Game Help:TS3 Patching:Before You Begin

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.

• Remove any custom hacks - If you have any custom camera, lighting hacks, world fixes that you downloaded and placed in the Program Files path(s), 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\<as applicable>" folder. This should replace your 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. A full backup is the only way to roll back to previous versions as the older patches for OS X aren't available anymore. Which means you need to backup Documents, the Sims 3 Application folders, and the patch archive (.tgz) files.

Related Pages

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