more 13

Now the long version: After a pretty extensive remodeling session of one of vanilla homes i got an error 13 when trying to save. Naturally, i came here to vent (see a few posts up) I figured i might as well save the household to the bin in the event that a fix is discovered so i wouldn't lose my hours worth of work.

After quitting the game, deleting the bad saves and reading steele and JMs posts i decided to vainly play again as if the 13 hadnt occurred last night. I deleted my household and replaced it with the one i saved to the bin (even though i tried this before and it doesnt fix 13s - also the definition of insanity). Still got a 13 but i played on. My sim got phonecall from his cloned self which prompted me to do as JM said and nukeimpostors. Then for whatever reason (a stroke of brilliance, divine inspiration, acid reflux, who knows) i decided to clear all my sims wants and try saving. It worked.

I havent retested any of this because now i've yet to receive another 13. I may not be as knowledgeable on the subject of caches as others but based on steeles observation, the 13 occurs do to a cache limit being exceeded. Since wants and items are the only things ever purged from the cache i figured clearing all the wants of my active household would bring my game under the limit which was previously exceeded. Does that make sense?

Update: dug up on of my old .bad error code 13 save and tried. cleared wants and saved, got a 13. Immediately after i used Nukeimpostors and "saved as" a new name and it worked, no 13.

You can now add me to the list of those receiving that damn Error 12 upon save.  My game was fine (with the exception of a bad CC item which has been removed) and never crashed once.  I've never had any problems at all.  Now all of a sudden it absolutely will not let me save.  I just keep receiving error 12 over and over.  I'm on Windows XP, and I have the dreaded patch. 


I believe this to be the case as well.  My saved game file is now huge.  I'm going to remove some things and try the compressor on all of my downloads.  Maybe that will help.  If I can get the save to work again, I'll also turn on the auto-save on the Awesome Mod.

EA needs to fix this damn game.  This is ridiculously frustrating.

This is a bit odd.

The four cache files found in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, once deleted, have generated again at only 1 kb each.
Before they had large sizes.

Found something new on error 12. The source of the error is also found in the cache. Something during gameplay gets corrupted and it is written in the cache. So unless the corrupted data gets refreshed/reset the error will persist and will refuse to let you load a previous saved game.

The only solution I can think of right now is someone developing an in-game cache refresh/reset command.

So far, Bigpooh's solution works for error 13. The first 2 steps can be skipped.

I have. The files stay at 1kb.

And good work steele, heres hoping we can do some sort of cache refresh at some point, perhaps from an in-game computer.

It was, but even after shutting down it remains at that size, with a fresh timestamp.

Possibly because you are running Sunset with the World cache files; the information is being cached in those instead.

I've been getting Error 12 intermittently. Normally I roll back to an earlier save, but today I found that using AM's "resetworld" command let me save the file after the process failed the first time. I'll wait to see if I get another error. Perhaps resetting the game state helps to avert it.

You know, I have been looking for this command ever since I started having error 12s. Pescado did confirm its existence, though I did not push to get this command from him.

Thinking about it, if I got this command the easy way, I might not have persisted to understand the error's source.

Edit 10/01 Tried using "Resetworld" right after loading a saved game. The game paused for 30-40 seconds. Did not encounter any errors for the whole night. I will overload the game with CCs and other stuff and try again. I just hope this is the solution to the problem.

Well, I sidestepped an Error 12 to hit an Error 13. Resetworld lets me save, but the error just recurs as soon as I reload and I'm already getting weirdness in my game (NPCs wearing flesh suits, for one). I'm starting to think it's not a viable solution.

You can test adjusting the resoucecachebudget based on Jordi's findings http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,16709.0.html (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,16709.0.html) somehow, I have not yet encountered an Error 13 after adjusting this value. I have been overloading the game with non EA CCs (hair, objects and stuff) and observe. So far everything is running fine.

Resetworld have seem to resolve my Error 12s. No aging dead persons messages and other obvious bugs that I have before. Will still test it out more.

Resetworld hasn't worked for error 12 here.
I'll try putting the original resoucecachebudget back.

Just my 2 cents. I just got error12 tonight for the first time. I have had the game open most of the day, playing some and pausing some. I tried most of the suggestions here with no relief. Then I typed "resetallwants" in the cheat window. Was able to save and quit. Not sure what will happen tomorrow when I play again, but FWIW, there you go.

"Resetallwants" has fixed errors 12/13 for me lately when used along with "destroyallnpcs" and "fixall" (I do resetallwants last, as sometimes between the others wants will regenerate).  Error 12 had been intractable for me, that once I got it I wasn't going to be able to save no matter what I did, whereas Error 13 could be fixed by the voodoo of sticking some flower or something on a community lot and saving again.  I found that this combination usually fixed Error 12, though.

The bad news is, I've started having outright crashes when saving (I had a few before, but now they're more common).  This happened as something (I don't know what) lowered my save times from really long (10 minutes or whatever) to a manageable 2-3 minutes.  That's great-- when it doesn't crash.  :(

Something I have noticed with these errors as I have suffered from them too as well as the crashes the can come with them. Mostly on my main and most valued family. Is that the Difficulty of the family seems to have a bearing in whether this is happening. Because I can go from a house that is getting errors within 15 to 30 minutes of game play and crashing shortly after that and the thing with going out into the town and making changes hasn't helped me at all so far when I tried it. And I even tried dealing with EA as useless as that was. In the end I got a 1000 store credit for my trouble and that instruction on how to do the work around with the town edit. But if I go to some of my lower difficulty families and play there is no trouble whatsoever. I find this interesting and it kind of goes with what I have been reading about lower file save sizes cause I am sure they would be. Just thought I would mention this.

For those interested I am running windows vista ultimate 23-bit, memory 4gigs, AMD Phenom 9600B Quad-core Processor 2.30 ghz and without doing some digging I can't remember what I have for my graphics card but I remember it was more then capable.

AFAICT, there is only 32-bit or 64-bit.

This is what I did to my game which helped. It may not be 100% effective since there are many factors causing the error 12s.
 
The commands can be done in random order. Try which ones works for you.

Use after starting a new loaded game.

Using Awesomemod:
1. Resetallwants
2. Cleanhouseholds all
3. Refreshtraits all
4. Purgegenetichair
5. Fixall
6. Fixagingstates
7. Purgereactions
8. Fixromances
9. Towderelicts on (sometimes this command does not work on some cars and you have to individually nuke stuck cars)
10. Resetworld
11. Destroyallnpcs (Some grim reaper hacks and outfits + 1.3 game update causes bugged reapers)
12. Destroyalltownies (optional) but sometimes the townies are bugged
13. ResetDnP all
14. Destroycorruptsims (so far this command always yield me 'zero' corrupt sims but better be safe)

Using NRaas Supercomputer
1. Recover Lost Sims
2. Recover Wandering Toddlers
3. Turn off stereos

Save

Quit and restart game.

Observe if performance and saving game improve. Try saving every 15 minutes (use Awesomemod autosave feature)

Another option, if this does not work, try re-installing the game. Redo the above commands and re-observe.

So far these seemed to fix 80% of my Error 12 problems. Again, the above does not solve all the error problems but it corrects some of it. When I first tried these commands it really surprised me how much bugs and errors I have collected over 3 months of playing. (hmm, probably there's a hidden EAxis skill, the 3rd type "Bug Collecting" classification.)

For what its worth, I only tried resetworld after actually getting the error 12. Perhaps I should do it upon boot up.
Thanks for the extra info, all may not be lost after all.

Sorry meant 32-bit. Dyslexia hard at work again i guess.

I forgot to mention in my previous post, The first time I did this type of maintenance, I used all these commands just to make sure all possible bugs are fixed.

Resetallwants and ResetDnP is best used for Error 13s

The problem, it seems, with "resetworld" is that it does "resetsim" on all sims (or it seems that way?), with all visitors going home, all motives being set to neutral, etc..

It doesn't really keep your progress when used on a save.

The other thing is, though, often it's the only way to save a game at all after an Error 12.

Has anyone else found another way to do that, I hope?

As far as I know, bad sim descriptions are the cause of Error 12. In my experience resetsim/resetworld works. Though corrupt objects could also theoretically cause Error 12 any the only solution is either to remove all the CCs and replace it one by one until you find the culprit or if you don;t have any CCs then try re-installing the game. In some reports the game cache does not install properly.

If you are brave enough to experiment, you can try the using all the commands I placed above.

Another thought is that there may be a possibility that the error 12 is caused by a dead sim. That I have not yet figured how to correct as of this moment.
    Resetsim and resetworld does not seem to work on these dead buggers.
    Resurrecting them then fixing then killing them again does not work either.
    Deleting urns and tombstones does not help. It just makes solving the problem harder. (so I'm waiting for someone to develop a deleted urn/tombstone re-spawing mod for this)
   

Hmmm, okay, now that we've put the champagne away regarding the error 12 and 13's, is there any way of lessening the amount of save-crashes and sudden CTD's? It seems that the game 'spikes' at certain points, and simply closes down when there is alot of information being passed around. No application should crash while saving though, that is an absolute disgrace.  :D

I've tried using  a frame-limiter to cap it at 30fps, but the improvements regarding crashing  are minimal if indeed there are any at all.
Gamebooster claims to give you roughly an extra 1% horsepower during play, and Task Manager lets you run the game on one core, or both, but this also seemed to make no difference.

How feasible is it that EA will fix the save system do you think?
And if error 12 is caused by corrupt cache data, am I right in thinking that save data should be completely seperate from cache data, and should not be part of that process whatsoever?
And then you have the thumbnails also being saved into the save data as well, which seems completely illogical.

Any suggestions?

I now routinely use your list of commands (minus resetworld) from time to time, often before saves.  Doing so seems to lessen the amount of save errors I get, although it doesn't eliminate them.  They seem quite effective at allowing a save after Error 13.  Having no active household by going into Edit Town and hitting the button to choose a new household but not actually choosing one before saving is very good for saving after Error 13 as well.

Saving after Error 12, and avoiding Error 12 in the first place, is another matter.  It seems that "resetworld" is pretty much the only thing that gives you a chance at saving after an Error 12, and avoiding it seems to be a matter of not jumping a lot from household to household much (I like to jump between households, so that's a bad thing), plus avoiding other "risky" things. 

Whether to use "resetworld" to try to save around an Error 12 is a matter of whether one is willing to give up on the continuity of the game to save progress that you've made previously.  And once I got an Error 12, decided to use "resetworld" to save after it, and crashed on that save...but it still is pretty much the only option that works more than once in a big while.

resetworld is for emergencies ONLY. If I catch people using it as a panacea for things rather than reporting issues, I will take it away, and this is why we can't have nice things. As for sacrificing continuity, well, you give up local microcontinuity, but the macro-continuity of the neighborhood is retained (people keep relations, skills, etc., they just lose their current place in the neighborhood). As far as I can tell, though, error-12 typically indicates that
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/crapola/eweneedrams.jpg)

Pescado,
I have 4 GB RAM, I have error 12 or 13 or crash to desktop.

From what I gathered the game limits the allowable for each neighborhood cache at 1GB. So with more RAM you're still be limited to 1GB to play around with.

I've been thinking of copying the Sunset Valley.ObjectCache file and renaming the copy to Riverview.ObjectCache and probably also try again to bloat the dynamic caches to around 1GB then replace back the objectCache files and overstuff the whole town and see if the passive + dynamic cache stack or not.

Oh I forgot to mention, testing Jordi's resourcecachebudget setting of 90000 have improved lessening error 13s and textures and graphic details loads more faster. Just guessing that the textures and details may have been allocated to another cache.

Error 12 just drives me crazy! I get this error every day. I hate it!
I  was looking over the net about this problem, tried everything what I could find but nothing worked.
Sometimes I get error 13, but I can solve it with nuekimpostors or Clean up all Vagrants.
But error 12 is insolvable for me.

I found these about error 12 and 13, maybe somebody can find the solution:

Actually, that's my post over at the Sims 3 site, it's basically a summary of what I posted before. I'm still working on the error 12 and 13 problem.

My updates are a bit slow these days, I get rare error occurances after performing the debug commands I listed above. It would be helpful if you can help observe what weird and not-normal things that happen on your game. Sometimes seemingly unrelated stuff and minor bugs starts all these mess.

What I can identify right now is excessive cheating also causes the game to have this error. Setting all motives to static for a extended period causes some sim problems especially on the dreams, promises and wants department. I also found that it also affects some sim / lot description errors. Forcing the wrong opportunities via the debug interactions will also make bugged sims. Some mods and hacks when removed will also contribute. Moveobjects on unmovable graves caused many problems for me, that whenever a ghost gets spawned, I'll get error 12. (Maybe I'm just unlucky, or there is something else happening to the grave when I moved it, cannot tell right now.)

O, it was you! But with an other name.. If I knew you wrote it I didn't write it here.

For a week I get error 12 every day. I don't know what causes that. I don't use cheats (just very rarely) and testingcheatsenabled.
And I have no bugs or weird things in my game.. It's strange but true. I have only one problem, the error 12.
And error 13, but I can solve that.

I noticed too that moveobjects on cheat has problems that's why I don't use that either. I don't have problem with ghosts but I see them rarely, I don't play with them.

Only thing what I've done is forcing opportunities.. I wanted to complete Guitar Star challenge. Yesterday finally I could complete (with NRaas OpportunityControl) and after that I couldn't save because of the error 12.

