When you start a new game, one of the first things you should do is disable memories in the options menu. You know how a yellow smiley face appears over your head whenever you accomplish something and a pop up appears in the top right corner giving you the option to share it? Everytime that happens, a memory automatically gets added to your sim's scrapbook, and not just for your household, but for every sim in your town. Eventually, those memories will fill up everyone's scrapbooks which will take up a lot of space on your ram and cause slowdowns/lagging and eventually lead to the code 12 error. Disabling memories should save you a lot of ram
This helped tremendously!! (Still works in 2022!) I’m so grateful to have found something that worked and I can continue to play with my save without having to start a new one! Thank you so much for this tutorial it’s a extremely big life saver
TrueBeauty The Best thing I have found that works for me is turn off all the programs running in the background. I even turn off my virus scanner while I am playing the sims.. I don't download any store items while playing I always buy from the Sims store.
I was so Tired Last night after playing my game for along time I couldnt do the instructions and save my game now I have to start over,.... lol I did just follow these instructions today thoe before I start my game so hopefully it works? lol
Tried this method after playing my Legacy family set to Long lifespans. Three babies aged to toddler, lifetime wishes achieved and then... error code 12. It worked LIKE A CHARM! Thank you, I will be disabling memories.
why the hell would my sim memorize when he ate a special thing, when he caught a fish or when he went to the park. Its like a person writing in his diary: "i took the biggest shit today" srsly its fking irritating just worked 8 hours straigh on making a family, now its all gone into the shitter, thnx EA you're fking amazing!
I just got error code 12, hate that damn error! :( I gave this a try after giving up on it. I wish I had googled how to fix it prior to closing the game in case I'd be able to save my game then. I'll definitely be turning off memories to see if that helps lessen it. They're nice, but if they cause this error a lot, I can do without them for sure.
You should not have to fucking do this! Is Maxis and EA like the ultimate fuckshit of the computer game world now? I want to play my game for the sake of sitting back, and being a dumbass, not to manage my goddamn files so that the game does not die, which it should NOT do! I have Sims 3 running RIGHT now, with this error, and no way to save, I should be refunded half of the $105 US that I payed for this game and it's expansions, and I'm not even one of those guys who hates EA, I'm indifferent, but with all the EA games I've played that are 4+ years old and still have game killing glitches that were never mentioned to me until they fucked me and my progress, I'm sick of it! 'YouForum' Edit: It seems that setting the bookstore driveway, a werewolf, and a fairy on fire set off this glitch... I'm somewhat disappointed. YouForum Edit 2: Alright, toasting the neighborhood was not the problem...
EA needs to get their shit together. Ever since this error I've been playing Sims 2, which only crashed ONCE, saves faster, and never gets error codes.
TheSimsFilms My problem is that the game is barely that intricate and you have to pay 20$ for tiny expansions that may or may not destroy your game, as the video says, Generations is apparently the culprit for a lot of issues, including a majority of error code 12's due to the "advanced" sim memory system. If I ever get another Sims game, I'll pirate it first, then buy it...
Nickolas RW Sims on the computer probably has more options. But just having a gaming computer for only the Sims series, especially Sims 3, is a bad idea. The main issue here is that The Sims 3 on a 32 bit OS really doesn't work, especially if you're dumb like me and install the Generations expansion pack...
Very informative video. Funnily enough, all I did was go to options and disable the memories. Haven't had any issues since then. Not sure if it was luck or what.
If anyone still gets this error if you have Nraas I suggest click on Nraas (the city hall) and then Mastercontroller and then find the “reset everything” which it worked for me.
Does it still work ? Do you know had this problem the past 3 days and have done everything from doing the ram thing to deleting bad saves moving house editing town and removing my sims from the household putting them back in and even travelled to a different world as in the world adventures towns and still nothing and I have 16g of ram??....
I’ve also happened to be playing sunset valley and I’ve put down a lot of new houses and shops and I think that might be the reason but I’m not 100% sure but I’ll give this a go, Thanks!
Thank you so much for posting this- it gave me a clue that helped me. I didn't actually do the delete & re-copy, I just went into my sims memories & started deleting. I was then able to save my game. Thanks again!!!
Holy crap! Something that works! Thank you so much. I too was able to save my progress by doing it in the middle of the error. Edit: it did not save my game but it did fix the error. ill be downloading the mod and give another update.
ok i just bought Sims 3 Supernatural. first time playing it.. i got the the error code 12. my husband helped me find a solution and he found ur video. it helped!! i am so thankful because i played for almost 4 hours and when i couldn't save it i was so upset. i did do this fix while my game was running in the background, too.
It worked!!!! Thank you so much! This was by far the easiest way to solve the problem that I have seen! Glad my simming weekend doesn't have to be ruined(:
What a nasty thing to say... she's posted this on here to help people. For some it's worked.. for me it didn't work after the first Sim day. If you deleted it then it's down to you... I didn't delete.. nobody else has come on calling her a bitch because they deleted. But you did. I didn't see anything here telling me to delete anything that wasn't copied and couldn't be pasted back in.. If you've done it wrong then it's down to you and not to the person who posted this vid.
