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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 8th Sep 2019 at 3:17 AM
Default My save files grow enormously. How do I shrink them?
Hello everyone. I have a very uneasy problem. The nhd files of my saved games grow by enormous proportions. I had to start a new save because my game couldn't play anymore. Now the save is rapidly approaching that limit again. That limit is nearly 1,000,000 KB. It reached that limit after playing only one generation in my game. Very quickly. I know, that seems very large. I've read other posts and those people's nhd files were much much less than that after playing many sim weeks. I don't know why. I don't know how to shrink my nhd files. Many say to use S3PE to keep it down, but I don't know how. What files do I delete using s3pe? My new save was nice and small when I started, but when I traveled to another town (my hometown to visit family for Snowflake Day, I use Nraas Traveler), spent time there and then traveled back to Bridgeport, my Bridgeport nhd went up like 100,000 KB. Recently after traveling to the future and back to the present, the nhd for Bridgeport went up 70,000 KB. Now I'm at 548,904 KB! My new game has grown enormously, and I've only played a few sim days since I started it. How do I keep my save files down? How do I fix it? Why do my saves grow much quicker than the others I've read about online? I have tried some methods recommended in the posts, like Save Cleaner by Kuree (I use version 1.1. Version 2 doesn't work), they don't help much. I don't want to start a new save, that was a lot of work doing, and it seems I may have to do that again soon. Thanks in advance and please help.
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 8th Sep 2019 at 3:59 AM
Kuree's Save Cleaner. Use it, and use it periodically. I don't believe in magic but this is the next best thing. First time I used it, my Bridgeport shrank by 89%.

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Mad Poster
#3 Old 8th Sep 2019 at 4:45 AM Last edited by igazor : 8th Sep 2019 at 5:11 AM.
And the award for possibly the least helpful well-meaning first response of the year goes to...

This page outlines the S3PE procedure for cleaning up game saves. But honestly, it doesn't do anything that SaveCleaner v1.1 does so if you are having little success with that then SNAP files are not the most significant cause of bloat in your case. The S3PE method is practically required to clean up the TravelDB file though for players who cannot run Save Cleaner v2 because v1.1 can't reach that one. It's not usually as dire a need though as the TravelDB does not load into and out of RAM like the nhd files of the actively simulated worlds do.
http://www.nraas.net/community/Dele...P-resources-FAQ

Two other things certainly worth trying.

1 - NRaas ErrorTrap runs routines that help keep our saves clear of useless data, which can multiply especially after world travel. Do you have it in play? It can take a sim day or so after arrival back home for the effects to be fully realized.
2 - An occasional, for most of us every 6-8 sim weeks or so, MasterController Reset Everything run from City Hall can reach things to clean out that ErrorTrap cannot or that it hasn't yet gotten to. Might be worth a try in between those travel sessions.

Another huge source of nhd bloat is sims' scrapbook memories. We've always advised keeping those switched off or under control by a mod so that sims don't accumulate more than a dozen or two of them over the course of a typical lifetime. But that probably wouldn't really be what's happening if the bloat is so directly correlating with world travel so perhaps think of it more as an additional preventative.
http://modthesims.info/d/446281/no-...01-16-2014.html
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 9th Sep 2019 at 3:44 AM
None of these options worked. I already have ErrorTrap installed. How do I know it's running? There is no menu I can access. Since coming back from the future about 1 1/2 sim days have passed.

I did try the reset everything method. It dropped the save very little, about 12,000 KB, or 12 MB.

I disabled memories a while ago after encountering a lot of crashing, though memories are stored in travel.nhd and not the town nhd file.

I read somewhere online that when you travel, the game is creating a clone of your sim in the travel world, and when you return and save, the clone is saved alongside your original sim data, which increases the save size. I certainly would like to find a way to delete the clone data.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 9th Sep 2019 at 4:30 AM
Is ErrorTrap generating any script logs? It will do so at least two or three times per game session even if it has no errors to report. It gets very chatty about Correction Logs, things like Found Objects Deleted, and Dereferencing, none of which are really errors but evidence that the mod is actually working. The script logs accumulate in your TS3 user game folder in Documents until there are around 11-12 of them, then they start overwriting themselves with the oldest ones going out first. Their file names begin with ScriptError, the name of your computer, and some hex codes.

