Windows Security Blocking Sims 3

[Guest]

Please share your experiences and/ or fixes for error codes 12 and 16, save and loading issues!

 

Back in August, I had major issues with my Acer Nitro 5, which I use primarily for playing Sims 3, and creating CC. I played and tried to do some work on a couple of other laptops, but finally got my Acer back in the middle of November. As I had made and acquired some new CC, and condensed other CC to get things running on the other machines, it took a while to sort things out on the Acer again. I thought I had it pretty well situated, and needing only some file clean up to reduce folder size and some duplicated packages.

 

Then, early last month, apparently our friends at Microsoft gave me another unwanted security update... at least, that is what I strongly suspect. Suddenly, I began getting a bunch of error 12's and couldn't save my games. 

 

Some rough numbers... Acer Nitro 5, 1TB HDD, 16 GB RAM, 8th gen Intel Core i5, and NVidia GEFORCE GTX graphics card. Not the greatest laptop ever made, but enough to run TS3. I manually clean my saves fairly regularly using s3pe. Nearly 8 GB total in my Mods folder. It has been as much as 10 GB and ran fine. I have several EP's running, and basically always have, so they were not the change that caused the error codes. I run Task Manager to monitor what is going on, and my game runs between 800 MB and 1.6 GB RAM. Really not even close to the 2 GB caution line.

 

So, I noticed that the "anti malware" seemed to be using a lot of RAM. Sometimes, as much as 500 MB to 1 GB!!! A search found adding it to an exclusions list for Windows Defender should fix it.

 

Note: I ran a scan of all TS3 files and folders, and it came back clean, so there should not be an issue... I tried it anyway. That didn't work, Since I don't play on line, in fact that laptop is almost never online, I began turning off the antivirus when I played. This worked most of the time, but Windows does turn it back on. FYI... read the agreement... you don't really own your OS, and it will do what it thinks is best for you. Mommy?

 

Frustration led me to continue looking for a way to fix this, and I may have found the answer, which is not new. Although it may be the anti malware that is using the RAM, and looks like the culprit, it may be the anti ransomware! So, having followed instruction in that article, I may have fixed it? Time will tell.

 

These are links to the 2 articles. The second seems to be the one that has solved my particular problem...

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/add-an-exclusion-to-windows-security-811816c0-4dfd-af4a-47e4-c301afe13b26

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_defender-protect_scanning-windows_10/windows-defender-blocking-game-save-files/9e4a05e9-c220-4f5e-a9bc-6f5c79eab71b

[landess]

Wish I had something to add myself.

 

As an ALL DISK user (No Origin) and user of AVAST Anti-Virus (No Windows Defender/Avast turns it off upon start-up per user choice) The only Sims 3 error's I've ever gotten have been the '12's which I can still get if I'm sloppy and run the game for a long time while entering CAS and Build/Buy a lot and make many changes. Like clockwork it eventually gives me an error 12 while saving. I tend to save a LOT while making customization changes so if the game is going to poop-out, I have kept the damage to a minimum.

 

I also clean my saves after every session - delete older saves (in a series - always keep 2) upon start up. Remove excess trash files from the documents occassionally - I submit a lot of screenshots, so am in that folder frequently.

 

>>>> With 16GB RAM one shouldn't have 'use' related issues interfering with the game which obvious can use no more than 3GB. So math tells me for that to happen the system would be needing to use the other 13GB. Checking the System Monitor can help identify high usage easy enough as it shows each and every process and it's memory usage in real time. One can set the window to display highest usage at the top. Usually some 'musical chairs' will be taking place but the guiltiest parties reveal themselves after watching for a few.

 

Regardless: It sounds most like a conflict which you've pointed out appears to be windows security related (UGH) and believe me - I as a graduated conspiracy theorist - wouldn't put it above corporate malfeasance between EA and Microsoft for a few Simoleons. EA does NOT want players playing Sims 3 when they can be spending on the Sims 4 and ALL those sweet EP/SP's all over again. One can see the amount of DLC for the Sims 4 has increased exponentially recently, which to me means the Sims 5 is likely nearing completion. Sorry to go off topic, but there IS a breadcrumb trail leading back to what could be part of the problem? We already 'know' about the fact 'Origin' won't recognize older Windows versions - everyone stop, take off the rose-tinted glasses and see the corporations for what they are - especially when they begin 'working together'. It's a shiny carrot on a really long stick.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, landess said:

I can still get if I'm sloppy and run the game for a long time while entering CAS and Build/Buy a lot and make many changes.

