I experienced a random error today. On my boyfriend's advice, I've re-installed my game and lost my town, but on Google I found someone else with this same problem...unanswered. I took a screenshot and I'm hoping that someone could answer my question, so that, in the future, me or other users will be able to fix the issue without losing their hard work and data.

Here's what happened:
I opened the Sims3, went to play as normal, but when it loaded it had "Sunset Valley" text automatically selected. Not thinking much of it I went and clicked on my game file "Sunset Valley - Maxis 2"(long story but that's what I named it), overlooking the fact that it only displayed a little outline of a house.
When I clicked this, instead of my beloved Bazooka family, it brought up an outlined picture and the text "Ramirez".

See screenshot:


Then, I clicked the check mark to play. But it just deselects the game file and acts as if nothing happened. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this if it occurs again, or even WHY it occurred? I'm starting to wonder if I have a bad hard drive because I keep having so many random errors.

Thanks,
Woglinde

Do you have any .sims3.backup files in your Saves folder? If so you can delete the corresponding .sims3 save file and delete the part that says ".backup" for the backup file and you can load your backup save file.

Just to clarify: Change the name of your save file (which ends in .sims3) to something the game will not recognize. For example: Riverview.old from Riverview.sims3

Then change your sims3.backup file by removing the. backup and changing it to .sims3. It should load your last saved game. Hopefully this was done before the fubar.