What I noticed relates with AM. I use autosave option. It saves my game in every hour. I set 2 saves to keep. I noticed that the first two savings are unproblematic but I get error 12 during the third save. Maybe that would happened if I don't use AM just save myself for three times, I don't know.

Edit: I played again and now I got error 12 message during the second save. But the first save is always succesful. I know you said the four cache files don't relate to this error, but I delete them before every play and I can save for the first time.
I forgot that I have a bug. Most of my sims who go to sleep after 3AM always wake up at 7AM or 10AM (most of the time is 10AM) no matter if they're still really tired. Once I set alarm clock for a sim to 7 and 10AM but I don't know if it can be the problem because all hosuehold wake up not just that one and I already switched it off but the sims  still wake up tired at 7 or 10 AM.
And one more thing I noticed. If I use NRaas' SimSelector I always get error 12 during the next save.

Lorea, perhap you could try these commands from Awesomemod and see what results you get:
1. Fixall - somehow sims get bugged after playing for more than 2-3 hours especially when the neighborhood has lots of history in it.
2. Towderelicts - Derelict cars clutters and just adds to the objects in your cache.
3. Resetallwants

Also try from the NRaas Supercomputer
1. Recover Lost Sims - Lost sims can cause error 12s
2. Recover Wandering Toddlers - Not sure if this also causes the errors but it's worth trying
3. Turn off stereos - just making sure.

If every result of these are clean (without any fixes made) and still encountering error 12s try
1. Destroyalltownies
2. Destroyallnpcs

Of course make a backup save before trying. If nothing works, perhaps it's a type of bug I haven't encountered yet. I may need a copy of your save game to experiment with.

In the meantime, if you say that you get the errors at the 3rd hour, since AM is set to autosave, maybe it would be best that you quit your game and reload it after the 2nd save. It will prolong your game for another 2 hours since the cache will get refreshed when you quit the game. The waiting time will be less of a problem than re-doing all the lost work.

I tried those with no luck. Those things help me if I get error 13 but not for error 12..

I edited my previous comment.

Have you tried removing all the hacks / mods and Custom Contents as well as store items and just play the game vanilla? A patched game would be okay. Sometimes playing it without hacks will reveal what problem is causing the error 12s. Though in my case removing the hacks the game started going weird seemed like a nightmare. But that experience showed me what's really causing my game to bug.

Also, could you recall any mods that you removed before having this error problem? I tried Kolipoki's Plant roasts and links mod when I removed them days after, my sims started getting bugs. Do you have any similar incidents?

If you do have any hacks removed, maybe it is better to reinstall the game and only apply the patch and re-load your old save and play normally.

Another suggestion, if you have the time try going into every lot in the game and see if there are immovable graves inside or any weird stuff that you'll consider a bug. Try deleting those you deem irrelevant and problematic. It will not only reduce possible / potential error 12s but also help in error 13s. I mentioned immovable graves because some sims die inside the lot and the game failed to transfer it to the mausoleum, it will register to the game as default graves like Eric Darling's (crumplebottom) grave or the ones at the cemetery. For my game, the tombs at the Jones and Goth houses are movable but Eric Darling's isn't.

Have you tried using s3rc to ensmallen and debloatify your saves? It's possible that there is sufficient retained cruft to overload the save process.

I never thought of using the s3rc. It's worth trying.

I just re-read the description regarding the bloated saves s3rc can fix, it's possible it could work. If I remember correctly, a handful of my sims have thumbnails that does not belong to them. Probably this could correct it. I just used to let those sims die or execute them, probably they're still haunting in my game somewhere.

You're still the Greatest! Thanks, Pescado.

EDIT
Just read up on the Simselector Mod, I'm not sure if it was built using the Make Sim Selectable option on the EA Debug Interaction. So far, some sims in my game somehow does not respond well with that EA debug interaction.

Are you selecting the same sim all those time you use the Simselector before the error 12 appear?

I wasn't even able to load my save(in game) after using s3rc.

That is rather unusual. Are you using the latest version?

Yes, I tried the game without any CCs and nothing changed, I got error 12 during save too.. This error 12 problem started 1,5 week ago and I can't find the reason why. I put NoFootTappingOnWaitForClearRoute, AskIfSingleIsFriendly, NoStupidIdleFaces and OpportunityControl mods in my game last. And I deleted Makeyourselfathome, Morelifetimehappiness, Woohooer, LessHygienefromWatering, LessHygienefromWeeding, LessHygieneDecayandMorefunWeeding/Harvestin/Watering mods, but I can't remember exactly when.
And in the last days NoStupidIdleFaces and NoAutonomousGuitar mods stopped working for me.
Nowadays I made one more change, I play with FPS limiter, can it cause any trouble?
I didn't know about immovable graves If I find one I have to delete it?
If I can't solve this problem I reinstall the game, but maybe that won't help anything.

I'll try that!
Edit: I made it and it compressed my save file from 89 MB to 70. What is the "good" size of a save file?


No, I use this mod instead od switch families in Town Editor. So I selected almost all sims, not the same always. But I use to play longer only with four families.

Just an update:

S3RC on save games does not really help in error 12s and 13s but it does correct weird and funky hairs of dead ancestors.

Also bloating up your town with sims and stuff as already known will cause error 13s, but upon correcting the error 13, there is chances of error 12 replacing it. So far not any of the commands I used before works against the error 12 that replaced error 13. Will re-verify this again tomorrow.

Prior to this happening, I noticed that the path finding AI of some sims are disabled. When I direct them to a door, they go straight to that direction and stop in front of a wall that is between the sim and the door. And visiting neighbors, the ring doorbell becomes inaccessible and only functional if you do it outside of the neighbor's lot. Succeeding in ringing the doorbell, the neighbor inside the house just keep doing what it has been doing ignoring the bell. I had similar experience two months before and it also ended up in an error 13 and then error 12.

I have been receiving error code 13, almost from the beginning (about 2 weeks after I began playing).  I have had them with and without CC; with and without Awesomemod; playing for long periods of time, or short.  I've tried all the "voodoo" fixes and some worked...for a while.  I added memory, which seemed to help...for a while.  I don't remember when I began to get error code 12, but it seems just as random.  I had someone look at it and he surmised that it looks like a video leak.  There was a place in the logs in which, he said, it seemed like the game was trying to use the video card memory instead of system memory.  He also pointed out that, if this is indeed the problem, there would likely not be a fix for it because too much would have to be recoded.  The best I am able to do is to save about once an hour and shut the game and restart after two hours. Unfortunately, I sometimes get involved in the game and don't save or shut down in time, which brings on the inevitable error code (either 12 or 13). Saving more often than once an hour doesn't seem to help, and sometimes I get the error if I save too often!
I can only share what I've been told, as I just play.  I love mods and appreciate the people who create them, but have no such talents myself. 

Yes!! The same things happen to me since I got error 12s!

Edit:
I used s3rc, deleted derelict car, deleted duplicate sims, and the same happened as yesterday. I could save for the first time and I got error 12 during the second save so I had to quit without saving.. again..
I recognized that after first saving the size of the save file became as big as was before I compressed it with s3rc. I mean my saved file was 89MB, then I used s3rc and it became 70 MB. I started to play and after the first successful saving the save file became 89 MB again.. And the second saving gave me the error 12..
What more can I do? My game is unplayable in this way..
Please answer to my previous comment too.

I had error codes 12 and 13 until I followed the advice of Jordi and only Saved, not Save and Quit.  I also cleaned out my downloads and was fine for a week. Now unfortunately I have two layers of my Sunset Valley neighborhood, a blank one on top of the real one, with holes in the blank one where buildings would be. I have no idea how I fixed this when it happened to my Riverview Neighborhood. I'm playing in bootcamp Windows 7 on a newish MacBook Pro with 4 gig of memory and have tried emptying all my caches, shrinking my Saves folder, reducing downloads again, and will just keep fiddling until I find a solution.  At least I'm not facing error codes 12 and 13 anymore so I suppose that's progress.

Something seems very wrong if your neighborhood is 89 MBs.

How many MBs would be normal?

Mine is also around this size. At least it was, until I cleansed my town of all but 5 sims.

Re-verified the bloated town issue with regards to Error 12. The Error is not based on sims or objects, removing everything on the neighborhood, the error does not go away. Resetworld or any command does not fix it. I suspect there is a corruption within the cache that causes the error 12.

Also having duplicate sims seems to make the error appear twice as fast. I may be mistaken but everytime I add Indie Stone or the NRaas Story Progression Driver, some family in the bin gets cloned into the game. I am aware of the immigration function of both mods and it is set not to immigrate. I make no claims, since I am not sure if this is just coincidental or some conflicts with other mods, in which I also use other mods along with it.

Oh, and using the S3RC my save file size has been reduced to 99.5 MB from 148MB just for information. No significant gameplay changes except for some hairs getting corrected from dead ancestral sims.

My neighborhood is also even bigger than 89 MB's, so I think it's pretty common, at least among those of us who use mods.  Right now I'm actually at 93 MB's.  My use of the compressor did what others have reported:  It lowered the size of the save file only until I saved again.

With respect to Error 12 not being able to be squashed by Resetworld or other commands, that's hit or miss.  I can verify that sometimes simply moving to a different active lot, or having no active lot, and using the other more focused debug commands I've successfully saved after an Error 12, and other times that those haven't worked resetworld has allowed me to save after such an error.

On the other hand, just as often there's nothing I can do that will let me save after an Error 12, and one time I got an Error 12, did the other commands, got the same error, then out of desperation did a resetworld and at that point got a CTD when trying to save.

Now I can't play at all. By now I get error 12 during every save. So I can't save my game ever. I tried those commands what you recommended but nothing worked.
I'm just.. distressed.

I haven't tried those mods. It seems these are not intrusive mods but I'm not sure if they are memory resident mods (sorry my programming and computer technology skills are outdated since the release of Pentium 1) Maybe reading the comments from these mods would give you ideas if you are experiencing the same problems with the mod as with other players who used it.

For unmovable graves, normally I nuke them with the Awesomemod and do the fixall command. Moving them into the mausoleum would be a more wiser choice since deleting it may not really remove possibilities that the sim becomes bugged or already bugged to begin with. It just removes the grave not the sim description. What I found is the Awesomemod's Destroyall... command does remove the sim descriptions, the NRaas SC sometimes does but not always in my case.

I'm not yet sure what causes this problem. But after using the S3RC, there is no improvement for the Error problems. Yet there is a random interaction that causes it. What I can identify is that certain sims does not respond well with hacks and mods. Some sims go crazy when the sim selector is used. Some sims gets bugged when the NRaas SC is used, weird is that Eric Darling and the Remingtons from Riverview shows up on the NRaas SC list even when they are still in their graves and their skin tone is black.

I have been re-purging my town last night and observing. I have restored the non-S3RC'd save file to wait if someone can come up with a tomb respawner mod for deleted tombstones. I figured that even with an empty town the game still bugs and I want to verify if the problem lies with the dead sims that are still encoded within the save game.  What I believe is that I may have used a conflicting mod in the past or a CC that was bypassed by the game and saved.

While bloating up my neighborhood in the past week, I noted that some sims that are being shared online are bugged I'm sure they are missing some CCs (which I do not need) when I installed them, normally, they the missing CCs will default to EAxis defaults but instead they cause CTD and weird stuffs. So it may be that in my earlier gameplay, the CCs were not that many and probably still in development filled with bugs that somehow gets saved and just remained with each successive save or worse yet, it could have acquired more bugs along the course of normal gameplay, which is being prevalent and persistent now.

I'm also having the same problem last night. I have started to purge the town and bit by bit to see what is causing it.

Just a recommendation, If you haven't tried to re-install the game and play your last save game vanilla (no update, no mods and no custom content and store items) now would be the best time to try.

Do something, anything, to change things up.  Put all the stuff you have that's saved in My Documents in a safe directory and your mods and CC from /Program Files in another safe directory, then reinstall the game-- for instance.  Once the game is reinstalled, put everything back in. 

If that doesn't work, take parts out selectively and see with what it will save and with what it won't.  If it won't save with something you really want, try getting a fresh copy.

Just keep changing things around until you get a version that has the CC you want that will save.  I'd start with a clean reinstall with the CC backed up so you can add it.

I guess it's possible to have a corrupted neighborhood/save file, which is the worst outcome, but chances are it isn't that and just the voodoo of changing stuff, even stuff that should have no bearing on anything, even game options or whatever, could give you a more stable combination.

If you have a corrupted neighborhood file, try saving all the famblys you care a lot about to the bin and starting a new game and reintroducing them.  Then use Twallan's supercomputer to resinstate lost family ties and romances that you want to get back.

That's a good suggestion. Though a word of warning, messing with the family ties can also break the game. As there are rare instances that some sims are broken. But do keep an observant eye when experimenting on stuff, keep backups so you have a returning point to go back to.

Edit: I did try to re-instate lost and broken family ties and got really messed up with some broken sims. I ended up having a loop where the great grandchild became the parent of the great grandparent and loops back to a full circle, the type you find on a sci-fi time travel paradox movie. I have to reload an old save after that. I am not advising against modifying the family tree, just take precautions.

10/15 Update:
One thing I notice before getting an error 12, is that some sims does not go to work and keep getting demoted. Even if they are already established with high positions. There also some sims that are non player user imported sims/households to the town that does not go find a job. I'm not sure if they are stuck or corrupted since changing households to these sims seemed to take 2x-4x longer to load the houses than the ones that does not have problems. Even houses that are overstuffed and very large loads faster than these problematic households. I'm going to try a work pusher mod and see if the error 12 instance would be reduced.

