Sorry I've been absent, RL is very consuming at the moment but I'll try and get on here when I can.
@gaa17 - you're kidding? Really? I'm so close to giving up when EA pull crap like that. Why do we bother????
@QuinceofClubs - have you tried moving out your Sims 3 folder so the game generates a new one:
- The first step to trying to figure out how to get your game working again is to try a new game, without any CC, mods, saves etc. This will help figure out if your install is dodgy or you have corrupted data. Doing this is simple, open your Documents folder then open the Electronic Arts folder. You will see one folder in there called The Sims 3. Drag this to the desktop DO NOT DELETE IT. This folder holds all your game data like downloaded content, saves and everything precious to your game.
- Now, fire up your game (it regenerates the folder you just moved) and see if you can play with a new Sim in a new world. Make sure you open CAS and make sure you try out Build/Buy mode. Try playing for at least an hour or so. If that works then the installed game and EPs/SPs is fairly stable so the issue lies somewhere within the folder you moved out. The difficult part is figuring out where the problem is within the data.
- To put your game back to how it was (not working presumably if you had to just do that step!), navigate through to the Electronic Arts folder again and trash the Sims 3 folder the game just recreated. Put your old folder, the one you moved to the desktop, back in it's place.
Navigate to the Electronic Arts folder again, this time opening The Sims 3 folder. Trash the following files:
CASPartCache.package
compositorCache.package
scriptCache.package
simCompositorCache.package
Now try loading your game again. These files are regenerated.
If that doesn't work then some Cider files may have corrupted. You'll need to uninstall and reinstall - unless you try the manual patching first?