Every time I do this, it stops the error code but then I have the "Some objects could not be found and were replaced" error. It really sucks having to re-download everything I have in CC. How often do I need to do the error code erasing process? I'd like to not do it that often so I don't have to download all my stuff again every other time I play.
You are right about that,but with downloaded stuff and a lot of memories the game took so much space on my disc that couldn't install minecraft.Try to delete all of the memories(it's really boring since you have 300 of them,max). And whenever you sim gets a new one,delete it as well.At least 10 people I know had this problem and this is how we solved it.Code 12 never appeared again on our computers! :D
I have a solution :-) I was going to use this method in the video, since my sims game has just said the error 12 whilst I was trying to save. But I didn't, because I've read negative things about it, the fact that you could lose everything. So I tried a different method. Basically it does mean that you aren't able to save up to your last play, which isn't the best method if you're starting a new game and haven't saved before, but for me, I had saved in the sims morning after they'd eaten breakfast (which this saved went fine) and then tried to save in the sims night, when they were about to go to sleep. So fortunately, I didn't lose very much of my game, which was great. So I recommend saving regularly to avoid losing big changes. So what you do, in case you wanted to know for the future, is you click main menu and then quit the whole sims 3 game, without saving (since you can't anyway because of the error 12) and then you close down origin (if you use it). Wait a minute or so and reopen origin and open the sims 3 game again, and it should show your previous, most recent save on the main menu tab, which you can then play. You will unfortunately lose some of your game play, but can be only a little (like it was for me) if you save regularly. I hope this works for you, as its a much better way to be able to save your game instead of getting everything deleted like this video showed....😂 have fun! :-)
the best solution. make a copy of the file for eg. sunset valley1. name the copy as sunset valley2 or anything. delete sunset valley1. a backup of sunset valley2 will also get created
I can't believe i got error 12 AGAIN. Must be a couple of years ago I had errorcode 12. But I know it's a memory thing. Well, yes, it worked for me. thanks for the tip. Just remember to rename the bad file.
I think the Error has something to do with how much you have in your game. I disabled memories and still got the Error because my file was so big. I even resorted to uninstalling one of my expansion packs which worked at first, but the Error just came back after a while.
After I expanded to Gen's, I started getting code 12's, so I contacted support. They said it was from Adventure, & to just delete the .backup and .bad files. I still have to restart the game, which starts from the last save point (so save often! Like twice a sim day), but I don't lose the whole town. I will try deleting the memories, but since all of the sims collect memories (not just the household you're playing) I don't know how well this will help. But seriously, ea should just fix this.
total memory amount to exceed 3.7GB. You have too much bloat in your game caused by crappy EAxian ware. You can use Twallan's Overwatch to kick out homeless sims, AwesomeMod to kill all tourists, or Twallan's Porter to move to a new iteration of your town but keep all of your residents. I kept getting Error 12s and on 16GB of RAM that was crazy. My savefiles were 500MB (you can delete those DB files, but keep the nhd files). I ported, now they are a mere 80MB, and shrinking.
Error 12 is a RAM issue, because the memorys take up a lot of ram, when you go to save it doesn't have enough ram to save. Best way to fix it is upgrade your computer. Or use the mod Some people also use Save as... insted of save.
This error means that you don't have enough memory on the disc that game is installed on and where all your saved games are kept.Try to delete all files on that disc that you don't need.If you have a lot of screenshots or videos from Sims delete most of them.Also,if you've installed or downloaded some content(Sim,household,clothes...) delete those files that you rarely use,or don't use at all.This should work. :D
I tried it while my game was still on, thinking desperately I could save it while playing. When I tried to maximize the sims window it crashed totally, and the game doesn't play on the saved file. The funny thing is that I have uninstalled all the sims games I had and only installed the original game and seasons plus deactivated any memories in the beginning, yet I got error code 12. So I really dont know why it does that. Anyway nice try, it was worth a shot.
It does work, for a while... But after that what pisses me off, is with seasons, my laptop freezes and crashes the sims 3! >.< i have found a way to fix it, but i'm not sure if it'll last long.... Honestly, i hope we're not going to experience these problems in the sims 4. THEN i'd be MAD. Considering they've lowered the graphics in sims 4, i think it'd be fine... But you never know. '-'
EA really need to fix these continuous bugs and problems with the sims 3 series! It is getting so annoying between my game freezing and all of these errors!
You'll never get rid of it forever! It happens time to time then you must repeat this process everytime when it starts to happens again. That's why I'm saving everyday in-game when I send my sim to sleep.
