So you'll never believe what happened.
Despite brooding in TS4 over all the computer hundles I've been tripping over I was still stubborn about retrying the base game. Really living up to the definition of insanity over here because I had ideas I wanted to try and I can't get over them. I thought I trashed TS3 files completely and realized I still had the base game installed from whatever last attempt I'm sure that failed in blackscreen. I hit Play anyways, I'm wondering if I've been too impatient - just because it should take less than 20seconds doesn't mean it has to. Before with a ton of cc and depending how long my laptop had been on that day I remember waiting a lengthy 5-10 minutes sometimes before I heard the intro and put my phone down thinking 'finally'. I'm thinking I should just wait it out for a full hour to see if it's truly stuck.
Point being: this time after a few seconds it loads immediately. What had failed before, was now working. I hadn't done anything to the game since then and at best my only explanation is maybe restarting my laptop helped? but I did that before so it doesn't make sense unless maybe a full shutdown unplugged from power may have? I don't know.
>I reinstall everything to Ambitions and holy sim goodness, I swear this pack is the spoiled rotten, entitled child of TS3 because despite making alias and copying folders it's still giving me errors. I usually copy the entire folders but sometimes it or I, would paste a shortcut (with a little shortcut arrow icon to let me know it's one) and I know some solutions have said it's important to copy Amb//Ln/etc. ENTIRE folder but I not the other way around to copy the (non problematic) EPs entire folder. But I'm determined to figure it out since I only have a total of three EPs/pack to test with and its obvious they're all there.
>In Ambitions, I delete the shortcut EP/pack folders and replace them with the actually entire copy of the EP/paack folder and let it run.
>I get "Error: Game process cannot start"
but the game proceeds to start anyways - doesn't even get hung up on the intro and loads fine. I swear it like Ambitions rebels against itself "give them errors, wait start the game anyways that'll confuse them." Maybe me ignoring the game for several days finally made it needy and start to come around. (seriously I have no clue what or why it's changed) Last time I didn't make it past LN so it's not over for me till I get past that and even then I will dread each EP wondering why I chose to get them again.
>LN: Copy&paste the same (entire) folders from Ambitions to LN in case it too is a spoiled EK, copy the entire LN folder to the sims3 base games folders and finally make shortcut in the applications folder.
Open Launcher. LN isn't showing the launcher's bottom icon list. frick. Despite copying the files from Ambition fine, the TS3 base is a shortcut so delete and copy&paste that entire folder and hit Play again. That fixed it (I wished i could be surprised at this point im just going through the motions and waiting for disappointment).
Hit Play. A few seconds and it loads perfectly.
>Gen: Copy&paste the same (entire) folders from LN to Gen and that's it for that ep.
>Supernat: Trust no TS3 shortcut/alias, delete it and copy and paste the same (entire) folders from Gen to SN.
Open Launcher. For some reason LN is not showing up in the launcher. Well the previous fix has already been applied soooo ...what now? Go into TS3 base folders and just gonna delete the SN shortcut and replace it with the 'entire' folder on chance maybe this will fix some 'broken connection; or maybe 'update it'? Idk what technological nonsense is going on here. Close, reopen. Nope. Delete TS3 folder and replace it just to make sure - no change. Then I notice for some reason in finder, I have 'Sims3EP03' and 'Sims3EP04' as 'ejectable'. So I 'eject' Sims3EP03 which would be LN to see if maybe that kept it running in the background and unable to update files or something. No change. Well when in doubt, Shut down and restart.
Since LN is the problem I double it, and normally any EP that isn't the most recent will close itself and open the most recent EP - LN instead gives me the 'unknown error'. So I go into it's folder, Gen has made itself a shortcut, but we know not to trust that so to trash with that and copy and paste Gen and SN entire folders just so we can get pass that.
Doubleclick again and this time launcher open with LN - it doesn't close and open with SN and both Gen and SN are showing.
Still I close and open with Supernatural and it's launcher still shows LN missing. Ugh why. Hit Play anyways - intro loads and Bridgeport is there, so time to see if this is just a visual bug (I still have two more EPs to get to so this may not matter and I might be able to load with LN ep too). Bridgeport loads all seems well.
(I realized I skipped Pets &Seasons whoops)
>UL: Delete TS3 shortcut, copy and paste the same (entire) folders from SN to UL.
Open Launcher. Looks normal, Hit Play. Blackscreen for several minutes hmm. Got Ts3 folders, delete UL shortcut and replace it with entire folder. Blackscreen. Notice LN icon isn't there now - I'm sure it was. Course this is LN so copy UL folder and put into LN's folder - this shouldn't affect it and opening through UL doesn't look like it. Open with LN - despite having all it's icons it blackscreens too.
I want to try uninstall UL but last time I tried that it messed everything else up anyways so I thought everything would finally work but, to be continued yet again...
EDIT: Yeah manually uninstalling the one EP via BlueBellFlora's guide again hasn't worked out for me. Why does 1 EP always force me to remove everything? : (
EDIT Apr 17: Editing again because I don't want to spam this thread more than I have unless it's something substantial. After uninstalling everything twice and the base game failing to load, I ignore it for a few days. I accidently even left my laptop on since last night and now all day but saw the TS3 and clicked before thinking about restarting clean and - doesn't matter TS3 base suddenly starting working. I have no explanation for this malarkey. How 4 days of ignoring the game does anything is out of my understanding. I might just install all EPs and if the folders are all correct then mabe waiting a few days will somehow magically fix it. Idk. Maybe it's playing Sims 4 after wards and on Steam games cause that's the only thing I've done both times I ignored TS3 and the 'blackscreen' was magically fixed. I wish I was more computer savvy to offer and explanation.
