Ambitions will not launch
I've owned and played the Sims 3 Starter Pack (physical copy) for a few years now. I recently bought a physical copy of Sims 3 Ambitions and installed it to my Mac. Ambitions said it needed an updat...
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Ok. Try flushing the DNS - http://help.ea.com/en/article/connection-troubleshooting-advanced-mac/
Ok so I did that and was able to successfully download Ambitions on Origin, then it told me to install and gave me an installation code. But then the installation window came up and it had the code from my physical copy already typed into it, so I hit install. It's now in the process of installing. Did I just mess that up again?
No, that sounds promising!
Which step did you do that helped with the download - safe mode downloading?
It was the DNS flush that initially worked. I tried to hit "play" on Ambitions after it finished installing, and the window came up again that said there was an update available for Ambitions. I hit "Yes" to download the update, and once that was done it said "An unknown error occurred" again.
Now every time I hit "Play" it just says "An unknown error occurred"
Oh no.....
You don't have one of the newer Macs with Intel Iris or Intel HD 6xxx graphics do you?
No, I bought this Mac in 2013.
I just closed Origin and opened it again to see if that helped, and it said an unknown error occurred again when I tried to hit play. I noticed, though, that instead of just opening the Sims 3 to play the game, it opens Sims 3 Late Night. Is that something that could be causing a problem?
Hmm, so it's still trying to launch LN? It can't see Ambitions. Is Ambitions showing at the bottom of the Launcher window? This is weird...
Which exact Mac do you have?
Can you move your Sims 3 folder out onto the desktop so we can try a clean, new game? Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3
The launcher still doesn't work and won't open. I've changed it so it's S3Lancher instead of TS3 and it still won't open.
I bought this MacBook Pro in spring of 2013, OS X 10.8.5 with 4GB memory.
And in response to your last post, would starting a new game clear all my current games I have saved to my game? Because I just recently built a house I'm really proud of and would hate to give that up (lol)
It will start a brand new game but all your data is still safe in the folder you move onto your desktop. We need to rule out an issue with your user data.
Ok, moved The Sims 3 folder to desktop.
Now try and launch your game again......
It says "an unknown error occurred" again
Right, I think you have to do the last resort, completely uninstalling and reinstalling everything. Follow my link to make sure you get rid of everything and do it in this order:
- Uninstall everything, empty trash and restart your Mac.
- Install the base game and patch manually using the link in my signature below.
- Launch your game without bypassing the Launcher to confirm it will launch properly.
- Install your EPs/SPs in the order they were released, up to but not including Ambitions. Patch the EPs if prompted and ignore any warning messages about the base game being a newer version than the EP. Run your game after installing each EP/SP to confirm it still runs.
It would probably be a good idea to register all your product codes on Origin so you can install the base and all EPs and SPs digitally.
Edit - It's late for me now but let me know how you get on and I'll catch up tomorrow 🙂
I can't register my games to Origin because the codes have already been used. And won't uninstalling everything delete all my stuff?
All your saves, downloads etc. are in the Sims 3 folder in Documents > Electronic Arts. So long as you move that out onto your desktop before or put it somewhere else before uninstalling you'll be fine, you can put it back after you've done a clean install and your game is launching properly. But you've already moved it out right?
Yeah, it's already moved to my desktop.
Great. I'd copy it over to a USB or external drive too, just to make triply sure you don't lose it. Now you can go ahead and completely uninstall and reinstall 🙂
I thought I had an external hard drive to save my stuff on, but I can't find it anywhere. And I'm extremely hesitant to uninstall everything, just because I originally installed it years ago and I'm really worried about it not being able to reinstall properly, and then never being able to play the game again. So I'm at the point where I've just given up completely lol.
Thank you so much for all your help though, and it's so nice that you're so easy to reach! You've really made this whole situation a lot less stressful, even as it is. :-)
Oh no. A new install should be fine but I understand your hesitancy, Sims 3 doesn't always behave in OS X. You have all the links you need though in case you decide to do it in the future 🙂
I now have tried to manually uninstall Ambitions and I cannot play Sims at all anymore. Is there anything I can do? The error that comes up says "unable to start game - service initialization failed (ox0175dcbb)"
Uninstall and reinstall everything, like I suggested in my previous post 🙂
So today I finally sucked it up and uninstalled everything. I then reinstalled The Sims 3 base game, and it seemed to have installed successfully, though I didn't check to see if the game played before trying to install Late Night. I tried to open Late Night and it said No Disc Found. So I uninstalled Late Night again, and tried to open Sims 3 and it said No Disc Found. So I looked online and actually found your solutions post, but I saw on another forum that there were problems saving the game when playing it through Origin and I wanted to know if you knew of this and of any solutions to that, or if that's not a problem and I should go ahead and do that.
Just go ahead and install it through Origin. Not all problems affect all people 🙂
Alright, so I successfully registered the base game and all the EPs/SP I have, and the base game works perfectly. But every EP and SP downloads and installs, then says "Unknown Error Occurred" when I try to play it. I've tried updating them all, and I still get the same error message.
Can you give me your exact Mac model? I think your game may be struggling with memory issues because you have 4Gb RAM. Instructions on how to do so here - http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-Mac/READ-FIRST-Sims-4-Mac-Help-Guides-and-Troubleshooting/m-p/4612396/highlight/true#M162
Being the 2013 model you may be experiencing the incompatibility issue too but if you can confirm which Mac you have that would help.