It's the same in my game for a while.. maybe since I get error 12 every time. I noticed that non player sims just don't go work and children don't go to school, so I have to make them active and send them to work/school. All neighborhood is about to be failed or fired.

By the way I started to correspondence with EA tech support about this and ..uhh man! They are dumb! Just said me to delete all my files from Save folder. Wow! That's the solution! After a week they couldn't say me anything but reinstall my computer..
So I called them and a guy said me they know about this problem and they're making the repair and give us a patch within a month.
I don't beleive him.

I believe these minor glitches are probably the cause of the error 12, maybe not at first but given enough time they stack up and clutter to your cache that prevents you from doing anything afterwards. I will be making a list of the glitches I noticed prior to error 12s later. So that we can help each other look for a trend.

Edit:
Below is a partial list of glitches that I noticed  prior to receiving an Error 12:
1. Pathfinding issues for certain (not all) houses/lots when visiting. Sims gets stuck on something in front of the front door. Doorbell could not be activated as if nobody is home. Sims inside the house act as no one is ringing the doorbell if doorbell function activated.
2. Work and School performance drops and non active sims somehow does not go to work just standing around the house. This bug is not observed from all sims only some. There are sims in the same household and only one of them does not go to work. Also some unemployed sims does not seek jobs. They bum around the house. (NRaas Career mod not used)
3. Immovable urn / tombstones in community and residential lots of non active sims. Tombs and urns failed to be moved to the mausoleum.
4. Ghost aging bug. With prior releases of AM, Ghosts that returned to the netherworld still gets aging messages.
5. Missing inventory. So far with playable ghosts, some of them is missing their tombstones in their inventory and lets them live forever as elders.
6. Stuck sims on community lots. Somehow AM's no community swarm seems to fix this problem most of the time. It's often observed with overstuffed town population. They still somehow swarm on the bistro or theater and still get stuck with the no community swarm settings on but only on rare occasion.
7. Townie bug. With the Unified billing on, some non active families cannot afford to pay for their houses with their income even if all their careers are maxed. And somehow in their townie state, they get lost or disappear from the homeless list and reappear sometime later unaged. Some loses traits other loses their body mesh (invisible sim bug).
8. Another townie bug. In some rare occasion the game generates incomplete townies. The game either clone missing townie sims or creates ones without traits or favorites and sometimes both cloned and no personality.
9. Another rare occurrence, the game bypasses AM's storymode controls and mixes up unrelated household members as it normally does. And sometimes it moves out families from the neighborhood. It was weird that with AM and IS installed, there was a mass move out of the town residents leaving only 3 small non active family in town, even townies moved out. That was the last time I used IS. (note that IS and AM had the no move out option turned on. But AM story driver was active, IS story driver inactive)
So far these is what I can remember, I'll be adding if I could remember some more or encounter new ones.  

Also as a trial, I will be testing on using first the "fixall" command every 2am game time as a temporary cleanup process much the same as the games 12am and 5am cleanup process and see if error 12s can be reduced. The next step will try "resetallwants" if fixall does not work.

Edit 10/16: Work pusher does not work on sims who aren't going to work. Resetsim does work on them. These sims somehow have path finding issues. I watched one sim leaving the house to go to the carpool, instead of riding the car, she went into the garage and got stuck there.

Don't blame them, I'm very sure that they are just contracted telemarketers (call centers) that EA hired to do marketing and customer support and limited connection to EA itself. Basically they do not have any technical knowledge. They only have manuals and pre-made knowledge base answers provided to them for them to respond to customers. It may surprise you that some of them are as far as India or the Philippines. Worse yet the one answering your email may sometimes be a computer programmed to send out specific email responses based on keywords.

With regards to the patch, That's something you can believe him. Only the patch not exactly the repair part. Since World Adventures will be released next month there is really a patch included there though it may still be the v1.4 patch. Either way, error 12 and 13 will not be our only problem next month. Knowing the Sims 2 track record, we'll have new things to worry about. (Pray hard, cross all your fingers (including toes), knock on all the wooden things you see, and etc... that the last statement isn't true)

EDIT:
I posted this on the Official TS3 forums, I think this is the trend we'll be expecting from further expansions from the game:
This is the trend I see:
TS1 bug level : zero to minimal. The patches are few and rare for the whole series.
TS2 bug level : Minimal to Moderate. There are many bugs in every EP but they are still playable.
TS3 bug level : Moderate to Severe. Just the base game will foretell what to expect.
TS4 bug level : Probably unplayable.
I added the TS4 since there were some people who had nothing to do but speculate on something still far away and their ideas may be obsolete & forgotten in a couple of years or months.

EDIT 10/19
With stuck and work/school skipping bums, resetworld or resetsim does not always work. It seems they still skip work/school the next day. Also forcing them to go to work one household at a time is tedious but it works however, 1/3 of the way switching household to household also causes error 13s. I think something hardcored in the game that causes these bums to stop working to prevent error 13s, maybe an ingame failsafe. It is probably what's bypassing the NRaas Workpusher mod from working right. With the AM story driver the results are the same. Unemployed sims remains unemployed and employed non active sims just keep skipping work and losing jon performance. I tracked around 10/32 employed sims going to work, 31 sims are left unemployed, all kids skipping school.

My last post seems over bloated so I have to start on a new reply.

I tried again to push the non active sims to go to work and school. I found these following actions resulted into an Error 13.
1. Changing different households to set sims to find work and go to work. On the 15th house entered. Error 13 prevents the game from being saved further. I think objects in the inactive houses gets also saved into the cache when loaded into. And moving sims going to work and looking for work at the same instance causes somewhat an overload to the cache.

2. Once all households have been given jobs. With NRaas Workpusher active, the game freezes at 7am. Either there are too many sims that are expected to work at 8am as well as kids going to school. Or the stuck sims are still being pushed by the workpusher and refuses to go to work.

    Without the workpusher, the game continues but Error 13 will pop out when saved. Some sims still does not go to work.

Looks like error 12 doesn't require much to appear. I started a fresh game today. I could play for almost 2 sim days. During this my sim had done nothing but eat, take a bath, sleep and write a novel. I noticed that the save file kept increasing in size like mad. On my fourth save I got error 12.

I am one of the only people to have hardly any patterns installed and have only had error 13 once. Make of that what you will, but I think there may be a connection.

The game really shouldn't be worrying about cacheing items in other households if indeed thats true.

Theres a saying "If a tree falls in a deserted woods, does it make a noise?"
In sims 3, it would appear yes it does. And the computer wheezes and coughs while it happens too.

The game does not cache other house details if you don't interact with other households only sims and interactions, the game only loads the house shell not the interior during map view. Once you close up, more details gets loaded into the cache. Then entering the house will add more to cache. So changing into different households will bloat your cache.

My idea is if you play the game like sims 2 where you don't go anywhere but your current household and zoom out less, you have more playtime since only sim interactions and your current household gets loaded into the cache.

Let's be fair: TS3 is much less buggy than TS2 base. While it is true that it is possible to munge your neighborhood in various ways, much of this is due to third-party modification allowing you to poke the games in ways it was never designed to be poked. In TS2, every neighborhood was invariably faced with certain doom in the form of the "jump bug" triggered by data file bloatage, and this was an unavoidable and inevitable thing in ANY neighborhood, and REQUIRED a third party hack to repair. Which we made. TS3, there's the "error 12", but not everyone encounters this and it is not known what exactly you're doing to trigger it. Plus, the game didn't come with a "fuck up your game" button like the fiasco that was the lot bin.

I was getting error 13 non-stop, but managed to (so far) get rid of it. It wasn't due to saving infrequently (I saved every 2-5 minutes, a habit from the frequent TS2 crashes), and I had no success with deleting cache files, .BAD files, or changing a tree or other random action on a community lot. I also tried renaming my game, using backup files, and moving my active family to another lot. I didn't have an excessive amount of downloads or mods installed, nor much of a population, and I play with a legal copy. However, for over a month and a half, I was able to save only one time per game, and then never again.

This error may have occurred only after I significantly re-built a lot I had downloaded off of MTS. I was trying to expand the family's house, and had deleted most of the house they had been residing in, in order to rebuild on the same plot with their garden. I believe this is when error 13 began, but I can't be sure.

So yesterday, I used the TS3 Launcher and uninstalled every custom lot I had in the game (I kept all my hacks and other .package files, however), then started the game, saved my sim families to the library, as well as three community lots I built myself, and deleted the entire neighborhood. I began a new Riverside neighborhood, and built a brand new house on an empty lot. Then I played until 8 AM in the morning (only about ten hours straight), saving every 2-5 minutes, and not a single error occurred. I have not placed any of those custom community lots I'd built as of yet, but will try that out after a few more days of finally enjoying the game again.

I hope this helps someone out, as there seems to be a lot of suggestions out there, but barely any follow-ups on their implementation.

That's true. Based on what I gather less than 30% has been encountering this problem or probably even less. Also thanks for the reminder, I did forget about the Jump Bug problem that caused so much problems as well as others that MATY did solve. Those bugs did not have much impact on me since I never encountered them and was too busy cleaning out the crap and junk embedded within the sims2pack that got installed into my game. I appreciate the correction of my erroneous point of view.

I agree that it's really the player that triggers this not the game. I already solved my own error 12 and 13 problems a while back. I'm just screwing around with the game and figure out what's causing it and understand why methods that worked for me does not does not apply to others. (So I'm not asking for any help but just posting on what I have been observing and what I screw ups I made to cause it. Just try to establish a trend to understand what triggers this.)

EDIT 10/23
Just for additional information, there was a suggestion earlier that moving your household to a new neighborhood solved their error problem.

My experience it does temporary work unless you do something different (play styles, mods and all) the error will still come back.

Also, if the family you are exporting from the old hood to the new one has completed skill challenges, that sim may end up being corrupted but skill levels is retained. This is the list I saw that got altered during the export/import process:
1. Logic
         Grand Master your title will remain but the sims you've beaten and next challenger will be empty
         Celestial Explorer becomes cleared all celestial discoveries are erased.
         Teacher Extraordinaire will reflect hours taught but the inside data listing who your sim taught, # of hours taught and date taught is empty
         Skill Professor same as teacher extraordinaire
2. Writing
         Without the AM, I think all books written will be purged. Probably, what will remain is number of books and total royalties made.
3. Gardening
         Plantable opportunities gets reset. You cannot plant cheese, eggs, patty and steaks or order omni plant seed until you redo the opportunities
         Master Planter will become incomplete. Though the planting record history is intact, You have to keep replanting until you find the right seed to complete the challenge again.
4. Charisma
         Though very obvious, everything here will be reset to zero.
5. Guitar
         Compositions Known will be duplicated. All master tracks will become duplicate ordinary tracks. so if you have 20 ordinary tracks your master tracks will become 20 ordinary tracks. All master tracks erased
6. Collecting
         Awesomest Rock Collector in the Universe, your 100% analyzed rocks becomes 79% and this challenge becomes reset.

Any painting in the family inventory or sim inventory becomes riddler tiles
Certificates can sometimes loose the ownership links. Fishes (alive or mounted) also gets ownership link severed (My deathfish and shark became "store bought").

So basically you're importing errors to your new game.

Sorry for the added thread. My previous thread is getting bloated.

I'm just curious, for those experiencing the Error 12s and 13s.

A. When you encounter these errors do you ...
    1. Quit the game normally
    2. Use the task manager to prematurely terminate the game

B. After restarting your game, how many sim days or minutes playing do you start encountering the errors once more.

What I am trying to figure out when the refresh of the cache takes place. Is it during the initial loading of the game or is it during the unloading of the game from memory when you are quitting.

Steele, I'm going to quote you from another thread:
This, and some of what you are saying caught my eye. The game definitely does not break ownership links after some time, in a 'normal' game. I have a generation 11 family who have certificates and paintings going back to generation 2, as well as fish caught by generation 2. They are all perfectly intact, with all ownerships working. Haven't paid any attention to the books, as I keep forgetting to take them when I move and haven't checked the library. What I'm trying to say is that all of this- the save errors, the riddler tiles, the lost ownership- seems to point to some underlying corruption, and I don't think you are going to repair it by 'cleaning up' your current savegame (it seems as though that's what you are doing?). From other tests that people have done it seems clear that people with these issues in game are having it re-occur in fresh hoods, so this means that it is probably re-occurring in your game too. We know what the symptoms are, we need to find out what is causing it- why only some computers, and stop it. I don't think there's any way you'll really repair corruption and stop it from worsening where it has already happened. So far my suspects are custom content as a cause, and also certain hardware (one user has the riddler tiles almost immediately in a vanilla game on a Mac, but install from the same disc to a PC and the game works fine).

On normal gameplay, it should not have any problems with the ownership breaks. In the case of The Sims, there is no such thing as normal gameplay generally since there's always custom content and the freeform method of the game anything is possible. It's also the same case as other freeform games like Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout3.

Of course there will be some problems generated by the hardware itself but most of the bulk of the problem is always in the side of the user. Based on your last example with the Mac and the PC, It could be that there was a bad install that happened with the Mac or the Mac might not have enough free resources when the game was loaded. Really hard to tell unless there are more details involved.

What the user does abnormally & what the user adds is really the deciding factor in what happens to the game.