Yes, that can be a problem. I do the same thing, and also "Save As" a lot. You didn't specify, but I know you also "Save As". Anyone who may read this, who doesn't already know, many will recommend using "Save As" when saving your game, as this writes a totally new save file, instead of using "Save", which overwrites your previous save. If you get a code 12 or 16, all is lost! Whereas, if you use "Save As", you only lose current game play, but your previous save remains intact. )

 

It may be in part the better video card (compared to other laptops I have used), but it's rare for my Acer to run above 1.5 GB RAM while playing. 1 to 1.2 seems to be it's average. A big reason why I started digging when problems began.

 

Generally, TS3 is the high user, followed distant by the antimalware. But, it does seem that it may be a generic display reference, as I first messed with the antivirus and it seemed to work by shutting it off. But after more digging and seeing that second article, it looks like the ransomware protection part was what caused the issue. I'm trying to see if others here have run into this.

[landess]

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

I know you also "Save As"

 

Yes, with NRaas saver running. The default is fine for normal play: Auto prompt for save every 1/2 hour real time. Will automatically advance the save series - default once again is a rotation of 4 - so if the 1st save made in that world/series is say "Bridgeport", then the first autosave will prompt as "Bridgeport1". This will continue by changing the number - 2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 etc. I like to add a space between the name and number (Bridgeport 1). Saver looks at the name and will either add a 1 or choose the next number in the series of four while looking at only the last digit of the save name. IF someone was to name the save 1234, the next save would prompt 1231 (1232/1233/1234). If the save was 246 8, then the save would be 246 81.....

 

If one chooses 'save' like you said - it would just repeat the last save name. If one chooses 'save as' it still shows the last save, but then we players can manually change it - or in the case of NRaas Saver - manually advance it.

 

When I change households, sometimes I start a new save series and keep the last one from before as an archive. This is how I found out about the save folder 'limit' for over 100 saves not being read by the save loader menu. I thought - Hey! I just made a new save, but it isn't showing. I checked the save folder and it was there. Okay? So then researching it I found out about the limit. Oldest 99/100 (?) saves only shown.

 

 

[Clydie]

17 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

If you get a code 12 or 16,

Use all discs and patch 1.67 and have not seen such saving errors last times.

But I play on small or middle sized worlds only and use limited CC. (The whole mod folder is about 2,3GB)

As to my experience 12 has something to do with the available memory of the system and 16 is more caused by game play situations.

On 16 a town reset with MC always helped.

Sometimes it helped on error 12 too but not always.

If you played the same world for long and the message shown after town reset indicates more than 12K-14k objects reseted, then I did not found a way

to a proper save anymore.

And, somewhere in an (very) old thread someone stated he solved the 12 problem by increasing the system cache to 6GB. But this is history from XP I think.

With "save as" I did not saw any success at all. Actually my game always does a XXX.sim3.backup save. Therein is the previous one. So if your save end up with the ending sims3.bad, you can go back to the previous by deleting ".backup" on the ending. Up to now no 12 or 16 corrupted my previous save.

That is all I know about that, may it help a little. Good luck !

 

Oh yes one more thing :  have set memoryUsageLimit in the Sims3.ini to 40000000 knowing that it can not used all on a 32bit program, but it did not hurt....

 

[spaceman1]

On 2/3/2021 at 12:52 PM, LadySmoks said:

Really not even close to the 2 GB caution line.

Only if you're on a 32bit OS. On a 64bit OS the game will use up to 3.5 GB of RAM as it's LAA.

On 2/4/2021 at 1:48 PM, Clydie said:

have set memoryUsageLimit in the Sims3.ini to 40000000 knowing that it can not used all on a 32bit program

The game has been LAA since patch 1.22 and doesn't even use that unless you're on a 32bit OS.

On 2/3/2021 at 12:52 PM, LadySmoks said:

Then, early last month, apparently our friends at Microsoft gave me another unwanted security update... at least, that is what I strongly suspect. Suddenly, I began getting a bunch of error 12's and couldn't save my games

Are you using Game Mode? That thing is buggy even with games it's meant to support and be used with let alone games it was never intended to be used with.

Go into Windows Settings>Gaming and shut all that off even if you're not using it.

[landess]

17 hours ago, spaceman1 said:

Are you using Game Mode?

 

The last time I used anything remotely resembling 'game mode' was in the early '90's - making a boot disk to run DOOM on the 486/DX66 we had. Having things like the CD-ROM installed used too much memory. Needed to free some up to play the game.....

 

 

>I still have the 10 or so 3.5" floppies containing DOOM2

 

 

For the trivia minded - the HDD on that 486/DX66 was 500MB

[Guest]

I'm thinking the point of this post was missed. I HAD a problem, seemingly, immediately after a recent "security" update around 6, Jan. I no longer HAVE a problem, after doing what is said in the second link I posted... And was simply wondering if anyone else has has their TS3 shut down by Windows Defender, be it the anti malware, anti virus, anti ransomware, etc, and what they found to fix it.

[spaceman1]

17 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

I'm thinking the point of this post was missed. I HAD a problem, seemingly, immediately after a recent "security" update around 6, Jan. I no longer HAVE a problem, after doing what is said in the second link I posted... And was simply wondering if anyone else has has their TS3 shut down by Windows Defender, be it the anti malware, anti virus, anti ransomware, etc, and what they found to fix it.

Sorry I had only skimmed the post. But no I've never had that happen I usually make sure when I install my games that they have both Public and Private access with the Firewall if they need to access the internet for some reason. I use Malwarebytes Premium these days.

 

If you're using the discs for the Sims 3 those have an older safe version of SecuROM; unlike the original digital downloads which had an invasive version that was incompatible with some Windows software components, the current digital downloads don't have it since they are tied to Origin now; that might have triggered a false alarm with Defender. And the disc version of the Sims 3 tries to send Usage Data even if there is no internet connection which theoretically could also trigger an alarm.

 

Although I do remember Defender giving me grief with EasyCASP every time I tried to move the copy of the install exe to my computer Defender would immediately flag it as a malware and quarantine it the only way I could stop it so I could install EasyCASP was to install Malwarebytes Free, which gives a 7 day trial (use to be 30 days) for Premium after which you just get the basic protection.

And Defender did give me problems when I tried to use the Radeon Adrenalin software to update my drivers for my GPU. It would install the new software components but would rollback the driver which kind of makes a mess of things. I had to do a direct download and do a clean install to get the new drivers. That happened last month actually at around that same time frame. Which is why I went back to Malwarebytes I never should've stopped using it.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, spaceman1 said:

Defender giving me grief with EasyCASP

Hmmm.... I stopped using EasyCASP a L O N G time ago because of problems. May have been Defender causing it?

 

Understand that I got that laptop 2 years ago. Of course, 2 days after the warranty was over, it began having problems! The saga of it being dead from Aug to Nov finally over, and all was as it had been... I was simply getting things put back, and new things installed (new CC that I both made and downloaded, and had been working fine on my other laptop). Everything was working on my Acer, and had been for a month. Then suddenly problems. I tracked it down to the fix in the 2nd link I posted... anti-ransomware, that was blocking TS3. It had never done that until the Jan update! 

 

 

So, you are now saying that YOU also had a problem with the Jan Defender update??????????

[spaceman1]

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

Hmmm.... I stopped using EasyCASP a L O N G time ago because of problems. May have been Defender causing it?

 

Understand that I got that laptop 2 years ago. Of course, 2 days after the warranty was over, it began having problems! The saga of it being dead from Aug to Nov finally over, and all was as it had been... I was simply getting things put back, and new things installed (new CC that I both made and downloaded, and had been working fine on my other laptop). Everything was working on my Acer, and had been for a month. Then suddenly problems. I tracked it down to the fix in the 2nd link I posted... anti-ransomware, that was blocking TS3. It had never done that until the Jan update! 

Defender might have been causing the problems you had with EasyCASP.

 

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

So, you are now saying that YOU also had a problem with the Jan Defender update?

With my graphics cards driver software, yes. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, spaceman1 said:

With my graphics cards driver software, yes. 

OK. This is the kind of thing I was looking for when I started this post... That Windows Defender (or parts of it) may be "A" cause for TS3 related issues. For me, it was that I found and followed instructions in the FIRST link I posted, and it didn't work, BUT... continuing to search, I found the second link and THAT worked. Both are Windows Defender issues. 

 

Really, that you also had any problem is enough for me to post it on my help page as being something for others to be aware of. )))