I will keep it brief, because this has happened too many times.
EA refuses to fix their app to keep The Sims 3 store content missing from my device.
Tired of constantly having to remove the Sigscache, which doesn't always work.
The Sims 3 is played more than sims 4, you'd think they'd try to keep it up too, by making it more compatible with their App.
@sim3fan13132 I don't know what to tell you here. Your issue is not unique but also not universal or even widespread, or I'd see more than the occasional post about it. I don't know whether it's your antivirus or OneDrive or a temporary blip with EA servers or something else entirely, and sporadic issues like this can be extremely difficult to diagnose.
I would suggest that for each incident, keep track of everything that happened on your computer between the last time the Store content worked and the point where you notice it's no longer loading. For example, maybe something updated (EA App, antivirus, whatever), or you messed with a particular setting. You can also see your update history in the Reliability Monitor. Hit Windows key-R, enter perfmon /rel in the run box, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates for each day. Using that, you can see what was installed or updated in the relevant interval.
If and when you notice a recurring event or RM entry, you can investigate that as a possible trigger.
I have this isse, too. Every time I restart my PC, my store content doesn't show as installed while the download is still there. If I delete the folders and install everything again, it works until the next reboot of my computer. I've also tried deleting my entire Sims 3 folder and letting the game create a new one, but that also only worked until I restarted the computer. My EA App is version 13.152.0.5665
So there is currently no other known workaround other than reinstalling everything all the time, right? Or did I miss something while checking the forums?
@Zebrakopf444 This is no longer a common issue, meaning the problem is likely on your side. In case it's really that simple, are you trying to install the content all at once? This can corrupt the .ebc files in DCCache that contain the bundled items. The game has difficulty reading these files when they're over a certain size, and if it's installing a lot of content at once, the launcher may not create a new file when the current one is close to the limit. So make sure you're only installing a few items at a time.
Otherwise, if you use OneDrive, that's the place to start: pause syncing and see whether it helps. You can see the option by right-clicking the cloud icon in the lower-right corner of the screen.
If that doesn't make a difference, try installing the content into a new admin Windows account, just as a test. Make it local, as in, don't link it to your Microsoft account. You'll be able to launch Sims 3 without reinstalling anything, but your existing content won't be available. That's fine for the purposes of this test and can be addressed later if necessary.
If this doesn't help either, please let me know what antivirus you use.
While testing, you can install just a few items if you prefer. The content should work equally well (or not at all) whether you've installed a handful of items or everything you own. And if the problem is in fact how many items you're installing at once, working with only a few at a time should clear it up immediately.
@puzzlezaddictThanks for the help. Today I still had everything I had installed, though I don't think I did anything different than the times before.
I did download and install multiple items at once, though, so I'll try doing it one by one if I have the issue again.
I'm also not synced with onedrive and have no dedicated antivirus except standard windows defender. So I don't think those were the issue. But hopefully everything sticks now. Thanks again!
I just wanted to share some things I noticed about this phenomenon. So it seems the launcher has now problems with the store content about 25% of the time. But interestingly enough the problem seems to be a failure to properly load the installed content, not that the downloads themselves are corrupted: Yesterday I noticed things didn't appear as installed again, but I didn't want to deal with that then and turned my PC off without doing anything. When I started up my game again today, everything is back and my Monte Vista save file loaded just fine. So it seems the problem fixes itself by rebooting the PC. I'll check if maybe just restarting the EA app will do the trick, too, if it happens again.
@Zebrakopf444 That's interesting, and thanks so much for the information. Have you noticed any pattern to when the content disappears? For example, it might only happen when you launch Sims 3 multiple times without restarting your computer (or closing the EA App) in between; or when you put your computer to sleep and wake it up again, then try to play; or when something updates and you haven't restarted yet.
For the last one, you can see all Windows updates and select driver updates in the Reliability Monitor. Hit Windows key-R, enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart listing errors and updates for each day. Anything that installed between when the Store content worked and when it didn't would be of interest, at least if it happened multiple times.
@puzzlezaddict The pattern I noticed is that it seems to change on a day to day basis. If it works today, it will keep working even after several restarts. Looking at the updates, Windows Defender is the only one that got updated everytime I noticed a change. So maybe those updates have an influence on it.
Also, I only have problems Monday to Friday, the weekend seems fine so far. There are less updates on the weekend, so that seems to be another correlation between them and the unrecognized content.
