Infinite load on some lots after Enchanted DLC

[Neodarkside]

I have tried many many solutions to this problem. I don't even know if its alot of lots, or only certain ones as each attempt to load into the game takes time due to older PC and WW and a lot of mods slowing it down. So what I do know is, in Chestnut Ridge, the lower neighborhood lots I get a infinite load screen. The music will play that short tune when you load into a lot, but I remain on the loading screen and never load into the lot. Since discovering the issue, I've mostly been testing only those lots. I did load into all of the ones in the upper corner, I do have played Sims living in those and they are just fine. 

 

I have tried a 50/50, lot failed. 25%, lot failed. No mods in folder, lot failed. Turned off Mods entirely, lot loaded. Did 50/50 again, lot loaded, narrowed it down to 3 mods (AWP Pornograph, yes its a old mod but the camgirl still works right, AEP careers, and Basemental). Tried 1 at a time, each time it failed to load a lot. Then removed all 3 again and tried it again, lot failed when previously, the attempt without them was a success. I also tried a earlier save with all mods active and the lots loaded just fine. Have also tried repairing the game several times too.

 

So I'm stumped, where several attempts that normally worked began to fail, I don't know. I'm curious, I know mod data gets stored in... I think Localthumbcache? Could it be one of the mods that is causing it has data stored in it and causing the issue? Or some other thing like it? I even posted on Sims after Dark with a few Last exception files and they did point out I had a few older versions of mods which I did update before trying many of the above attempts, but nothing really pointed at what the issue is.

[Neodarkside]

35 minutes ago, Princess Lyria said:

I've been seeing a lot of corrupt save game files, including myself, since the last update. Try loading an older save, or a new game. Even if a new game is created, you can exit The Sims without saving, then load your previous game.

 

Keep me posted

 

 

 

So right now its not even worth trying to play? I was wondering if it was a game bug or not. Tried loading in and got a duplicate Innisgreen world and then tried loading into a totally different household, one I have played in awhile and it still went to infinite loading screen. Its sad because I haven't played in awhile, but this issue is a major game breaker. 

 

Edit: I did hear that people recommend to back up your saves before installing the DLC, I forgot to this time. I wonder if I use a save from my backup if it would work? 

Edited July 25, 2025 by Neodarkside

[Neodarkside]

So I went into my saves and recovered a mini save and tried that, Innisgreen duplicated itself and couldn't load into a lot. My earliest save I have is from March and that one I think is working. So if anything, if I can somehow get into game and load into the family I was playing earlier, I'll just save their lot and the family and then load the working file and hope nothing else happens. I haven't played since April, so what I did have was gameplay from March to April. 

[shadowghouls]

Hi just pitching in here, I had the duplicate worlds issue before and managed to resolve it. Start by going to your documents, locate your sims 4 folder. Make a back up of it some where on the desktop and delete the whole sims 4 folder, start the game up and it will re generate a new sims 4 folder.

 

Since there is no saves now, you could follow Princess Lyria's suggestion and create a new household to check if the lot in question would produce an infinite loading screen(I am pretty sure it would not). 

 

If everything is ok, quit sims 4 go back to the documents folder, delete the save folder and caches(local thumbnail.cache, local sims, avatar,etc) in the documents and start replacing saves,tray,mods folder from your desktop backup  in to your documents folder. This way you could still keep your saved games and test again. 

 

Be warned if you do this scorched earth method, you will lose your log in event items which you might need a mod called sejian fomo unlocker (google it) on patreon to get those back.

 

Alternatively you could just delete your caches as aforementioned and see if the duplicate worlds will still appear or not.

[shadowghouls]

16 minutes ago, Princess Lyria said:

 

Don't forget to use "Save As" if the loaded game works.

 

Thanks, I've never heard of that. It looks like a useful tool for better gameplay. Seriously anti-FOMO, lol. “log in now or miss out forever.” 💥

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bg-fomo-all-in-6-120588981

 

 

 

Glad I am of some help!

 

Anyways back to the topic of infinite loading screen on certain lots, my hunch is that have you placed CCs or modified the lot before? If you did, that is likely the culprit. From my own experience I had infinite loading once when I placed gallery lots built by other players into my game. If you can, go to "Manage Worlds" and try entering the lot through edit lots instead of travelling there using your sim. See if you encounter the same issue using this method. If you could enter, try removing any CCs you can find on the lot and save. 

