The Sims franchise has a long history of issuing patches that completely break the game. Every patch that EA released for the Sims 3 has caused some segment of the Sims-playing population to rend their clothes in rage. In the case of the most recent patch, it was me.
Ironically, this patch was pushed out in order to fix problems that people had with the patch before. The "Save problem" caused people to be unable to save their games. It also cleared out the inventories of their Sims' refrigerators and book shelves at random. I would be furious if that happened!
In my case, the problem was that the loading screen music didn't stop playing. My family's lot finally loaded up, but the jingle kept jingling. I even tried switching to Buy Mode, Build Mode, Create A Sim, and Edit Town, but no luck. Not only was I unable to hear any of the sounds on my lot over the music, but the lot was running really slow.
I looked around for solutions, but there were none. It soon became clear that I would have to do a rollback. Unfortunately, you have to do these entirely by hand. Although I sure wish there was an "uninstall last patch" button on the Sims 3 launcher!
The first step to a successful rollback is to have a saved game you can restore. This is your reminder to save your game at least once a month, and before you install any new patches! I save mine every few weeks. On Windows, go to Documents/Electronic Arts, and copy the "The Sims 3" folder. Paste the entire folder wherever you want to keep your backups. Your Documents folder is fine, or your desktop - wherever.
Luckily, I had last saved my game about ten days ago, so I was not going to miss out on too much game play. (It has been a busy week - I had only played for a few hours since the last save.)
The next step is to uninstall The Sims 3. Just the usual uninstall method will not get rid of it completely. In order to fully uninstall the game, you can follow the step by step instructions that mistyk kindly posted here on the More Awesome Than You forums. (Big, huge, sloppy hug for mistyk! Her instructions are SO GREAT.)
Once you have totally and completely gotten rid of The Sims 3, it's time to reinstall! Whee! Remember how fun that was the first time you installed it? It's just like that, but without the anticipation. Bring snacks.
As soon as you have reinstalled the game, you will need to download and install at least a few patches. For example, you need to patch your game up to version 1.4 if you want to be able to download and install the free Riverview neighborhood. (And of course you do!) I patched my game up to two patches ago.
EA doesn't archive their patches, thanks for nothing EA. However, the kind and amazing and (I'm sure) attractive and intelligent folks at SimPrograms.com have archived them for you. I am constantly amazed by the good will and kindness of other Sims players. Start at the bottom of this page and work your way up.
Now that you have finished patching, you can restore your saved game. Go back to Documents/Electronic Arts and rename "The Sims 3" to "The Sims 3 Backup" then copy your saved "The Sims 3" folder there in its place. And voila, you're back where you started!
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