@mayi0715 That video is, well, not accurate. It's not necessarily harmful on its own, it's just far more work than you need to do. The folders the video shows how to copy only need to be in your newest pack by release date, so Island Paradise in your case. The other copies of those folders you created are extraneous. I only have copies in my newest pack by release date, and I can still open the launcher fine by double-clicking on the icon for the newest pack, or the base game icon, or most of the other icons. (There's an issue with a couple that I haven't bothered to fix, but it's not important.)
The other consideration is that you're copying around so much data, the game can take up several times the storage it requires. About 7 minutes in, the narrator says "Now I can't tell you where those files are supposed to go, whether it's supposed to go into the [location 1] or [location 2]. I don't know. I'm just covering my bases by putting them all into the same place." The files need to go in one place, just one, not all of them. That one place is the one described in corey_0414's original video. The entire game should take about 30 GB, and of course a lot less if you don't have all the expansions.
None of this should have anything to do with the launcher not installing content though. The fact that it worked when you only had the base game installed, but not the packs, suggests that your browser might be calling the wrong pack when it tries to open the launcher (even if the launcher is already open). I said this a couple comments ago:
It's also better to use Firefox than Safari or Chrome, which seem to not work as well with the store, at least at times. And make sure when Firefox asks you which app to use to "open" the download, you're selecting the Sims 3 app, the one with the green plumbob next to it.
Did this ever make a difference? When I click Download on an item, I do briefly see the base game icon in the Dock, but then it disappears again, while the pack icon stays. And to clarify, when I click Download, Firefox shows me this:
and I choose the base game icon that's highlighted. If you don't see that pop-up, then perhaps you at some point clicked the box to "remember my choice" after selecting the icon for one of the packs. You can reset that option—how to do it will depend on the browser—or you could try a different browser where you haven't made the selection.
I did notice that the launcher only worked until after I pasted the folders into Island Paradise. If gotta do that again I will just skip pasting the files anywhere else...
Yeah no, I've tried that with Firefox, both before and after unistalling and reinstalling. Here's what it shows:
If I don't have the launcher open, all it does is open the launcher. If I already have the launcher open, it opens up an extra Sims 3 icon besides it, but that's it.
@mayi0715 In that screen, click Choose, open Applications > The Sims 3, and choose the base game icon. This should actually be a separate entry than the one you're seeing.
@mayi0715 Try in a new admin user account on your Mac. You won't need to install the game again, just open the launcher from Applications, sign into the store site, and try to download something.
By the way, you won't have access to your previous user data in the new account, but that's fixable in a few different ways.