[Neodarkside]

59 minutes ago, shadowghouls said:

Hi just pitching in here, I had the duplicate worlds issue before and managed to resolve it. Start by going to your documents, locate your sims 4 folder. Make a back up of it some where on the desktop and delete the whole sims 4 folder, start the game up and it will re generate a new sims 4 folder.

 

Since there is no saves now, you could follow Princess Lyria's suggestion and create a new household to check if the lot in question would produce an infinite loading screen(I am pretty sure it would not). 

 

If everything is ok, quit sims 4 go back to the documents folder, delete the save folder and caches(local thumbnail.cache, local sims, avatar,etc) in the documents and start replacing saves,tray,mods folder from your desktop backup  in to your documents folder. This way you could still keep your saved games and test again. 

 

Be warned if you do this scorched earth method, you will lose your log in event items which you might need a mod called sejian fomo unlocker (google it) on patreon to get those back.

 

Alternatively you could just delete your caches as aforementioned and see if the duplicate worlds will still appear or not.

 

 

Ok, loaded my earliest save, the March one, so far the ones I've tested from April are corrupted and get infinite loading screens on many lots plus duplicate Innisgreens. I am curious, if I load into any of the afflicted saves and save the families to Tray, will that possibly just transfer the issue to the current working save? I don't mind losing some progress on a few things, but the lot and at least the family I'd prefer to salvage somehow. 

 

Edit: I also haven't even started the event, so I won't lose anything at all. 

Edited July 25, 2025 by Neodarkside

[shadowghouls]

My honest suggestion would be to move all families and lots to tray, start a new game and start moving them all to the new game. I just did mine yesterday on a 10 year old save. I moved all150 households and lots and re populated the new save, it cut my 98mb save file to just 12mb. It sounds crazy and tedious but it is worth it I guess. Because from the ea forums I heard that save file bloat could lead to game corruption. This may not be accurate but according to chatgpt (lol) saves files above 80mb are considered large and prone to errors. 

[Neodarkside]

When I get a new PC, that will be the task I will do, I know my current file is bloated and old, but having to make sure all mods have the old settings (pretty sure MCCC and WW have import settings). Just I have ALOT of townies changed, so either going to need to save them as well and then just put them into the world as unplayed, or just start fresh. eventually I will, just, not up to that task just yet. That probably will be a whole day experience. Whats frustrating is I was going to play yesterday at 3pm, 9pm is when I finally gave up for the night. Was rather eager to play. I have tomorrow off, and if the oldest save works and I can somehow save the house/family of the current save, I might just be able to play, just hopefully issues don't happen again. 

[shadowghouls]

5 minutes ago, Neodarkside said:

When I get a new PC, that will be the task I will do, I know my current file is bloated and old, but having to make sure all mods have the old settings (pretty sure MCCC and WW have import settings). Just I have ALOT of townies changed, so either going to need to save them as well and then just put them into the world as unplayed, or just start fresh. eventually I will, just, not up to that task just yet. That probably will be a whole day experience. Whats frustrating is I was going to play yesterday at 3pm, 9pm is when I finally gave up for the night. Was rather eager to play. I have tomorrow off, and if the oldest save works and I can somehow save the house/family of the current save, I might just be able to play, just hopefully issues don't happen again. 

Good luck with that! Let us know if you encounter any issues!

[Neodarkside]

I am concerned that family might be gone for good. So loaded into a current save, cannot travel to that lot at all, infinite load. Tried to summon one of the family members and then used the cheat to switch control. Infinite load. My only other option is to summon a  member in game, and then use MCCC to got to CAS and export them there. Hopefully it works, but right now out of time, should have been getting ready for work 20 minutes ago. One last option would maybe get a TRAY importer, I have used one in the past to export a family to place on this site here, so that could work too. 

[shadowghouls]

So you are saying that the lot you have been getting infinite loading on is a residential lot which the family resides in? In that case why not use the edit family button in manage worlds to save that family in your gallery instead? 

 

Edit: Since you had kind of figured out that it is either one of those 3 mods (AWP,AEP and basemental) why not take these mods out first, load up your lot and move the sims out? If it could load that way you could take the chance to remove CCs on that lot too so it may be able to load when you move the mods back. I use basemental drugs and gambling in my game too so I doubt those will cause this issue, just a guess.

