Ahh Okay. Thank you so much for setting me straight. I really appreciate that not only is this thread here, but it's still active. Thanks so much.

I have a question that seems silly to me but probably isn't. I know how to get my world open in EIG. But When i'm done, do I just save and quit? or is there a special procedure to get out of the game and back into CAW with my changes intact?

Save in EIG. Then there is popup. I have to tab to get to bottom and enter. Then I quit game and head back to CAW and do more if wanted or if no just save and close.

Oh ok. so just save not save an exit. Got cha. I've literally had my game sitting open all this time waiting for an answer cause i got so far in my map I didn't want to break anything.

You mentioned Tab to get to the bottom. I don't understand and this window is SUPER DUPER long. Like I tried moving it to my vertical monitor and that didn't help. How the heck do i get to the bottom?

Nevermind I figured it out. But man the blinking while saving hard to deal with. Looked like my monitor was dying.

Not sure what I should do with the University or the Oasis Landing worlds, since I feel like they're considered vacation worlds. Just wanted to make sure if I should tweak the UNKN 0x29 part or something since the first post was posted before University Life or Into The Future EPs was even released. I just wanted to get just the terrain paints from every single EA world.

@TheRachesterRach If you want the terrain paints, you are looking to open the worlds and then extract the textures? If so, then you need to open the world in S3PE- so follow either of the tutorials in post #2 and post #3 of this thread.

these instructions for getting a new wpid DO NOT WORK. im so angry. arbor vale is completely unplayable for me.

@kanapuro Could you tell me exactly what steps you have taken please? Did you save the world? What happens when you try to play, do you get an error or something else?

I have taken every step. I've searched google a thousand times and tried a thousand things. Due to some weird reason, my game can't identify saves played on Arbor Vale. Other base game worlds work, other custom worlds assumedly work, but Arbor Vale doesn't. Arbor Vale's NHD is ALWAYS full zeros, even if you try to make new versions of it. Even if you follow every step perfectly. And for some reason the only people in the WORLD to ever have this issue are me and one other guy a decade ago (here ). The temporary solution is to change one zero in the NHD to anything else, load up the game, and change it back right before pressing play, but I can't do that in the long run since saves bloat and get risky. Here's an example on Youtube

I've been working alongside someone from Simscord for 2 days straight trying to solve this issue. Every tutorial is outdated and useless. Nothing I do works. It's very frustrating.

Yes, but what exactly? I have no idea at this point what you have tried, because you haven't told me exactly what you've done. I also don't know exactly what you are working to do with Arbor Vale. Are you trying to play it, open it in CAW or what?


Could you link me to Arbor Vale please? I am not familiar with that world. Is it a world that you have opened and edited using the methods described in the first posts of this thread?


What makes you think this issue is related to yours? All saves have the zeros in the nhd part of the save file. They are talking about a different world.


What is simscord and could you please tell me what you have tried?

It would be practically impossible to explain every step I took since I've been troubleshooting this issue using various different posts and sites for the past 2 days, but I followed your post's steps perfectly. I have tried trying to make duplicates of Arbor Vale. I also tried messing with the meta.data, testing out different custom worlds, etc. I know that worlds with all zero NHDs can work on most Sims games, but it doesn't work on mine. The issue, as far as I can see, lies with the custom world.

As for the problem, I think it's very clear. I am trying to play saves on Arbor Vale. I can easily make new saves, but old saves do not show up on the main menu despite being present in the documents. You can see this in the video I linked.

Arbor Vale is one of the earliest known custom worlds for the Sims 3. I did not make it, however I used it for years and years without any issues until recently.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/di...lovers-download
https://www.mediafire.com/download/...+Vale.Sims3Pack

Simscord is just a Discord server for discussing Sims games. I just mentioned it to share that I've been asking around for help and nobody seems to know how to fix this. The photo attached is some added context (my introductory message to the help channel in that server).

I understand the frustrations, but you may have gone about the troubleshooting process a little backwards. These kinds of servers mean well, but it's kind of like taking an IT question to your friendly neighbours and puzzling over it- blind leading the blind- while there is a dedicated tech support centre to the exact subject across the street.
The thread for the tutorial you are following is a much better place to start, and you may be hindered more than helped by bringing the previous efforts into it. This is the perfect opportunity to start from scratch, state what you were trying to achieve and what at what step of their instructions it didn't work.