Alecs Filip I used to do the same, but the latest game I started has some early-birds, some night-owls and some in-betweeners living together so finding a time when everyone is asleep is complicated... :/
animeartist888 I wrote that comment 3 months ago, but I would rather retreat what I said because finally I found the solution, even might be not so good for some players. The trick it's to do the best to avoid having a huge savegame. Because of huge savegame, your game will be out of memory. Also the game it's not using more than 3GB of RAM because of being made on 32-bits, instead of 64-bits as modern games such as Watchdogs and/or GTA 5. So it doesn't matter if you own a 5000 euros PC or a 500 euros PC(as I own) you'll have the same problem sooner or later. That's why I always remove some families from their houses when I am playing by trying to keep a small population in the town I'm playing. Also you can use an unnoficial mod named S3PE to clean-up your savegame to downsize it. But even all of this your savegame become bigger, even much later. That's why after too much playing in the same town, I save the my household to library then I start a new game in another town or in the same town. Don't worry of that, because you'll not loose anything important. The only things you have to loose for your household members are their friends and every sim they met in the town you played, also all charisma challenges, but NOT charisma skills or any other skill or progress you made with your sims. We all know friends are not important in the Sims 3 as they were in the previous games, so we don't have to worry. Also if you need friends for your sims, don't worry if your town has a small population, you can always use the "sim finder" application from their smartphones/holophones of they have social networking skill big enough. PS: Sorry for some bad expressions from my comment but I wrote this comment too fast and my english it's not perfect. :D
Yea you are right but then upgrading cant solve them problem eventually since the sims 3 game itself is hard coded to use only 32bit maximum cause it is an old game. When the game play session reaches that maximum 32 bit, you get this error. So, unless EA rework on the game and change the code of game to be able to use 64bit, no ultimate solution for this error…😢
Can someone help me out? I play the sims since the first game came out. Now I'm playing on a Macbook Pro. Sometimes I can play for an hour and than I get an error : EXCEPTION RAISED - unhandled page fault on read acces to 0x38377956 at address 0x10053c00 Do you wish to debug it? I'm a big Sims fan but this error keeps destroying my game progress, and it's not fun to play at all at the moment. I already contacted EA Games, but the won't reply. I searched for answers on RUclips but couldn't find them. So do you know the fix for my problem, PLSE contact me below.
I tried it, and it didn't work. It became worse. I'm really upset because of I spent days on that game and it all got ERASED!!!!!!!!!! I'm not really mad at you, because I know you were just trying to help :)
helped once,One session of playing/saving..gonna try it again..really hope it works. pff EAGAMES should stop focusing on more store shit and start working on fixing problems like this.
This error code 12 is my problem right now. I'm pissed af. I already kept deleting the .bad" folder for more than 5 times already just to save my game but it keeps reappearing and I really can't save my game. I hope this works. I'm gonna try it Update: it didn't work. I followed every single step carefully. I'm so frustrated
ps: you have 1,26 GB on saves I only have 914 MB but it's fair to say i delete games sometimes because they just take up too many space (when i don't play them anymore) Thank you so much for telling about the mod I had no idea. It's kinda ridiculous since i have mods for the most absurd things. (i've been playing ts2 since i was 6 i'd be an idiot if i didn't use mods lol)
Does the error have anything to do with a ram issue I wonder? I have pets, ambitions, and seasons and haven't had a issue but recently ordered supernatural and generations and reading a supernatural review it mentioned having 8 g of ram minimum do to so much ai taking place in the game that it just overloads your system and can cause the error to happen if your playing on say a 4 g system. My computer is only 6 gigs and graphic card only 500mz memory (1 g recommended) I was thinking of adding an extra 2 g ram because I'm afraid to install anymore expansion packs at this point
The Best thing I have found that works for me is turn off all the programs running in the background. I even turn off my virus scanner while I am playing the sims.. I don't download any store items while playing I always buy from the Sims store.
omg i did what she said, step after step and i lost ALL my saves!! i cant believe it how does it work for all of you guys?! i dont know what to do know everything i saved in the last 2 monts just got away!!!
and btw befoe i did all she said, i opened a folder named "Backup" in documents and all the files that was in the "saves" in sims 3 i copy and paste them in the "backup" folder. and then i did all the things that she said and it doesnt worked for me so i decided to go to the folder i called "backup" and paste all the things that was in this folder (the things are all my saves folder before i touched it) and it still DOESNT WORK so im freaking out i dont know what to do please help guys...
No, that is hard drive space not ram. Hard drive space is like long term memory, ram is like short term memory. When you restart it is cleared, but the hard drive stays there. Unless is is so full that it is warning you that your c drive is getting full it won't make any difference.
My thing for get rid of error code 12. { Go Into Your In Game Settings then Graphics Options Put All The Sliders That Tell You To Reset Game To The Lowest setting then Reset And Play.} I believe that Error Code 12 it a Graphics Card Or Prosser Problem. It Maybe Possible That Upgrading Your Graphics Card Or Prosser Thing will fix it properly as long as the Card You Use Is Compatible The More E And S Games You Have Will Slow Your Computer down then it will be more likely to make mistakes like Error Code 12 Hope This Helps
I have any even easier way, which might work for you. Basically it does mean that you aren't able to save up to your last play, which isn't the best method if you're starting a new game and haven't saved before, but for me, I had saved in the sims morning after they'd eaten breakfast (which this saved went fine) and then tried to save in the sims night, when they were about to go to sleep. So fortunately, I didn't lose very much of my game, which was great. So I recommend saving regularly to avoid losing big changes. So what you do, in case you wanted to know for the future, is you click main menu and then quit the whole sims 3 game, without saving (since you can't anyway because of the error 12) and then you close down origin (if you use it). Wait a minute or so and reopen origin and open the sims 3 game again, and it should show your previous, most recent save on the main menu tab, which you can then play. You will unfortunately lose some of your game play, but can be only a little (like it was for me) if you save regularly. I hope this works for you, as its a much better way to be able to save your game instead of getting everything deleted like this video showed....😂 have fun! :-)
I have this problem all the time and am going to try your solution. I just had a quick question, though- you said that the memories system takes up computer memory that you would otherwise use to save your gave, and that removing the files from the EA folder "gives the files a breather". What exactly is happening there? Are the files still being accessed by the game and taking up memory, which is freed up when you delete them? Please let me know so I can pass the knowledge on to others.
