Hello everyone. I've been playing Supernatural all weekend and managed to rack up 6 in game weeks and stupidly forgot to save the last 2. When I went to save and exit I got the error code 12.

I tried every thing imaginable (Cancelling current interactions, emptying inventories, killing off other sim families, even manually deleting .bad saves from the saved games directories,)

All the other solutions entailes losing data which I was reluctant to do, but I might have found a work around.

Send a single sim on holiday. As soon as they arrive save and quit. Game saved and hopefully no lost progress.

Sorry moderators if this is in the wrong place, I chose this forum as I only started getting 12s after getting supernatural. Hopefully if any others have the problem and have world adventures, this could help.

Thanks - Llamarama

I found this, hope it might be helpful to you http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/0...2-13-or-16.html

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there's much you can do for it, but at least there are some good preventative tips. Did you try 'saving as' with a new name as the article suggests?

That doesn't work. Your game automatically saves position when you go on vacation, and your game had error 12. When you try to return home, the game will crash .

Guess who just found that out the hard way Back to square one... Ho hum Thanks for the heads up none-the-less.

Thanks for that Pillywiggen, I'll bear all of those in mind. Especially the Save and Quit function, it's what I always used to use.

I've had lots of error 12 lately but i noticed that worst is when i try to save in time of full moon so ive been playing till moon phase changes closed down my computer protection software n thats been doing the trick for me. So far ive managed to save every time using that method.You might try it out when getting error 12 again cause i think fix for it wont come too soon if ever.

I don't know if this is the right place to post it, but I'm having some troubles with the error 12, but more troubles with the..."solutions". I went to "Edit town" and the the game crashed. According to "Crash Log Analyser", it was because of this: "Large address aware/UserVA - Increase UserVA to 3072". That's when I used Large Address Aware, CFF Explorer, etc, to fix it, but they wouldn't work. Then I figured out WHY. Because my computer's 32 bit, or my OS, I guess. So, I did the "extra-steps" in order to make it work, and for "extra-steps" I mean modifying the Boot.ini file. (Adding /3GB /userva=2560 to the only line I have). Here goes the problem: When I've done this, I can not even enter my game, and when I scroll a website or something it looks weird. When I undo what I did, everything goes back to normal, but the solutions to Error 12 still don't work... Could please somebody help? Thanks a lot!

Ugh. Error 12, one of my worst nightmares.

I've recently bought a new gaming rig which fortunately got rid of the error 12s for me, as much as I had previously wanted to believe that it's *not* memory-related.

In short: Error 12 sucks ass. Pardon my French. On my old rig, I would frequently encounter the pesky thing despite my best efforts to give the game as much RAM as possible. I don't know if it's true or not, but I swear I had more 12s when I had 'testingcheatsenabled true', even if that makes little sense. I was sometimes able to bypass the error by deleting 'suspicious' (read: random) lots from my neighborhood which would suddenly allow the game to save even if it'd previously spewed a 12 at me. Don't mess with your boot.ini or any other file, it's no use. It's clearly a physical memory (RAM) issue even though the game runs just fine on 2 GB machines and EAxis frequently denies this. Heck, I've refused to believe this as well until I bought my new computer!
I'm afraid there's really nothing you can do, solution-wise. You can try to delete lots and set TS3.exe to a higher priority, but this isn't a guaranteed fix ... though it worked for me sometimes. It's clearly not a problem that can be fixed user-side.

Thanks for your help! And another problem I have is that my game crashes with the max graphic settings even though I have a "good" (I guess) Graphic's Card (ATI Radeon HD 5450) What could I do? The game goes very well when I play with high graphic settings, but suddenly crashes, and I don't know why, It's getting me sick. Thanks !

I hate Error 12 so much! It made me quit playing Sims 3 by the time Pets was released, but Seasons brought me back once more. I decided to play with very few CC and only my favorite Store Sets, and things were fine, but after a while the error came back. I've already done all crazy things and messed a lot with my computer settings, and nothing has ever fixed it. I play on a 32-bit Windows XP, so, until I upgrade to a 64-bit OS this error will haunt my sims Here's what I've done that helped me a lot:

-Clean your HD. My computer is old, but I've already replaced many parts, but my HD wasn't one of them. It only has 160 gb, and It's really unusual to have more than 10 gb free So I uninstalled some unused programs, backed up a lot of stuff I don't need regularly and it has helped A LOT. Before doing it, I couln't play a full sim day without getting this dreadful error. It usually happens now when I turn ugly sims into pretty sims by editing them in CAS via Master Controller.

-Twallan mods (http://nraas.wikispaces.com/): Master Controller can restart the whole neighborhood (doing so messes up the sims assigned as venue owners in Showtime and the barmen from Late Night but it can help) and disable memories (which can be done by in-game options now, but I don't trust it :P). Error trap helps to avoid errors that might screw up your save. And finally, the Overwatch: it fixes sims that get stuck somewhere in town, turn off TVs and sound systems on lots you're not currently playing, and purge the vehicles the game creates for neighbors and NPCs's transportation (it's a big deal, it deletes like 700 cars every single Sim-day), all of them can disturb your save's peace.

But, the most efficient way to fix it is upgrading your operational system to a 64-bit one and/or increasing your ram.

