May have to completely reinstall EVERYTHING after late install of OLS- SOS!

[ZacSz]

Okay, so here's what happened:

First, I have a late 2009 Macbook Pro that I've kind of souped up since then. I think in terms of these tech issues all you really need to know is the fact it's a Mac and it's running on 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard, not Lion).

I just got ShowTime the other day. I had all the EPs and SPs other than Fast Lane (no interest) and Outdoor Living (just kind of slipped my mind). I installed Showtime on Friday and it was fine. I also patched everything up beforehand, so I'm definitely current.

I had to get a new external disc drive today, and while I was in Best Buy I saw Outdoor Living Stuff for a good price. I decided to get it.

Well, I should have known better than to try and install something so comparatively old after I had everything else installed. Now I can't even get to the game window. It just says "An Unknown Error Occurred." Even more frustrating, it claims that Outdoor Living is installed, but I can't actually FIND it anywhere on my computer to try and uninstall it. It's a ghost.

So, I think I have a few options... but I'm not sure. I'm relatively tech savvy, but not great.

Option 1: I use Time Machine (which is Mac's back-up system) so, MAYBE I could go back in there and try to find my TS3 folder and replace it from the last back up. Unfortunately, it's from a while ago (around 6 months), so I'd still have a lot of installing to do.

Option 2: Uninstall everything and start from scratch. I'm backing up my entire HD as we speak so my save files should be... somewhere. Where are saved game files on Macs? I know I should know this, but I'm too flustered right now. I think the one plus side to this is I might be able to install Outdoor Living in the process, in the correct order. Could anyone confirm? At this point I don't really care, I just want to be able to play the game.

Option 3: Maybe someone knows where I can find the missing outdoor Living right now so I can try and uninstall it as if all of this never happened?

Option 4: ?

I don't want to start doing anything too hastily, but man am I PO-ed. Although I should have known better, really.

Also, the EA store and I just don't get along. By that I mean.... no matter what I do, I can't seem to find an exhaustive list of my purchases. I'm making this number up, but let's say I've bought 50 things from there (I think it's more)... I can only ever seem to view 10 or 15. Where can you view all of your purchases for downloading again? Fortunately, I seem to be able to view all my previous purchases now, but it doesn't solve the rest of my problems. Sigh.

Any thoughts? I'm really upset right now 

[Ricalynn]

First off - the fastest way to figure out if Outdoor Living is installed is to look at your launcher and if it's highlighted at the bottom than it's installed.  It will also show up under Applications > The Sims 3 > The Sims 3 Outdoor Living Stuff is what it should say.

Don't do option 1.   

I would do Option 2 just to do it because you have everything and it would give you a fresh install of the game and you might run faster.   If you want to save your files, they are available under Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Saves.

I love OLS so I would still recommend Option 2 but if you want the file tree I gave in the beginning will get you to the uninstaller to uninstall it.  Only uninstall OLS. 

As for you stuff from the store to download.  You go to thesims3.com website.  Choose the store.  Make sure you are signed in.  Then choose My Account then Purchase History.  This will show you everything that you've bought.  It's usually 15 to a page but it has page numbers to flip through and the ability to make it to like 60 a page if you really wanted up at the top. 

I hope this helps.  I have both a PC and a Mac now so if you have anymore concerns just post here or you can feel free to PM me.

[ZacSz]

Thanks for the advice. The problem right now is the launcher won't open. I click on the Showtime icon in the dock, it bounces a bit, and that's when the "Unknown Error" pops up. Also, after this first happened, I tried installing it again in case something whacky occurred but when I popped in the disc it said "Do you want to overwrite previous install of OLS?"

My time machine just finished backing up about 30 seconds ago. If I reinstall everything, could I go into Time Machine and just drag the save files I want into the new TS3 folder? Well, I mean, the new Saves folder.

What about things like saved houses, etc. (I'm a bit of a builder, so there's stuff I really don't want to lose...) And will dragging and dropping work for things like installed worlds? Mostly Hidden Springs, as I have the information for Barnacle Bay I think...

Thanks again.

[Ricalynn]

As for the dragging and dropping, I have a folder on my desktop where I move all that information to.  I also have a folder on the external I use with Time Machine (I don't have the real time machine).  Installed worlds like hidden springs and barnacle bay can be gotten back from downloading them on the forums.   It's anything that didn't come with a EP/SP or from the store that you should really be worried about.

You will lose houses you've built unless you've got them saved in one of your save files.  If you have uploaded them to the exchange then all you have to do is redownload them from there.   If you save a lot of recolorings, I would suggest putting your "userpresets.package" file in the file you put your saves.  This means you don't have to drag everything from time machine and it's already somewhere.