Most of the debug codes are marked experimental and as Pescado warned it must not be taken lightly as a quick fix but as a last resort. The breakage and corruptions in the game may also be attributed to some abuse of these experimental codes as well as some abnormal actions initiated by the user. As example, the user feels that a certain sim is stuck but in actuality behind the scenes, that sim is loading some data, the user gets impatient then types "resetsim" the loading is aborted halfway, though the sim may appear normal, the aborted load may possibly remain in memory and corrupt the said sim.

I'm not exactly cleaning out my save games but isolating potential sources. I'm removing what I think I can do without and see if that was causing the problem or not. Worse comes to worse. Even what I really want in the game is the source of the problem then it has to be removed and noted. Because it's really easy to just remove the whole game, re-install it and start a new game. But without knowing what I did that caused it, eventually I'll re-encounter the same predicament as before.

I have been poking around the savefile recently so far there are so much redundant sim descriptions linked around a certain sim. A corruption in one of the duplicate description may go unnoticed at first but it may start problems once accessed. There is a portion in the sim description that if improperly valued will prevent the save game to be loaded. However, with the other values the game will load normally but the effect is not visible during gameplay.

I still believe that the game has certain limitations in terms of cache size and set resource parameters allocated for the game to run. Also there is some belief that the game has a memory leak. So knowing this, I think the best way is try an minimize your gameplay, what you don't need, you remove. Keep removing until the desired result is achieved. There is no set answers since not everybody has the same machine specs. This is under the assumption that the game is newly loaded (so no error 12 or 13 encountered yet for that session).

One thing I learned. Once error 12 or 13 has appeared. It's best to reload the whole game. Don't force and bypass it. More bugs and problems will appear if you get lucky and bypass it. That is why I was asking at a previous post upon encountering the errors if the player quits normally or premature terminates the game. I found that premature termination can leave certain data in the cache and the errors will be easily be filled. This is just my experience. If this theory is correct then even starting with a new hood using the same cache the new hood could easily contract the problem that is retained in the cache.

EDIT
I've been looking into the genealogy records inside the save game and found some weird stuff. Sims removed from the neighborhood via "Therapture" and "Destroyalltownies" are not all destroyed some sims descriptions still remain within the save game. Also occupied lots that are moved around causes duplicate sims in the save game as well. My game has now 3 sets of Goths (Gunther, Cornelia and Mortimer), 4 Bella Bachelors and lots of other sims.

However, Sims that are purged by the EAxis default emmigration are not found within the list.

It could be that all these junk sim descriptions bloat up the save file size and possibly also clutters up the cache. So with a town that has lots of history behind it there is also lots of Sim Descriptions cluttering up space.

I don't see how you are going to possibly get to the root of a problem unless you remove all of the unknown variables. In other words, I don't see how you are possibly going to find out what is causing these errors in your game whilst you are installing, removing and changing your savegame with custom content. In Sims 2 it was not uncommon for a mod or CC which was once thought acceptable to later be found to be damaging. For the case with the Mac, this was with a person knowledgeable in computing, who used two different computers and multiple installs to attempt to troubleshoot a persistent issue. This is one of only two cases I've seen where custom content was definitely not involved. It is frustrating to watch so many people on so many threads experiencing the same issues over and over, when the whole troubleshooting process could be expedited by eliminating some possible causes. The first and easiest to eliminate is custom content.

I agree removing custom content should be the first and easiest way to determine if that is causing you problems. And it has been stated over and over again before in this thread and the other threads. Sad part is only a few really did reply saying "they still have it without CCs" and most of them are from this site. The rest still whine ,complain and ignore the suggestion as if was blasphemous.

The next step is to re-install your game and try playing it vanilla. Because, there are many instances I spotted where in there are some bad installs reported. Most of them are the objectcache file which is basically the cache for Sunset Valley. Somebody's hosting a fixed objectcache file in torrents for those who have problems with the bad installed objectcache file. This is also stated in the previous replies over and over...

If both does not work, try reducing what is not needed in your game. Again, also being repeated.

What you have suggested has been suggested in the past. However, I find there are not enough responses and feedback in which I can really establish anything. So the next best thing I did was to emulate what others did based on what little background they shared and try to guess what other things they refuse to tell that caused the problem.

Also tried analyzing some saves from other players, so far their saves are clean with only duplicate townies over bloating the hood. The common mod they have is IS. I just confirmed tinkering around the save file that these townies aren't all purged and just moving them around from lot to lot will create duplicate sims. Really bloating your game very fast. With a new town and moving Don Lothario's house from one location to another caused 2 Don Lotharios recorded in the Genealogy record. Haven't really tried seeing what happens after a time, does the game purge the clone or it is left behind. So far the cleanest purge I found was done by the EAxian Default Story emmigration purges (all my sims that were affected by this purge was nowhere seen in the save)

So far I have no more ideas on how to help with little feedback or background to work on. So I'm just tinker around the save file to find if there is some way to respawn some deleted urns that I did a few months ago.

I appreciate your concerns to other players. Thanks.

I always try to sidestep it, and made it through months of gameplay without failing to sidestep an Error 13.  I had also recently sidestepped a number of Error 12's (although I always had periods where Error 12's meant "this game isn't going to save no matter what you do" as well).

That's crucial to saving one's progress, and it's crucial to game enjoyment to be able to save your progress, IMO.

Something I learned was the only way to be okay after sidestepping an error was that, once it saved, I had to quit the game (by the in-game quit button) and clearing out the caches.  I swear if there were a mod that allowed caches to be cleared from inside the game it would fix a lot of the save error problem.  If I kept playing after that, then I'd get an error I couldn't sidestep.

Just recently I'm getting errors that won't let me sidestep them and that will even crash while saving if I try too hard, and it's becoming infuriating, but that's in a cluster.  I've also had nice clusters where I'd go a couple weeks without any errors I couldn't sidestep; so I don't think sidestepping errors is a bad thing.

One thing that some people have found to help is to go to 'edit town' before saving; the game seems to purge caches or memory or some darned thing when you do that.

After poking so much inside the save game (backup game before I started messing around, this is the save after fixing my error 12 and 13 problem). I just found how screwed up my save file is.

1. With duplicate sims, I found that duplicates created by the game during move out / move in functions can be deleted by "nukeimpostors", but duplicates created by moving out -> deleting family on clipboard -> re-instituting same family back into town from bin will have no effect with "nukeimpostors" (dead duplicate sims does count as not affected)

2. Somehow, all my default dead sims of Sunset Valley graveyard has became NPC status and keep on becoming townies. Funny thing is with the NRaas supercomputer, their skin tones has become reaper black skin tone. Which could relate to my ghost bug I have been experiencing months ago.

3. There's also a genealogy loop bug in some of my dead sims. In game, the sim genealogy connectors loops to itself. But inside the save file, other relatives connect to this sim but the said sim itself has no connections. Which is really weird.

4. Another thing I noted that one of the 250+ written books is connected to the Awesomemod. I'm not sure which one since I delete them in bulk. A Flargrant System Error appears and refuses the merge family function in edit town. I forgot where I saved the screen capture. Will post it as soon as I find it.

5. One thing I found is that there's a hidden unimplemented photography skill in the game as well as a toddler block skill. I'm not sure if this old news since it is not mentioned in the wiki. Right now I'm too lazy to do a site search and reach every related entry.

6. One final thing I also found, transferring paintings from one neighborhood to another will work without becoming riddler tiles if it is displayed in a lot. If stored in a sim or family inventory it will lose the picture. For fishes and certificates, whatever I do with them they still lose ownership tags when moving them into a new neighborhood. Well, you could be one of the few who has a store bought Deathfish.

I'm retiring this current game since it takes me now 3 minutes to save and a lot more time to correct the bugs found.

Just posting these findings in case you may encounter the same incidents in your game. Hopefully not. At least there are some solutions that can work.

In my experience, it does not always work. If your cache gets over bloated, whatever you do won't work. And sometimes, when error 13 pops out, there is a small percentage it can work, I'd say around 20-40%. I may be wrong but I think it still depends on the cache.

I just got an error 12 message for the first time after months of playing the game.  It happened after I finished editing a character in CAS using the Super Computer mod.  I noticed a few things that may or may not be helpful in trying to find a solution to this.  One was a "Null Key" in the Lifetime traits rewards that I fixed using the Clean Traits feature of Super Computer.  The other was the GUI of Buy/Sell Catalog was colored black.  The game crashed to the desktop after I tried to go to Edit Town without saving.

I've browsed some of the posts on this thread so I'll be trying some of the voodoo solutions here but what can I expect from this neighborhood or any future neighborhoods that I start up now that I've been inflicted with this?  Is the problem going to get worse from here on out?  Is it recommended to start a new save file?  How are people coping with this?

What I know is if an incorrect value is introduced to sim description, the GUI sometimes becomes invisible or the build buy mode will be empty as well in your case it becomes black.

It's better to load a previous save if it's still available. In my experience, It will really depend on what other mods are present in your game and what you do with it is what will determine if it'll become worse or not.

Could you elaborate a little more on this?  Do we know what mods cause the error 12 to appear more often than others just by merely having them installed?  Is there something about doing certain things on a particular mod that will cause the E12 to appear with greater frequency?  Do we know what those certain things are?

I was under the impression that the problem was still a mystery and there was no known solution or cause as the problem appears to be spread across all sorts of users: from those who play with mods to those who play without them, pirated and legit copies of the game, and those with custom content versus those without.

There is no known solution to the E12. Yes, it is still a mystery since the problem seems to evolve, what works today may not work tomorrow likewise, what works for others does not work to some.

So far, there are incompatible mods I've been having some suspicion upon. As example, I have been noticing the E12 are developing faster with Chaavik's Faster Writing mod and the More Opportunity Mod together. This is just what I noticed but not confirmed. There are many other mods out there and there are many combinations that will happen. So far there is no list of conflicting mods, but it will be best to start reading the readme/updates/comments/forums where the mod came from sometimes they will site what mods does not go well with it.

As for my experience, once you start getting E12s it's not a good sign, better reload and earlier game.

These are the signs I see that may lead to an E12:
1. Saving a 50Mb save game for 1.75 minutes. My normal save is 45 seconds for 129 Mb
2. Pathing errors on visiting other households. Visiting sims will go directly to the mailbox instead of the door. If Sim manages to get to the door. Inside sims will ignore the doorbell.
3. Over populated, multiple cloned townie sims.
4. Forcing opportunities through cheats. Will damage sim descriptions if done incorrectly.
These are the repeating signs I see as few sim days before I get the E12. There are more signs to look out for that I might not have encountered yet.

I haven't been played for 3 weeks with the game.. I didn't want to start the game because the error 12 makes me sad and angry.
Maybe I'll return to the Sims 2..

D'OH!!!  Error Code 13 is now popping up for me at LEAST once an hour!  This started over the weekend.  For months, I had no problems.  I have no idea what's causing it.  I usually run with Delphy's boob slider mod and nothing else, but I've had it for a couple weeks now.  The only other change is I've filled a house to capacity with 8 sims.  My wife's computer gets Error Code 12, she also has the boob slider mod and 8-sims in a house.  She was able to side-step it by going to Edit Town one time it happened, the other time it crashed to desktop on a subsequent save attempt.  I once had an Error Code 12 that turned to an Error Code 13 on a subsequent save attempt.

I can side-step it sometimes, by going to Edit Town, going into CAS, exiting back to Edit Town, and doing that whole dance.  I've tried build/modifying lots, adding/removing lots, etc.  However, lately, NOTHING I try works.  I've taken to saving every 15-minutes just so when Code 13 occurs, I haven't lost too much time.  Whenever I get an Error Code 13 that no matter what I do won't let it save, I'll do suicide by burning hotdogs.  8 sims.  8 grilles.  8 fires.  Burn, burn burn!  Interesting thing is I guess the game is so unstable by the time Error Code 13 pops up that no sim ever dies in the massive resulting fire because I get crash to desktop before that happens.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason why this error occurs.  Only thing I observed is that IF side-stepping the error works, it saves a 49MB file whereas the normal save file is 40MB.  It will still open correctly, but if I re-save it, it makes a 40MB file again.  Seems like some kind of memory leak.

Just to say that I haven't given up on my side of the experiments, its just I have to be gradual and inspect how the town reacts to things being re-inserted.
I can say at least that the landslide of CC over the last couple weeks has not made things worse, I'm still 95% error free here but with a very low population.

Right now I don't have any ideas on how to fix E12s and E13s but I have a theory. With World Adventures, I'm sure there'll be a new cache for each locations. I'm assuming that it'll be less than 1Mb from the specs provided. But I think, there might be a work around if we force travel to another neighborhood to save and use the destination cache instead.

Possible drawbacks will be that the game will try to save upon leaving the neighborhood or the main neighborhood cache would not be refreshed while traveling and the save game will still access the main hood's cache.

I have only found one solution to elminating E12/E13 which so far has worked the past two days, and that is to close out the game after about an hour and restart it.  I landed on the hour figure because I've been saving every 15-minutes or so, and it seemed the 5th or 6th save (approx 1-1/2hrs) is the one that would get E13.

I've posted here before, and my crashing and E12's and E13's have gotten to where I have to time my saves to under an hour. It seems as the previous person said they have to save and relaunch every hour or so. This works for me so far. As starting two days ago I would save every 30 minutes and after two or three saves I would get an E12 and then I'd save again and it'd crash.
I'm guessing that all these E12's and E13's are from custom content mainly? Because my grandmother who plays for days on end by just closing her laptop lid and leaving the game running hasn't had any of these errors or save problems. She doesn't have much custom content either. Maybe 10 or 20 things... and no awesome mod.
World Adventures comes out in two days... I don't know what to expect with it. I guess the same as what went on with Bon Voyage, which was a lot of major problems.

