@XprincessdidiY If you've so much as opened the launcher, your computer has to have a Sims 3 user folder somewhere. There's a faster way to find it than poking around though. Open Applications > Utilities, launch Terminal, and enter this exact command:
find / -type d -name "*The Sims 3*" 2>/dev/null
The command has to be exact, so please copy and paste rather than retyping it. The command will take a while to finish, so please wait until you see the name of your Mac pop up again. Please copy and paste the results into a post here. You can delete your username where you see it—write [username] instead—but please leave the file paths otherwise intact.
Please also attach your deviceconfig.log, in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3. You'll neeed to manually open the folders; the file won't show up in a search. You can delete your user and computer names, about 25 lines down, but there's nothing else in that file that can identify you.
@puzzlezaddict Hi! Thank you so much. I found it. Turns out I have two EA folders? One has "TS3 packs" folder and the other has "TS3" folder and everything in it. I'm assuming it doesn't matter if they're not in the same place since the game loads up etc.
Here's what I got from the terminal as well as my deviceconfig.log. I wasn't sure if you needed just a part of it or the whole thing. Let me know if you need another format. (I'm sorry Im so unfamiliar with all this haha).
@XprincessdidiY The deviceconfig.log is exactly what I wanted, although you could have attached the original log file to a post as well, and the screenshot of the Terminal output works fine.
What's interesting is that you have two distinct sets of Sims 3 game files and user data. One set, the last three entries in your Terminal output, is on your hard drive, with the game installed into a folder on your desktop and your user data in a folder in Documents > Electronic Arts. You can't find this folder by searching for it; you need to manually open the folders to see the Sims 3 folder inside.
The second set of files is on, I guess, an external hard drive, maybe a Time Machine backup? I don't think that should prevent the game from loading into live mode, but try unplugging the external drive to see whether it makes a difference. (Be sure to safely eject it first: right-click on the drive and select Eject, then wait for it to disappear from your desktop or a Finder window.)
@puzzlezaddict Hi! Thank you so much. This is super helpful. You mention having two sets of sims 3 game files: I don't have an external hard drive... I DO however have a virtual machine through parallels desktop (if that changes anything since ik all my data on my Mac is also available on my "windows 10") and I also know my Mac has two memory sloths (each with 8 GB).
In the EA folder on my desktop, I have TS3 packs while in the other EA folder, I have JUST TS3 folder, no TS3 packs (or at least, I can't see it ? even with the hidden files on)... So it looks as though the sims 3 files/folders have been split between two locations. Could I just drag TS3 folder into my desktop EA folder ? So all my sims 3 files are in the same folder ?....
If not, how could I ensure everything downloads in the same place in my Mac?
The game does load up fine and it seems to work alright without a pet in the household (tho I have only attempted this for a few minutes and with a single sim).
@XprincessdidiY There are supposed to be to completely separate sets of Sims 3 data, and they shouldn't be combined. One is the game files, as in, the game itself, which Origin installs onto your computer. In Terminal, these antries are the ones with Sims3Launcher.app in them (base game) and the Sims 3 Packs folders (installed expansions and stuff packs). The other folders, the ones in Documents > Electronic Arts, are your user data: saves, saved households and builds, mods and custom content, etc. There is not supposed to be a Packs folder anywhere in Documents.
In the Electronic Arts folder on your desktop, the reason you only see a Sims 3 Packs folder is because the Sims 3 base game entry is hidden. Hit cmd-shift-. (period) to see it.
Again, please don't combine these two sets of data. At best, it will do nothing; at worst, it will break everything further.
I wouldn't think that Parallels would be the source of your second set of Sims 3 entries. The Windows version of Sims 3 has a completely different file structure, and there's no Sims3Launcher.app or Packs folder. So then the question is what exactly are we looking at. This might be a Catalina thing; I've been working with Mojave and haven't installed the game into Catalina yet, so I can't compare.
However, if the game works in live mode when you don't include a pet in the household, then the issue is almost certainly not the phantom second set of files.