But, if I change my OS to a 64-bit one, Should I change something of the hardware?
Now, I guess the error 12 is because of the neighborhood, I'm playing in Bridgeport and I know a lot of people had problems playing there. But now, my game just crashes, and I don't want to low down the graphic settings, the game goes perfect, just crashes. I used Dashboard but there's nothing corrupt, and the Crash Log Analyzer says it's about Large Adress Aware, icrease userVA...you know, always the same thing. I guess it's because my f*cking 32-bit Windows. I can't wait for my Christmas Present: A 64-bit Windows 7. I guess that will fix a lot, won't it?
Thanks a lot for your help guys!

Aside from a sudden reappearence from my least favorite error recently, one thing that seems to have drastically reduced my error 12s is constant, obsessive save as-ing. I never write over an old save in game. I just add a number to the end of my save, and save often, around once every half day and after any kind of editting (edit town, building/buy mode, or sending a sim into CAS). Eventually the play session will end in a CTD but at least I have a recent save! And if the game starts acting up and it becomes obvious something is corrupt, its easy to go back to an earlier version. Normally I change the name and reset the numbers after something significant changes in my save, like a milestone being hit. Eventually I delete the old saves from the save folder. Its a bit of a hassle and if you don't have a ton of space its probably not a great plan, but it seems to help.

I've been getting the same errors lately!

I tried to save as, save, and it just works every once in a while. I'll wait for a miracle or I won't play TS3 anymore.
So, do I need to change some hardware to install a 64-bit Windows 7 ? Thakns! I hate EA

This might work for you I stopped having those types of errors (mostly) by making a shortcut to the actual game .exe. (not the launcher)
Right click on your shortcut and select "Run As Administrator". If I did not Windows and the Anti-Virus sometimes consider
the save as nefarious and refuses it.
Also switching between two different saves for each game so nothing is lost completely...save as mytowna, mytownb.

That's pretty much what I do, and do for all games I play. I've never had an Error 12. Maybe because of doing that, or a combination of things. I don't know.

Unlike you, though, I never delete my saves. They're backed up every day to an external drive, as I do with all my games. Having too many saves in the saves folder, in any game, can cause problems, such as CTD's and lag. Though TS3 has bigger sized saves, which is why I clear mine out daily.
Like a previous poster, my pc is also old (but with a lot of new hardware), with only 160GB and it's rare that I have 10GB free Which is another reason I move game save files to another drive often.

I guess in my case I've somehow prevented it before it can happen. Hope so

One of the biggest cause for Error 12 is those damn Memories that every townie seems to get every time they take a dump. Once I stopped them using a mod, I think I've only ever gotten Error 12 one other time.

I never actually thought of killing memories all together to reduce errors. That's a great idea! I only have it set to not notify me

They just really bloat up the save files. all those pictures in their scrapbook about how little Timmy was finally potty trained (sheesh!). They serve no purpose if you are not actually playing them as an active household.

I changed my OS to a 64-biit Windows 7. I've played for...4 hours? And it wouldn't crash and error 12 didn't even appear. I'll try to play a save in Bridgeport today to see what happens. Thanks for your help!

I didn't have an error 12 for a very long time. I got 1 within the first week of installing Seasons. I already disabled memories and all the other tips and suggestions back when I had them a while ago. I clean my folders and try to remember to save frequently. That seemed to make them go away so I was kind of surprised when I started getting them again after Seasons.

Anyway, I save even more frequently now (I try to remember to do it every half hour) and if I plan on playing for a very long time I will log all the way out of the game, reboot my PC then load the game back up. So far I haven't had any more in about 3 or 4 weeks.

I've been getting Error 12 all the time since patch 1.42 and Seasons. But my computer is old and The Sims 3 is kinda of a stretch to it already... (hopefully gonna receive my new machine in a few days) But anyways, what helped me not avoiding, but at least controlling the issue was:

- Twallan's mod Master Controller: deleted all memories from all Sims in my home lot, plus disabled further memory creation;
- Twallan's mod Porter: transferred my family (and kept the friends' ties) to a fresh game save;
- Shorter game sessions: after an hour or so, I quit and re-start the game
- Work with 2 save files for every game and only use Save As option

Hope you can save your game, Llamarama2010!

Had this problem earlier today - so I got the overwatch + errortrap, disabled memories and it seems to be fixed now, could play for like an hour before it crashed (but well, I saved like 3 times and it weren't any problems with that) but the crashing is a whole different story I got used to.
But yeah, overwatch, errortrap and disabled memories seem to have made the trick for my game at least.

Up your virtual memory. I was having this same sh**ty problem and that seemed to help...at least with error 12 and 16.

Windows users:
right click my computer
properties
advanced system settings
under the Advanced tab click settings under Performance
Click the Advanced tab
Virtual memory click change
click custom size then set it to whatever the recommended paging file size.
Change both the minimum and the maximum to this number.
Click okay and you will be prompted to restart your system.

Windows had mine allocated with only half of what it could have been.

Hope this helps someone else.

You have no idea how much I love you right now. Where have you been trough all my Sims 3 game play ??? I've started to have the stupid code error 12 again since I installed Seasons. Last time I fixed it by changing into a Win7 64bits with 8G RAM memory, but that was I don't know how many EPs back. You should be working at EAs customer support. I did what you said, I played 4 hours straight and the game saved like a charm. NO CODE ERROR !!! I will be posting this solution everywear !! It even made the whole game play so much smoother. Thank you so very much !!! YOU ROCK !!

There is a mod that disables automatic memories