Problem
Some worlds are listed twice on the world map. The NPCs that come with that pack were also duplicated and appear twice in the household manager.
Cause
This bug has two possible causes
- Worlds of newly installed packs sometimes appears double since Patch 1.89.214. The exact cause is unknown but it possibly has to do with starting the game while the pack is still installing. Always make sure you completely install any packs before starting the game. More tips can be found under How to prevent.
- Mods: Certain mods allow you to have extra worlds. It’s possible that these can give troubles if you don’t keep them updated.
Solution
There are two options to get rid of the extra worlds.
If you are using any mods that allow you to have extra worlds, please contact the creator.
Choose this method if one of the following is true
- You’re playing on console
- You didn’t play with the new world yet and did not use anything of the new pack yet.
- You don’t feel comfortable to poke around your save game with an external tool.
If the method below doesn’t help, repair your game as well.
The following method has the disadvantage that all clothing/objects/.. of the affected pack will be lost on that particular save game.
The method does not work for base game worlds (Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, Newcrest).
Instructions
Create a backup of your save game in case something goes wrong
Load the save game and load all your homes/families that use something of the affected pack to your library or make a list what you need to add back later. Premade families and houses are removed from the pack when you disable/uninstall and placed back in their original form afterwards. If you changed something about them, you’ll need to save those as well.
Disable or uninstall the pack to which the faulty world belongs.
Load the save game through Load Game. You will receive an error message that packs are missing for that save. Ignore the message.
The world will be grayed out.
Save the game with Save As and give it a new name. This will remove all content of the pack from your save game. It should be fine to save from the the world but if that doesn’t work, load a family in the base game worlds and save there.
Close the game
Activate/Install the pack again (remove the line in EA app)
Load the save game that you have saved without the pack before.
You should now have only one world and the NPCs duplicates are also gone. Any changes made to the world are lost though.
You can now either replace all your houses/Sims from the library (Attention: This will strip all Sims from relationships they had with Sims outside of their household) or add the objects/clothing back manually. You will need also need to re-establish any occult statuses
Once you’re happy with the result, you can delete all backups you made.
This method is for advanced users and I recommend many backups. This allows you to go back if something doesn’t go as planned. Use this method at your own risk.
Please use this thread if you need any help or something is unclear: [WORKAROUND] Maps from DLC appearing twice on Overview page.
You will need Sims 4 Studio (S4 Studio). Please install it, if it’s not on your computer yet.
There are 4 cases. For three of them you only need to do part of the method.
- You have two worlds. Neither world have lots.
- You have two worlds. One world has lots, the other doesn’t
- You have two worlds. Both worlds don’t have lots
- You have one world. The world doesn’t have lots (see this for more details: Lots in some worlds are missing)
Steps
Create a backup of your save game in case something goes wrong
First you need to do some preparations in the game to make editing with S4 Studio easier.
Start your game and go to map view.
Identify which case applies to you.
Go to step 8 for cases 3&4
Choose which of the two worlds you want to keep. It’s easy to decide in case 2 as worlds without lots are useless.
If both worlds have lots, choose the one that you haven’t played with or simply the last world.
Switch to the world and change the description (if present) to Delete. If the field is missing, proceed to the next step.
Go to step 8 for case 2
Evict all the households you want to keep from the world. This will allow you to place them again later on.
Premade households appear in both worlds and because of this appear twice in the household manager. You should remove the version in the world you want to delete.
Rename the family in the world to be able to easily find and delete them in the household manager.
Rename all the lots in the world to Delete.
Change to the household manager and delete all the households that you renamed earlier.
Save your game with save as under a new name. There’s also no harm in making two backups or making a copy of your saves folder.
Save files are just renamed package files so you can open them in S4 Studio.
Start S4 Studio and click on My Projects then navigate to your saves folder.
Sort by modified date and choose the newest file. Make sure to choose Sims 4 Save as file type so that the files become visible.
Choose Save Game Data on the left hand side and search for neighborhoods on the right (there are two so make sure to pick the first one).
Click on Edit Items.
A window with all neighborhoods will appear. Search for the world you want to delete.
The order gives a clue which one it is but since you changed the description you can be sure it’s the correct one (it will be empty if you weren’t able to enter one)
Click on the world you want to delete and choose Remove. Then click on Save to save your changes.
Delete both worlds for case 3 and the only world for case 4.
Click on save again to overwrite your save game (or choose File – Save as to save it under a new name)
At this point you are finished for cases 2-4. Start your game. New worlds will be created if you removed all of them. If it didn’t work, try again with your backup but make sure to create a new backup.
For case 1 you will also need to delete all the data from the lots.
On the right hand side, scroll all the way to the bottom until you find zones. Click on Edit items again.
Filter the list by Delete to see all the lots you need to remove. These lots are orphans now as you removed the world they belonged to.
For each of this lots you also need to delete the corresponding Zone Object Data. To do this choose the first entry and scroll on the right hand side all the way to the bottom until you see zone_id
Copy the ID to your clipboard.
On the main window, copy the ID into the filter field and filter by it.
You will see 1-3 entries that you all need to delete. To do so, select them all and click on Delete or use the Delete button on your keyboard.
In the appearing window you need to select all entries again and click OK to confirm that you want to delete them.
The entries will not disappear from the list right away although they are deleted. You can check on it by clicking on the filter button again.
Repeat this for every entry in step 14
Once you deleted all the corresponding Zone Object Data, you also need to delete the lots (zones) themselves.
Select all the lots and click Remove and then click on Save again to save everything.
Save everything again into the package file.
Test your game if the world is now gone.
If the game now crashes, you forgot to remove something Try again on your backup and make sure that you don’t forget anything.
How to prevent
It’s currently unclear what the cause is but I haven’t seen any reports that the world is duplicating for already installed packs or base game worlds. It seems to happen when you install a new pack that comes with a world.
Follow these steps when installing a new pack to prevent duplicate worlds.
- Make sure the game is closed.
- Backup your data
- Install the pack through EA app/Sony/Xbox
- Wait until the installation has finished.
- Start your save game and check if you have only one new world and if said world has lots.
- If that’s the case, enjoy the game.
- If you end up with duplicate worlds or missing lots, close the game without saving and try again.
- If it still doesn’t work, choose method 1 to get rid of the extra world.
- Repeat each time you open an older save game that you haven’t opened with the new pack yet.
