A PSA to everyone playing The Sims 4 For Rent Expansion!
Players are losing years of game progress due to a recent Sims 4 Save Game corruption issue. Which seems to be getting amplified with the Residental Rentals Feature from The Sims 4 For Rent Expansion Pack.
The corruption issue essentially acts like a virus. You won’t know that your Save Game is corrupted until it’s too late to make any changes or backups. The issue keeps persisting with the latest January 28th Sims 4 Patch, across PC, Mac and Console platforms.
Table of Contents
February 20th Update – Official Sims Direct Statement
The Sims Direct Team issued an official statement regarding the Sims 4 Residental Rentals issue in the For Rent Expansion Pack. Clarifying that they’re actively working on the solution.
We’re aware of issues impacting For Rent and save files, and are investigating this further. Please continue to share details through the EA Forums thread, and upload any impacted save files to assist our investigation.
The Sims 4 Save Game Corruption and Lots Disappearing
Creator @cyberthreed brought to attention an issue they’ve stumbled upon. The latest trend of Sims 4 Save Game corruption glitches caused them to lose over 6 months of saved game progress. They also brought up an EA Forum Thread that was posted two months ago, where several Sims 4 Players started reporting weird glitches they’ve encountered.
I lost my 2 year, 48 gen save when residential rentals were introduced. Yes, I have backups but had already progressed several gens and thought starting over was ok. Didn’t know it could happen again!
EmilyBlueJaye on X
Forum expert crinrict brought together a useful list of all the Bug Symptoms that lead up to the recent Sims 4 Save Game corruption, including these official Bug threads:
List of Different Bug Reports
- Default Lots Showing in Surrounding World (54)
- [NEEDS SAVES] Houses/Lots disappear/Error 800 or 801 (314)
- [NEEDS SAVES] Orange/Green Exclamation signs over lots / Houses disappear (246)
- [FR] Corrupted lot/Houses disappear
- Map doesn’t update changes to lots/ Can’t change lot type (7)
- Lots randomly revert back to defaults (20)
The full thread in EA Forums contains multiple reports from players who lost their progress due to the latest corruption issue.
Player Experiences
This is such a devastating bug. I lost a seven-year save and rebuilt it only for it to happen again immediately in a new save. I really hope EA takes it seriously and fixes it quickly.
EJ_Flambert on EA Forums
In my case, I’m not getting infinite loading screens. The lots do load. But just the lot I loaded. Everything else is just EA builds or in the case of Newcrest, completely empty. Like the previous comment said this is a MASSIVE bug that I don’t feel like EA is taking seriously. The game is unplayable but they’re releasing more DLC. Player experience is always a second thought. EA claims to be keeping the Sims 4 alive so players don’t have to start over again, but this is literally a save breaking bug where the only solution that’s being given is to start over or not use content that we paid for.
nyssasims
This is also happening to me in Willow Creek. Lots in the same neighborhood as a rental lot vanish when you go in live mode. They appear fine in Map view, but empty lots in live and build mode. When I try to go edit the rental lot to remove it it gives me Error 800 or endless loading screen.
NessieAlways on EA Forums
100% I lost my oldest neighborhood. I am really excited about the new pack but I really don’t want to get it if it is going to keep destroying my game. the update they did a week ago complete destroyed my legacy lots, and I know no one is going to fix this. It is fully on the gamer to figure out how to code the game and find work around for a game they paid for. I want to play but I am too afraid I will spread it to another world. It is like a nuke went off in Willow Creek so I am trying to move my families to other worlds but what do I do when it moves to another. So frustrating I just want to play the game I paid for.
LadyRyzoka
This is getting worse for me and is happening on pretty fresh saves of only 68 mBs. It’s gotten to the point where in some of my saves, the played household lot is bulldozed every single time I boot in, with no items in the household inventory (all items in the fridge and bookcase are also gone when replacing the lot). All of my save files are impacted to some degree, making the majority of them completely unplayable, or close to it. This is a massive bug and I won’t be spending money on a single S4 product until it’s fixed.
undiluted on EA Forums
Current State and Solutions
At the moment, the entire forum thread has been marked as “Under Investigation”. Meaning that EA and Maxis are currently collecting Bug Reports and Game Files. You can contribute your experience to the bug reports listed above!
