Make sure you have NOTHING under the Decoration/Plant section. Only EA-made creations should be under there...

Yeah, no. That's not it. It's probably a pattern, or who knows what other .package file floating around in there.

And as someone on the MATY boards said, CC didn't cause this problem. This patch broke CC. That's something EA has to fix. If they don't, I don't play.

It appears sunset valley is less sensitive to the problem then riverview; either way taking out all the plants and clutter and playing sunset valley fixed it for me; I still can't play riverview and I'm not sure why; but a few items of CC do really seem to have a difference, just don't appear to be the cause to me as riverview is still messed up and its mostly base-game-lots that mess up.

After 3 days of cursing, kicking, and frustration, I figured out my problem. Since I have Vista, I needed to open my game with "run as administrator". No problems and have all the features that came with the patch. I have no blue lot problems and still have some plant CC, but they came in Sims3Packs. Been testing the save process and my hood comes up okay with the "save" and "save and quit". Haven't used "save as".

I was double-clicking the desktop icon to start my game, but forgot that "run as administrator" was important to run programs properly with Vista. I hate Vista.

Sorry for your loss. :/ I had this terrible houses-fallen-into-the-blue-hell issue too., with WA and patch 2.28. I've spent 3 real-life hours on a vacation in Egypt, returned to find Sunset Valley completely ruined... Didn't want to let the whole trip go to waste, so I tried something... And it worked. I hope this "fix" helps at least one other lucky person, since the conditions probably don't apply to the majority...
** If you last saved your game while on vacation, like, just before returning home (and seeing it's broken), it's worth rescuing, read on...
** You NEED to have a SEPARATE non-broken savegame from before going on vacation. Sunset Valley will be reverted to that point.
1. Ensure that no player-made custom content is going to mess up your saves again (removing all indoor plants and clutter worked fine for me).
2. Make a copy of the non-broken neighbourhood (from game's Main Menu).
3. Go to ...\My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves or wherever your saves are. You should see folders, each representing a save (if your non-broken 'hood's copy is instead a single file, load it in your game and SaveAs, to enforce WA's new format).
4. From your BROKEN save's folder, copy all files whose names DON'T start with "SunsetValley_" (or "Riverview_") and paste them into the folder of the nonbroken-'hood-copy, allow to overwrite.
5. Start the game, load the nonbroken-'hood-copy. You should be on vacation.
6. Upon ending vacation and returning (to the now perfectly fine 'hood!) you'll see your sims doing whatever they did at the time of the non-broken save. After half a sim-hour or so, they'll disappear (have no fear!) and reappear on the road somewhere in town, come home and live happily ever after .
** The sims will retain all the items in their inventory (such as precious relics!) from their trip, as well as skills, relationships, wishes, moodlets, lifetime points... Everything.
** Trying to Save this hybrid 'hood for the 1st time caused an Error 16 (no fear!), so I used SaveAs. Works fine so far. Restarted game, reloaded 'hood, no holes, all is well.
!!!! This fix is very very stupid and the consequences might reveal themselves in the future, probably ruining your game anyway. But it works! ;D For now. For me. I hope it works for you too...

Hm thats a great idea Sunset Valley hasn't messed up from saving by the way; no blue lots in it. I took out all plants and clutter even before starting the new neighbourhood and its finally passed.

Hope installing the actual EP will not ruin things I finally 'fixed' after 3 days, as this was all with just the 1.6 patch.

And you wonder why your game is still acting up? I had this problem and removing all my plants fixed it. Don't blame EA for the game acting up, they shouldn't be taking responsibility for third party mods, no game developer does that.

I wonder if simply recategorizing the items will help. There is a program that will allow you do that easily but I can't recall the name of it.

Look, the Sims franchise is a game that is designed around encouraging an ecosystem of third-party mods. All this stuff worked just fine until the 1.7 patch, and what that says to me is... that patch wasn't tested properly, and there's something wrong with it.

If you think it's acceptable that we should have to go through our mods every three months when EA's patch ruins something random, that's fine with me. Sounds like fanboyism though. Personally, I'm comfortable waiting for the patch that fixes the patch.

I just want to remind everyone that this is a not a discussion forum. If people want help with their game then they need to follow the steps already given.

1) If you can't save your game, remember to use "save as".

For all other problems..

2) Remove all CC

3) Remove all user files

4) Reinstall the game the way that was outlined in page 3, post #58

If your game still doesn't work then either something wrong with your game discs or you have a computer problem and you need to post your own thread with your system specs.

This thread is getting pretty out of hand and people are posting over and over again whining but obviously not follow the advice given.

This isn't "fanboyism" -- this is being realistic. There is nothing wrong with the patch, other than it changes how the games treats objects under the plant category, as expected with a new EP. Nonsense like this happened all the time with Sims 2, we simply have to get used to it.

I recommend you restore your backups and delete those plants from the game's category, as there will not be a patch to fix this issue anytime soon. If you need help tracking down those pesky plants, I can be of assistance. But first you simply have to grow out of your frustration so that you can get your game back up and running.

I won't be needing your help with the pesky plants, as all my content is organized, and I can remove plants by moving one folder. That was the first thing I tried.

Any pre-1.7 patch save game, and when I load in, the Goths and the Museum are blue. A save and quit, and everything's blue. Neither the museum nor the Goths have ever been changed by me. They contain no custom content. This happens even if I remove my entire packages directory and replace the saves directory with one from my backup disk. The problem is with pre 1.7 patch saves.

Again, I'm very comfortable waiting for a patch, rather than trying to sort through my custom content, or guessing in a non-technical fashion, without any context, what the problem may be. Community reps on the EA boards have already stated that they're looking into the blue lot issue, so I'm also pretty comfortable believing that this will be repaired. Thanks though.

