Revision as of 13:48, 27 November 2010

Before You Begin

It is highly recommended that you read over, or at least skim, over these steps before you continue on to anything else. These simple things have been known to fix many of issue reports from game players having trouble getting patches to work. These steps include...

For more comprehensive instructions, also read Game Help:TS3 Back Ups, in summary:

• Backup your user files - This is especially important for saved files and store content that you do not want to redownload.
  • Go to you user profile path in "Documents\Electronic Arts\", right-click "The Sims 3" folder and select "Copy".
  • Go to your desktop and Right Click and choose "Paste" - This will copy your folder to the Desktop.
  • If your harddisk do not have sufficient space, paste it into a secondary drive, if you have one. If you don't, the important folders to backup are:
    • DCCache - the custom content you had installed via Launcher. These are the items that appear in the Installed Content tab in Launcher.
    • Downloads - the Sims3Pack files you downloaded from the store, these files would need to be reinstalled via Launcher
    • Exports - the Lots you have "shared"
    • Library - the Households and (Residential/Community) Lots Bin in the Edit Town screen
    • SavedSims - your custom Sims that you have downloaded and saved to Bin in CAS.
    • Saves - your saved towns and games
    • Recorded Videos & Screenshots - if you have any of these for storytelling
    • userPresets.package file - the custom patterns you had created in Create-A-Style and "saved"
  • More information in understanding the user folder also available in Game Help:TS3 User Folders Explained.

• Removing your "Mods" folder - Some people experienced issues when they still had their "Mods" folder in the game data
  • To remove your folder go to "Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\" - Take note that this folder is in the "Program Files" folder, NOT "My Documents" like TS2
  • Right click on the folder labeled "Mods" and select "Cut"
  • Go to your Desktop and right-click and choose "Paste" - This will move your folder to your desktop. Doing so may take a few seconds.

• Remove any custom camera hacks - If you have any custom camera hacks downloaded, you need to restore the originals (you did back them up, right?)
  • If you did back them up like you were supposed to, put the original files back into your "Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\NonPackaged\Ini" folder. This should replace your camera hacks.

• Backup the \Game\Bin\ contents - Just in case the new patch's binary files are messing up CC installation process or just simply do not work after patching. If you had a backup of these, you can test with the older version. Depending on which game you had last installed and launched from, the path to this folder in each game is:
  • "Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin
  • "Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 <EP or SP name>\Game\Bin"

• OSX Users - You should back up their entire game (not only the user files – everything) before upgrading to 1.3 or 1.4. Version 1.3 introduces changes to the graphics that apparently don't work for everyone, and a full backup is the only way to roll back to 1.2.7 seeing as the 1.2.7 patches for OS X aren't available anymore.

Related Pages

• Game Help:TS3 Back Ups
• Game Help:TS3 User Folders Explained