Even though MANY players have reported issues with using the Create a World tool, I still attempted to create my own world and made a lot of progress too…(placed roads, lots, etc.) So I worked on the town all of last night and before turning off my computer, I made sure to save (I was already saving as I went) but because I’m paranoid, I decided to also create a separate backup file by using the “saved as” option. When I opened CAW this morning planning to make final edits, my town wouldn't open and everytime I select the .world file, an error popped up. It was either the error message “cannot load packed file” or just “cannot load file” specifically. I also already tried following this thread, https://modthesims.info/showpost.ph...23&postcount=30, and it’s worked perfectly in the past, but now it’s NOT working even after following all the steps correctly, and yes, I do have the correct version of CAW and my game is fully patched. I have NO CC in my game too, and none at the time as I was creating the town, don’t know if that’s important but worth mentioning. Actually I recently reinstalled The Sims, so all of the files are NEW!

I’ve also tried exporting the .world files I already had saved of my town, but when I went to go and it installed fine, but when I go to actually click to load up the town I get the error message “a serious error occurred while loading (town’s name)”

As I was researching how to possibly fix this, I read that sometimes adding lots in CAW causes the world to become corrupt. Not sure how true that is, but I DID add a lot of lots so maybe that's the root of the issue ?? If it is, I don't know how I would be able to solve this since I can't even open the town itself.

Also don’t know if this is important/helpful, but I noticed in CAW as I was desperately trying to open my town, there’s an option to open a “recent file” (which shows the name of the town I was working on) but everytime I click on it, hoping that my town will load up, I get the error message “Create a World - Beta crashed!” and I’m unable to open CAW anymore unless I completely restart my computer. I don't know what else to do and I'll be really disappointed if my town can't be salvaged, especially since I worked so hard on it.

Thank you in advance! I really appreciate it

Did you try clearing your CAW caches?
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=441595
Do you have an older backup of the world?

I have, I actually reinstalled CAW too, but I'm still experiencing the same "cannot load a packed file" error message /: and I just have the backup I made yesterday and not an older one than that

Are the two world copies that you have the same size? Do they still have layers and lots in the associated folders?

Some ideas:

1. Try resaving the world but with a slight change in the name, like "World1" or "WorldA." Then, open the file in CAW and see if you can access it. If that works, delete the current world file that you're having trouble with, then rename "World1" back to "World."

2. There should be backup folders of this world in the /UserToolData/Worlds folder in CAW. (Not the one you made, but the one that CAW auto-generates). The file will look like this: WorldName_bkp_month-date-year-time-of-last-save. Copy the files out from the backup folder in and paste them into the /Worlds directory. You'll lose some of the work since the last save, but at least you'll get it back.

Corruptions can happen in CAW but I think it tends to happen if your specs aren't too good. I remember having more corruption on a slower machine . How much RAM and hard drive space do you have left?

Thank you everyone for the suggestions, I was able to access the town I made again and everything seems to be running smoothly now (: