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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 10th Apr 2011 at 11:57 AM Last edited by mflaha55 : 11th Apr 2011 at 12:31 AM.
Default Error Code 16...GAAAH!
Edit: 04-10-11: I've moved this to Gameplay because it just happened to me again. See end of post for a description of the second incident.

First Incident: I'll start by saying be sure you regularly backup your game! You may one day be struck by error code 16! What is error code 16? Beats me, but here's what happened...

I was in Free Time playing some of my Hero Sims who had not yet gone on a quest in order to become more familiar with them. I was playing my Knight and had sent him to the Training Grounds to practice. While he was hacking away at the Old Ironsides practice dummy, the thought occurred to me that I hadn't saved the game in awhile and I'd better do so now before something untoward happened. As the game began to save, I suddenly received an error message citing ERROR CODE 16. Before I was able to check the details to see what error code 16 was, my computer froze up. I then did as I have done many times before when my computer freezes and opened the Task Manager and used the End Task command. TSM ended and when I relaunched the game...MY KINGDOM WAS GONE! I was back at New Beginnings on the main menu and my kingdom was no where to be found. I looked in the My Documents\...\Saves folder and both my [Kingdom Name].tsm and [Kingdom Name].tsm.backup folders were gone! Nada! Nowhere to be found! Thankfully, I had backed up my game several days earlier (I gotta get into the habit of backing up DAILY!) and was able to recover most of my kingdom (I of course LOST the work I had done in the intervening days, that is my SPY, my WIZARD and my BLACKSMITH). Thankfully, I had saved each of my Hero Sims in CAS before accepting them into the game, so I didn't lose the ones I had created and could easily recreate them.

Has this error happened to anyone else? Sorry about the length of this post, but I wanted you all to know about this error. Thanks!

Edit: Second Incident - Once again I was in the process of saving the game and received the dreaded Error Code 16 which froze my computer. When I used Task Manager to end task, I lost the kingdom folder I was saving (a brand-new one at that!) The folder is completely gone, as if it had never existed. This appears to be a serious bug. Hopefully someone with greater technical skills than I will look into it (he asks hopefully?).
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Test Subject
#2 Old 22nd Apr 2011 at 4:29 PM
I have also experienced this error a short time after starting the game. However my machine did not freeze and I tried a SAVE AS and that seemed to work just fine. But similar to you, the first game was pretty much fudged and gone.

Gravity is a farce. The Earth just SUCKS!
Lab Assistant
#3 Old 1st Nov 2017 at 5:37 PM
I know this is a super old thread but I get this error any time I try to save. Searching online I read that error 16 is caused by the game not being able to overwrite existing saves. The only solution I found is as CandorP said is to use the "Save as" option instead of the "save". I've never had it cause my game to crash and wipe my save though.
I'm not 100% sure but I think the reason I get this error everytime is because I moved my Saved games folder to my D\ Drive and created a link in the C\documents directory to point the game to the correct location. It seems that when it is told to overwrite a save it isn't able to find the save file it needs to overwrite, though it can find the correct folder to write a new save file in. Technology
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 1st Nov 2017 at 11:40 PM
And you did create it as a hard link, and not a soft/symbolic/junction/whatever link, right?
Field Researcher
#5 Old 2nd Nov 2017 at 1:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by keyqueen
I know this is a super old thread but I get this error any time I try to save. Searching online I read that error 16 is caused by the game not being able to overwrite existing saves. The only solution I found is as CandorP said is to use the "Save as" option instead of the "save". I've never had it cause my game to crash and wipe my save though.
I'm not 100% sure but I think the reason I get this error everytime is because I moved my Saved games folder to my D\ Drive and created a link in the C\documents directory to point the game to the correct location. It seems that when it is told to overwrite a save it isn't able to find the save file it needs to overwrite, though it can find the correct folder to write a new save file in. Technology


Years ago, when I first began playing TSMP&N, I had similar problems in saving games, some issues are related to a players video card capabilities, but strangely I found that if I saw an error in the game during game play (an example is a sims hair is missing when they were not made to be bald, or if a sims clothing is discolored, anything of that nature), and saving was not working because I received an error message, I learned that if I delete that error, which might mean to kill off the sim having the error, when it was gone, the game would then save, no problem.
Another thing I have always done and is quite helpful, is every time after a game session, I save the game under a new name (same as save as) and then I move the older game save files to the Saved Games folder which is a default folder Windows. I do this in case I ever want to return to a particular game, which I will be able to do at anytime in future. I also keep all the sims I created in a specially named folder and wrap it up tight with Winrar, and keep it in My Documents.
I never keep more than one save game file and its back-up save game file in the saves folder inside the TSM folder inside My Documents, I also clean out any videos and screenshots I may have taken in game play, keeping them in My Pictures folder. This way the game has less to read, so less work to do so the game functions better, than if it is constantly reading unnecessary information, like older game saves that are no longer valid to the point in time of the current game is at.
I strongly suggest that a player have a kick butt graphics card, and a giant amount of memory. Windows has a conniption fit if a program uses more than it thinks it should, and DEP will crash or freeze the game on your computer...so sometimes, it is not the fault of the game when these things happen, but actually Data Execution Prevention ie: DEP that acts too jealous of the ram the game is wanting to use, so crashes, or freezes the game.

All will be well concerning this though, as long as you save at a reasonable time, reboot the game right away, which means to shut down the game, then restart it back up again in shorter intervals than you might normally. This is especially great advice if you have less than 6 gigs of memory installed on your computer.

I have 32 gigs of ram installed but once in a blue blue moon, DEP has a stink, which is utterly ridiculous, as my PC has more than 10 times the memory the Operating System can ever use! But there is Windows for ya. They're half confused most of the time.

Good Luck, and have a blast playing TSMP&N always!

Xeny

PS A major point I nearly forgot to mention...LOL... is never allow the game to save the game for you. You save the game yourself, and when you want to leave the game, never, and I mean NEVER, allow the game to save and then exit. TSM does a poor job at saving as you know, so when it asks you if you want to save the game before exiting, click HELL NO, or just no is okay, but first manually save your game right before clicking on the EXIT key.

Quote:
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live.
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 2nd Nov 2017 at 4:15 PM Last edited by keyqueen : 2nd Nov 2017 at 5:02 PM.
DeeDawg, it is indeed a symbiotic link. I use a program called link shell extension for creating them. I don't recall seeing hard link as an option in the drop menu. If changing the link to a hard one will alleviate the problem, I'll just have to do it with the command prompt. Every other game I have is satisfied with a symbiotic, I guess TS3 engine is just extremely fussy.
Xeny
As I have not had any graphical issues with this game I don't think it is related to my graphics card. To save I always use the "save as" (clearly I don't have a chose) and then clear out all the older saves after the session is over. When ever I play a game I try to play in 45 minute sessions then take a 15 minute break. For PC games (exempt often the sims 2 which takes forever to load because of all my CC and doesn't stress my pc out much anyway) I always fully shut the game down to give my computer a chance to cool down as it does not have a built in fan. My pc is a HP slim netbook "supposedly" designed to be cooled down by air flowing around outside the case. Really bad design chose by HP. I have had overheating issue a few times but strangely never while playing games or running other resource intensive processes. It always happens after leaving it in sleep mode overnight or other extended period . The next morning I go to turn it on and get the message saying it had to shut down due to the temperature being to high.
Although I know that it is much better to run games on a pc that exceeds the minimum requirements, my pc does meet Medieval's min and I have experienced very little to no performance issues so far. Also I never rely on the save and exit option on any game or other program. Its way to easy to mess up your files that way.
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