Strange Error Occurring

suepea wrote:
(...) Does this effect installing Store Content as well? Or uploading Exchange items? (...)

For installing Store Content or uploading Exchange items you'll need the Launcher.
That's why I mentioned how to reinstate the Launcher (temporarily) later on. Switching back and forth is a bit of a hassle but apart from preventing this crash-at-handovertime, it saves you the extra wait for the Launcher to start and quit each time you decide to play the Sims.

suepea wrote:
(...) And, have we established that this is a 1.63 patch issue or a Mavericks issue? (...)

I had this problem long before patch 1.63 or Mavericks were released.
In fact, to me 1.63 made the game playable again and installing Mavericks made things (a bit) better still. Since this double update I can now play the game starting by the Launcher, but I still prefer to bypass it if just for the launch-time mentioned earlier...


Edit to add:
For those who want to make the switch repeatedly, here's a simple way to minimise the hassle:
- next time you want to switch, find the file info.plist as described in my first post in this thread
- at the point where you select TextEdit to open the file, look at the bottom of the window: there's an option 'Always Open With'. Select it and it will get its box checked. From now on, double clicking the file opens it in TextEdit without further ado
- to make things easier yet: make an alias from/for the file and drag that to a convenient place -- mine went into the folder Documents/Electronic Arts/ as that would be open anyway anytime I play The Sims.

From hereon after, all you have to do is: simply double click the alias, make the change, save and quit TextEdit.