multi tab issue

I activated Frio family in Sunset Valley as a new game, and asked those 2 Jared and Conor use 'tapcast' but even they couldn't make it. Only thing I haven't tried is re installing entire the sims 3 with full expansion packs and stuff packs.

@puzzlezaddictFinally!!! I solved it! I started what you suggested first! It worked! So..I started bringing over the previously made DCCache and DCBackup has only hair and clothing store sets excluded premium contents. After that, I redownloaded the multi tab from sims3.com, and it worked. I tested this with Christopher Steel in Sunset Valley with NO CCs and mods. I added all premium contents and worlds I own, and it still worked too.
Finally I started adding mods and everything worked perfectly. I started adding CCs in Mods folder, then multi tab stopped working. I didn't know CC would be affect to the premium contents. A couple of months ago, I found SimsVille custom world includes a bunch of cc files in it. It was made for the sims3 simmers who is missing the sims 1. One of the CC items was causing this issue. The file name is 'cloned_basketball_hoop.package'. For the last test, I removed all mods and ccs from Mods folder, and put this item only into Mods folder. Christopher couldn't listen to tabcast. Finally, I opened my own sims 3 folder which has my real sim family save file. I only removed this cc from Mods folder, my sim family is able to use multi tab properly. Thanks!! But I still have no clue why the frio brothers couldn't make it work without Mods folder.
So I guess it could be from the 2 reasons. One is from the broken ccmerged file as I tested it just before removing old DCCAche and DCBackup folder. The other one is from this CC content I guess. Anyway Thanks a lot. 🙂 You gave me a key for solution.

@aodoherty  I think your "two reasons" theory is probably right.  We know ccmerged can easily get corrupted, but rebuilding it would of course not address a mods issue.  That's why I love the clean folder test—it sweeps away (almost) everything else that could possibly interfere in one step.  There are just too many problems with this game to ever be ever rely on a single solution.

Anyway, thanks for the update, and for letting me know which file was causing the issues.  I'll keep that in mind for anyone else with a similar issue.

@puzzlezaddictI agree that the ccmerged file gets corrupted very easy, and the solution requires a lot of work to re download everything newly. So sometimes, I just install only a few items from the store because I don't want to do a lot of work to solve the premium issue every time I get. But they are still lovely though. :D

Now I just keep safe the premade DCCache and DCBackup folder without store worlds and premium contents on google drive. Every time I have this issue, I can only add the premium items and store worlds on this folders  so that I can do the less work.  Hope it will help other simmers to solve the same issue. 🙂 Thanks.

@aodoherty  That's one way to approach it.  Another would be to save a copy of your Sims 3 user folder with your store content installed and working, then restore that copy instead of reinstalling all the content.  You could also try downloading Nonamena's copy of ccmerged.package when you need it.  I can't link it here, but I searched for the page just now, and google knew exactly what I meant.

@puzzlezaddictRecently, I moved to PC from my old Imac, which my spouse used to own. I was so happy because it had Geforce GTX 1080 Ti and other specs were great. But I had a problem with all entire store items. I just copied the sims 3 folder from Windows 10 on Imac to Windows 10 on PC. All store item stopped working. Even decoration items got disappeared all. I had to download everything from thesims3.com newly and then I got my store items back.

Yesterday, I moved my sims3 folder to a laptop from PC. The laptop is also Windows, not a macbook. I thought I have Even though it was from Windows 10 on Bootcamp? It was really wierd experience to me. 🙂 I just wanted to let you know what I've experienced with store items between Mac and Windows machine.

@aodoherty  That's not surprising.  Store content often needs to be reinstalled when switching computers, even from one Windows PC to another.  It's not always clear why either.  I don't think this is necessarily related to transferring the files from a Bootcamped Mac, although that could be one of several triggers.