By the way, if someone's mentioned this before, I'm mentioning it again, but this thread has been extremely helpful to me. I just wanted to thank all the people who take the time to come up with theories and share them on here :)

I posted in this thread before too and I am finding I get error 12s when my resident population reaches somewhere in the high 70s.  If I keep the population lower than 75 I can play for hours and save every 15 minutes and not error once.  I have a ton of CC and use a few hacks (Awesome, Twallan's computer and story progression).

I don't know what you guys have for populations, but this is what I am finding at the moment.  However my current neighborhood has not had anyone die yet, and I know ghosts can get errors.  It's really frustrating not knowing what causes the errors.  I just want to enjoy my neighborhood and watch it grow and evolve.  Every time it gets going I get errors.  So this time I am keep watch of the population.

I believe that Error 12s and long saves has something to do with the population. At a certain point, with the latest Awesomemod build, the population in my town stopped expanding. Forced adding 3 sims and the game started to lag and Error 12s kept poping up every 2 hours. Forced adding 2 more sims and the Error 12 now appears every hour. My save game takes 3 minutes to save.

But one thing I noticed with the long save game, is that 80% of the waiting time during saves, there is no saving that actually takes place. Somehow the game may be accessing something from the memory or cache during those times. Even saves without the error messages will turn out as a bad file when checking the saves folder in explorer.

The only change I made to correct this problem is changing the aging timescale from epic to short, after a few deaths the game normalized and no errors or bad files for 4+ hours. My save game is back to 15 to 20 secs.

It is possible that overpopulation might be a cause and playing with an epic scale or non-aging would cause these errors. I think that the random family move out of town (or purging) by the game is a failsafe made by EA to reduce errors caused by overpopulating. I also think there is a limit population cap somewhere in the codes that tells the game to make these purges.

I would not group the long saves with it being overpopulation only. There could be other reasons for them. My neighborhood has a population no greater than 20 sims and the save time takes 5 to 6 minutes. I believe it is bad custom content causing this. Attempting to removing it and reloading several times with a backup and saving the cc free hood resulted in the same amount of save time (5 minutes) as well with an incredibly long client load time (Almost 8 minutes from desktop to sunset valley). This leads me to believe a theory for once you have inserted some bad CC (or maybe even ANY cc/mods the game was not made to accept outside of the launcher installations of store items -such as default replacements) encounter this problem it may not be fixed without a fresh start of the hood, or even an entire reinstall of TS3. Unless someone else has produced a 10 minute client load and a 5 to 6 minute (or longer) save without any cc ever having been installed with a computer that is over or beyond the recommended system requisite.

I was having a lot of problem with Error Code 12 and 13 complete with crashes. It happened with and without custom content and mods. It happened with and without aging and story progression running.  I tried deleting all the caches and still it happened. It seemed to happen during weeks 14-16 of Sim play regardless of all my effots. I read on the Forum to delete the files in WorldCaches. I did so and the Error Codes 12, 13 and the random crashes stopped. I've been able to play through Sim Week 60 with no problem.  But the files in the WorldCaches folder didn't automatically regenerate. Is this a problem?

I strongly envy you, Steele. My game takes around 2 and a half minutes to save, and I have my aging scale on normal. You say you fixed your save time from three minutes to 15 seconds by taking the aging scale off epic?
I also don't have any idea what my population is, how do you find that out?Actually, my population is at 52. Lately I have been having a lot of deaths though, as my previous generation all start to die off. Maybe I should go and just kill off the elders, because there's at least two or three in every household. Matter of fact, elders are the dominant age. I went on a killing spree though and terminated about 5, and oddly enough my game went from 2 and a half minutes to save; to just 2 minutes flat.

I also believe E12's must have something to do with the population. From what everyone else is reporting and from the fact that almost right after my household had another kid was when the errors starting showing up and my game started crashing a lot. It seemed like she tipped the population over.

so i havent played for months thanks to error 13 but i was just wondering if the new patch or the World adventures has corrected the cache issues which have been causing the errors, does anyone who has the expansion or patched their game know?

So far, it seems possible to save without having Error 12s or 13s with WA. But it's hard to tell as of now since there are now 10 files instead of 1 save file for each save.

My first attempt did not result in errors but it crashed to desktop during a save and no save game folder was made.

Saving is now 4x longer since each town has it's own save file.

The game does not save during loading from hood to hood but so far saving from the foreign country accesses the cache of that country during save which somehow bypasses some error 12/13 occurrence. So far this is still in theory and still needs verification.

That's interesting. I'm just curious, but do the new worlds in WA work like the sub-hoods in TS2 - they don't get added until you create them - or are they simply forced on you on the first load?

They are loaded when you visit those hoods. Same as TS2.

The difference is, they don't get created nor forced on the first load. They are already created once the game installs, the world file and cache is fixed in size. You just have to load them. Though the first loading will take a bit since they are updating all the stats of every sim in your hood.

I find that WA borked the charisma skill. It erased my comedian challenge back to zero. Though, fishes, gardening and collectibles seems correctly adjusted.

I still get E12/E13 if I continuously play the game for >1hr without closing down and reopening it.  I've killed off a ton of sims in my neighborhood, and it didn't seem to make any difference.  I manage to recover about 3/4 times.
I have this problem even without mods, and the only CC I have is officially sanctioned stuff from the Sims Store.
It seems to me there's just a good old fashioned memory leak in the code, perhaps from poor or inefficient coding.

Yeah, it does seem as if an E12/E13 doesn't really save anything.  I can usually tell when I'm going to get one because saving takes an unusually long time, and there is much less disk activity going on than a good save.

Now we have another saving error: Error 16! Yeeee!

I can't easily find the WorldCaches folder, but I haven't searched as hard as I could.  It would be great if something like this turned out to be the answer.  Once I find that folder, can anyone give a reason I shouldn't delete the files in it?

The WorldCaches folder is in Documents\ Elecronic Arts\ The Sims 3. If you have deleted the Program Files\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3\ Caches\ Sunset Valley.objectCache file, as suggested elsewhere in this thread, then you will have cache files for Sunset Valley in there. If you didn't delete that file then the game will instead use the four caches in Documents\ Elecronic Arts\ The Sims 3, instead of in the WorldCaches folder.  If you also have Riverview, then you will have Riverview Caches in there too. As with any cache they can be safely deleted, although the game may lag on next play as the caches rebuild. If you are patched to 1.6 or have WA installed then I would advise that you restore the Program Files\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3\ Caches\ Sunset Valley.objectCache file; the game seems to use the caches differently and will still use the Documents\ Elecronic Arts\ The Sims 3 \scriptCache.package file even if you have the Sunset Valley.objectCache file deleted. I would delete all caches if you add/ remove mods too, as script mods/ core mods will need a refresh of the script cache (Documents\ Elecronic Arts\ The Sims 3\ WorldCaches\ Riverview_objects.package and Riverview_sims.package for Riverview; Documents\ Elecronic Arts\ The Sims 3\ scriptCache.package for Sunset).

Thanks.  I think I had deleted that file (the sunsetvalletobjectcache one) and then restored it later from my CD because of some sort of problem, but I just moved it to my secondary drive (so I can easily restore it if I have to) and I'll see if it works to fix the save problems.

Just to make myself clear, I'm not suggesting that you remove that file if you have updated your game to 1.6/ 2.6:

I'm fine on that count, as I don't have the new EP or the new patch yet.

I probably won't get them until my mods (mainly AM, as most-- including CC, of which I have a lot-- of the rest likely will be compatible, although some tuning mods-- most of which I made for myself-- may have to be updated as the files they override mayl have been) are compatible with them.

As of my recent attempt to play, deleting that file seems really not to have made a difference.  Error 12 was still there.

I know I haven't posted here for a long time but I do frequently come back here to read any new posts.

The error codes still persisted however even after I followed all the advice/tips given in this thread. I mean, it was a temporary fix but they would also return.

And now I can't even install my World Adventures expansion. (Yes, I saw that thread here.) I'm gonna give up on TS3 for the time being and go play Dragon Age.  :D

But I'll come back here and read this thread along with that WA installation problem thread.

Deleting contents of WorldCache folder = no difference for me, still got E12.
Upgrading to 1.6.6 then 1.7.9 = no difference, still got E12.

Good to see EA is on top of things.  ::)

It seems WA solved my saving problem.. for a while.
At least I can play and save! Wow..

Heh heh, at least you were able to actually play WA Lorea.

I can't even install mine.  >:(

Ok, but I suffered for it enough.. I couldn't play with the base game for 3 months!!
In the first month the game closed itself after 10-40 minutes. When I could solve that then came error 12 and 13 every time and I couldn't play at all for 2 months!
So don't envy me.

Just got an error 12 while attempting to save in China. :P
Just installed awesomemod beta, maybe that triggered it somehow...

Update: This error 12 was quite different from the others. Easy to detect, and easy to save afterwards.
By simply bulldozing one of the 34x42 lots next to the main temple in china, and replacing with the lot below, the game threw an error 12 every time out of like 7 tries. By bulldozing the suspected lot, saving was possible.
An older version of the lot worked no problem. Strange.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/lnoc8i

===============================
Update: This is apparently a translation of the official word of what error 12 is:

Code 12
This device can not find enough free resources that it can use. If you're using them, you must disable one of the other devices on this system.

(Code 12)

Cause

This error can occur when two devices that are installed on your computer the same I / O ports, the same break, or the same Direct Memory Access channel (either by the BIOS, operating system, or both) have been allocated. This error message can also appear if the BIOS is not enough resources allocated to the device.

Recommended solution

You can Troubleshooting Wizard in Device Manager to determine where the conflict is, and then disable the conflicting device.

Disable the conflicting device

1. In the Properties dialog on the General tab.
2. Click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooting wizard. The wizard asks you some simple questions and provides a solution to your problem based on the answers you give.
3. Follow the steps through the wizard offered to the problem 

After the patch (and also with WA), 90% of my E12 and E13 have been replaced with CTD during save.  Woohoo!  ::)

I'm getting error 12 a lot now, It used to be only error 13 I got with the odd error 12 every now and then.

But ever since I installed world adventures the other day I've been getting error 12 nonstop.

Why isn't EA addressing these issues? Or at least telling us what they're about and giving possible solutions. (Or doing anything at all about it)


Where is this? I can't find the Device Driver Troubleshoot anywhere.....plus the device drivers window doesn't have a general tab (or any tabs at all)

Someone from customsims3forums got a dutch EA reply. Thats the translation.
Can't find the original post but its there somewhere.

I wonder why dutch EA can give out these answers and our EA seems to be completely mute on the matter.  ::)

Is it ok to delete the files in the cache folders? I heard someone say they deleted them and have managed to save the game properly. I might try that.

I have just verified, That after getting E12s and E13s, you can save without problems when you go on vacation. The game will utilize the cache for the destination selected.

Also adding the NRaas Story Progression does increase chances of E12s and E13s. But without any 3rd party story driver, the game has booted out lots of the sims in my nieghborhood and committed Pedocide. Almost half of my toddlers and kids were killed off by the EA story driver every sim day.

Also noted with a over population of childrens and teens, they don't go to school since they are all stuck at the entrance. Some get in lucky the others just wander out to town after 2-3 hours of trying to get in.

Dunno if anyones seen this but heres a list of all error meanings. Although it can be vague.
Notice how error 16 didn't exist when the article was written.

http://press-f1.co.uk/2009/06/13/the-sims-3-crashing-and-corrupt-save-files/

Error 16 is a new error from world adventures that article was written back in June. I've seen this list before when I started having error 12s.

those error code descriptions are written in general technical terms because there are a lot of sources why that error would occur. I think it'll take a huge amount of time just to explain or be specific on the cause of the errors, I figure there are multitudes of factors that will cause errors from machine specs to custom contents to player misuse. On the other hand, they probably don't know either what's really causing it.

Hmm, just had an error 13 after an hour or two of non-saving work (aka. foolishness).  Tried deleting the ".bad" versions and the save itself, then making a new one, which caused the game to CTD.  Lovely.

Oh, and now my other save refuses to load.

I think this may be the last straw.  Good thing the price was right on this game, at least.

I definitely do NOT recommend doing this.  This worked for my wife, but when I tried it, it somehow saved a corrupted Riverview without crashing, appearing to work properly.  Then when returning from vacation, it would CTD every single time.  Since it saved properly on vacation, it also backed up the corrupted Riverview over my last good backup forcing me to use a 3-day old Windows Shadow Copy backup.  Had it not been for the fact that I leave my computer running for hours, I wouldn't have had any backups at all and would have had to start over from scratch - losing the last 6 months of progress.

Moral of the story is you're taking a HUGE risk trying to get past E12/13 by sending them on vacation and saving there.  It may work, or it may irreparably grenade your town.

I keep getting a CTD randomly while just playing. I can save just fine, but it seems like after a few minutes, the game crashes for no apparent reason, and I'm on XP. :P

My sims were just standing around talking to each other and wump! CTD. It's getting annoying. I thought maybe the new patch would help, but it hasn't.