I found that when playing, I can only save up to 3 times during game play. Anymore than that I get error code 12. I need to save multiple times as my sims seems to crash/freeze a lot. I also had a problem ages ago where I wasnt even able to open sims, but I made backups. However, I still have my backups but I do get error code 12.
It started with Sims 3 pets for me. I'm not sure what to do, because I can seem to save for a total of three times per play. But it crashes a lot on me.
I got around that by copying the save file from the main menu then deleting the previous version (including bad file from windows explorer). Unfortunately it only works so many times before the error re-appears. :S
I've played Sim's 3 on 2 different computers one a Hewitt Packard laptop the other a Toshiba Satellite laptop. Game worked well with no errors on the HP, but it ran hot till finally had to be sent away for repairs. I downloaded the game onto the Toshiba and since then I get error code 12 about every 3 minutes. I only use EA store content and nothing else. I've done extensive online research and it seems even the top savvy people are stumped, though have some ideas.
Your nhd file is too big (400+ mb) and when the program goes to save, the RAM ithe program requires to save the game + run the game totals over 3.7 GB. Even if you have a PC with 16GB of RAM, the Sims 3 is a 32 bit program and uses the 32-bit max. To get rid of Error 12, you need to reduce the size of the nhd file your town is in. How? You need to port your sims to a clean version of the town.
I did this and it didnt work. I saw what someone else posted saying once it happens in the game minimize moved saved files to backup folder an try to save. It didnt work and then when I tried to save in edit town it he game crashed. Someone please help me!!!! I can save a couple times in the first hour or so that I play but then it he error code pops up after awhile!!!
It didn't work for me. I looked at how much memory my game is using with Windows Task Manager. It's only 931,772 K. The game is running fine and I'm only on my first generation. I've tried deleting DB files and .bad files. Nothing has fixed it.
When you start a new game, one of the first things you should do is disable memories in the options menu. You know how a yellow smiley face appears over your head whenever you accomplish something and a pop up appears in the top right corner giving you the option to share it? Everytime that happens, a memory automatically gets added to your sim's scrapbook, and not just for your household, but for every sim in your town. Eventually, those memories will fill up everyone's scrapbooks which will take up a lot of space on your ram and cause slowdowns/lagging and eventually lead to the code 12 error. Disabling memories should save you a lot of ram
How do I disable them?
This helped tremendously!! (Still works in 2022!) I’m so grateful to have found something that worked and I can continue to play with my save without having to start a new one! Thank you so much for this tutorial it’s a extremely big life saver
if you minimize the game while in play and do this, it should save and you won't lose anything. It works for me :)
Cool. Thanks. It actually did work, while minimized :)
Didn't work for me. :(
TrueBeauty The Best thing I have found that works for me is turn off all the programs running in the background. I even turn off my virus scanner while I am playing the sims.. I don't download any store items while playing I always buy from the Sims store.
Lilly Pilly UGH 😩 i wish i saw this sooner
I was so Tired Last night after playing my game for along time I couldnt do the instructions and save my game now I have to start over,.... lol I did just follow these instructions today thoe before I start my game so hopefully it works? lol
This pisses me off I just got done with 2 full freaking hours just to get the screen saying I cant fucking save my game. THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF.
Sameeee
10 years later... it worked. Thank you❤️❤️
Tried this method after playing my Legacy family set to Long lifespans.
Three babies aged to toddler, lifetime wishes achieved and then... error code 12.
It worked LIKE A CHARM!
Thank you, I will be disabling memories.
To disable memories: options> general settings> disable memories drop down box.
I go back to this video every time I get error code 12. Thank you so much!
why the hell would my sim memorize when he ate a special thing, when he caught a fish or when he went to the park. Its like a person writing in his diary: "i took the biggest shit today" srsly its fking irritating just worked 8 hours straigh on making a family, now its all gone into the shitter, thnx EA you're fking amazing!
I just got error code 12, hate that damn error! :( I gave this a try after giving up on it. I wish I had googled how to fix it prior to closing the game in case I'd be able to save my game then. I'll definitely be turning off memories to see if that helps lessen it. They're nice, but if they cause this error a lot, I can do without them for sure.
Toralynne Dawnstar me too!!!!
You should not have to fucking do this! Is Maxis and EA like the ultimate fuckshit of the computer game world now? I want to play my game for the sake of sitting back, and being a dumbass, not to manage my goddamn files so that the game does not die, which it should NOT do! I have Sims 3 running RIGHT now, with this error, and no way to save, I should be refunded half of the $105 US that I payed for this game and it's expansions, and I'm not even one of those guys who hates EA, I'm indifferent, but with all the EA games I've played that are 4+ years old and still have game killing glitches that were never mentioned to me until they fucked me and my progress, I'm sick of it!
