During Reinstall - Sims 3 Starts Acting Like A Virus???

[fortheloveofcake]

Hi everyone.
I'm hoping someone can help me with this.

I have been experiencing major lag issues lately in the Sims 3. With a several-year-old laptop and every expansion pack and stuff pack, and lots of store content, it's just too much for my laptop, even with all graphics settings turned as low as they go.

So, today I decided to do a complete reinstall, and instead of putting all the expansions back, I chose my top three, and that will be it until I can afford to replace my laptop.

I did not save a copy of my saved games, as they will probably not run well anyways due to missing objects and such. I also did not keep my Downloads folder, as I do not plan to use store content until the new laptop. I just wanted to start fresh with a hopefully faster, smoother running game.

I do not use any Mods or Custom content (except from Sims 3 Store).
I play on a MacBook Pro.

Here is how things went:

1. Uninstallation of all expansions and the base game using the Sims 3 Uninstaller, starting with the newest game and working backwards, one game at a time. All goes well.

2. Restarted Laptop.

3. Installed the Sims 3 base game. Restarted laptop. Opened the launcher, clicked yes to install automatic patch. This is where things started to seem a little odd...

4. Patch installs fine. Game version says 1.0.341.00001 (possibly an extra zero or two, I did not write it down). Restarted laptop.

5. Started up the launcher. Automatic update box pops up again, and because I always just click yes to that box, I clicked yes again. Patch installs. Game version still says 1.0.341.00001. Exited game.

6. Out of curiosity, I opened up the launcher again. Game version is unchanged. Update box pops up again, I clicked yes, it installs, and the game version is still the same!

7. Restarted laptop. Gave up on the repetitive update and installed Ambitions. Installation goes fine. Restarted laptop.

8. Double Clicked Ambitions in applications folder, as I had not yet put a link in my dock. The launcher did not open. Update box pops up, I clicked yes, it installs. As soon as it finished, another pop-up but this time asking specifically to update Ambitions, not to update the Sims 3. Figuring this was a different patch, I clicked yes. It installed.

9. And now the fun really begins.... Patch finishes installing. The blue screen with the big green plumbbob Sims 3 logo pops up, as it does when you click to play the game and it starts loading after the launcher. The launcher had never actually opened however, and so I could not have clicked play.

10. The plumbbob screen went away after a few seconds, and Ambitions tried to open again, on top of the Ambitions that was already running. Down in the dock, there would be one ambitions logo, and then after a couple seconds another one would show up, replacing the first. Then another. And another. And another....

11. I tried every imaginable way to quit the game. Simply choosing quit from the toolbar at the top of the screen did not work. Right-clicking the icon in the dock and selecting quit did not work. Force Quit did not work. Trying to restart my laptop did not work, because it would say "restart cancelled by an application". After a few minutes, I finally just held the power button down to shut my laptop off.

12. Turned laptop back on. Tried to open the launcher. No launcher opened, but the blue screen with the plumbbob logo came up again, followed by the repetitive opening of the Ambitions application. I again had no choice but to manually shut down my laptop.

At this point I'm afraid to do anything, I don't want to try installing another game, uninstalling the ones already in, for fear of making it worse.

I've had many many many problems with the sims, but never something like this. "Virus-like" is the only term I can use to describe the way my laptop was functioning. I don't know enough about computers to know where the problem began. It could be the game, my laptop, one of the patches, or some other unknown random cause.

If anyone has experienced this, has suggestions, etc any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks!
FTLOC

[Lysita]

I suggest a mod move this to the technical help area, as this is what this entails.

As for the problem itself, I've not had it happen or heard of it before. Then again, I'm quite new to playing the sims, so haven't had much time to encounter a lot of difficulties, but I do have a decent laptop. I would recommend checking DEPs, doing a disc cleanup, doing a disc defrag, anything that might speed up or clean up the laptop. Check for viruses in general, and for the game. With a shortcut icon on the desktop you should have an option to run a scan on it, when you right click on it.

I hope something in that helps, but I'm no expert.

[Pam]

Roger that.  Moving to Technical Help board now.

[DeNile]

I'd suggest a virus scan to see if it has been infected, and, if all else fails, uninstall Ambitions. If it is a virus, it could hurt the rest of your computer as well as your Sims game.

[DeLouche]

Seconding others' advice (clean up the laptop etc, although with a Mac it's probably not really vital). The only thing I'd add is that you need to wait until you've installed all the expansions you're going to play, before you patch the game up to the most recent version, as doing it in between can mess things up - this may be what's happened here. Each expansion includes all patches up until that point. You will probably need to uninstall again and start from scratch.

Editing to add - if you're reinstalling from a disc, it's vanishingly unlikely that a virus is to blame. It's still pretty unlikely even from digital download, but just in case, uninstall the lot, clean up and run a check, and then reinstall base game and expansions, before finally patching up.

[fortheloveofcake]

Seconding others' advice (clean up the laptop etc, although with a Mac it's probably not really vital). The only thing I'd add is that you need to wait until you've installed all the expansions you're going to play, before you patch the game up to the most recent version, as doing it in between can mess things up - this may be what's happened here. Each expansion includes all patches up until that point. You will probably need to uninstall again and start from scratch.

Hmm.. ok thats different than how I've always installed before. I always patch after every expansion pack. But I will definitely try it this way.