Sims 4 installation vanished - why, and how do I reinstall?
A couple days after the recent update, I decided to play The Sims 4. I verified that my installation, through Steam, had updated. I played it for a few hours, and did not experience any of the issues I have read about on the Internet regarding sims being mean. I closed the game normally and left it for a few days.
Then I decided to play again, and Steam prompted me to install the game. I had no idea what it was talking about and, as it was late, decided that while I wanted to play the game, I did not have the mental energy to debug it. Yesterday, I decided to give it a shot. Again, Steam prompted me to install the game. I closed Steam without doing so and looked for the install on my disks. I find that "C:\Users\USER\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4" is in fact there, but I can't find the game executables anywhere - the install simply vanished. It did not delete itself during the update process, I played it after that, but sometime in the last few days.
My first question is, does anybody know why this happened? I'd like it not to happen again, so if there's something I can do to prevent it, I'd like to know about it. I spend as much time or more maintaining this game as I do playing it, and I'm not happy about that. I'd like not to have to go through this again.
I know that I will need to reinstall the game to play it. I have been trying to do that for most of today. I had Steam install it. I opened it, and before I could load my save (which is still there), I saw that it wanted me to install Jungle Adventure. I remembered: I own The Sims 4 and a lot of DLC through Steam, a few DLC packs (including Jungle Adventure) through Epic Games, and one or two through the EA app. Previously they had all been installed together. I looked up Jungle Adventure in Epic, and I found it (and it says I own it) but couldn't find anything to install. I googled what to do and found something that said to remove the Steam install, install it through Epic, open it once though Epic, remove the Epic install, then install it through Steam again, then go to the EA app and have the EA app install any DLC that isn't installed by Steam. I am part of the way through doing that, although I don't know how to make the EA app install the DLC once Steam has done its thing.
Any guidance here would be welcome. I don't know how to make all the various game storefront apps install their content, and I can only cross my fingers and hope this works. Help?
@ImReallyNotTom The default location for a Steam install is this:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 4
You may have changed this, of course, either by designating a custom location for the Steam library or by installing Steam itself elsewhere. The executables would be in ...The Sims 4\Game\Bin regardless of the game's install location. Far and away the most common reason these disappear, or seem to, is an overly aggressive antivirus, and Sims 4 added TS4_DX9_x64.exe a couple of patches ago, which several AVs flagged immediately. This .exe runs the still default DirectX 9 version of Sims 4, with the older TS4_x64.exe (typically allowed by AV software) now running the newly-added DX11 version.
For reinstalling your Epic-based packs, once you've installed the Steam version of Sims 4, open the EA App game library and select Sims 4 > Manage > Manage add-ons. All your EA- or Epic-owned packs should appear there, and you should be able to download them without also installing a second copy of the base game. If this isn't working, look for the .exes again—they might have disappeared, making the EA App think the game isn't installed. You don't need to use Epic for any of this now that you've run the game through Epic once.
No decent Sims helper would tell you to remove mods or custom content for an install issue. If you've seen that kind of advice on other sites, that's unfortunate.
