@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.
@puzzlezaddict I see. I won’t combine them then. I’ll leave everything where it is. I’m in the game now and it’s running fine aside from a few minor short freezes (rainbow wheel) when I go from build mode to live mode. Nothing I’m not used to after all these years haha.
I’m hoping the issue is then coming from the pets expansion pack since it seemed to be what caused my game to quit and it has caused other people issues as well. Do you know if there’s a thread on the specific pets issue/a fix for it/if anyone has been able to successfully play with a pet ?
I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it but, when I first downloaded the new 64 bit version, I was in a main thread where people couldn’t play it (before the CD key) and I moved my EA folder to my desktop. Perhaps that confused my computer later on and that’s why I now have two EA folders ?
Could it be that EA has double installed the game ? In which case, wouldn’t that cause a problem while playing?
If the second set of files doesn’t have any effect on my game, I will just wait for EA to fix the pets expansion pack (again, assuming that’s the issue). Fingers crossed it all gets fixed.
Thank you so much for your help and guidance so far
@XprincessdidiY It depends on what you moved to your desktop: the Sims 3 game files or the folder in Documents > Electronic Arts. Origin is only going to read one set of game files, so deleting the duplicate shouldn't in theory be an issue, but in practice you might have to reinstall your game.
There are a lot of reports of people not being able to move in a household that contains a pet. I tried it, and it worked fine for me, but I have stronger hardware, so it's not really a useful comparison. I'll keep an eye out for any possible fixes or workarounds.
One thing you could try is having your sim(s) adopt a pet once you're playing them. It would be interesting to see whether it worked, and if so, whether you could still load that save after you quit and reloaded the game. If you do this, use "save as" to rename the save first, so you create a new save file. That way, the old save will be intact as a backup if something happens with the new one.