Might you have any tuning files in place alongside of the mod, the purposes of which are to throttle ErrorTrap's routine operations? The duplicate sim data thing does happen, and ErrorTrap is supposed to address it. Overwatch also plays a role, hopefully you have that one in play as well.

Do you have a very adult mod in play with initials KW by any chance (that's really reaching on my part, but the symptoms are starting to sound familiar...)

I'm not going to push the scrapbook memories issue because it doesn't seem relevant here, but I believe they are stored in both places. The TravelDB is a package file that is read from and written to, it is not an nhd file.

What I can say is that I have 16 Traveler mod connected worlds in my ongoing game, I've been playing it since 2011, my sims travel like maniacs although to be fair not to the future very often, and none of my nhd files ever exceed around 175 MB. When they get that large, they do respond to Save Cleaning. Others report similar, to some extent or another. Something is happening (or not happening) in your game that is not expected.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 9th Sep 2019 at 7:23 AM Last edited by AGuyCalledPi : 9th Sep 2019 at 7:37 AM.
I might have a lot of social jigs and placeholders, judging by the fact that my game froze when I tried to call up Object Stats. Does teleporting and resetting Sims frequently cause issues like that? I would not be surprised at all to find it's at least partially responsible for the poor performance of this save.

Edit: I gave it a minute or 10 and it's done. Aside from 4000 ingredients, 1300 books and 1200 single-tile, full-height windows, there's really no significant numbers here. So why's it lagging?

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 11th Sep 2019 at 10:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
Is ErrorTrap generating any script logs? It will do so at least two or three times per game session even if it has no errors to report. It gets very chatty about Correction Logs, things like Found Objects Deleted, and Dereferencing, none of which are really errors but evidence that the mod is actually working. The script logs accumulate in your TS3 user game folder in Documents until there are around 11-12 of them, then they start overwriting themselves with the oldest ones going out first. Their file names begin with ScriptError, the name of your computer, and some hex codes.

Might you have any tuning files in place alongside of the mod, the purposes of which are to throttle ErrorTrap's routine operations? The duplicate sim data thing does happen, and ErrorTrap is supposed to address it. Overwatch also plays a role, hopefully you have that one in play as well.

Do you have a very adult mod in play with initials KW by any chance (that's really reaching on my part, but the symptoms are starting to sound familiar...)

I'm not going to push the scrapbook memories issue because it doesn't seem relevant here, but I believe they are stored in both places. The TravelDB is a package file that is read from and written to, it is not an nhd file.

What I can say is that I have 16 Traveler mod connected worlds in my ongoing game, I've been playing it since 2011, my sims travel like maniacs although to be fair not to the future very often, and none of my nhd files ever exceed around 175 MB. When they get that large, they do respond to Save Cleaning. Others report similar, to some extent or another. Something is happening (or not happening) in your game that is not expected.


Yes ErrorTrap is generating script logs. I also do notice in-game messages with the name "ErrorTrap" in them, so it does seem to work like it's supposed to, and yes I also have Overwatch installed. I did a test as far as traveling to a place and returning home again, so I went to the future again. When I came back and saved there was NOT a dramatic increase in the NHD file size like last time. So the increase just happens at random. I am more lost as far as what actually causes it.

No I don't have any tuning files along with ErrorTrap. I also don't have any tuning files along with any of the Nraas mods I have.

No, I don't have any adult mods with the initials KW installed.
Mad Poster
#10 Old 11th Sep 2019 at 10:33 PM Last edited by AGuyCalledPi : 11th Sep 2019 at 10:44 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
I actually have no idea why your game would lag since you do not play with SP. was this the town option object stat or household? I do them both just in case.

I checked both. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the lag's still severe. Could it be happening because my compositor caches are maxed out?

