Grey lots in custom world, Sims3Dashboard not working, corrupt world?

[BlackjackGabbiani]

The Sims3Dashboard crashes when I try to open it, and running it is the solution this site gives to fixing grey lots (or...blue lots as this site calls them, but they're grey on my screen). I managed to run it last night but now it isn't working any more. It did tell me that the world I'm using, Autumn Falls, is corrupt, but it didn't say how or give me any solutions on fixing it, and it didn't disable it either.

The other world I'm using, Riverview, also has grey lots but that world wasn't corrupted. I'm unclear as to what Sims3Dashboard wants me to do. Do I get rid of the content it indicates? And why did it work last night but now crashes before opening?

[Ghost sdoj]

What color is your sky? The true blue lots are holes in the terrain that let you see the sky underneath the ground. Grey lots sounds like a different problem, unless your monitor color is set so that the sky is grey as well.

I have no idea why Dashboard crashed after working once, but if it indicated that something was corrupted and you are having trouble with your game, I would move the "corrupted" content to another folder outside the game, and then clear the caches. (If it was still working I would simply disable or backup and repair things it called corrupt.) It does sometimes give false positives, so deleting them is a rather drastic option until you are sure they need to be gone. This is especially true with a world that has lots in it, as it is likely to register as a package with one or more packages in it, which is one of the definitions of "corrupt." In this case it is perfectly normal, but you wouldn't want it to be the case with something like a dress that also contains a hairstyle that you hate and want to get rid of.

There is a chance that Delphy will see this thread, but if you are having problems with the Dashboard, you really should post in the thread where you got it. It helps to keep all the error reports in the same place.

[BlackjackGabbiani]

The sky is sort of...reddish. It seems to be mostly twilight. It's not the same color as the holes.

How do I back up a house? I spent a long time on the house I built in that world and I want to save it.

[Ghost sdoj]

You can package your house to back it up. If you don't know how to do that, I'm not in my game right now so I might be a little off. Basically you go into Edit Town mode, and then click on the lot to select it. You can edit the name and description if you want to, and then one of the icons on that page is to share your content. Click that, accept that it will cancel all activities for all sims in town, and it will be set up as a sims 3 pack in your my documents/electronic arts/ the sims 3/ uploads folder. (You can move it out of that folder if you use the launcher and don't want to be reminded that you have stuff you haven't sent to the Exchange yet.)

And as for the grey lots, I suspect we need to see your system specs, (especially your graphics.)

[BlackjackGabbiani]

Oh gee, system specs. I'm not really sure how to find those. But it's the same system I've run Sims 3 on since I got it, and didn't have this problem until recently.

[Mordant17]

This (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:System_Specs) will show you how to find and post your specs.

And running the game on an under spec machine can damage your computer so that things start going wrong. Your computer is like a car (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Your_Computer_is_Like_a_Car).