Re: The Sims 3 on mac taking up around 120gb on hard disk

@kelboe123  In the transgaming\...\Electronic Arts folder, there should be a Sims 3 folder with an arrow in the lower left corner of the icon, as in, the system is telling you it's a shortcut.  But there shouldn't be a full folder.  Here's what mine looks like:

The size of the Sims 3 folder is 4 KB, because it's just a shortcut.  The World Adventures folder is 3.69 GB.  Let me know what size yours are.

You can fix the unknown error issues related to the four packs I listed.  But for the moment, let's deal with one issue at a time.  Fixing the unknown error involves copying around exactly the folders we're talking about, so it would be easier to leave those packs out of the picture for now.

@kelboe123  Which packs do you have installed?

@kelboe123  Create an alias for Ambitions in Applications\The Sims 3, alongside the aliases for the base game and WA.  Here's how:

https://bluebellflora.com/sims-3-packs-not-showing-as-installed/

If it doesn't work, stop here and let me know.

Otherwise, are you planning to install all your expansions?  If so, it's probably easier to install Into the Future (your newest pack by the date EA released it) next, and then copy a folder from Ambitions into the folder for ITF.  This way, you'll only have to do this workaround once rather than every time you install a new pack.  The video in this post describes what to do.  You'll recognize the folders involved.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/CURRENT-ISSUE-Sims-3-Unknown-Error-in-El-Capitan-and-later-OS/m-p/5725514#M4852

If the game still works with ITF installed, you can install Late Night, repeat the two workarounds above, and test.  The other expansions don't need any extra help.

If you don't want to install ITF right now, just install the newest pack by release date among those you'd like to use.  Then copy the folder from Ambitions into that pack's folder instead.

@kelboe123  The folders you're pasting aren't that large in the grand scheme of things: 2.62 GB for Ambitions, I think a little less for Late Night.  All the other packs' folders will create shortcuts to the originals, but that doesn't work for Ambitions or LN.  So they have to be copied and pasted manually, or you'll keep getting an unknown error message.

@kelboe123  Okay, did you also create an alias for each one in Applications\The Sims 3?

@kelboe123  Did you ever launch Sims 3 with just the base game and WA installed?  Let me know if you did, and whether it worked.

If it never worked, or you didn't test, please list the full specs of your Mac, as described here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/READ-FIRST-Sims-3-Mac-Help-Guides-and-Troubleshooting/m-p/4756624#M2878

Please also go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, open the file labeled deviceconfig.log, copy the information between "Graphics device info" (about 25 lines down) and 'Options" (about 40 lines down), and paste it here.  If deviceconfig is blank, just let me know.

I never launched, even though I did launch the launcher. I also can't find the file you mentioned "deviceconfig.log".

Forgot this

@kelboe123  If the launcher opened, that's good enough—the unknown error always happens before that.  Just checking, but you currently have only the base game, WA, Ambitions, Into the Future, and possibly Late Night installed, right?  Usually once you've gotten past the unknown error that happens with only the base game, and you apply the two workarounds for Ambitions and LN, you don't get another one.

Still, your graphics card isn't in the game's database, and it may help to add it.  Instructions for your Intel HD 6000 chip are here, along with the text you'd need to add to the two .sgr files.

https://bluebellflora.com/2018/07/24/sims-3-mac-players-i-need-your-help/#Filesconfirmed

Let me know if you need help with this process.

@kelboe123  The Super Patch will undo any .sgr edits you've made, so if you ran it after doing the edits, you'll need to do them again.

Please right-click on the base game and select Show Package contents, then open

Contents > Resources > AddOns > Into the Future [Show Package Contents] > Contents > Resources > transgaming > c_drive > Program Files > Electronic Arts

and take a screenshot of everything in that folder.

Please also take a screenshot of the contents of Applications\The Sims 3.

@kelboe123  Great, so is the game working now?

That's also useful information to have.  WA works fine for me with an alias, and usually for others, but it might explain why some people get an unknown error instead.

@kelboe123  That's perfect, thanks so much for sharing.

And yeah, the game won't run beautifully on a Mac, any Mac really, due to the way it's programmed.  (We hope that will change with the new 64-bit-compatible version when it arrives, but we have no idea.)  You can help it by doing things like disabling memories, shop mode, and interactive loading screens.  More useful tips are here:

https://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE

@kelboe123  That's normal.  Try opening the launcher first, then downloading the store stuff.  On my Mac, when asked, I choose the Sims 3 base game to "open" the download, but if the launcher is already open, it works fine.  I also use Firefox, which works better with the store than Safari or Chrome.

