Sims 3 - Factory Reset: Fix Your Game with 1/4 the Time of a Reinstall

[Esther1981]

Sad and happy to say my new file doesn't have these issues. So my other file must be corrupted or something. 

[jen2912]

I have just done  a factory reset and my multi tab is greyed out.  Can someone help please?

[MoonsAreBlue]

I have just done  a factory reset and my multi tab is greyed out.  Can someone help please?

The store content item? What do you mean by greyed out? Is it greyed out on the launcher or in the game?

[jen2912]

Moons - It is greyed out in game.

[MoonsAreBlue]

Are you sure you reinstalled the multitab right? The only thing I can think of is that you have shop mode enabled and something went wrong when reinstalling the multitab, causing the game to have it greyed out.

Edit: This post may be able to help you.

[brappl]

Rica, I have your instructions for a factory reset and decided I want to do it the correct way this time... by following your instructions exactly.   Have a couple of questions for you:

When I put my downloads back in the folder to install via the Launcher is there a limit of how many I can install in one go.  I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Launcher can not handle massive installs and it is best to do maybe 200m at a time.  Or has that issue been resolved by EA. 

DCCache:  I am not planning on putting the store and 3rd party (.ebc/.dbc) files back in.  They will be recreated, correct?  And, if I adjust the configuration file so the .dcb files will only hold so much wouldn't it be easier to keep track of what is actually in those files by recreating smaller ones?

Guess that was more than a couple of questions..  thanks in advance!

[Ricalynn]

When you install via the launcher that is where the DCCache gets the .ebc/dcb files.   The new launcher with the updated patch will actually handle installing a lot of items now so give it a try.   I think it's one of the reasons we have .tmp files now.    With the way the launcher works, it now creates smaller files when loading everything up at once.

[brappl]

Thanks Rica.  I will give it a try.   I'm up in the air about those .tmp files though.  I hope I am wrong but they seem to be recreating an existing .ebc or .dbc file (depending where you are downloading from) and just adding the new install(s) to that, which in effect, is bloating the files.  This should not impact people with a lot of disc space but for others it could be limiting. 

[Ricalynn]

The reason for the .tmp files is the .tmp files is what keeps the items able to be found in your launcher.   So it is a recreation of the other files - it's only purpose I can find is so that you can find what you're looking for when you need to uninstall it.

[samoht04]

We have a thread for Factory Reset so I'll merge this one with that one.

[riennnnnnn]

this has been basically my day as I try to fix my very unhappy game and it has certainly made life a lot easier than re-installing from scratch so THANK YOU! and for the most part (outside of things I'm still trying to fix) it has made things so much better, and whoever suggesting deleting that cache was a genius, mine was almost 3gb! (not the important one, the unimportant one)

[simlover16]

This method or way looks very familiar to kind of "recreating or cleaning" your cache files. What I mean, is its somewhat similair to what it does.
 I'm gonna investigate my game a little more before trying this. I'm doing this because I attempted to play one of my older game files (hadn't played it since April 2013) last night, and it totally bugged out. So, I think I'll launch it one more time and see what happens then I'll do a factory reset.
 I'll be sure to backup my computer to time machine so if it goes, as my mammaw calls it, "KAPOOIEE!"
Thanks for writing this up!

[simlover16]

I thank you from the bottom-of-my-heart for writing this and giving easy to follow instructions!

  I did this in hopes of fixing my game. It was easy to do and I'm testing it out now! My dynasty and another family are unplayable/ possibly corrupt so this was all was left to do. I'm barely sane and I hope this takes care of it or my dynasty would be an EPIC FAIL. I'm kind of disgusted with my game...

 Fingers crossed its OK!

*I also recommend that if your not completely sure about what your doing, that you make a backup. I'm a Mac user, and I use Time Machine. I nearly had a panic attack when I launched the game and had no saves, I thought I had done something wrong! (LOL, that's why you copy them over!) One "booboo" could cause A LOT of chaos!

[KrisVicious]

ok i got a problem. i moved everything i was suppose to, but my content from sunlight tides isn't showing up

[jonas3333]

Hi.
I'm planning to do a factory reset due to horrible Create a Style lag that I've been experiencing for several years now.  From what I've read, it's generally a bad/corrupt pattern that causes this. 
My concern is with the saved sims that I have. Some of which of I've downloaded. Sometimes, their bin picture shows a different patterned shirt that does not come with the sim.
Also, it's possible that sims I've made in previous installments attempts had patterns that I had before and while they don't show up in the styles selection, I'm wondering if there is some hidden shell of a corrupt pattern in there.
Should this be a cause for concern?
Should I redress/save to bin all my sims in base game clothing to insure that there are no ghost patterns?

The same is a possibility for downloaded lots. Should we just never download others lots from anywhere? 

And is it safe to use the Create-a-Pattern tool? Or download others patterns from anywhere?

Any info about solving this corrupt pattern issue is appreciated. I know it only takes one in that .dbc folder to mess it all up.