I have no idea what to do. I was in the process of installing a boatload of CC a day ago, and used the launchers install function to test if the game could load with the CC i had. After figuring out the CC that was causing issues i proceeded to try and actually play the game.
While loading worked fine, trying to load any of my saves did not.
I assumed that it was some problem with some CC so i removed some of the packages i had installed.
Then more.
Then all of them.
Then even the things installed cleanly through the sims3packs in DCCache and DCBackup.
All the caches.
Finally i removed literally all custom things that i could find apart from the save files and only now is any of this loading.
Most notably, when loading randomly succeeded once in the middle of the process in an appalloosa plains based save (so no CC missing for that), the neighborhood was gone and i only got floating lots.


Like i saved the game with X cc installed. Then i installed some more cc. Then the game didn't load. Then i removed the installed cc and just tried starting it with X cc and it still doesn't load. But when i remove all cc it works.
Can installing new CC corrupt CC that is already installed?
How? Why? What do i do?

This is really interesting.
This should only affect other sims3packs though right? Since those are the ones that get merged.
And unfortunately the issue persists even with the dccache and backup folders emptied.

I'm currently in the process of trying to figure out whether i have accidentally put new cc in with the old ones somehow.

Yes the game loads fine when all CC is removed, but i obviously can't have all the CC removed from a save that's based on gigabytes of CC.
I have figured out that apparently world packages installed years ago are now causing the save not to load.
Without them the game loads perfectly fine, but with them loading the savefile breaks.
Why?
How?
How can this happen?
The file wasn't modified since 2015?
How am i supposed to use those other worlds now?

The save i am trying to load (the save that last crashed) does not include any custom worlds.
And yet when i put custom worlds that so far worked fine in the collection of cc into the packages folder, loading basically any save crashes.
My ssd is error free btw so it can't be that.

I have no idea how they were installed but they have numbers for names, were in the mods/packages folder, and worked perfectly fine up to two days ago. I can literally load every single mod apart from those and things work fine but ANY of the world files will kill any save loading.
I would really appreciate some insight from anyone lol, this is insane.

Package files.
I think i have the explanation.
It seems like i put some of the world files from the DCCache or DCBackup folder into the packages folder, probably in an attempt to sort things back years ago.
Now when i deleted those folders just now when managing CC the ccmerged file or something like it might have been deleted, and the world package files thus broken.

I assume this is the case, because as it turns out those worlds (the ones which are still available online) only come in sims3pack form.
This means that they had to be installed from sims3 packs originally which also explains their number names, and if that's the case the additional files the game creates for each install were probably needed to load them correctly.

The solution was to redownload the worlds that i could still find and reinstall them, discarding the original worlds.
Since neither of my saves used these this shouldn't be a problem.

Worlds don't come in package format, they are either loaded through the launcher which creates a .world in the installed worlds or some people make the .world available for dl. I don't believe you can't put worlds in the packages folder. Info from the sims3pack is saved in the dccache in a .dbc but none of it is in the ccmerged that I am aware of, that contains all your store info from the sims 3 store (premium content like the bakery etc.). I, much like nitromon do not load pretty much any cc through the launcher, worlds and my store content it the only sims3packs and I check the worlds for "extra" stuff and remove it. it the world needs cc i prefer to get it myself and install as package. Much less headache to remove.