However, if you want to avoid The Sims 4 Save Game corruption issue altogether and save your long progress, it’s best to avoid playing For Rent. Until at least we get a statement on when to expect a Hotfix Update.
Crinrict put together a Troubleshooting list, explaining some of the causes behind this issue.
Troubleshooting
The issue is really hard to pinpoint but there are a few things that can accelerated the issue.
- This issue is not mod caused but it can be influenced by mods and cheats, especially if you create lots of Residential Rental units in your save game.
- Save Game Size. The issue usually typically happens on larger save games. There are a few factors that contribute to save game size that you can keep an eye on
- Lots of huge houses with lots of objects: Try to keep those down. Consider using empty houses for set decoration if you don’t play certain lots but want houses to make it look nicer
- Photos Sims take ingame. Try to only keep the photos you really like and that contribute to your gameplay. Delete everything else. Photos take up a lot of space in the save.
- Lots of Sims. The game creates Sims at abundance. Delete the ones you don’t use from time to time.
- Usually there’s nothing you can do once it starts happening.
The Sims Direct Communications haven’t made any official statements as of yet regarding this issue. Considering that The Sims 4 Save Game corruption thread on EA Forums is “Under Investigation”, we’re hopeful to get an official announcement soon from Maxis.
Stay tuned on Sims Community for the latest Sims 4 Updates and Reports on this issue.
It’s been months since I stopped playing with rentals, I don’t have any mods, but I kept getting error codes and it had become unplayable, compromising my game, so I preferred to give up and not try the experience again.
The bug is much older than For Rent, they should write it here :/ Now it’s just more visible. EA removed also exclamation marks that indicated something is wrong just to hide the bug. They are amazing…
EA won’t act quick and won’t take accountability, nothing new.
Is just not using the rental system enough or does the entire pack need to be disabled?
Yes, that’s enough, I don’t use it anymore, and since then I no longer have error codes like before.
How do you disable a pack???
Add the following Command Line Argument to your Desktop Game Launcher: “-disablepacks:EP15”
https://simscommunity.info/2017/03/22/the-sims-4-how-to-disable-packs/
Does just using residential rental lots trigger the save issue, or just the actual game play?
s the rentals that are the problem, they cause corrupted saves, if you don’t use them the game should work normally
I have a few rental lots but i haven’t been actively using them for a while. should i delete those lots or just leave them alone? i already have been experiencing the “default lots showing in the surrounding world” bug. this sucks!
As long as you don’t use a household that rents apartments and collects rent, and you don’t use these apartments, everything should be fine, so you can leave them and not play with them anymore including the rental system. If eventually, you fear new bugs, delete the rental apartments, and replace them with residential land, delete the household that collects rent, this while waiting for a corrective patch.
Wow, this is great to know. Got the expansion so I could have house-sharing, good thing I never moved anyone in anywhere. Kind of sucks literally not being able to play the game the way I’d like and should be able to.
Stop spreading the untrue information. The rentals ARE NOT the problem. They are just making this bug more visible. Without rentals and For Rent you can still get the bug, that’s why it’s so infuriating.
It’s not enough. The bug is much older than For Rent, they should write it here :/ Even if you plan without For Rent you can get this bug. Now it’s just more visible. EA removed also exclamation marks that indicated something is wrong just to hide the bug. They are amazing…
There is one short-term solution I’ve randomly discovered just by trying something, for those who might be interested…
1/ find out which terrain is causing the bug
2/ back up your save file
3/ turn your save file into a .package file
4/ open it with sims 4 studio
5/ look for the terrain lot (try and recognize the thumbnail)
6/ copy the instance of the terrain lot and paste it in the sims 4 studio filter bar
7/ delete every single file sorted out with the instance
8/ don’t forget to save before closing the sims 4 studio
9/ turn your save into a .save file again
99% of the time it resets the surrounding view. careful accessing the specific terrain lot, i would suggest not to get there again if possible… that’s how i saved my legacy i’ve been playing since.. 2020! did it several times and managed to keep playing it to this day. Of course this is such a SHAME it hasn’t been fixed yet and that we must find solutions on our own to try and enjoy playing…
How do we find the terrain causing the bug?