'YouForum' Edit: It seems that setting the bookstore driveway, a werewolf, and a fairy on fire set off this glitch... I'm somewhat disappointed.
YouForum Edit 2: Alright, toasting the neighborhood was not the problem...
EA needs to get their shit together. Ever since this error I've been playing Sims 2, which only crashed ONCE, saves faster, and never gets error codes.
TheSimsFilms
My problem is that the game is barely that intricate and you have to pay 20$ for tiny expansions that may or may not destroy your game, as the video says, Generations is apparently the culprit for a lot of issues, including a majority of error code 12's due to the "advanced" sim memory system.
If I ever get another Sims game, I'll pirate it first, then buy it...
Console player here! I was interested in buying a gaming computer just for the Sims series...now you make me not want to buy a gaming computer period!
Nickolas RW
Sims on the computer probably has more options. But just having a gaming computer for only the Sims series, especially Sims 3, is a bad idea.
The main issue here is that The Sims 3 on a 32 bit OS really doesn't work, especially if you're dumb like me and install the Generations expansion pack...
Ky123459
So...I'm better off just keeping my PlayStation when it comes to playing Sims? I ask because we don't get any expansion packs like you guys.
Very informative video. Funnily enough, all I did was go to options and disable the memories. Haven't had any issues since then. Not sure if it was luck or what.
Yes!!! I'm so happy that it worked!! I had to re-do my work three times just because it wouldn't let me save! Thank you so much! 👌😄
If anyone still gets this error if you have Nraas I suggest click on Nraas (the city hall) and then Mastercontroller and then find the “reset everything” which it worked for me.
Does it still work ? Do you know had this problem the past 3 days and have done everything from doing the ram thing to deleting bad saves moving house editing town and removing my sims from the household putting them back in and even travelled to a different world as in the world adventures towns and still nothing and I have 16g of ram??....
I’ve also happened to be playing sunset valley and I’ve put down a lot of new houses and shops and I think that might be the reason but I’m not 100% sure but I’ll give this a go, Thanks!
Thank you so much for posting this- it gave me a clue that helped me. I didn't actually do the delete & re-copy, I just went into my sims memories & started deleting. I was then able to save my game. Thanks again!!!
Unfortunately for me it didn't help 😔
Holy crap! Something that works! Thank you so much. I too was able to save my progress by doing it in the middle of the error.
Edit: it did not save my game but it did fix the error. ill be downloading the mod and give another update.
ok i just bought Sims 3 Supernatural. first time playing it.. i got the the error code 12. my husband helped me find a solution and he found ur video. it helped!! i am so thankful because i played for almost 4 hours and when i couldn't save it i was so upset. i did do this fix while my game was running in the background, too.
Oh my god it worked while I was still in game! You’re a lifesaver! (2023)
It worked!!!! Thank you so much! This was by far the easiest way to solve the problem that I have seen! Glad my simming weekend doesn't have to be ruined(:
Completely agree with you! I am sick of saving my game every 10 mins or so (if it doesn't freeze beforehand!)
What a nasty thing to say... she's posted this on here to help people. For some it's worked.. for me it didn't work after the first Sim day. If you deleted it then it's down to you... I didn't delete.. nobody else has come on calling her a bitch because they deleted. But you did. I didn't see anything here telling me to delete anything that wasn't copied and couldn't be pasted back in.. If you've done it wrong then it's down to you and not to the person who posted this vid.
Every time I do this, it stops the error code but then I have the "Some objects could not be found and were replaced" error.
It really sucks having to re-download everything I have in CC.
How often do I need to do the error code erasing process? I'd like to not do it that often so I don't have to download all my stuff again every other time I play.
I did what you showed, but deleted the .bad files - and it worked. Thank you :)
Just want to say that this helped me out, not only to fix the error but it also helped run the game a bit faster, thanks again.
You are right about that,but with downloaded stuff and a lot of memories the game took so much space on my disc that couldn't install minecraft.Try to delete all of the memories(it's really boring since you have 300 of them,max). And whenever you sim gets a new one,delete it as well.At least 10 people I know had this problem and this is how we solved it.Code 12 never appeared again on our computers! :D
I HAVE NEVER HAD ERROR CODE 12! And i do have generations... But im really glad i dont have tht error :)
I'm a moder so thx for telling me that mod it really helped!
Hey Amber its Dirkie again.
