Sims 4 Missing Content (DLC)
This guide covers various reasons your owned packs (DLC) might not load in-game. It applies to Windows and macOS.
This article is about missing DLC: expansion/game/stuff packs and kits. If your saves or other user files are missing, please see the relevant article for your platform: Windows, macOS.
Step One: Check the EA App for your missing DLC
Open the App and click Sims 4 > Manage > Manage add-ons. Is your missing DLC listed there? It would look like this:
jump to: My packs are not listed at all
jump to: My packs are listed but grayed out
jump to: My packs have a Steam logo
jump to: My packs show as owned and installed
If your content is missing from the EA App
If none of your content is available, you're probably signed into the wrong EA account.
If some of your content is available, but some is not, there may have been an issue with one or more purchases, or you've spread the content over multiple accounts.
If you are missing Get to Work specifically, you may have been accessing it through an EA Play subscription (directly or through XBox Game Pass) that has now run out. This can be a problem even if you also own a standalone copy of GtW.
In all these cases, you'll need to contact EA customer support for any further help.
- First, go to ea.com, sign in, open Account Settings > Payment and Wallet > Order History, and look for entries for your missing DLC.
- If you see any orders for your DLC, take screenshots, including the order numbers, so you can provide them to support.
- If you don't see any such entries, you're probably signed into the wrong account. Check any email address you have access to for receipts or other proof of purchase. This would also likely be the email address tied to the EA account that owns your missing content.
When you're ready, contact EA customer support here:
If your content is listed but grayed out
If you're playing on a Mac, any content you own through Steam or Epic won't be available in macOS. This is by design, as these storefronts only offer the Windows version of Sims 4. Still, you can share your thoughts in this master thread.
The same is true for any content you access through an EA Play subscription, which is also only available in Windows even when the content has a Mac version as well.
If your content has a Steam logo
You will need to install the game and play through Steam (Windows only). Any Steam-owned content can only be accessed through Steam. This is by design. To use your content:
- Uninstall Sims 4 through the EA App. This should NOT delete your saves or other user content. However, it's always best to make a backup before uninstalling. User data is stored in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4, and saves and saved households and builds are stored in the saves and Tray subfolders, respectively.
- Clear the EA App's cache.
- Install the game through Steam as well as any DLC you own there.
- Open the EA App, click Sims 4 > Manage > Manage add-ons, and download your owned packs, but not a second copy of the base game.
If you are unable to install your EA App-owned DLC without downloading the base game again, there may be an issue with the link between your Steam and EA accounts, or with your EA account's copy of the base game. It would be best to contact EA customer support for further help.
If this doesn't help, or you believe you've only installed the game through Steam, please see the next section.
If your content shows as owned and installed
Sometimes this issue can be resolved by restarting your computer, clearing the EA App's cache, and repairing the game (EA App > Sims 4 > Manage > Repair OR Steam > Sims 4 > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of the game files).
Otherwise, when the EA App thinks your packs are installed, but they don't load in-game, this usually means you have a second copy of Sims 4 installed. The App recognizes your DLC as installed into one copy of the game but is loading from the other, which does not include that DLC. In order for your packs to show up in-game, their data must be in the same location as the copy of the base game that is being loaded.
Uninstalling Sims 4 the standard way, i.e. through the EA App or Steam, or through the Windows Control Panel, may only remove one copy, so further measures may be required.
Windows
jump to: macOS
If you own some content through Steam, please start with this section above.
Otherwise, run a search for one of your missing packs. The first step is to identify the affected packs and find their codes, as listed here:
Open a File Explorer window, click This PC in the left panel, and enter the folder name for a missing pack in the search field in the upper-right corner of the window, for example EP19 is for Enchanted by Nature. Wait for the search to finish, which may take a few minutes. You'll see something like this:
In the above example, there are three folders labeled EP19: one inside The Sims 4 (the pack itself), one inside Delta (the patch-related data for the pack), and one inside __Installer\DLC (a log of the pack being installed). You can ignore the WORLD files below that start with EP19, as these are not relevant for this issue.
In the above screenshot, all the EP19 folders are inside the same overall location: C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 4, where I've installed the game. If, however, you see pack folders in a different Sims 4 folder than the one where you installed the game, or they're in multiple locations, this is probably why the pack isn't loading. For example, here you can see that the only EP19 folder directly inside a Sims 4 folder is inside an Origin Games folder I wouldn't be using anymore:
The EA App has installed EbN into a different copy of Sims 4 (in Origin Games) than the one it's loading (in EA Games), which is why the expansion doesn't appear in-game.
You can first try moving the pack folder that's directly inside the wrong Sims 4 folder into the correct one. If you don't know the correct folder for an EA App install, look under Sims 4 > Manage > View properties. For a Steam install, right-click the Sims 4 tile and select Properties > Installed Files > Browse to open the correct folder.
Close the EA App and kill the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager's background processes list. Right-click the pack folder in the wrong location and select Cut, then right-click empty space inside the folder where it needs to be and select Paste. You'll need to do the same for the folder inside __Installer\DLC as well. When you're done, load the game and see whether the content appears.
If this doesn't help, close the EA App and kill the EABackgroundService again. Delete the entire incorrect Sims 4 folder—make sure it's the wrong one—and empty the recycle bin. Clear the EA App's cache (again), open the App, and reinstall the missing pack.
If moving folders around or removing one install doesn't help, you may need to do a clean uninstall and reinstall of Sims 4, as described in this guide:
macOS
The first step is to identify the missing packs and find their codes, as listed here:
For example, Get to Work is EP01; For Rent is EP15.
If you've installed Sims 4 onto an external drive, make sure it's plugged in and recognized. Open Terminal, which is inside Applications > Utilities, copy and paste the following search command, and enter:
find / -name "EP01" 2>/dev/null
Except instead of EP01 , you'll use the code for one of your missing packs. Don't change anything else about the command. Terminal may take a few minutes to complete the process, so please be patient; you'll know the search is finished when the command prompt reappears. If Sims 4 is installed anywhere on your computer, you will see at least one result.
You can ignore the entries that start with System/Volumes, as these are redundant. For the rest, you may see something like this:
/Users/username/Applications/The Sims 4 Packs/__Installer/DLC/EP01
/Users/username/Applications/The Sims 4 Packs/EP01
/Users/username/Applications/The Sims 4.app/Contents/Delta/EP01
The first part of the file path must be the same for all three entries, as above. If The Sims 4.app is in a different location, like this:
/Users/username/Applications/The Sims 4 Packs/__Installer/DLC/EP01
/Users/username/Applications/The Sims 4 Packs/EP01
/Applications/EA Games/The Sims 4.app/Contents/Delta/EP01
That's the problem. You'll need to move the "The Sims 4 Packs" folder to the same location as the Sims 4.app. In the above example, that would mean moving the Packs folder out of Users > your username > Applications and into Applications > EA Games.
If this doesn't work, delete the Packs folder, run the EA App Recovery tool (under the Help menu at the top of the screen, with the EA App in focus), and restart your computer, then redownload the missing packs.
If this doesn't help either, please reply to this master thread, and post the results of the Terminal search for at least two of your missing packs. Feel free to remove or black out your username where you see it, if you want, but leave everything else intact.
You can copy and paste the results from the Terminal window, or you can use cmd-shift-4 to take a screenshot of the relevant portion of the screen.