The only time I was getting random CTD in WA was, I believe, due to a custom hair.   Been playing with out CTD's then suddenly was getting them.   Realized I had put back in a couple custom hairs around the time the CTD started. I've been feeding my CC back in a bit at a time to catch crap like this.    Took out one of them - an Abby pooklet'ed hair from GOS.   Kept getting CTD's.   Put Abby's hair back in and took out the file with Dreadlocks and Braided Ponytail, also from GOS but the name of the creator escapes me.   Haven't had a CTD since.   I was using the Dreads and Braided hairs before WA without problems.   *shrug* I give up on anything making sense anymore with this EP.

I am very suspicious of the custom hairs. I will do some testing, taking them out - some of them also look really weird after installing the expansion. They did something to the heads of the sims, me thinks.

Interesting, mine worked. The mysteries of the Error 12 never ceases.

I did however had some interesting findings when I installed the updated Awesomemod (11/28 build I think) After returning from Vacation I had a CTD at 1am ( didn't know at the time that it was an issue on that build) So I tried using Nukeimpostors and I got 38 sims out of 1 household impostors and also with Destorycorruptsims, I got my first corrupt sim. Checking the town inhabitants I noticed that the corrupt and impostor sims are the same sims that the vanilla WA game also deleted. I don't know yet if there is a relation or just a coincidence.


I remember that the first Custom Hair by peggy did have an issue with CTD. I believe it has to do with the polycounts. perhaps the dreadlock and braided ponytail uses more resources than what your machine can which results to CTD. With WA, perhaps there are additional items in your neighborhood which added with the dreadlocks causes your game to crash.

I got an error 12 yesterday and was able to save around it.  However as I continued to play it was very apparent my town blew up.  I don't recommend trying to save around the error.  The way the game saves vacations and things = major problems.

I also totally notice that I have 2 things in common when the error occurs.

1. My sim broke up with someone
2. My ram is all used up.

Sometimes it's just one or the other.  I'm not going to allow an break ups for a while and I will be watching my ram and rebooting accordingly to see if that helps at all.

Actually, there's no huge risk if you minimize the risk by using "Save As" and changing the file name.  That way, if it doesn't save properly, you can always go back to your previous save-- which is what you'd have to do anyway if you just quit after failing to save it.

I've been playing World Adventures for about three weeks for many hours and I only got one error code 16. It just wouldn't save. So I used the "Save As" and, viola, it saved. Hopefully that's a temporary fix.

And as for the crashes. I got an fpslimiter and haven't received one crash. Don't know if the fpslimiter really fixed it though. My computer is good and I don't it was over-heating.

error code 16 was fixed by an EA update...so you're playing a non-updated game...

Error code 12 continues to plague my game...generally I can have 3 saves and on the 4th save, I get error code 12...I suspect it's a memory leak (don't know whether to blame the game or windows as they both leak like sieves).

The only good I can tell you that has come from this is that I play for a much shorter period of time now - which has made my hubby extremely happy...dinner's on the table when it ought to be, etc.

I've recently gone back to playing my old save which was previously afflicted with Error 13. After installing WA to the latest version and updating my mods, I did some 'resetworld' and game-flushing voodoo, and played for a while. Eventually I found that I got an E13 only when story progression was turned on (I was using AwesomeStoryDriver). If I turned it off, I got no errors and even the save times were considerably shorter.

At first I thought Awesome was the culprit, so I tried disabling it and saving with the default story progression on, and then saving with twallan's mod active. Both error-free. I then went back to Awesome, and for some curious reason I get no E12s or E13s anymore. I'm guessing that because I clean-saved without any story progression mod active in between, I cleaned out whatever glitchiness was causing the errors. But don't take my word for it; I seriously I have no clue why my game is now working.

*Something* cluster fucked my neighborhood but I'm not sure what it was. I had never got an error while saving before but last night I got an error code 12. I had saved several times last night prior to that (with updated hacks and the new patch) and all was fine. I finally managed to get it to save after doing a voodoo chant, yelling and going back and fourth between the map screen and the game.

What's mind boggling here is the save file has jumped 10MB from the previous save and the last time I had saved prior to that was about 45 minutes or less. I didn't add any new houses and no kids were born. Only thing major that happened was one of the townies got married, pregnant and moved into a new house, a lot of sims aged up, and I got some wonky opportunity about repairing a tv that had been placed in my inventory but is not there.

I'm not sure if I should use the backup save or continue on and ignore it.

For what it's worth, I had my first Error 13 last night.
My sys is a quad core with 8 Gigs of RAM and nVidia graphics with its own gig of RAM on a Vista 64 bit.
I play with minimal cc (some modified hairs for children and tots mostly) and no mods but AM. Also, I don't have WA.
I was playing my legacy family in Riverview that is just starting its sixth generation. It is a bloated lot with probably too many paintings lining the walls. I also keep the tombstones as the family members die and all of their plaques. I tend to play with the house full of Sims and only send off spare siblings if they want more spawn.
After the most recent update (1.8.25), my legacy house went from two active non-playable ghosts (a master thief and mad scientist) to seven running around the house 24/7. Some have taken to floating around downtown, but mostly they prepare meals, eat, sleep, use the bathroom, work out, play video games, fish, and haunt items in and around the main house. EA doesn't recommend playing with more than eight Sims on a lot and then gets the idea to let all the ghosts run-amok!
So now with 15 animated beings running around on a huge lot, I am getting more problems than just embarressed sims in the bathroom, dishes all over the kitchen table, musical beds, and occassional bottle-neck. One of the eight living Sims played a guitar in the park that got stuck in his inventory. I didn't have the option to take it out or sell it as only the pointer, no hand or gear, appeared over it. (A guitar eventually came out of his inventory after the sim played an invisible one when I sent him to the park and he decided to play on his own. It was replaced with another unplayable guitar though, and he currently shows 3 unplayable guitars in his inventory.)
Then, another sim couldn't go to work at the theater after doing a performance there earlier in the day. The rock star wanna-be was able to go work on his next shift, so I didn't worry about him too much. Then, another Sim, who wants to be Mr.Evil, couldn't work his shift one day. His wife just had a baby, so I put it down as paternity leave. The theater and the warehouse are the only two places to which I have deeds. So I am not sure if collecting money somehow resulted in their not being able to work. Anyway, you can see that several glitches lead up to the inevitable error 13.
I had recently started clearing out my world cache files for Riverview when I deleted the other caches on a new AM load. This was after discovering their whereabouts after the new update work-arounds for cc. This might not have been a good idea; but as they are regenerated, I hoped it would help the stuck guitar and it might have even though I have some corrupt left-overs that may disappear when that Sim dies.
Anyway, I just thought I'd add to the database of possible corruptions leading up to the error.

Additionally: My unbreakable water sprinklers' animations still appeared on after selecting "turn off" but I could neither turn them on or off afterwards, only "play in sprinklers," and the plants wilted, so they weren't actually on. Also, I can't age the baby up early even after getting the "it's her birthday" announcement in either my legacy game or in another family in an almost unplayed Sunset Valley.

i only manage to save the game twice before i get the error 12, then error 13 and after that it crashes to the desktop. i've edited the town and the game got saved but after a few seconds it crashed again. i'm getting very tired of this bs, coz i can only play for 20min at a time!
is there a new patch coming out anytime soon?! i'm on 2.3.3

If a new patch comes out, I'm sure it'll add more problems than it fixes.
I was hopeful that 1.8/2.3 patches would reduce the E12, E13, and CTD that occasionally happens when trying to save around the error.  After all, this was in the patch notes: "Improved extended game session stability."
They lie!  1.8/2.3 is no more stable than 1.7/2.2 or any version before it.

I know it's not Awesomemod; I use it, my wife doesn't, and we play on totally different computers as well.  One AMD, one Intel.  Stability is totally crappy on both.  E12, E13, and CTD's all over the place.

Dodgy mods usually cause error code 12, at least for me. I can usually tell i've installed something dodgy if things start going black, such as sims, or the UI, or even in the little save window where you see the sims picture. Even things that dont show up as bad in resource monitor can cause dodgy blackness, followed by save issues and/or crashes.

As i got entirely tired of having a slow laggy game with CTDs and error codes, these days I thoroughly check each and every mod I install with the available tools to see if it's been made correctly. There are a lot of sub-par mods around, so I've set myself a limit of quality i'd risk putting in my game, and only bother with stuff with quality mod makers who take the time to learn to use the tools and have the patience to do it right, or if its something I really like, ill try fixing it myself.

I just want to add that after removing all other mods besides AM and Twallans, even some old XML ones (teach toddlers faster)  that I thought was harmless, and also the SLAM age changer and the separate WA censor remover, AND starting a completely fresh new made hood (my own) I have had no problems with error 12 and 13. And I had them bad for a while, also had the problem with saved games that didn't load. I don't know which one of these things that was the culprit, but I'd say, keep to fresh updated and synced mods and this is less likely to happen. It's called tight pants for a reason.

How come when sims go traveling the game manages to save without the errors, but when they're back in the neighborhood the errors are back and the game crashes?                   

Strange.  I'm getting Error 12 on vacation as well now.

I'm not sure if this will be a useful information. So far, what I understand with E12s is a result of a sim with a bad desciption or an object that gets corrupted.

In my game, I have identified 3 corrupt pre-made sims Flo Broke, Flat Broke and Illiana Langerak. In repeated tries on a newly created world, Illiana and Flo produces 2 graves and sometimes retains their portait on the family even after death. Their ghost just hovers around and unselectable. Going into edit town mode seems to reset the lot and fixes this glitch. Flat Broke is the same but makes only 1 grave. Illiana's grave also goes missing when she dies and the family is not active.

I am not sure if this is happening similarly to others. I am sure that there are some more corrupt sims that I have not fully studied.

I also got E12s on vacation and discovered some sim description error of the active family. Something has occurred in the base hood and they brought the bug along to the vacation hood. Fixall seems to correct it. But the base hood is borked when returning to it. It's best to do fixall before going to vacation or the vacation will just be a waste and you have to re-do it again, the Base hood will refuse to save properly and may CTD.

This is in my experience. It may differ in other people's case since CCs and play style are different.

I went on vacation and saved around an Error 12. Whoo. Do not recommend. People moved into my Sims' house and overrwrote the entire family, one of the Bunch girls decided all of a sudden she had a complete identity change. Spider-toddlers, CTDs, everything short of Godzilla hit that save after that. Created a whole new save file and have had no problems at all since. My conclusion of my little experiment would be that the Error 12 is a legitimate error and not just stubborn game cockery like I was hoping for it to have been. Sounds obvious, but hey, it's EA. We can never be sure how much of it is just ineptitude.  :P I also tried saving as a different file instead of overwriting the previous save, no help- the file was no less of a fireball.

In line with ingeli's observation, I didn't notice the Error 12s before adding in a No Autonomous Sprinkler tweak. It could be a coincidence or it could have something to do with it. I'm no coder, so I can't tell for sure.

I was getting the error code 12 all the time, and it was driving me (more ::)) insane. I found a threat dealing with this issue on the sims 3 forum ( :o yeah, I know) and decided to give it a go... lo and behold, it worked.
I think I have finally fixed it, I have been been playing for the last two days without any problems.
I followed sidfu's suggestion (http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/285/79541.page (http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/285/79541.page)) and:

1. Upgraded my nvidia driver to version 191.07
2. Used the CFF Explorer to allow more than 2GB
3. Decided to ignore the Sime 3 Launcher and start the game directly from the EP exe file.

Everything's running fine now, even with most settings set to high. I can see my neighborhood's trees again!

Hope this helps someone maintain their sanity, just remember the three magical words: backup, backup, backup.

amazone: I HAVE noticed that the e12s seem to be minimized in frequency when you merge your .packages to the smallest number possible. I haven't dedicated enough test-time to this to be confident it isn't just happenstance, but it does appear to carry some sort of weight. Down from four 12s to zero in my game. (Fresh file, not the fubar'd one. )

My E12 and E13's have completely gone away, for several weeks now when I used to get them almost once an hour.  I couldn't explain how or why, but they went away on two completely different computers with completely different configurations.
I had completely forgotten that I had done anything to my computers, so it was a mystery why the problem cleared up.  However, your post reminded me that I did do the part quoted above, and it coincides with the E12/E13 errors going away.

I'm not sure if the change with CFF Explorer works on 32-bit Windows, but it works wonderfully on 64-bit Windows and I highly recommend trying it.

I tried using CFF Explorer to increase the 2GB limit and got a message that it could not overwrite the original file. I've got Win 7 64 bit. Is this a permission issue? If so, anyone know how I can change this?

Edit: Never mind, figured that one out myself. BTW, I need to edit the WA exe and not the original exe, correct?

Correct.  TS3EP01.exe.  Unbelievable what a difference it makes.

I set Windows DEP to ignore TS3 and I ran the CFF Explorer and all that. I had not previously been experiencing crashes, or at least experienced them very infrequently, until I sent my sims to France and the screen kept crashing everytime the game tried to load the main 'hood. Crashed every time. After I did the above two things, no more crashes.

Unfortunately my 'hood is still FUBAR. The hood wouldn't start loading even after I recieved the 'vacay is over' message, or when I tried to phone home and leave early. Instead of loading the main hood, my sim went to bed but got a jump bug and kept popping back out again. When I finally got the main hood to start loading, I would end up back at the France 'hood but with no sims to control at all. I finally had to give up on my hood, but this did work to stop the crashing. So I can confirm that it does help with that issue. I have a laptop with an i7 720qm processor with 6GB memory and a 1GB NVIDIA 230M.