This happened to me, as well! Is there a fix? I'm very mad at the moment - I think I just built perhaps one of my best houses on the Sims series to date, and then there happens to be this odd glitch.

I did all that, everything works fine except for the downloads, only the diamand downloads appear in my game, not one download from the modfolder appears nore the mods and hacks like nointro,nomosaic, just simple mods. they don't show, not one of them.

you must put the d3dx9_31.dll in the C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,15184.0.html <-d3dx9_31.dll if you don't have a copy on your computer

Are you sure thats right, there detailed instructions on how to move it to the WA folder here.... (Im so confused...)

http://www.the-isz.com/theisz/index...topic=3567&st=0

Im getting blue lots on returning from vacation too... I was using an old lot with CC... but it took out all the lots in Sunset Valley on return, and my Sims skills etc...
Im going to retry with no CC (maybe even a clean install).

d3dx9_31.dll needs to be in the WA folder, everything else can be left alone.

Did not change a thing, thanks for trying

Didn't work either, thanks for trying though.

So far so good, this d3dx9_31.dll, i left it in WA, now I found it also in the base game, I didn't put it there.
I uninstalled the monkey helper, restart my comp. reinstalled monkey helper, that generated a whole new modfolder in the base game. I put my downloads back in the new folders, left the hackfolder empty except for this new mod "nomosaic WA" My game is perfect again, all dl are showing, and no censorblurr.
I couldn't send my sim on vacation yet, he was still recovering from the first one.
Tonight I'll start a new game, see how that goes, although i'm a bit tired from Sims. After one week experimenting, trying, suffering, I need a vacation from sims

Thanks everyone for helping, this site is really inspirering

Last edited by tygomitch : 25th Nov 2009 at 05:35 PM.

The blue lots are a CC problem anything cloned from the fig plant seems to bork the game mostly clutter cc unfortunatly take out all cc and see if your game runs.
It only happens if the cc is used so you could be saving fine but when you add the cc to a house the next time you load Blue lots !!

Yes, you're right, I started a new game tonight, only CC, disaster, blue lots again.

Blue lot fix, for window vista operating systems, but might work on XP as well, try 7 as well. However don’t know about Macintosh (apple Mac) operating systems.

Ok first of all you will need the administrators permission for several parts of this process.

first of all open C:\Users\(“your account“)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3
Keep this window open.
Open C:\Users\(“the administrators“)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3
Keep this window open.
Copy all files from C:\Users\(“your account“)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 into C:\Users\(“the administrators“)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3
**!!Administrative Access!!**
**!!Required!!**

Type in password for access and be sure to select copy & replace, yes and yes to all.

**!!Administrative Access!!**
**!!Required!!**

C:\Users\(“your account“)\Desktop
Now right click the Sims 3 icon and “Run As Administrator”
Make sure there are no blue lots, then play a family then save and quit, then do the same again to ensure it has worked.
Then after no blue pits appear it should now work normally i.e. double clicking the Sims 3 icon and running it as usual, though try play a family then save and quit, then do the same again to ensure it has worked.

I had this problem, my sims 3 after patch 1.7 was installed… my game has a fair amount of mods installed like the no intro, several sliders, and a whole lot of custom content. My computer has no problems concerning overheating all vents are clear. And is properly maintained regularly.
So I would say the patch was at fault.

feel free to send me a message through email only, saying how you got on with the fix.

After reading all the posts regarding the blue lots, I really don't think cc is the problem. The blue lots are random - i started a new game, used all manner of cc content (including tons of clutter and plants) and the game worked fine for two days. And then I play the game this morning and suddenly it's all blue lots again. So i tried playing a new game with no cc and I got blue lots immediately the next time I loaded the game. Other people have reported that they play their game without cc and are still getting blue lots at random times.

This patch really messed things up. Over at the EA support they say they are looking into the problem. I hope they do this soon and properly because it seems like with every new patch means having to create new games.

Well, it was a bit different with my game. I'll say what I did, it might help some people.
First of all, I had lots of cc, some just recolours and some with new meshes. I read all those replies here and did all that people mentioned here as solutions. I had these blue lots, which totally wrecked my lovely neighbourhood (fortunately I didn't lose my fave lots, cause I have them packaged for upload ;p). Here's what I did:

1. I packaged all that wasn't blue lots
2. I back up my saves
3. I uninstalled the game and manually all of its components such as this stuff in my documents/electronic arts
4. I uninstalled ts3 install helper monkey
5. I reinstalled the game and also all possible patches + World Adventures
6. I reinstalled ts3 install helper monkey
7. I didn't move my mods folder to WA folder, it's in the sims 3 folder still
8. I put back all my build mode cc and hairs and clothes etc
9. all worked just fine (I checked several times, I opened the game and quitted it a few times to check if my game doesn't show up with blue lots)
10. I put back all my furniture aiming at putting back NO decorations, but I didn't notice one stylist sims painting and put it back too
11. all worked just fine
12. I put my own paintings and clutter that were recolours of EA stuff
13. blue lots again.
14. I deleted the stuff I made and started a new game, but put back all paintings based on their own new mesh and other deco with its own meshes
15. all works just fine.

I don't want to confuse or mislead anyone, but to me it seems that stuff without it's own mesh (simply recolours of base game's objects) f**** the game up :/ So deleting it and starting a new game should help. At least it helped me.

oh, and if someone uninstalls and then reinstalls the game, then they should also uninstall and reinstall the ts3 install helper monkey. otherwise cc doesn't show up.

No they fired them.