Error codes 12 and 13 along with crashing.

[Slymenstra]

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.

[Anonym]

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.

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.

[Nin_the_Destroyer]

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.

[sewinglady]

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.

[chann]

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.

[Chain_Reaction]

*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.

[ciane]

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.

[ice mango]

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

[GnatGoSplat]

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.

[Anach]

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.

[ingeli]

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.

[ice mango]

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?                   

[Iolanthe]

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

[Steele]

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.

[Jackathyn]

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.  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.

[ll]

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 ( 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) 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.

[Jackathyn]

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. )

[GnatGoSplat]

2. Used the CFF Explorer to allow more than 2GB

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.

[Tangie]

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?

[GnatGoSplat]

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.

[Tangie]

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.  

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

[ciane]

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.

[GnatGoSplat]

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.)

[Anonym]

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.

[tizerist]

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.