Edited July 25, 2025 by shadowghouls
add more information to help OP

[Neodarkside]

8 hours ago, shadowghouls said:

So you are saying that the lot you have been getting infinite loading on is a residential lot which the family resides in? In that case why not use the edit family button in manage worlds to save that family in your gallery instead? 

 

Edit: Since you had kind of figured out that it is either one of those 3 mods (AWP,AEP and basemental) why not take these mods out first, load up your lot and move the sims out? If it could load that way you could take the chance to remove CCs on that lot too so it may be able to load when you move the mods back. I use basemental drugs and gambling in my game too so I doubt those will cause this issue, just a guess.

 

It apparently isn't one of those 3. Loading older saves works with all of them added and the current and probably heavily corrupted save, it doesn't matter whats in the save folder, lots just fail. 

 

8 hours ago, Princess Lyria said:

Tray importer only works on saved families.

 

My save is 250MB rn. 

 

Mine.... are 837mb :P, and yes, I know its time to start a new game to get that number down.

[Neodarkside]

Oh... huh, went into my Gallery, I had that some of the family members saved to it, clicked on it, "This item is corrupt, Remove it?" is what popped up for every character in it. 

[RoRo9261]

Savegames
I've gotten into the habit of creating savegames before playing, using only in-game objects (the base game) and no external mods in the houses. It's the same for The Sims.
I put everything in the gallery, then retrieve it all with The Sims 4 Set Importer (SATY) as a zip file. This way, families and houses can be reintroduced without any problems, even with one or more missing mods.
I then complete my houses and Sims as the game progresses.
Over time, Sims can cause problems without me knowing where they came from. Obviously, I lose their progress, but I don't need to rebuild the Sims or the family; I reintroduce them without any problems.
Is my idea a good one? I don't know. At least for my game, I'm happy to do it this way. Other players may be able to suggest other, even better solutions.

 

Note:
House and Sims saves may contain WickedWhims items if you have placed any. If you save and include the mods with SATY, the WickedWhims version (TURBODRIVER_WickedWhims_Tuning) is likely outdated, which can cause the game to crash. This usually tells you in-game that the version is outdated. Personally, I don't include it in my save (a save without mods); I reintroduce the items into the game afterward to ensure I keep the correct version of WickedWhims that is already present.

 

Remember that saves with mods included do not contain the "Ts4script" files, be careful when reintroducing Sims or houses to put the Ts4script files back into the mods that contain them,
 

Caution

I repeat the only solution is a save without mods included. Put back your usual mods after installing your saveguards.

 

Edited July 26, 2025 by RoRo9261

[Neodarkside]

So I haven't had a major issue like this in the 10 years or so I've been playing Sims 4. Never had a total save corruption, and I am curious what went wrong. I maybe know, but not 100%. So I know awhile back they said, "DO NOT SAVE YOUR GAME ON WORLD MAP SCREEN", apparently it can cause issues etc. My earliest save is March 17th, the next save in the folder is March 29th or so and it is a recovery save. I don't remember 100% of what I did, I remember playing with a few Vampires and one of them became infected, so I started doing the Strangerhood story to cure her. I think I had gotten 50% through it and got bored, so I made a recovery save to go back to before I began the process and just cheated the cure by finding one on the Gallery. Apparently every save beyond that point is broken. I don't know if they were broken from that point, or something with the DLC broke it, all I know is, not a single save from that point on allows me to load into various lots, all of them eventually get a infinite load.

 

The March 17th file is just fine. I did manage to load into one of the saves with the family I'm trying to save as the Gallery version of them is corrupted. I managed to add them to the Gallery as well as save at least the 2nd most recent version of their house, the current version I cannot get to as I had swapped to a different family in that save and the lot won't load. So right now I think I can just play from the 17th on and just sorta lose a months worth of gameplay. Being able to save the house and the family did mean I have some bits of the gameplay saved.

[Neodarkside]

10 hours ago, Princess Lyria said:

Someone as busy as you are must be important. 💯 I'm glad you were able to recover some of it, instead of none at all. 

 

Sitting here over coffee, here's what's up: my research shows reports of the bug dating back to the release of 'For Rent'. Large save files with many rentals seem to be the most vulnerable. It's still an ongoing issue, "needing an extended investigation by Maxis, as of April 24, 2025." New content updates seem to exacerbate the issue for players with large save files, and I think that's what I've been seeing lately. 