I would also say if you don't want to do the full reinstall (I would because of the OLS thing) you can also try a factory reset which is stickied in the technical help section.  Just to see if you can get the game to work that way.  If it works, then start dragging over from the older folder without having to worry about time machine. 

[ZacSz]

I'm going to do the full re-install.

Where did Hidden Springs come from originally? I just can't remember. I don't remember making a separate purchase, but I have it, it's in my installed worlds, although I rarely use it so it's the least of my worries. I don't use CC so... that's not a worry as well. I don't have a real time machine either, just an external I use and use the time machine function.

THANK YOU so much for reminding me about the recolorings. That would have been devastating. So, would you suggest just making a generic "TS3" folder on my desktop with folders inside of it reminding me where everything needs to go once it's up and running? Where is the userpresets.package file? I just can't find it. Sorry for all the questions, like I said, I'm just not the best with this stuff.

[Ricalynn]

Hidden Springs is from the Sims 3 Store on the official website.  You may have also got it from the store as it was released to stores in the last 6 months or so.

The userpresets.package file is Documents > Electronic Arts> The Sims 3.  It's there probably towards the bottom.   Don't forget you can also do a search of your whole computer if you can't find something using the eyeglass icon in the top right of your menu bar.  Mine is next to the symbol to switch users. 

I have a generic folder on my desktop and then another one on my external hard drive.  The hard drive holds a copy of my SavedSims folder, a copy of my saves folder and a few downloads that I can't get anywhere else anymore.  On my desktop, in the generic sims 3 folder is a folder that has all of my downloads from the store because I have so many.  I never delete from the launcher.  I just go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Downloads and move all those files to a new file so I never have to individually download them ever again.  It's so tedious.

[Pam]

Forgive me for butting in, but you should be able to simply copy the folder named The Sims 3 under the Electronic Arts folder for a backup.  Everything in your game is found in that one spot and if you copy the folder before doing the re-install, everything will be saved.  All you have to do then is copy it back over to the fresh installation of the game and tell the computer to over-write the existing file.  Also, look at our Technical Help board for more information about this and also about how to manually un-install the game.

Does this sound right to you, Rica?

[ZacSz]

Pam, that's what I'm going to try to do I think... just copy the whole folder back in, but on the other hand, not doing that may help the game run a little more smoothly. There are all sorts of things in there that look like they may not belong. (But who knows, maybe they do???) Well... not that they "don't belong..." it just looks so junky! But I did copy the whole folder before uninstalling and put it both on my desktop and my external hard-drive, so I have the option to either put in bits and pieces of the old folder or swap the whole old thing back in to the fresh install to pick up where I left off. I'm probably going to do that. Rica, if I do decide to do that can I create a dummy folder on my desktop, remove everything from the new TS3 folder after the install, and drag everything from the old on into the new one created from the installation? Should that work?

Also, I didn't manually uninstall, I used TS3's uninstaller, which I've done before and has worked fine. OLS did show up on the uninstaller, but I agree with you Rica that I'd rather have it than not... and there was no guarantee that just uninstalling that would make everything work anyway.

I suppose every once in a while during the install I should at least check to make sure the game launcher opens, yeah? I don't really know if it's necessary to open the game, but maybe someone has an opinion on that either way. I'm on disc 2 of 11 of something. Ugh.

[Ricalynn]

Not butting in at all.  I suggested only taking certain files and not the whole folder just because there is an error involved.  However, you would perfectly be able to do just as Pam suggested and just copy the whole folder if you wanted.   I would delete everything but the ccmerged.package from your DCBackup folder before doing this though. 


The Manually Uninstall thread gives stuff for Macs but it tells you to delete the very file we just mentioned copying.  Sometimes it's easier to just use the uninstaller [Applications > The Sims 3 > The Sims 3 Uninstaller] with the files you want to keep being kept somewhere other than the Sims 3 folder under Documents.   As previously stated you could just copy that whole folder as suggested by Pam to your external and then replace the new one.   Hopefully, this won't cause the error to come back.

We posted at the same time Zac! LOL  Yes you can make a copy of the new folder and place it somewhere.  I would just name the entire "The Sims 3" folder something like "The Sims 3 Fresh Install" and you could even leave it under Documents > Electronic Arts without it causing any problems.   If you need to revert back to the 'clean and new' folder, just change the name back to The Sims 3 and the game will automatically use it as the default folder.

[Pam]

Good luck with all of it, Zac.  I hope it all works out well for you.  Keep us posted.