I just want to say thanx !!! Your solution worked for me and I am so Happy right now
Blessings Simmie
I have a solution :-) I was going to use this method in the video, since my sims game has just said the error 12 whilst I was trying to save. But I didn't, because I've read negative things about it, the fact that you could lose everything. So I tried a different method. Basically it does mean that you aren't able to save up to your last play, which isn't the best method if you're starting a new game and haven't saved before, but for me, I had saved in the sims morning after they'd eaten breakfast (which this saved went fine) and then tried to save in the sims night, when they were about to go to sleep. So fortunately, I didn't lose very much of my game, which was great. So I recommend saving regularly to avoid losing big changes. So what you do, in case you wanted to know for the future, is you click main menu and then quit the whole sims 3 game, without saving (since you can't anyway because of the error 12) and then you close down origin (if you use it). Wait a minute or so and reopen origin and open the sims 3 game again, and it should show your previous, most recent save on the main menu tab, which you can then play. You will unfortunately lose some of your game play, but can be only a little (like it was for me) if you save regularly. I hope this works for you, as its a much better way to be able to save your game instead of getting everything deleted like this video showed....😂 have fun! :-)
OMG thank you! You saved me from crying haha 👌😊
the best solution. make a copy of the file for eg. sunset valley1. name the copy as sunset valley2 or anything. delete sunset valley1. a backup of sunset valley2 will also get created
I can't believe i got error 12 AGAIN. Must be a couple of years ago I had errorcode 12. But I know it's a memory thing. Well, yes, it worked for me. thanks for the tip. Just remember to rename the bad file.
I lost my favorite game... But I got it back my right clicking and undoing every move!
I think the Error has something to do with how much you have in your game. I disabled memories and still got the Error because my file was so big. I even resorted to uninstalling one of my expansion packs which worked at first, but the Error just came back after a while.
After I expanded to Gen's, I started getting code 12's, so I contacted support. They said it was from Adventure, & to just delete the .backup and .bad files. I still have to restart the game, which starts from the last save point (so save often! Like twice a sim day), but I don't lose the whole town. I will try deleting the memories, but since all of the sims collect memories (not just the household you're playing) I don't know how well this will help.
But seriously, ea should just fix this.
Thank you! do I have to do this everytime before I play?
total memory amount to exceed 3.7GB.
You have too much bloat in your game caused by crappy EAxian ware. You can use Twallan's Overwatch to kick out homeless sims, AwesomeMod to kill all tourists, or Twallan's Porter to move to a new iteration of your town but keep all of your residents. I kept getting Error 12s and on 16GB of RAM that was crazy. My savefiles were 500MB (you can delete those DB files, but keep the nhd files). I ported, now they are a mere 80MB, and shrinking.
Error 12 is a RAM issue, because the memorys take up a lot of ram, when you go to save it doesn't have enough ram to save.
Best way to fix it is upgrade your computer.
Or use the mod
Some people also use Save as... insted of save.
This error means that you don't have enough memory on the disc that game is installed on and where all your saved games are kept.Try to delete all files on that disc that you don't need.If you have a lot of screenshots or videos from Sims delete most of them.Also,if you've installed or downloaded some content(Sim,household,clothes...) delete those files that you rarely use,or don't use at all.This should work. :D
I think it’s not a problem of hard driver storage. It’s about a RAM memory so i don’t think that would solve the problem
I have a Mac OS X and it worked for me! Hopefully the error code 12 won't show up again. Thanks so much for the help! :)
I tried it while my game was still on, thinking desperately I could save it while playing. When I tried to maximize the sims window it crashed totally, and the game doesn't play on the saved file. The funny thing is that I have uninstalled all the sims games I had and only installed the original game and seasons plus deactivated any memories in the beginning, yet I got error code 12. So I really dont know why it does that. Anyway nice try, it was worth a shot.
For me, getting rid of Pets EP in the game worked the best.
It does work, for a while...
But after that what pisses me off, is with seasons, my laptop freezes and crashes the sims 3! >.< i have found a way to fix it, but i'm not sure if it'll last long....
Honestly, i hope we're not going to experience these problems in the sims 4. THEN i'd be MAD. Considering they've lowered the graphics in sims 4, i think it'd be fine...
But you never know. '-'
I thumbed your post up for the adorable emotes.
I'm surprised that this worked, thank you.
hey thanks a lot!! this still works (dec 2020) even when im just pausing the game in the background
It’s 2021 and it still works! Thanks!!!
Helped! Thank you mo much! Beautiful screen and voice by the way ;)
EA really need to fix these continuous bugs and problems with the sims 3 series! It is getting so annoying between my game freezing and all of these errors!
I'm trusting you, but I'm also scared. What if it breaks everything? D:
Woooo i needed this it worked im happy didnt even have to close my game because i was about to be big mad.
Thanks! I hope this works!!! This has been driving me nuts for a year!
You'll never get rid of it forever! It happens time to time then you must repeat this process everytime when it starts to happens again. That's why I'm saving everyday in-game when I send my sim to sleep.
The same .___.
