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birdy_sh0t's avatar
birdy_sh0t
11 months ago

Cannot download extension packs on external hard drive

Hello 🙂

I was browsing through the forum but couldn't find anyone facing the same problem, so  I have to ask.. 

I downloaded Sims4 on an external hard drive. The base game was downloading and is ready to use. However, when trying to download my expansion packs I get an error, telling me that  "The base game is missing" and that I have to install the base game before downloading. This makes no sense obviously, since I can use my base game normally. I already tried to delete everything, install it again, clearing the cache and all that stuff. Unfortunately it is still not working. 

Any ideas how I could fix this? 

Thanks!

mac
technical issues

3 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    11 months ago

    @birdy_sh0t  What format does your external drive have, and what is the path to the base game's folder?  For example, the path could be D:\The Sims 4 or D:\Games\The Sims 4.

  • birdy_sh0t's avatar
    birdy_sh0t
    11 months ago

    Hi, 

    Thanks for your quick reply!

    The format of the hard drive is MS-DOS FAT32. 

    And the path for the base game would be:    /Volumes/SAMSUNG/Sims4NEW  

    I am on mac by the way .. 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    11 months ago

    @birdy_sh0t  Please format the drive as APFS instead, which you can do through Disk Utility.  If the operation fails, erase the entire drive and choose GUID Partition Map as the Scheme and APFS as the Format.  Then install Sims 4 and your packs.

    Formatting the drive will erase its entire contents, so if it contains anything you want to preserve, move it to your internal drive first.  An alternative would be to partition the drive (also available in Disk Utility) and format only the new partition as APFS, but make sure you're leaving enough room for the entire game plus extra for the EA App to update.  100 GB should be plenty for the game itself; you'll want more if you're also planning to move your saves and other user data to the external drive.

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