[ZacSz]

Got it! I will keep you posted. Also, my trash folder is glitchy so with regards to deleting everything but the ccmerged.package from the backups, can I just put them somewhere else, or are they truly useless and can be trashed without second thought? If I put them into the trash, they'll be deleted forever... no "keeping until further notice." Well, I get a notice if I want to delete them, but then that's that. Also, here's a quote from my post above that I modified but not sure if you saw:

I suppose every once in a while during the install I should at least check to make sure the game launcher opens, yeah? I don't really know if it's necessary to open the game, but maybe someone has an opinion on that either way. I'm on disc 2 of 11 of something. Ugh.

Currently, the icon in my doc is for Showtime, but will it automatically read whatever is the most current EP/SP?

Thanks again for the help, I'll keep you posted. Things are going smoothly so far.... 2/11ths of the way through LOL.

[Pam]

It's best to install the disks in the order they were released.  Then when you're ready to play, you'll need to have the most recent release in your computer.  In this case, that would be Showtime.  It probably wouldn't hurt to try opening the game part way through the installation, but I don't bother with it.  I like to have it all completely installed and updated before I try to launch it.  There's also a way to bypass the launcher, if you want to to that.

The items in the backup folder (other can ccmerged.package) can be deleted without worry.  Those items are copies of what you've got installed in the game, like items from the Sims 3 Store.  They aren't needed.

[ZacSz]

I had a few things to do this evening so am just now finishing up in the reinstall. Before I even open the game to try though, I have a question. Well actually, before I drag the old "the sims 3 folder" back into my applications. Should there be anything beneath the WorldCaches folder in the main TS3 folder? I have a few .mdmp and .txt files that look a little fishy. I know any .txts should be relatively harmless but I have no idea what a .mdmp is, and the info in the .txt makes no sense. Just a bunch of command lines I think.

That said, there's only three .mdmp files and 3 .txt files so and they were all created on or before 12/11/11 so I've been running the game with them in The Sims 3 folder without issue since then. Are they to be gotten rid of, are they NECESARRY, unnecessary but harmless, etc? I wish I could give you more info but our power has been out for hours (so I can't even test the reinstall because I can't patch up without a web connection), so I'm posting from my phone.

Thanks again for all the help.

Edit: [Power's back] Ok. I truly don't know what happened, but I'm back to square one. I hadn't even opened the game yet, but when I did, it showed only master suite and showtime as being installed. After installing everything other than those two my Mac did that awful thing where the clock reverts back to december 31, 2000, so I think that has something to do with it... But... Still. This time I'm gonna try to open the launcher every three discs or so. Shoot. Four hours for nothin. I don't understand why the base game itself registered but whatever. Shoot.

Edit to the Edit: So, I'm not sure if anyone will see this before I just make a decision, and we've already discussed what my options are, but what are your opinions on whether I should just drag and drop my entire old TS3 folder into my applications after the fresh install and see if that works versus picking and choosing? I suppose all I really need are my saved games, userpresets.packge, installed worlds for Hidden Springs and Barnacle Bay and Twinbrook (and Union Cove Now!) and the store downloads. So I could either just insert those four things, or use the whole folder after safely putting the "fresh" folder somewhere else. To be clear, I was having no particular glitches in the game other than some minor and inconsistant things before the mishap after installing OLS... and that wasn't in game, it just wouldn't let the game run. I guess I see no harm in trying to use the entire old folder so long as I have the fresh one somewhere, and I'd much rather pick-up where I was if I can. Agreed? Or feel strongly another way?

I'm sorry I'm feeling frenetic, but now this has taken forever and it's really getting ridiculous so I don't want to accidentally cause another bomb to go off. Good news is, I'm now on Ambitions in reinstall attempt #2, and I opened the launcher and they're all reading this time.

[ZacSz]

OKAY! It seems as though everything is working mostly smoothly, all of my games are there, all of the things from the EPs and SPs and store are there so... phew, second time's the charm.

There's just one small issue. As of right now, I can't download content from the store, or at least it won't download into the launcher. I had a few leftover points so I thought, what the hey, I'll get a few things to celebrate having a working game again. I purchased whatever item of clothing it was, and tried to install. Immediately a dialogue box popped up to update HELS (I thought, great, here we go again....) but it updated fine and the launcher still opened. The same dialogue popped up again for Late Night, and OLS. They both updated as well and I got no other notices, but when I try to download anything from the store into the launcher  (I only made the two recent purchases as of now), it won't go into the launcher itself... I just get the Mac Spinning Wheel of Death, Despair and Failure and eventually have to force quit. Before now, things purchased online worked fine other than one isolated brouhaha with EA store content back when it was only the base game and no EPs had come out ye, or maybe just WA, so it hasn't been a while.  Any thoughts?

At least the game's working... and glad OLS is working, too. I agree. I really like the stuff.

[Ricalynn]

What browser do you use?