Lucky for me I had used Twallan's Porter to save this family and import them to another hood last weekend. They keep all their skill levels, but I had to start over with the house and everything in it. They're worth over 1 million simoleans. :o 

Must have been all that stuff sitting in their basement that they'd collected that borked my game. 'Ya think?  :)

The bottom line is: Do not put too much stuff in Sims' inventory. It can lead to corrupt objects and problems with the hand tool. However, using a frame rate limiter (found in the 3 Booter thread) and adding Sims 3 to DEP exceptions now keeps my system from crashing or getting error 12s/13s.

Warning the following is TMI, but for those who might want all the background info, here it is:

With me, I think it was a case of too much stuff in inventory. I had been hording almost everything there (copies of books, all the garden stuff to include almost 500 bags of money in one Sim's inventory, and all the current Sims' paintings) so that the take was smaller when one of the legacy siblings moved out. Also, I haven't had the swimming in cash, living in luxury, or perfect garden LTWs yet.

I somehow got a corrupt guitar that keep multiplying when one Sim would take it out and put in back away. I couldn't sell it. It was probably because I had so much stuff in inventory that the grab hand feature would lock up on me.

Anyway, I saved a copy of the game when I first got the guitar glitch. I kept playing the family for another week with a lot of error 12s and a few 13s and a couple CTDs. (I simply deleted all the caches and kept playing, getting a few more hours in each time.) I saved a copy of the family with house to the library after the generation VI heir was born about a Sim week later.

When the game was really frustrating due to all the non-saves and crashes, I took a break and played with CAW. That turned out to be my downfall and my salvation. After installing CAW, the saved games that are played change as if an EP was installed. (I don't have WA.)

I had to restore my system to an earlier date because I could no longer post pics on photobucket or view hairs on XM Sims with the recent security updates. (They both have pop-ups that my system doesn't like and it would simply shut off the connection to them.) That restore took my system to a pre-CAW install and grayed out my legacy game and a couple others that I had played after messing with CAW. The game said that the expansion pack needed for the saves was no longer available. Reinstalling CAW didn't bring back the ability to play those saved games though.

So I put in the week-old legacy folder from before the birth of the gen VI heir and evicted the family and bulldozed their house and put the library family with the gen VI heir and their house on the lot. (This way, I replicated the previous hood as closely as possible.) In addition to losing a Sim week, I lost relationships and used Twallan's supercomputer to make the youngest siblings children of their parents again. Then I cleaned out the inventory of every Sim. I deleted most of the produce (but I kept the perfect items as well as apples and watermelons). I kept the money bags, but I redistributed them among the Sims more evenly. I sold all the copies of books except for a masterpiece. I kept their paintings.

After a few days of not letting one Sim play the corrupt guitar, I noticed that I could sell it. His inventory showed 10 guitars, though he really only had one. However, it sold all those in inventory as well as the one that was in the living room and paid 3,600 (the price of 10 depreciated guitars).

I haven't had any error 12s or crashes in the few Sim days I've played this lot, so I am hopeful that I'll make it to the end of the legacy yet.

I did download the CFF explorer; but when it denied me permission, I didn't pursue the issue. I am not crashing right now, so I'll just keep that in reserve. I did however add Sims 3 to my DEP exception list and I am now using the FPS limiter as well. (I didn't need the 3booter, so I didn't look for the frame rate limiter in that thread before.)

EDIT: Yeah, I spoke too soon. My Sims objects file in the world cache folder was 399k and my script file was huge when my game crashed this time. I guess I'll have to relook at the permissions to get the CFF explorer to allow more than 2gigs of RAM after all. It could be that I just had the game on too long. I had it minimized while I surfed the web earlier instead of quiting and reloading it again.

I don't think DEP is the cause.  I was getting E12/E13 once an hour (if not more often) and my DEP setting was Windows 7 default of "Enable DEP for essential Windows programs and services only." which excludes 3rd party programs already.

I can confirm on both of my machines, E12/E13 was completely cured by CFF Explorer changing to allow >2GB usage.  I have no doubt, because it was an immediate night and day difference.

Some extra steps may help if you're using 32-bit Windows.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=224178  (not a sims site, but apparently RAM size limitations cause problems in many other games so the solution applies here too.)

This thread was very, very useful to me.  I'm sure I'll jinx myself by posting this, as whenever I post anywhere that a problem with my Sims game is fixed things go bad again; but so far it seems that this thread has the key to allowing TS3 to actually use extra memory, making it much less E12 or crash prone.

Through most of the thread people are saying that those of us with XP Home edition are out of luck, but the thread begam in '07, and I don't think Service Pack 3 was even out by then.  Very late in the thread it turns out that it will work with XP Home if you have SP3.

And my experience is that it does work with XP Home/SP3.  It also works with XP Pro and Vista, as per those who posted.

It's basically a change to C:\boot.ini that tells Windows to allow programs to use 3MB.  You also can limit that below 3 (but above 2) by another switch, which from the postings can be needed so your graphics card can work.  Of course, you have to with CFF Explorer let Windows know that the TS3 (or TS3EP01 if you have WA) is allowed to use more than 2 MB of RAM.

I don't think I've had an E12 or crash since changing Boot.ini and rebooting with it changed, even when I've done things I didn't dare try before.  I'm sure E12s and/or crashes will be back, as this just gives the game a bigger limit in what it will take; it doesn't eliminate the limit entirely.

But it's a major positive step.

I've only  got 2gb of RAM and on 32 bit Vista but I'm trying this CFF Explorer method anyway. Will report back.

EDIT: ...and it crashed twice in 30 minutes. It may not be connected to that, but I'll revert to the normal method until I have over 2gb RAM.

For now, my game isn't crashing or erroring. The CFF explorer appears to have made the difference. There were a lot of other things mentioned in various threads that I also tried that might have helped me play longer without errors or crashing.
I keep my cc limited to a very few, small-sized files.
I changed my themed desktop image to a plain color.
I deleted my AVG 9.0 that had been updated from 8.5 to a fresh install of the 9.0 version.
I was already playing with "high detail lots" set to "3," which may have been my default. (Someone on a thread at the Sims 3 forums mentioned his or her system crashed or errored at anything over 4.)
I started deleting all caches before each game play, so they wouldn't bloat beyond the magic number that might crash my system.
I added Sims 3 to my DEP exception list.
I uninstalled the EADM that I never use.
I started quiting the game before surfing the net, rather than just minimizing it.
I use 3Booter and the FPS limiter.

The secret to getting Vista to accept new applications and changes is to put them directly on your desktop and alter the data there. (It's the same way I have to change the resource.cfg file.) Always backup the original file. (I keep a folder on my desktop for original files and then alter a copy.) After moving the TS3.exe file from the Sims 3 folder to a folder on the desktop, place a copy of it directly on your desktop (outside the folder). Make the change allowing more than 2 Gigs of RAM by simply checking the appropriate box. Then place that copy back in the Sims 3 folder.

There is some really important information in your thread GnatGoSplat.

First, I've also been plagued with EC12 since buying it last June with no end to it in sight. My Alienware just came back from being completely rebuilt at the repair shop and with mostly all new hardware I assumed TS3 would run better than ever. WRONG! If I played more than a few minutes I'd get EC12 or desktop crashes upon saving. And if I actually managed a successful save, I'd have to quit the game, delete the caches and restart the game only to play a few minutes more. Furthermore, I haven't been able to play with CC other than a few hacks. Also my game wasn't handling store bought content very well because the game would randomly black out the build/buy menus. And also, I haven't been able to age up my toddlers and children who have been the same age for a very long time because whenever I'd try to age them up I'd get EC12.

That said, I tried CFF and it didn't seem to help, if it did improve the game, i didn't notice the difference.

Now for the good news! I followed your link to the Civ forums and tried their recipe for changing the ram size usage in command prompt and I just can't believe the difference in game play. Not only is the game totally lag free but I played for 8 hours straight last night without either saving or crashing and then, finally decided to try a save, totally expecting either an EC12 or a crash and in less than a minute it saved the game. I couldn't believe it. I was totally amazed! And guess what, I even aged up many of the toddlers and children who have been stuck in their ages forever with no EC12. My pc is finally starting to act the $$$$$.00 computer it is!

FYI, I'm running Vista 32 bit but have a copy of windows 7 64 bit right next to me which will be installed as soon as I feel like talking to an Alienware tech, which i'm not very motivated to do for certain reasons. However, when it is installed i'll be sure to make the same changes in command prompt if its necessary to do so. At least I have the information for this mega EC12 fix if I need it with the new OS.

Anyway, thanks so much for posting this information GnatGoSplat, I don't know if EC12 will come back but at least for now its made the difference between night and day.

Noenmity, I'm glad you found that thread useful!  However, you only need to do the bcdedit command prompt stuff if you're using 32-bit Windows.  As you discovered, CFF Explorer by itself didn't have any effect on 32-bit Windows.  The bcdedit command prompt stuff is what configures Windows to take advantage of the change you made with CFF Explorer.  64-bit Windows already supports >2GB for programs out of the box so you only need to do the CFF Explorer part.

Also, be sure to backup the original .exe file.  If you patch, it will need to find the original file.

I'm confident this is the E12/E13 fix as I never get them anymore and that was the only step I took to try to eliminate them.

I'm not that tech savvy but, I think your right about the cause of EC12. It makes sense that it would be the cause of EC12 because all the system crashes i've had since buying the game all referred to a lack of memory on my pc of which my pc has no shortage of. It was frustrating.

Since making the CP adjustment I've been able to do things in game I haven't been able to do without EC12 such as save the game on community lots and also save the game on my biggest lot that has massive amounts of objects on it. Also, I can actually use build/buy mode and be reckless about it without EC12. It dazzles the mind to think something so simple could fix such a major problem.

Thanks again!

This prompt, when typed in, merely flashes the black box up for a half second, and then thats it right?
No confirmation or anything, you just restart your computer at that point.
True?

Tizerist, If your referring to the what the Civ board says to type into CP, he left out something that needs to be typed in also.

On the Civ board it says this

- Now we need to make Windows Vista (32-Bit) ready to support more than 2 GByte.
- Open a command prompt with Administration rights. You find it under "Programs->Accessories->Command prompt" click right and select "run as administrator".
- Enter "bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072" (without quotes) in the command window and press enter.
After that restart windows
- For Windows XP there is a similar setting for the boot.ini, but I am not sure what it is, should be found be google.

He says to type this.... "bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072" minus the quotes

But he omitted a word which should be typed exactly this way... "bcdedit.exe /set IncreaseUserVA 3072" minus the quotes

At least it's what worked for me.

Hmmm, well the way which was on the Civ2 board has worked by the looks of it.
If I get any problems, I'll try your way.

And I also didn't use administration right. I turned that off years ago.
I suppose it won't hurt to do it your way also.
Typing it in twice doesn't reverse the process, does it?

My game hasn't been this glitch-free since like July. I've only done about 5-6 hours testing, but 5-6 hours without a crash is a result.

I even went and added another 32 sims in my town, FPS went down a bit, but no CTD's. Before I was crashing with 6 sims, and with some lots removed for stability also.

Taks manager showed I was using 2.32 gb last night. This would appear to be proof of an improvement. I cannot believe what I witnessed last night. Admittedly, non-EA CC was removed, but that never stopped the crashing before.
Progress has been made.

It won't hurt to omit the ".exe" on the end of bcdedit.  From the command-line, anytime you type the name of an executable, the .exe is implied.
Doing it again shouldn't reverse it.

GnatGoSplat, what exe. file are you referring to?

I am positive he is talking about the original game executable, either ts3.exe (Base Game), Ts3ep01.exe (WA) or TS3SP01.exe (HELS).  Depending on what executable you are trying to modify, you need to back it up prior to editing it, because when the time comes to update, you may (will?) not be able to update because the file is not the original file, that the patcher looks for, to continue the update.

Actually, I believe it was in direct response to this:


The .exe refered to is bcdedit. It isn't enough to tell the game to allow the use of more than 2 gigs if the operating system doesn't allow more. Vista 64 apparently allows more RAM to be utilized (once checked with the CFF Explorer), but Vista 32 and XP systems need additional authorization. Reading through the link shows that "/maxmem 3072" allows 3GB to be utilized, but sometimes "/3GB" needs to added as well for XP systems. Note the forum includes a disclaimer NOT to copy and paste over the original line but to just add the change to the end of the line.

Call me crazy, but why would it refer to bcdedit.exe when that program isn't being patched or edited in any way, shape or form, which wouldn't require it to be backed up?  Bcdedit.exe is a cmdline program that modifies the boot information, %systemdrive%\boot\bcd file for Vista and Win 7 systems, it doesn't get modified.  The only file being modified by CFF Explorer is the Game Executable, which would need to be modified in order to allow it to process more than 2GB.  Also, the switches /Maxmem 3072 and /3GB, in XP, are added to the boot.ini file.

I believe it was more in response to this:

But, then again, I could be wrong.

Sorry, I was referring to bcdedit.exe here.  Whether you type bcdedit by itself or bcdedit.exe from the command line doesn't matter, as the .exe extension is implied.


I was referring to the TS3.exe (or TS3EP01.exe or TS3SP01.exe) that needs to be backed up, not bcdedit.exe.  Sorry for the confusion.

Sorry, Chilltown. I read the question as a direct response to the post immediately before it. The linked forum had stressed that one shouldn't copy and paste data over the existing lines, just to add the modifications to the end. So I was thinking of backing up before making a change.

How much do I actually have here for TS3? 3.25 plus  paging file? I'm a bit confused...