If I have a similar situation to the OP, is it alright that I ask some of my questions in this thread? Or should I start a new one? My Sims 3 game is taking up 200 GB on my Mac. I was getting a lot of "Unknown Errors" back when I installed it and I followed some advice which I didn't realize would inflate the file size so much.

Basically, in the "~/Applications/The Sims 3.localized/The Sims3.app/Contents/Resources/AddOns" folder, I have a folder for each expansion pack ranging from 1-4GB (which seems correct). But also in this folder are many 15-25 GB files of the expansion packs that show as "Applications" because each of these Application packages has a copy of each other expansion pack folder within it. So, for example, my Sims 3 Ambitions "Application" package can be opened to reveal that at "~/Applications/The Sims 3.localized/The Sims3.app/Contents/Resources/AddOns/The Sims 3 Ambitions.app/Contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/Program Files/Electronic Arts", there is a collection of 13 1-4GB files again for each expansion pack. I remember advice that said to copy each of the files at the "~/The Sims3.app/Contents/Resources/AddOns" directory into each of the extension pack's own nested "transgaming" files. Some of the advice I had read would give VERY specific and often confusing advice about which file to copy to where, so when I read advice that said "just copy each one to each other one" I did that, not understanding I was creating 180 GB of wasted information.

This is not the problem necessarily; I could always just delete and reinstall. However, I've been playing this way for 8 months and would be devastated to lose my saved world I've been building. I can't find out if there's a convenient "place" where my saved world "lives" for me to back that up, then reinstall all the packs I have for the Sims 3 according to the advice in this thread. I'm worried that by removing the wrong duplicate file in the wrong place, I'll ruin my game. 

Is there any hope for my situation? Or am I stuck with the two options of 1) Delete/Reinstall (lose saved game data) or 2) keep on waiting 90 minutes for Sims 3 to boot and have 200 GB taken up by all the duplicate files?

I can't articulate enough how much I appreciate the supportive and tech-smart community on these threads. It gives me so much hope for humanity!

@YTekgurler  Asking in this thread is fine.

There are plenty of approaches to installing Sims 3, all of which involve copying folders around, unless you don't have any of the packs that don't install correctly (Ambitions, Late Night, Fast Lane, and Outdoor Living).  But by the time you're done, all you need is a folder for each earlier pack in the folder for your newest pack by release date.  And for all but those four packs, the folder is actually an alias, taking no space on its own but pointing back to the original folder that you might have been told to copy.

So if you happened to have every pack, the only pack that would need to have other packs' folders is Into the Future.  Inside ITF's folder, as in:

Applications/The Sims 3/Contents/Resources/AddOns/The Sims 3 Into the Future/Contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/Program Files/Electronic Arts

what you would need is a copy of the actual folder (2.something GB each for Ambitions and Late Night, 200 MB or so each for Fast Lane and Outdoor Living), and an alias for each of the others.  The alias for each pack would be created automatically the first time you launch the game with Into the Future installed, so you wouldn't need to copy any files.

The original poster in this thread found that World Adventures was being difficult and needed to copy it outright too, not just let the alias be created.  But that's not typical.  Still, if you did get the unknown error when trying to launch (in this example) Into the Future, you could look inside the Electronic Arts folder in the file path above and copy over any folder that wasn't there already.

For all your earlier packs, as in, not the newest one by hte date EA released it, you wouldn't need to have folders for any other pack inside.  So for example, in the Ambitions version of the file path above, all you'd see is the folder for Ambitions, not the ones for your earlier or later packs.  You could in fact to into the folders for all the other packs and delete everything you find there, aside from the one folder that corresponds to the pack itself, i.e. delete the World Adventures folder inside the Ambitions folder but don't delete the Ambitions folder.

If you don't want to sort through this, then yes, you can uninstall and reinstall, and preserve your save.  Your user content is in the Sims 3 folder in Documents\Electronic Arts, and it contains everything you create or download into the game.  You can move this folder elsewhere while uninstalling and put it back when you've reinstalled and made sure the game is working.

Still, in your position, I'd try deleting the excess folders first.  It seems like a lot less trouble, and if you test each time you clean out a particular folder, you'll know right away if there's a problem.  Then you can open the trash and restore whatever you just deleted.  If the game does work, empty the trash and move onto the next folder.