Forum Discussion

sparky1922's avatar
7 years ago

Problem with simpaks

I am currently playing 3 on disc on windows 7 where the hard drive is not online and I have a part of a store pack that is corrupted and needs removing from the game and reinstalling however I cannot find this set anywhere in the installed content in my launcher so cannot remove it? When I add the simpak to my downloads folder it shows up as already being installed in the game so no luck there either.. I cannot redownload this item from my purchase history at the store to try get a library number either as I cannot download anything from the store at the moment as it's playing up for me.. so i am wondering if anyone has any other ideas I may not of thought off that i could try?

The next issue with simpaks is that I cannot move my backup simpaks from my external hard drive onto my main win 7 hardrive I keep getting a message that the file is too long which i have never experienced before with simpaks so I tried to shorten the name of them as I have done with package files before and that is not working either so again am wondering if anyone has experienced this before that may have some answers?
  • Do you have 3rd party CC installed in your game? If so go into your cache folder and move any .dbc files to another spot(desktop, etc) Once those are out of your folder, start your launcher and scroll through your items.You might have too many items installed so its not showing up, so removing the CC cache file to the desktop, should make it so that only store items show up.If not, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas.Maybe @igazor or @SimplyJen might have some other ideas.

  • Ah okay.You could still try it with your store items to.take a couple of the ebc files out at a time until you are able to find said item.
    Have you also cleared IE's cache? I know you said you don't use it, but the launcher uses IE and even though I don't use it, that's the first thing I do if my launcher gives me trouble.
  • Library files correspond to lots and households in your in-game bin, both the ones you've downloaded and those you've created yourself. So each family you've made in CAH gets its own entry in your Library folder, as does each house or community lot you've saved to the bin. The only bin items that don't have corresponding library entries are those families and lots that come installed with the game. You can rename your library files if you want, replacing everything except the .package extension at the end.

    The designations .ebc and .dbc refer to the extension on the end of the name of a file, not the beginning. So in DCCache, you'll have dcdb0.ebc, dcdb1.ebc, etc., as well as .dbc files if you install cc. These files bundle store or custom content together, so the idea is that if you remove all but one of these bundles from your game folder, you can examine just the contents of that single .ebc or .dbc file in the launcher. Then you can uninstall a single item more easily, or delete just one bundle and reinstall its contents if it turns out that bundle is corrupt.

    Crinrict has a description of how to get rid of bad cc on her site; the procedure also applies to uninstalling and reinstalling store content when it's not working in-game. Scroll down to "Method by Mell":

    https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/tutorial-how-to-get-rid-of-unwanted-custom-content.html

    Yes, if you want to remove a household or lot from the game, you have to uninstall it from its corresponding .dbc file, remove the library entry, and delete the DCBackup file as well. But everything in DCBackup except for ccmerged.package can be deleted, unless you upload lots to the exchange and want your cc to stick to those sims3packs.

    As for IE, why not try to clear its cache anyway? If it's already empty, there will be no harm done. Be sure to uncheck the box to preserve data for favorites. And it's a good idea to clear your other browser caches as well.
  • Thank you @puzzlezaddict

    info much appreciated I was getting confused as to why so many files concerning the same lot/object was spread around several folders in differing ways called different names lol .. I will take a look at crinrict's link and yes you are right it would not take me much to clear my cache on IE so i will do that as well :)
  • @puzzlezaddict
    I couldn't remember exactly which is cc and which is store, I wanna say .ebc was store items but I could be wrong, but when I removed them from the file, whatever I removed, it made it so the launcher only had custom content showing and I was able to uninstall all the items I didn't want.Put them back in and my store items were back(read about that on a post by blunote00 a while back)

    I always check IE when my launcher acts up, cause I know a while back Igazo mentioned the launcher uses IE regardless if we use it or not.
  • Hi @Springfairy556

    I seem to be having so many issues lately with things I never suffered from before specifically with windows 7 and my disc game thank you for those ideas I will try them out.. at the moment I only have a few Nrass mods and a couple bits of CC for a wall pattern I can remove those but I don't have enough to be considered excessive by any means..
  • Hi @Springfairy556

    I am not well up on ebc files but after a further search I have found the following info and wondered if it is correct?

    info states When you install a lot or house as a sims3pack via the Launcher the lot itself will go into the 'Library' folder in your 'The Sims 3' folder in 'Documents'.

    The Launcher will also create a reference in one of your .dbc (or .ebc files if it's a Store venue) in 'DCCache' and a backup of the lot in 'DCBackup'

    so my first question is after looking in my library folder all my files start with ebf so and they are of course not all lots so i find that a little confusing-)

    next I looked in my DCCache folder and only have .dcdb files and dcdb tmp files (which I am going to assume I can delete?) no ebc files found despite knowing all my store content is installed so for a third time i am finding this confusing lol

    although I do understand I think what you are saying which is remove some .ebc files and then possibly the item I am trying to find in the installed content via the launcher might show up have I got that right? when I remove an ebc or .dbc file am I removing those items from my game completely or does the library file remain intact regarding the ebc or .dbc files I remove from other folders?

    I would have thought if there was a library folder file and another file in DCCache plus a third reference to the same lot/file in the DCBachup folder does this mean for every lot or object there are 3 file references of the same thing across 3 different folders? and so if something needed to be completely removed from the game all 3 files deleted?

    i understand what you are saying about IE's cache however I use a third party program to block windows 10 and IE from being able to open unless I want it to so I don't think there would be any cache files created?