Forum expert crinrict needs to use a lasso and round up the EA team because if I were them I wouldn’t just be making that forum neat and pretty. I’d be calling up who ever is in charge of bugs and saying “look I don’t know what to tell you but you’re overdue…release a fix in the next two weeks unless you just want a list of unaddressed bugs piling up.”
Was this divine intervention? I was just thinking about rental lots because I wanted apartments in my game but so many builders are using the rental system. I’m going to start a brand new save (this was my plan before the post) because it’s not my main save so I won’t care much if that gets corrupted. I haven’t used rental lots at all.
For Rent is just the $40 version of Dine Out. Never going to be fixed. I stopped buying new DLC for a while now because of all these game breaking issues. I can’t even save and exit my game anymore without infinite saving occurring all of the time-even on new saves!
This is just ridiculous.
This is what happens when your quality assurance team consists of two monkeys getting paid in peanuts. Just pirate this game everyone.
Is it enough to disable the pack or do I have to completely uninstall it?
I don’t know if my corrupted save is relating to For Rent pack.
I built 2 rental investments in Mt. Komorebi (4 units) and San Sequoia (6 units) respectively, it worked normally until I attempted to buy a rental investment in New Crest. My game suddenly closed at the first place.
Then I entered the game again, found out all my New Crest residents were kicked out from their household and became homeless sims.
I tried to open the build mode of one of the New Crest lots, and it took infinite loading screen.
And I put one of my household back to their house, trying to play, the infinite loading screen was showing up again, even I could hear the music “do-re-mi-do-re-mi-re-mi-fa-fa-so-fa-fa” (Sol-fa name, my music is not good, I mean the short music you can hear before the play mode is launching).
The same happened after removing all my mods.
However, except New Crest, all worlds are working properly…
I hope EA could fix this terrible bug. I have played with this save for 6 years.
Could you inform when the expansion is fixed? I was just about to buy it
It’s not expansion problem. It’s a base game problem, more visible with expansion.
This happened to me! Right after I got Rent! It actually made my San Sequoia map just white. I posted in a bunch of different fb groups, and on Reddit trying to figure it out. Once I found out it was For Rent I uninstalled the game and it went back to normal. I also JUST reinstalled it yesterday bc I thought maybe it was working again. Now I’m scared.
I’ve been playing with the For Rent since launch and haven’t had any corrupt files yet (thankfully) although I will create a new save so if it does happen I have my main one to fall back on!
So frustrating as I started to play a save file with For Rent for the Anniversary login reward event and now there game is so glitchy and buggy, it’s unplayable. The main one for me is that sims won’t continue auto focussing camera as soon as I press it.
My For Rent EP has been glitched since I…attained it. I have a white Llama over the One Rental lot I have. This game is not worth the money, I wish ya’ll would stop buying this crap and they’ll finally get the picture. I haven’t bought DLC since My Wedding Stories.
Will just not using the rental lots work?
So, you’re telling mee I’m being punished for owning DLC. My game is completely unplayable and that pisses me off.
Also disabled For Rent and the glitch still persists so guess I can’t play until the glitch is fixed.
The article is not 100% correct. The bug is much older than For Rent, you should write it here :/ Now it’s just more visible. EA removed also exclamation marks that indicated something is wrong just to hide the bug. They are amazing…
So not single person playing the game, even base one, is safe from this bug. I was following that bug on forum, first message was like 5 years old at least. EA did nothing.
I checked, the bug is at least 4 years old. Google ‘[ARCHIVED] Orange/Green Exclamation signs over lots / Houses disappear’ and you will see.