 

https://forums.ea.com/idea/the-sims-4-bug-reports-en/please-read-save-game-corruption/5037272

 

Even if you back up your save files somewhere safe, it might not help much here, once you load and play the save, the game will overwrite it with the new data. 💥The only real way a backup might be useful is if you can roll back your version of The Sims 4. That way, you could open the preferred save and recover any households or lots you want to keep by saving them to your Tray folder, so you can bring them into a fresh new save. Unfortunately, if you're using the official version of the game, that kind of rollback just isn’t possible. You’d need the pirated version of TS4 to do that. 😜

 

And you know what I just thought of? You could try using a DLC toggler to disable For Rent or Enchanted by Nature, and then see if you can rescue your families. It goes in the Parent folder where the game is installed, like: "C:\Games\The Sims 4\"

 

 

 

dlc-toggler.zip 508.11 kB · 0 downloads

 

I do have alot of Rental unit, it is a fun way to play with large lots with several families together. I'd rather not disable any of them, plus I am retail so rolling back a version is impossible. I know just starting fresh is probably the best answer, just... one I'm not quite ready to do yet. I have alot of townies customized, many of which have various jobs. Then there is wether or not Playlists transfer over from WW saves, I have 200+ WW animation playlists, I hope they'd transfer with exporting settings but I'd need to see. Then there is saving all the households to my gallery as well as their houses and all the businesses I have. This would be a solid days worth of setting up. For now, going to see if the oldest save file I have currently in my folder will work after I play it for a bit, or if that file will just corrupt like all the rest. 

[Neodarkside]

2 hours ago, Princess Lyria said:

 

I don't think you understood my post completely, but that's fine. Since you just installed Enchanted by Nature, toggling it off temporarily could put you back to the place you were before the problem started. You can toggle it back once you've done your housekeeping. 

 

Good luck to you.

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure I did, but explain?

 

Right now the game works. My oldest save seems stable, tested it out, and have no infinite loads. I have no intention of disabling any of the expansions, including Enchanted by nature. I think disabling Enchanted by Nature would honestly do nothing, because I think the save files have been corrupted for awhile, maybe, maybe not. All I know is, when I updated by game, bought the expansion and tried to play it, many lots did not work. So maybe it was a update from April til now, maybe they were corrupted and I didn't know it yet. All I know is multiple save files were bad, but one worked, and that is the one I started playing on. 

[Neodarkside]

Ah gotcha. I mostly salvaged it. As someone did point out, I just went into the neighborhood map and clicked on edit family and then just added them to the gallery. I lost a bit of the house I was working on, upper floor and first floor basement are still there, a 2nd floor basement will need to be remade, but nothing that can't easily be fixed with game play. The business on the lot probably will be lost or at the very least some progress, but again, nothing that can't be gained back from playing. 

[flybox]

I can add some info about the rental unit thing, because I did a deep dive into this a while back when I was experiencing a different bug. It was a bug where certain clutter - snow angels, leaf piles, etc. - would never disappear. It would just keep piling up. Turns out this was a bug that hit For Rent pretty hard, but actually predated it, as it also affects dorms and San Myshuno apartments during festivals. And it was a major cause of bloat. This was an official bug EA acknowledged and "fixed." But apparently their fix was simply to hide all the extra items, so you can't see them. But they still bloat your save file. So if you have a file with lots of rentals that you've been playing in a lot, especially an older file, it's possible that it's simply become bloated beyond control. If that's the cause, saving your families and repopulating a new save game with them would in theory solve the problem.

Edited July 27, 2025 by flybox

[RoRo9261]

Il y a 7 heures, Neodarkside a dit :

 

Je suis presque sûr de l'avoir fait, mais explique-moi ?

 

Pour l'instant, le jeu fonctionne. Ma plus ancienne sauvegarde semble stable, je l'ai testée et je n'ai pas de chargements infinis. Je n'ai aucune intention de désactiver les extensions, y compris Enchanted by Nature. Je pense que désactiver Enchanted by Nature ne servirait à rien, car je pense que les fichiers de sauvegarde sont corrompus depuis un moment, peut-être pas. Tout ce que je sais, c'est que lorsque j'ai mis à jour le jeu, acheté l'extension et essayé d'y jouer, plusieurs ne fonctionnaient pas. Donc peut-être que c'était une mise à jour d'avril jusqu'à maintenant, peut-être qu'ils étaient corrompus et que je ne le savais pas encore. Tout ce que je sais, c'est que plusieurs sauvegardes étaient mauvaises, mais une fonctionnait, et c'est celle avec laquelle j'ai commencé à jouer. 