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Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 12th Sep 2019 at 4:48 PM
This is getting frustrating. I've been doing some more testing. After browsing the internet I found that perhaps the reason why my NHDs get larger is that I do a lot of things in a vacation world and then return home and save. I decided to do some more testing to see if doing a lot really impacts my save. I returned to the future, did several things, got back, and it did bloat. I decided to return and do fewer things. I did, got back, saved, and it STILL bloated. I'm finding it only bloats after getting back from a trip, adding about 40-50 MB in average to my save. Sometimes it doesn't bloat, I don't know why. I have no idea how to stop this. I decided I will have to make a new save anyways to refresh things, but until then I would like to find out what's really going on so I can prevent save bloat in the next save. I'd hate to do it, I hope it will be the last time. How DO people let a save go on for years and are easily able to manage their save sizes? As far as decreasing an existing save size, I don't know if anybody knows of a way to make it smaller other than the ways that have been suggested to me.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 12th Sep 2019 at 10:32 PM
I opened up my NHD the other day and there were a lot of SNAPs, but the file's not particularly large. Just ran it through Save Cleaner and it went from 60 megabytes to 41. That's decidedly modest. I've also run it through Overwatch but not ErrorTrap.

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Mad Poster
#15 Old 12th Sep 2019 at 11:51 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
That's it. It's not that much to it. If you have something else it is probably some mod related issue.

Well, there's also the descendant issue, potentially. Since it sounds like OP is going to try again in a fresh homeworld anyway, I would suggest avoiding travel to Oasis Landing at first. That may well accomplish absolutely nothing, but at least it removes possible future world travel and return issues from the mix.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#16 Old 13th Sep 2019 at 2:23 AM
What is the descendant issue?
Mad Poster
#18 Old 13th Sep 2019 at 3:40 AM
I only meant the descendant data as it relates to sims being played in a homeworld. It may be a total non-issue and not relevant here, but I noticed that the OP is using travel to and from OL, or at least they are most recently, as a basis for these reports. I am encouraging trying this without the future world in the picture to see if they get different kinds of results.

Sims in my own ongoing game have been to the future a few times and I haven't noticed any significant issues or bloat back in their homeworlds. But I wasn't really all that enthralled with gameplay in OL, my sims are not really regular visitors there, and I also have OL tourism switched off by way of Register.
Mad Poster
#20 Old 13th Sep 2019 at 5:39 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
I noticed your reply sneakily avoided the topic of impregnating your own descendants.

Yeah, gotta get up pretty early in the morning to sneak one by nitromon.

Or it could simply be that I have never done that? It's disgusti...okay, no it's not but my sims didn't seem to be attracted to their own descendants "that way." I did have a sim make a baby in the future, but he was part of a very large travel party and he himself didn't have any descendants yet. Guess I haven't played OL enough times to see a combination that would work, the others have all been totally faithful couples. Well, maybe with the family dog who came along on one of those small number of trips, but he couldn't find anyone he was attracted to at all while there.
Mad Poster
#22 Old 13th Sep 2019 at 6:37 PM
Hold up. ITF lets you knock up your own descendants? I'm honest to god not even surprised they didn't think to do anything about that......but I'm all the more surprised I'm only hearing about this now.

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Mad Poster
#23 Old 13th Sep 2019 at 7:34 PM
Descendants are so far removed from present world sims that they could never be on the family tree or be considered close blood relations, hence I wouldn't really expect romance and baby making to be blocked. We don't even know how many generations there are supposed to be in between present day worlds and Oasis Landing, has this ever been guessed at somewhere? Would have to be hundreds if not thousands.

But if there were such a block in place, I would also have expected Woohooer to at least offer an option to remove it.
Forum Resident
#24 Old 14th Sep 2019 at 12:27 AM
My game was taking up ridiculous RAM usage so I deleted the SNAP files today. It helps, even if it's temporary.
Mad Poster
#25 Old 14th Sep 2019 at 2:46 AM
Dumb question but how do I access ErrorTrap? I thought I was just supposed to have it running in the background minding its own business. But I've been clicking on this blocky Sim Macintosh for a solid minute now and nothing of the sort has come up yet.

Edit:
Picture of the culprit. Do I need to go buy myself a City Hall or is it something else I'm doing wrong?

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