Installed physical memory (RAM) 4.00 gb
Total physical memory 3.25 gb
Available physical memory 2.26
Total virtual memory 12.00 gb
Available virtual memory 11.00 gb
Page file space 8.88 gb

And can I in theory tap in bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 4096 and it would find this for TS3 also?

Np, Ciane, we were both right, but, maybe I should have just left the question to the person it was addressed to, to spare confusion.  And yes when editing the boot.ini file one errant letter can cause a system not to boot correctly.  So it should definitely be saved prior to editing.  Although, you can add a failsafe to the boot.ini file just by copying the line and changing the name to "Windows "Whatever" 3GB"  and then adding the switches to the newly copied line.

Well, tizerist, you are opening up "a whole nother" can of worms there!  Oh boy, where to start...

I'm guessing that you are using Vista, possibly x64 flavor, because you have an over 4GB swap file, but then, I could be wrong if you allocated 3 or more hard drives for swap file space, which would be insane, to say the least.  

Then again, since you have installed 4GB of ram, but the system is only allocating 3.25 means that you don't have an x64 system... WTF is going on!  <screams>

Ok, now that I have calmed down, somewhat, What is your OS?  What bit is it, x64 or x86(32)?  How much ram did you install in it?  And something is seriously funky with the way you set your pagefiles up.

Well, we actually don't need to go that deep unless you want to explain why your pagefile is the way that it is.  Total physical memory + Pagefile Space = Total virtual memory available to the system.  Since your available physical memory is 2.26, that means that your system alone uses about 1GB to run normal processes, that's assuming you got that info after a reboot with no non boot programs running.

Yes Vista 32. 4 x 1gb RAM.
And the 1 gb being used, thats vista plus firefox plus a couple of Windows Explorer windows open, so thats fine.
Closing everything means 778mb is being used - no probs.

And the deep page file - yes its monstrously deep. I read that it should be 4x higher than your RAM.
Nevertheless, my computer now handles the game easily. The most Task Manager showed was 2.8 gb being used. Does that mean it was using exclusively 2.0 gb for the game?

Oh, and bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 4096
Worth doing?

The more Ram you have, the less you need a swapfile, plain and simple.  Larger swap sizes were necessary when Ram amounts were low.  Unless you need large swap sizes for apps like Photoshop, you are just wasting space.  And even then, if your computer is capping out on your swap file, then that means you have way to little ram.  System Ram can access data in 0.000,000,01 of a second theoretically, while a Swapfile (fake ram) residing on your hard drive is bound by the limits of mechanical plater rotation and head motion, can only access data in 0.013 seconds, theoretically of course.  Don't believe the swap file hype.

BTW, are you using 1 large contiguous 8.88 GB swapfile or is it between multiple hard drives?

I'm researching the /set IncreaseUserVA 4096 in detail so I will get back to you on that in a bit.

Ok, I would think that setting the switch to 4096 would not improve your situation, and possibly make things worse, because you only have 4GB of memory, your system can only see 3.25 (limitation set by x86 system), and your system, barely running, is using 1GB of system memory already.  If the Sims was to actually utilize 3GB of system memory, what would be left for the actual system to run, 0.25gb?

I have three hard drives. Don't know much more than that. :P
Thanks.
Well, I was hoping thats where the paging file would come in.

Seeing as you are running a 32 bit OS, I don't believe you are capable of addressing more than 4gb (4096 MB) per hard drive, unless you had some sort of /pae extensions set in bcdedit.  So it is likely you have a swapfile in each hard drive in your system.  And you say your computer now handles the game easily?  Oh man, well, no need for me to go any more in-depth.  Your situation is still scary, to me.  The last thing you want is your main system processes to be running in <shivvers> pagefile memory.


Tizerist, I can't leave your system hanging like that, the tech in me won't allow it...

Do this for me please, pretty please? 
Goto  Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Advanced (tab) > Settings > Advanced Tab > Virtual Memory (change), if it is automatically being managed, uncheck it, Highlight C:, tick the custom size radio button, and then in initial size put 4096 and in Max size put 4096, click set, click OK.  Make sure that all other drives Paging file size says None and then reboot. Check the system memory report that you did earlier and post the findings for me if you can.  In all reality, a swapfile should be located on the fastest hard drive in your system, and preferably not on the system hard drive, unless it just so happens to be the fastest hard drive you have or only hard drive you have.

I see.
The theory was that if Vista + TS3 took up more than the physical amount of RAM, then the virtual one could be used  to sort of "raise the ceiling" so that the limit is not reached, and therefore, no CTD.

This would only really be necessary in dense areas, and I don't think I will really need this "emergency memory" to be honest.
The objective is to simply give TS3 as much room as possible. Even if the paging file is, as you say, relatively slow compared to the physical RAM, I just want it to help in any way it can.

Yup, you got it!  And i'm glad your game is playing the way you payed to play it, for the most part *cough, bugs*.  My concern is for your system speed, game speed and hard drive degradation once you reach this ceiling and fall over to too much mock memory.  I have a theory that if you lower your ceiling a bit, which is very high at the moment, you will not notice much of a gain, but you will gain much in the long run as in:  Less hard drive thrashing (swapping of info from ram to pagefile) which in turn will give you longer hard drive life.  My 2x150GB raided raptors have been going strong without a single hiccup, in my main machine, for over 4 years, which has been on damn near 24/7 or as close to it as mechanically possible, and I think this is possible partly because I keep large amounts of System Memory 8GB ddr2 upgraded to 8GB ddr3 (mobo upgrade 6 months ago) and small swap files 2GB located on a 2.01GB partition at the front of another hard drive.  

Damn, honestly, I'm a performance junkie, and a tweak slut...  Your Situation is good and if you've found settings that work for you, even better.  I went way to deep into this, when in all actuality, your situation works for you.  I hope you atleast have a better understanding of memory and your system after this though, if so, then it was worth it!

Vista is on C, so I'll use F.

Now it looks like this:
Installed physical memory (RAM) 4.00 gb
Total physical memory 3.25 gb
Available physical memory 2.30
Total virtual memory 7.18 gb
Available virtual memory 6.25 gb
Page file space 4.00 gb
 
I've also done
bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 4096

This thread will live as long as EA is driving the sims....

Anyway, this is an addition to the error-knowledge wrt to error code 12.  Got it but managed to somewhat avert it in this case.

No save file voodoo, just plain in game actions.

This particular cause is due to something bad on a new lot I was editting.  Mind you, I used no cheat codes NOR any non officail items (only those from base game + WA).  Somewhere down the line, the program decides that it no longer like my save file so refuses to save.

How I averted this problem: due to the fact that the last big thing I was doing was building a new house on a lot, it quite clearly got the red tag for being suspicious. Fortunately, it was unoccupied, so firstly, I made a copy of it in library (just for reference).  Then bulldozed the lot. Error 12 is gone and I can save normally again.  Just for further testing, I plonk down the lot from the library into the neighborhood again.  sure enough, I got error 12 again.  Fortunately, bulldozing the lot averts the problem.  I don't know if it is a freak bug sims make when saving or there is some architecturally unappealing about my building (honestly, my buildings are quite simple, no tricks or fancy stuff).  I started from scratch again to progressively test saving to try to find out where the error 12 will occur.  Will add on to this post when it is done (possibly take a while,most of the time waiting for save).

So if you got a suspected lot/building related code 12, moving it to library and bulldozing it will at least allow you to save the game.   not sure about occupied lots, but it could be possible to evict them then bulldoze the lot giving problem.

PS: one more proof of bad EA save, when I place the copy of the building from the library back onto a lot, some strange stuff which wasn't there appeared.  Basically, I build a part of the building right up to 1 square away from the lot edge, but I did not place anything on that 1 square buffer zone.  but when I placed the saved building down, a part of the ceiling which did not reach the edge now do, and the side of floor tile touching the edge goes all crazy resulting in a sloped floor tile.  Something could be wrong with EA's saving of certain building lots especially when you build close to the edge.  I will post when I get more info, but in the mean time, if you have problems with building lots, try keeping a little more distance from the buggy lot edge.

EDIT: Think I narrowed down the culprit: I was drying to dig a well, by using a low fence to create a 2x2 square, covered the outer surrounding floor tiles, then using the pond tool to lower the center of the 2x2 square to reveal the water body (diamond perimeter within the 2x2 square).  For some reasons, the program hates this and produces the error code 12.  It becomes ok again as soon as I flattened the pond into flat terrain again.

I did some more experiments : varying depth of the pond doesn't seem to matter.  Removing the fence also doesn't seem to matter.  What DOES matter seems to be the size and shape of the pond.  error code 12 disappears when I increase the pond size to 4x4 squares.

Verdict:  Ponds can cause error code 12
Solution:  Try changing size and shape

I'm sure the game requires a certain amount of space for fishing animations.  You might want to try your well with the swimming pool, instead of a pond. 

Thanks for the suggestion.  That is known to me, for example, for certain pond size, path finding will have a problem with finding a good place to fish... BUT it is still possible to find "sweet spots", where you can always fish if you move the sim there.  But this time, it is the first time I get an error code 12 from ponds.  It could be changes introduced in WA expansion as I had never had this problem in base game (always w awesomemod).

Posting this here as a "community service" in case somebody else having similar problems.

Maybe I'm wrong, but E12/E13 should go completely away by doing the CFF Explorer mod and the other changes for 32-bit Windows to take advantage of it (if you're still on 32-bit).
I used to get them 2-3 times a day.  Now with my save file being ridiculously huge and taking so long to load, I never close out the game any more.  I just minimize it and put the computer to sleep when I'm not using it.  I've got two machines like this with game sessions that have been going on for weeks with no problems.  I haven't seen an E12/E13 for around 3 months now.

I'm almost certain if you do the CFF Explorer mod correctly, your E12/E13s will go away completely no matter what you do in game.

I have been having a lot of problems recently with error 12 and 13, but what is even more infuriating are the crashes during a save!   >:(

I downloaded and installed CFF Explorer last night - I have Windows 7, 64 bit with 8 gb of RAM.  This morning I played for a while, and of course I'm still in the habit of saving every 10-15 minutes, usually with the 2nd or 3rd save CTD on me - but surprisingly, I was able to play for about 2 hours, doing multiple saves without any problems at all!   :D   Btw, when I say I played for 2 hours - I chose to quit, it wasn't forced upon me.  Been a long while since that's happened.

Thanks for posting this potential fix - I hope I don't jinx myself by saying this but it seems to have made a positive difference.  I can play again!

As for error 12....

... I'm reasonably certain it's somehow tied to lots. Sometimes I've been able to save after deleting a recently added lot or another custom lot. Mind you, all of them played fine but the game doesn't necessarily make sense. I continue getting a 12 all the time now, which (for me) seems to always be the case after playing a family for a while. Whenever it gives me a 12 I try to bulldoze random lots until it lets me save, but sometimes it will simply crash. Yay.

You might try the NRaas mod Overwatch which gives you the option to reset individual lots and items in addition to a nightly neighborhood clean up.

Will do, though I seem to remember I used to have it installed and it couldn't prevent evil error 12. Which is still a mystery to me, and very annoying, to say the least.

Wow, necromancy much?

Error 12 is a RAM issue. Don't wait too long in between saves, don't make lakes too deep, and don't put too much crap on a single lot.
Overwatch cleans up crap so it can help, but also try setting an autosave feature (either twallan's or Awesomemod's) to a shorter time period. Also try to choose "Save as..." and re-naming it something different.
If you have too many memories, try to cut back on them, or annihilate non-sacred sims to minimize the space needed to save the neighborhood.

I was sure the topic of Error 12 was figured out already, but maybe I'm mistaken.

I have 3.25 gigs of RAM. How much RAM do you need?

I have 4 gigs of RAM and very occasionally get this. Awesome mod's autosave feature has cut it out almost entirely.

I have 4GB of ram, but a 32-bit OS, so it's more like 3.3GB. I did the fix at MTS (http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:Large_Address_Aware) (manually editing using the command prompt) and haven't had error code 12 since.

Hi, i have "classic" problem.
When i am trying to "save" or "save as"  SIMS 3, Error 12 will appear. I can only  save the game  once - tree times (sometime) I guess that is memory problem,
(Low system memory) but what i tested it is not. I disabled Virtual Memory so program was force to use RAM.I had only 1,5 GB of RAM full 1,75 GB was free.
So no problem with full RAM.

I enabled Virtual memory and tryed different values, but without effect.
I set .exe file to use more than 2GB RAM, but without effect.
I also deleted Save Games,Cache ets. withou effect.
 

-In description "World was built on an average PC, 2.4GHz Intel Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM. It should be playable on the average PC."

So my HW should by ok.

-Can anybody tell why this Error 12 will appear and how to fix it? I can not play this neiborhood and some peope can, so there have to
be solution. It si really disappointing that i can not play this  neiborhood or any big neirborhood.

--------------------------
My HW and mods:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3,00 GHz
Nvidia GTX 260 896MB, Driver Version 285.58
4 GB RAM ( i have 32-Bit system so i can use 3,25 GB)
Windows XP  SP3 32-bit
--------------------
Mods:C:\Documents and Settings\Keyz\Dokumenty\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods\Packages
awesome.package
aweconf.package
velocitygrass_only_important_memories.package
NoBuildSparkles.package
nointro.package
-----------------------------
+UnionCove ( installed via Sim 3 launcher.)

Downloader from:
http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/unioncove/

Sorry for Necromancy but it is important for me.

Edit.: I Solved problem with /3GB /USERVA=2800