More Awesome Than You!

So I have been Googling this for the last 2 hours now, but to no avail.

Last night I was able to save my game, and shut my computer down without an issue. I have not since added any new CC or mods or anything of the sorts. Today when I loaded up the game I was playing around for awhile and decided to build a house. I spent 2 hours building this house on an unused lot of land.

After I was finished I saved, but it spent 30 seconds saying it was saving before it came up with "Sims 3 program has stopped unexpectedly" or such. So I went and checked my DEP list, and it wasn't on there at the time, so I placed it back on, and tried again, but it still crashed. I tried saving without doing anything, just going straight into the game and saving after it loaded, and it saved without a problem. The second that I start modifying anything, and then save, my game will crash.

I have exhausted everything I can think of, I even removed all my CC and started a new neighbourhood, that didn't work.

I am starting to wonder if perhaps I am dealing with a situation that will require a complete reinstall, but I decided to see if anyone had any input/ideas as to what might fix it.

I also haven't updated to 1.47 yet, so I am not sure if that would cause any issues either.

Get Crash Log Analyzer, read and follow instructions, then try again. It will most likely tell you what causes the CTD and how to fix it.

It came up with nothing, should have added that I tried that.

Ah yes, it was worth a try, though.

I just remembered something on crinrict's blog about buy/build mode issues with saving. The description fits your problem, but the post is only available in German.

This seems to be related to weather effects. The most simple solution calls for removing the christmas lights before changing things.

If this doesn't work, try turning the weather effects off, make changes, save, turn them back on and you're good to go.

Should this fail, there is version 3: save the house to the bin. After that, bulldoze the lot and remove the grid. Place a new grid and put the house back. Then make the desired changes and save.

That's all I could find about this particular problem.

I'll give those a shot when I get home from the city in a few hours, hopefully one of them works. It was fine the day before, now it's just gone stupid.

Edit: has some time before going to test some these. Weather effects turned off didn't make a difference, I didn't have lights going so that didn't matter there, I guess the next thing would be to test the grid bulldozing.

I will also try playing just in the family without building anything for a few sim days and see if it saves.


Crash Analyzer say it is custom content, even with there NO custom content installed.

However I am starting to wonder if perhaps the custom world I installed from the exchange is what is killing my game, and I have no idea where to look for that...

I had a strange crash once that sounds similar and I had been playing it the night before. I was quite upset so I tried everything. This may have been voodoo and wishful thinking, but I ran my save file through the decrapper and I no longer crashed. I have NO idea why it would suddenly work since I had not installed anything new. All I did was close the game down and go to bed! Maybe back up your save and run it through decrap??

I gave up and am now reinstalling the game, I backed up my neighbourhood etc so hopefully I should be right. If I still get the crashes I will try your idea, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try, I am seriously just out of ideas.

Edit: Just FINALLY finished installing my game and the rest of my objects from the sims store only. The game still wont save, it crashes...

I tried decrapping, it didn't work.

This is a weird message I have in my crashlog for every crash I've had: "DasmX86Dll.dll not found"

I just tried again with absolutely NO sim store objects, NO custom CC, or anything of the sort, and I still crash. This is beyond ridiculous now...a complete fresh reinstall and I can't save.

I just tried starting a save game in one of the original worlds (Sunset Valley), the game saved fine without a problem. So then I added all the CC and the store stuff back and it still saved.

Testing my custom world as a fresh save without my family etc: and it saved without a problem.

My custom world by itself even with no CC, only it installed, and no store stuff installed still crashes.

I went in and deleted the prefetch files in my windows folder, as was written in another thread about the dasm error, and it didn't make a difference.

My next task I reverted to the auto backup of the world which was automatically made (the day before this whole incident started occuring)  - this however was pointless as it still crashed.

It's 12am now and I am tired and over this, guess I have to start all over again, unless someone can tell me how I can go about getting all my families etc into the world without breaking ties?

I have one more thing to try in the morning before I give up entirely though.

Unusual I was able to save my game after deleting a lot of land that my mother suggested may have been the issue, but the moment I went and worked on building again, when I saved, the game crashed.

The absolute only thing that I actually did any different with my PC, was I ran a cleaner to get rid of all the clogged up crap on it....I am wondering if this had some sort of ill effect on it, I know it ran a registry cleaner etc...- I used CrapCleaner if anyone is curious.


And it's fixed, lot corruption, even though I deleted it in my original try, I had to delete both that lot and the France nectary that I had in my world to make it work.


