Fix for "A Serious Error Has Occurred" in The Sims 3 | Fix "Error Code 16" Saving Game in The Sims 3
In this troubleshooting tutorial video, I'll show how to fix the "A serious error has occurred" problem in The Sims 3. This is a very frequent problem that affects several The Sims 3 players ("simmers") because there is an incompatibility between The Sims 3 saving function and OneDrive. The Sims 3 save games are usually locally stored in "Documents", which is the same folder OneDrive "pulls from" to save the files to the cloud. OneDrive generally moves these files to a different folder, and in this process, the game fails to recognize the files and also in some cases the files can become corrupted due to these incompatibilities.
These incompatibilities can generate problems such as "A serious error has ocurred while loading [name of the Sims 3 world]", and also "error code 16", which are bugs usually specifically related to save game files of The Sims 3. Unfortunately, due to the severity of these problems, their presence very often indicates that the save game files have already been corrupted, and are probably unusable. While there are online guides providing ways to attempt to recover and restore these corrupted save files, in this video I will focus on preventhis these problems in the future. While this method will protect your future save files, unfortunately it will not be able to restore already corrupted and already lost save files.
This is a quite complex tutorial video, there are multiple steps in this video. I divided it into chapters to make it a bit more organized.
00:00 Warnings and Information
00:55 Backup Your The Sims 3 Saves
01:22 How to Fix the OneDrive Problem With Sims 3 Saves
02:10 If You Decide to Uninstall OneDrive
02:30 Moving the Save Files Back to Documents
02:40 Explanation: Saves May Be Corrupted
03:00 Avoiding File Corruption in the Future
03:20 What to Do If Save Files Are Corruputed
03:49 How to Protect Future Sims 3 Save Files From Becoming Corrupted
1. Back up your "Electronic Arts" folder
(It is possible that they are already corrupted, due to OneDrive and due to the saving method)
2. Click "OneDrive"
3. Click the "Engine Wheel" - Click "Settings"
In the video, I show the navigation to do these steps.
4. Click "Manage Backup"
5. Turn off OneDrive for "Documents" folder (or uninstall OneDrive)
6. Restore your "Electronic Arts" folder to "Documents"
(There is the possibility that the save files are corrupted and lost. If this is the case, delete the "Electronic Arts" folder and start over in the game)
7. Use the "Save As" button to save instead of "Save", to avoid corrupting save files in the future [You need to use "Save" for the first time, in order for the "Save As" button to appear in the future. After this, always use "Save As"]
To be honest, this video was a little operationally difficult for me to make, because I wanted to warn everyone about turning off OneDrive and keeping their files, and also wanted to warn people about the possibility that their saves may already have been corrupted (due to OneDrive function and also due to the method of saving the game), while at the same time, providing the solution to future problems. I know the video didn't end as clear as I wanted it to be, but if I had to summarize the whole point of the video in some steps, it would be something like this:
1. Turn off OneDrive for "Documents" folder or uninstall OneDrive (Backup files before doing this, to avoid losing files) (It's possible your save files are already corrupted anyway, due to OneDrive and due to saving method of not using "Save As")
2. Delete your "Electronic Arts" folder (This will erase your saves but they are possibly corrupted anyway) (You can try to restore your save files but it isn't always possible)
3. When you are saving the game in The Sims 3, always use "Save As" instead of "Save", to avoid save file corruption and protect your saves in the future [You need to use "Save" for the first time, in order for the "Save As" button to appear in the future. After this, always use "Save As"]
I know the video ended up not very clear and a little complex. I did my best during recording and editing but there were a lot of warnings that I wanted to give and in the end the video became a little confused. Use the chapters I added to the video to help navigation, and if necessary, watch in a slower playback speed, or watch more than once to have a better understanding of what is being said. All of the information is in the video; not as clear and organized as I wanted it to be, but everything you need is both in the video and in the video description. Watch and re-watch, and read and re-read as many times as necessary to understand.
I know this is likely not the best video I ever made, but it contains all of the necessary information to help you solve this problem, and I hope you can use this video to help you play The Sims 3 again.
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