Disable with dlc toggler.exe like this by unchecking the boxes that interest you and vice versa

 

 

Edited July 27, 2025 by RoRo9261

[Neodarkside]

4 hours ago, flybox said:

I can add some info about the rental unit thing, because I did a deep dive into this a while back when I was experiencing a different bug. It was a bug where certain clutter - snow angels, leaf piles, etc. - would never disappear. It would just keep piling up. Turns out this was a bug that hit For Rent pretty hard, but actually predated it, as it also affects dorms and San Myshuno apartments during festivals. And it was a major cause of bloat. This was an official bug EA acknowledged and "fixed." But apparently their fix was simply to hide all the extra items, so you can't see them. But they still bloat your save file. So if you have a file with lots of rentals that you've been playing in a lot, especially an older file, it's possible that it's simply become bloated beyond control. If that's the cause, saving your families and repopulating a new save game with them would in theory solve the problem.

 

Gotta love the "lazy ass fix" they do. But yes, my save files are way to large, its the same one I've been on since day 1. Its due for a restart. I remember such a bug long time ago, piles of leaves from Seasons would always be on maps and often times piles of piles of piles, so even if you burned one, there was probably 4 more beneath it. I do have about... 6 rental units in the game, so yeah, probably bloating that save file alot. Maybe on my next day off I'll begin the process. I need to research a few things tho. How to export MCCC, Basemental, and WW settings. I know a new save they do not carry over, so I want my settings to be the same, plus... I have 200+ saved WW animation playlists I don't want to lose. 

[Neodarkside]

Ok, so starting to think about starting over a bit more. The save file that apparently works and have played a few hours on last night, still works, lots still load and everything. However I placed a lot down, the large 64x64 empty lot in the upper right of the world that came with Life and Death, forget its name, but its the one close to the nude fire dance event. I found a lot with alot of objects and placed it, tweaked it a bit and went to leave and got a infinite load.

 

So, I'm forming a plan on how to start the transfer of families and lots. One question I have is, the Tray is where all your saved Sims are correct? So right now it has pretty much all of my created Sims for years in it. If I save the original to desktop and leave and empty folder, I can begin exporting everything to my gallery and then the tray should only have those Sims/Lots/etc. 

 

What is going to be a pain, is restoring family ties, because if I recall, if you export a family thats say, split between 3 different Sim families, if you export and then import, it deletes all friendship ties to everyone outside the current household. MCCC will help with that but its going to be a pain.

[shadowghouls]

1 hour ago, Neodarkside said:

 

What is going to be a pain, is restoring family ties, because if I recall, if you export a family thats say, split between 3 different Sim families, if you export and then import, it deletes all friendship ties to everyone outside the current household. MCCC will help with that but its going to be a pain.

Yes, but what I did is, depending on the amount of family members in the 3 families you could create a new household, merge the three house holds together edit relationships there, place them in the new lot then then split them out.  Not sure if it will be any more efficient but MCCC is a little finicky sometimes, once I got a sim who is both daughter and mother to the parent sim which screwed up my family tree (I did not edit it wrongly in MCCC).

[shadowghouls]

Also for your infinite loading did you put any custom content on that lot? I have heard rumors if you do not have a powerful enough pc to run large lots, infinite loading might happen. With so many new expansion packs, there might be a chance that your PC might not be able to keep up?

[flybox]

12 hours ago, Neodarkside said:

 

Gotta love the "lazy ass fix" they do. But yes, my save files are way to large, its the same one I've been on since day 1. Its due for a restart. I remember such a bug long time ago, piles of leaves from Seasons would always be on maps and often times piles of piles of piles, so even if you burned one, there was probably 4 more beneath it. I do have about... 6 rental units in the game, so yeah, probably bloating that save file alot. Maybe on my next day off I'll begin the process. I need to research a few things tho. How to export MCCC, Basemental, and WW settings. I know a new save they do not carry over, so I want my settings to be the same, plus... I have 200+ saved WW animation playlists I don't want to lose. 

I think Basemental resets with each new save, but MCCC should stay the same as long as you don't delete the files associated with the mod. I'm not sure what WW does by default, because I use settings profiles to keep track of my settings. If you don't already, I highly recommend it. I have three saved profiles (one for each lifespan length) which I load as appropriate every time I start a new game (or change the length mid-game).