I've spent about two days on and off trying to fix this myself and I'm not having much luck. My game started giving me Error Code 12 after my Sims 4th child returned from Uni (house has 5 sims, 5 dogs). I've been doing "Save As" when sims travel or go to Uni in case of crashes or other issues so I have a few files for this family. I managed to get one or two saves in without the error code by deleting the .bad file and clearing the currentgame.sims3 file. When I opened a backup before my sim returned from uni I deleted all memories and cleansed the dead. I also increased my virtual memory to 20000 but I'm not sure if I need more. After increasing virtual memory, I returned to the game on the backup file and attempted to move the household to another town using the phone (I have traveller). The game saved, but crashed right away with a notice saying the memory couldn't be written.

I'm not sure if it matters but I found it interesting: This is a family of fairies. When investigating any possible issue, I found out that the daughter returning from college is pregnant from a risky woohoo with a werewolf. I don't know if that is causing some sort of memory problem due to the genetics. Older files for this save were 480 MB and this save jumped to 1.75GB. They travel a lot and I haven't seen any parameters for how frequently it is safe to travel.

I have seen most of the recommended pages on Error Code 12, such as bluebellflora and crinkett and I am trying most of them (different ways to save, increasing memory, banging head against wall, rinse repeat). I'm looking for something that I may have overlooked. Any ideas?

BTW, I am running on an I5, 8 GB ram, 64-bit, Win 7. I have Twallens MC, Mover, Traveller, Woohooer, Errortrap. I can give you more info if you need it.

Have you tried the save cleaner? This can reduce the filesize substantially.
http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUp...e/uploads/1532/

What is the SNAP? Is that all it cleans out? I'm not sure it's worth it to dl. I would have to get a net4 framework and figure that out...

http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Deleting+SNAP+resources+FAQ has an explanation of what a SNAP is, and how to delete them yourself if you don't want to let the Save Cleaner do it for you.

As a side note: although I do not have all the EPs, I do have a werewolf who just had a baby with a fairy. If the game was quibbling over the genetics of a werewolf/fairy crossbreed, you can try getting Hybrid which does seem to allow that mix at least as far as the Toddler stage. If it stops working after that, you can throw in the Cheats module of Master Controller long enough to remove one of the Occult states and just call it latent.

Thanks Simsample and Ghost Sdoj. I'll see if I can handle deleting the SNAP tomorrow. I have Hybrid, I should have mentioned that. SimsWiki said that Fairy/wolf is a permissable hybrid occult without any mods though so I didn't think that was the cause. I think it might be related to all of the travelling/going to Uni. I might try saving the family to library and placing in a new neighborhood... It could just move the problem but its an option.

I would disable memories altogether, they're useless file bloat (because EVERYONE in town makes memories) and are still created even after you delete them manually. I would also recommend saving your family to the library, then loading the new town, placing them, and selecting them as the playable household.

Running out of memory has a lot of possible causes: playing too long one session, having too many Sims in town, having too much content on the active lot, having the game settings much too high for what your computer can handle etc.

This is totally a shot in the dark, but I've found that recently naming the savefile with no spaces or other characters aside from letters and numbers, allowed me to avoid Error 12 after getting it several times in a row. Maybe it'll work for you.

So I moved the family via the telephone successfully, then spent about 2 hours building a new house for them to move into on a bigger lot. I saved a few times and just as I was about to save for the last time to start playing the game I got an error code. :/ Sweetdevil, if I read your suggestion correctly, I should start a new game and move them that way?

I think it might just be time to move on from this family. The file is up to 1.86 GB. I don't know why it's so big but it seems like it might be straining the computer I raised my virtual memory to 20000. Should I go higher?

The significant measure of file size is the nhd file of the world being played within the Save, not the entire save. If you could, look inside the recent save and tell us the size of the file called homeworld_(some hexcodes).nhd where "homeworld" is the actual name of the world. Not the usually tiny ExportDB.package file that usually accompanies it. I certainly hope that your homeworld nhd file is not 1.86 GB, that would probably be unusable. I usually take Save Cleaning action as described above already when any of my nhds exceed around 400 MB, others do so sooner.

If it's the TravelDB file that's excessively bloated, then that can be cleaned up as well, again as already described. But the TravelDB file doesn't get loaded into RAM like the actively being played nhd does, so that one can actually grow much larger with little negative impact on the game. At least for most players. I've had mine go over 2 GB before.

Yes, you are supposed to start a new game entirely, not continue in the same game. Simply put, when you open the newly created town, your clock should read "Week 1, Day 1" on mouseover. You still haven't mentioned if you tried the Save Cleaner, though? You may be able to recover this save. How long have you been playing it for? (in-game weeks)

I took a look at the files, and the travel file is at 1.33 GB. The town file was fine. I didn't try the Save Cleaner yet because I'd need to learn about S3PE to figure out what I'm doing. I also wanted to see if there might be another solution. I'm not against trying it, but I'm not extremely tech savvy and simple is better. I can figure things out if I need to though I'm very appreciative of everyone's help.

After moving from bridgeport to Sunlit Tides, I'm not sure what the game counter is reading. I haven't played in a day or two. I have can guess that it would be pretty high up there. My original sim is getting close to becoming an elder and I have lifespan at either long or epic.

Nitromoon, if I delete books will my sims still be paid for the ones they have written? I think I'll take a look at this later when I play but I think I will spend some time getting to know file cleaner. That seems to be the consensus here. I'll write back when I try some stuff out.

I wanted to try using Kuree's Save Cleaner tonight so I dl'd from nraas and saved to my desktop. I get an error that Systems. Generic.KeyNotFound... It opens if I click continue but none of my saves appear. Is this supposed to be in the EA folder, not desktop? The original support thread is down. I also deleted my dccache and featured items. Apparently it's been a while. I'll try playing tonight and see how it goes without the Save Cleaner.

I am running on 1.69 so I guess it won't work. I'm knocking on wood because I was able to get into my save and move my family into the new house, decorate and play for a few minutes. I saved at least 6 times without coding. My file is still really large, but if I can't run cleaner then I'm not sure how to reduce that. It's the travel ndb that is over 1 GB. Everything else seems fine. I'll take a look at books when I play tomorrow. I have quite a few nraas mods so I'm sure I can regenerate. Thanks for the advice.

Hi buddhachick - If you need instructions for deleting SNAP files: See Deleting Snap Files On This Page

So I finally had time to figure things out with sp3e, and holy SNAP, Batman! I had 12,500 files to delete and the saved game is down to 480 MB Thanks for your help everyone! How often should I do this process to keep the game going smoothly?