Alecs Filip I used to do the same, but the latest game I started has some early-birds, some night-owls and some in-betweeners living together so finding a time when everyone is asleep is complicated... :/
animeartist888 I wrote that comment 3 months ago, but I would rather retreat what I said because finally I found the solution, even might be not so good for some players. The trick it's to do the best to avoid having a huge savegame. Because of huge savegame, your game will be out of memory. Also the game it's not using more than 3GB of RAM because of being made on 32-bits, instead of 64-bits as modern games such as Watchdogs and/or GTA 5. So it doesn't matter if you own a 5000 euros PC or a 500 euros PC(as I own) you'll have the same problem sooner or later. That's why I always remove some families from their houses when I am playing by trying to keep a small population in the town I'm playing. Also you can use an unnoficial mod named S3PE to clean-up your savegame to downsize it. But even all of this your savegame become bigger, even much later. That's why after too much playing in the same town, I save the my household to library then I start a new game in another town or in the same town. Don't worry of that, because you'll not loose anything important. The only things you have to loose for your household members are their friends and every sim they met in the town you played, also all charisma challenges, but NOT charisma skills or any other skill or progress you made with your sims. We all know friends are not important in the Sims 3 as they were in the previous games, so we don't have to worry. Also if you need friends for your sims, don't worry if your town has a small population, you can always use the "sim finder" application from their smartphones/holophones of they have social networking skill big enough.
PS: Sorry for some bad expressions from my comment but I wrote this comment too fast and my english it's not perfect. :D
Yes it does help. But to really fix the problem you need more ram, especally if you want to add any more expantion packs.
Yea you are right but then upgrading cant solve them problem eventually since the sims 3 game itself is hard coded to use only 32bit maximum cause it is an old game. When the game play session reaches that maximum 32 bit, you get this error. So, unless EA rework on the game and change the code of game to be able to use 64bit, no ultimate solution for this error…😢
Can someone help me out? I play the sims since the first game came out.
Now I'm playing on a Macbook Pro. Sometimes I can play for an hour and than I get an error :
EXCEPTION RAISED - unhandled page fault on read acces to 0x38377956 at address 0x10053c00 Do you wish to debug it?
I'm a big Sims fan but this error keeps destroying my game progress, and it's not fun to play at all at the moment.
I already contacted EA Games, but the won't reply. I searched for answers on RUclips but couldn't find them. So do you know the fix for my problem, PLSE contact me below.
Stefan van R. That's because your game is crashing. Try saving more often when something you feel import is finished.
I tried it, and it didn't work. It became worse. I'm really upset because of I spent days on that game and it all got ERASED!!!!!!!!!! I'm not really mad at you, because I know you were just trying to help :)
it worked but when I tired to save again is said erea code 12 again! that didn't even last 4 minutes with doing it again :(
Where'd you get the No-Memory Mod from? Bc i normally dont do mods, but im getting sick of error code 12. And i cant save, like ever anymore.
It works people do it it actually works thank u I have to much data that I dint save and I didn't want to lose it all
helped once,One session of playing/saving..gonna try it again..really hope it works.
pff EAGAMES should stop focusing on more store shit and start working on fixing problems like this.
does this mean if we cleaned up our computer a little bit, maybe deleted videos and photos that take up space, it might help prevent error 12?
This error code 12 is my problem right now. I'm pissed af. I already kept deleting the
.bad" folder for more than 5 times already just to save my game but it keeps reappearing and I really can't save my game. I hope this works. I'm gonna try it
Update: it didn't work. I followed every single step carefully. I'm so frustrated
ps: you have 1,26 GB on saves I only have 914 MB but it's fair to say i delete games sometimes because they just take up too many space (when i don't play them anymore)
Thank you so much for telling about the mod I had no idea. It's kinda ridiculous since i have mods for the most absurd things. (i've been playing ts2 since i was 6 i'd be an idiot if i didn't use mods lol)
Does the error have anything to do with a ram issue I wonder? I have pets, ambitions, and seasons and haven't had a issue but recently ordered supernatural and generations and reading a supernatural review it mentioned having 8 g of ram minimum do to so much ai taking place in the game that it just overloads your system and can cause the error to happen if your playing on say a 4 g system. My computer is only 6 gigs and graphic card only 500mz memory (1 g recommended) I was thinking of adding an extra 2 g ram because I'm afraid to install anymore expansion packs at this point
The Best thing I have found that works for me is turn off all the programs running in the background. I even turn off my virus scanner while I am playing the sims.. I don't download any store items while playing I always buy from the Sims store.
I turned off the memories and got error code 12 never had it before. This is the first time I'm
using Sims 3 from origin.
Thank you!! I am just going to test it I hope it works.
hopefully it will :'D
thanks again!
omg i did what she said, step after step and i lost ALL my saves!! i cant believe it how does it work for all of you guys?!
i dont know what to do know everything i saved in the last 2 monts just got away!!!
and btw befoe i did all she said, i opened a folder named "Backup" in documents and all the files that was in the "saves" in sims 3 i copy and paste them in the "backup" folder. and then i did all the things that she said and it doesnt worked for me so i decided to go to the folder i called "backup" and paste all the things that was in this folder (the things are all my saves folder before i touched it) and it still DOESNT WORK so im freaking out i dont know what to do please help guys...
Thanks so much I'm going to try that now hope it works , I keep playing for ages and then it won't let me save so annoying.
For people that it hasn't worked for, try this, wait longer until you paste your backup files back into the saves. :)
No, that is hard drive space not ram.
Hard drive space is like long term memory, ram is like short term memory.
When you restart it is cleared, but the hard drive stays there.
Unless is is so full that it is warning you that your c drive is getting full it won't make any difference.