Or not...

Okay it turns out somehow the lots of land were in fact on unroutable/other lots/ roads - which when I tried to save on those specific lots, it didn't like it and would crash. Upon fixing all the "bugged" lots I could find, I am no longer crashing. Really this game is more temperamental than my mother.

I think my game might have caught the same disease.
I haven't had time to experiment thoroughly to pin it down, but the symptoms are the same: Game crashes to desktop while saving.  Crash log analyzer blames custom content.  And the problem started yesterday after a prolonged building session.

Edit:  This seems to be a building bug.  I can save normally if I haven't done any building, and minimal test building also seems to be OK, but any serious remodelling crashes the game.
Initial tests with custom content removed seems to indicate that this is indeed a CC issue.  Initiating binary search now.

Edit 2: Bug testing this has been hopeless.  Two factors makes it difficult, a) it only happens after doing non trivial changes in build mode, and b) the crash happens while saving.
So I did two rounds of binary search, first by opening the game with no CC, fooling around in build mode, razing some walls, changing the roof and adding a staircase, then save.  If/when there was no CTD new CC was tested in the same save.
After going through all my CC in that way without a single crash I figured that overwriting the same save over and over could be the problem, so I went through the whole process again using a fresh copy of the original save.  I did manage to reproduce one crash, but the only CC left at the time was some accessories, and I'm having a hard time understanding how a pair of glasses could fuck up building.  Either way, no more crashes could be reproduced when ploughing deeper through the accessories.
I give up.

Are you running a corporate server? Why have you even got DEP enabled beyond its default setting. Set it back to it's Windows default of "Essential services only", and you'll still be protected against those elite hackers trying to piggy back dodgy files off system services, and at the same time you'll enjoy more application stability. Yeah Sims 3 and DEP don't get along, even if you have it in the exempt list it tends to crash, as do many other games, especially modded games. For most people it's more trouble than it's worth and if on the internet (like you), there are dozens of other ways you are more likely to get dodgy files on your PC.

It's enabled on it's default settings now when it didn't work for me. I figured out the problem though, it turned out that my neighbourhood had lots that were actually intercepting other lots/roads somehow, and it caused it to crash if I built on those lots, so I ended up removing and replacing all of them however I could and haven't had a crash since.

How did you determine which lots were bugged?  I have seen this issue on one lot in a custom neighborhood, but I seem to fail at "how is one different from the others".

I just picked them up, and if they wouldn't go back down then they were bugged, this was after I had tested editing on them first then attempting to save (before moving them) and getting the crash, moving them, or re sizing them fixed it.

Not sure if it's related, but there is a known issue having to do with crash-on-save after placing walls on the 2nd (or higher) story of a lot. Generally this happens with existing, occupied lots, but it could also occur with fresh builds. I experienced this bug with my previous neighborhood, the workaround I used was to evict the family, save a copy of the house to the clipboard, bulldoze the house then replace it with the unoccupied clipboard version before entering build mode to place walls on the upper floors. After doing this then moving the family back in I was able to save successfully.

I have just placed some of the Aurora Skies items in my game. The baby items were added to my family house and all is fine. I added the hot air balloon to the park, and cannot save without a crash to the desktop. I have tried to place it and save 3 times and have tried saving both from that park lot and my family lot. For me, that item of CC is causing problems. So far I cannot save if that item is in my game on a lot.

Have you tried saving those lots without the balloon?  Have you tried removing your other CC?  If that doesn't work, you should probably post this in the Pudding Factory section, in "The TS3 Store: post your questions, updates, and tech help here" or KT's thread.

The lot where I placed the balloon is in a world I have played quite a bit and the lot and world have saved with no problems in the past. I can save with no problem until I add the balloon to the park and then can no longer save from there or back at the lot I am playing. I may go ahead and post in the other section too. Thanks.

First, I placed the balloon on a lot in AS and had the same issue, but did not pay as much attention there as was just looking around the place and trying the balloon. But in my save with my legacy family in another world I tried 3 times at least and got the crashes and only after the balloon was put on a lot.

Was it a regular or decrapified installation?  If it's decrapified, a lot of the premium objects go haywire after decrapfication and need a little extra TLC from my AIDE, Kissing Toast.

It probably needs a fix. It is a compressorized package.  

Edit 2-24: I now have the newest ccmerged from KT and the game now saves with no crashes. Hooray.