You also have the luck that the author of said tutorial is still active and responding to you- which is a rarity in this day and age of retired creators! Simsample's continued contributions are a blessing
I'm sure if you rewind to the exact issue trying to be solved, they will be able to help you fix it or point you towards a more suitable solution.

My general TS3 support alarms go off reading what you have described, I have an inkling it could be a symptom of something else that needs to be fixed, but we'll see if Simsample has a world-specific suggestion before getting into that.

It's totally impossible to know what your problem is and what you've tried unless you explain it to me.


It looks as though you succeeded in that? I'm not sure because you haven't told me whether that bit worked.


All saves made with my game have the zeros in the nhd part of the save. What gameversion do you have through steam- would that be 1.69 or later? Could perhaps be an issue with that.


Why do you have your custom world installed to the gamedata folder? Could you not install it as a Sims 3 pack through the launcher? Also, did you test it without any mods? Follow the troubleshooting guide here:
Game Help:Sims 3 Game Problem^wiki
What exactly did you do to the meta.data and why?


No it isn't, I've uploaded two here that predate that and so have other people.

Perhaps you could also share a copy of your packaged world so that we can look at it? I'm not sure I'll be able to open it with my game as I don't have a lot od the later EPS. nor do I have steam. I'm running 1.67.

From what you are saying, you can open the world and edit and export it okay according to this tutorial? It may be that the issue is related to something else, and not this tutorial.

A good troubleshooting test would be to make a blank custom world in CAW, add a lot and save and export it. Install it to your game and see if you can play and save and load it with the current mods you have.

I am very sorry for my hostile attitude and lack of information. The past few days have been frustrating (outside of this specific issue) and I didn't go about this right. I will handle some IRL stuff and get back to you in a few hours with as much information as I can, and it's okay if even then you don't know how to fix it. Thanks for being considerate and patient, and still being around to respond to my issue. I'll reply later with more info!

I have made a document to neatly share my issue and progress, hopefully it help clear up what I'm trying to solve. :') https://docs.google.com/document/d/...dit?usp=sharing

So just to be clear, did Arbor Vale work for you before you edited it using this tutorial? So far this appears to be a problem with your custom content and/or game setup, and not an issue caused by this tutorial.

@kanapuro , I knew this sounded familiar and dug through the help forum to find this discussion.
Could you try a similar solution?

Instead of deleting the folder, you can drag and drop it onto your desktop for now. Install the original Arbor Vale and test, without adding anything else, if you can make a save and access it on the main menu.
To me, it sounds like it may be conflicting with something else you've installed through the launcher- but it could be just about anything in that directory. You can drag your old saves, mods, etc into the new folder if that fixes it.

As mentioned in the document it is definitely caused by some sort of mod conflict, and I am currently searching for which mod specifically - but if it is a mod I consider essential, I would need to find a way to edit Arbor Vale so that it has a unique .nhd and will run appropriately for my game. The reason I consider it a world problem is because it has occurred in the past with another world and can be resolved by editing the world... I just don't know how.
That is why I am struggling and brought the problem to this thread since this was the closest I had gotten to that solution. It was not my intention to say that this tutorial had any problems, just that it was my last route and it didn't work for my problem. :')

Hey @kanapuro it's probably best if you make a thread in the help forum:
https://modthesims.info/f/551/
As this issue is not related to the topic of the thread, and this thread is for discussion of that.
This will help you to troubleshoot:
Game Help:Sims 3 Game Problem^wiki
Game Help:TS3 Finding Problem Custom Content^wiki

Guess I wasted my time. The world is fine and I have played this game since release and have never heard of a mod affecting a world unless there is a mod that directly affects the makeup of a world. And the essential mods such as Nraas are not a problem with worlds. As Simsample says, this is about editing premade worlds and that info. works very well as I have done it many times.

Hope you can find help but sounds like just check your mods with the 50/50 method. And if you find the problem one you probably just need to ditch it. No mod is worth having in if totally messes up your game.

Thanks for trying to help @daisylee I'm wishing people would try the wiki help articles I link to!

It's highly unlikely to be a mod, and more likely to be another world or an issue with the launcher data in DCCache. Do generate a fresh The Sims 3 folder and install it from that point, and if the problem persists feel free to make a thread on the help forum that Simsample linked There are likely a few decent fixes for this, but they do require narrowing down the cause first.

I suspect you are right and a clean game will tell immediately if that is the case or not?

@CardinalSims @daisylee
The document in this post indicates it's a CC problem:
https://modthesims.info/showthread....960#post5937960