My thing for get rid of error code 12. { Go Into Your In Game Settings then Graphics Options Put All The Sliders That Tell You To Reset Game To The Lowest setting then Reset And Play.} I believe that Error Code 12 it a Graphics Card Or Prosser Problem. It Maybe Possible That Upgrading Your Graphics Card Or Prosser Thing will fix it properly as long as the Card You Use Is Compatible The More E And S Games You Have Will Slow Your Computer down then it will be more likely to make mistakes like Error Code 12 Hope This Helps
I have any even easier way, which might work for you. Basically it does mean that you aren't able to save up to your last play, which isn't the best method if you're starting a new game and haven't saved before, but for me, I had saved in the sims morning after they'd eaten breakfast (which this saved went fine) and then tried to save in the sims night, when they were about to go to sleep. So fortunately, I didn't lose very much of my game, which was great. So I recommend saving regularly to avoid losing big changes. So what you do, in case you wanted to know for the future, is you click main menu and then quit the whole sims 3 game, without saving (since you can't anyway because of the error 12) and then you close down origin (if you use it). Wait a minute or so and reopen origin and open the sims 3 game again, and it should show your previous, most recent save on the main menu tab, which you can then play. You will unfortunately lose some of your game play, but can be only a little (like it was for me) if you save regularly. I hope this works for you, as its a much better way to be able to save your game instead of getting everything deleted like this video showed....😂 have fun! :-)
I have this problem all the time and am going to try your solution. I just had a quick question, though- you said that the memories system takes up computer memory that you would otherwise use to save your gave, and that removing the files from the EA folder "gives the files a breather". What exactly is happening there? Are the files still being accessed by the game and taking up memory, which is freed up when you delete them? Please let me know so I can pass the knowledge on to others.
I found that when playing, I can only save up to 3 times during game play. Anymore than that I get error code 12. I need to save multiple times as my sims seems to crash/freeze a lot. I also had a problem ages ago where I wasnt even able to open sims, but I made backups. However, I still have my backups but I do get error code 12.
It works, but only for a couple days and then you'll have to redo it again
that doesn't always work, it depends what is causing the error, cause that used to work for me but then it stopped working
I use to never get error code 12 but now I get it all the time
So, if we turn off memories, will it make Error Code 12 not occur so frequently? Because it's for real not okay.
It started with Sims 3 pets for me. I'm not sure what to do, because I can seem to save for a total of three times per play. But it crashes a lot on me.
OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I was seriously about to break my computer I was so pissed. Omg
It worked! thank you:) Do you have any idea how to get rid of error 16? It'd help me so much!
Sorry!!
I had tried to do this.. but I had 2 families.. after this.. I have one.. I have done as you said.. What can I doing now!!
I got around that by copying the save file from the main menu then deleting the previous version (including bad file from windows explorer). Unfortunately it only works so many times before the error re-appears. :S
I tried this and I lost all my progress.. I guess I did something wrong?
SOOOO if you turn off the memory option does it stop the error?
Thank you so much I was getting so tired of losing all my stuff
What is the link for the mod you have?
the link or the name of it wasnt anywhere...
Thank you! It worked In-game!!! you saved me :3
I've played Sim's 3 on 2 different computers one a Hewitt Packard laptop the other a Toshiba Satellite laptop. Game worked well with no errors on the HP, but it ran hot till finally had to be sent away for repairs. I downloaded the game onto the Toshiba and since then I get error code 12 about every 3 minutes. I only use EA store content and nothing else. I've done extensive online research and it seems even the top savvy people are stumped, though have some ideas.
Your nhd file is too big (400+ mb) and when the program goes to save, the RAM ithe program requires to save the game + run the game totals over 3.7 GB. Even if you have a PC with 16GB of RAM, the Sims 3 is a 32 bit program and uses the 32-bit max.
To get rid of Error 12, you need to reduce the size of the nhd file your town is in. How?
You need to port your sims to a clean version of the town.
Does all of this have to be on your C: Drive :-/ My Documents isnt in my C drive just currious,..
did you quit your game before trying this? did you loose anything?
I'm a bit hesitant...
I tried not quiting my game, and it didn't work at all. But I just had to quit the game and start over.
if i'm following your steps without closing the sims 3 is the error is fixed?
I dont think this will get rid of the error code but this is a good tutorial anyway ;)
I might do what you say, but I'm kinda really lazy. Can I just enable memories? Might it work that way?
This is not a fix for Error Code 12. EC12 is an issue with computer virtual memory. This does nothing.
would this work if i only moved one of my towns into the backup folder and back.
I just cant risk loosing my town.
I did this and it didnt work. I saw what someone else posted saying once it happens in the game minimize moved saved files to backup folder an try to save. It didnt work and then when I tried to save in edit town it he game crashed. Someone please help me!!!! I can save a couple times in the first hour or so that I play but then it he error code pops up after awhile!!!
Didn't work
OMG LOVE YOU IT WORKED! DURING MY RUNNING GAME!!
It didn't work for me. I looked at how much memory my game is using with Windows Task Manager. It's only 931,772 K. The game is running fine and I'm only on my first generation. I've tried deleting DB files and .bad files. Nothing has fixed it.