Me again...
Did a bit of Googling on this and was getting conflicting answers, so... trying y'all out.

I was playing today, and noticed that it seems all of my store content is not in my game. (I was looking for the changing table and couldn't find it).

I recently got a new PC, and copied the entire Sims 3 folder over.
Everything else seems to be working fine and as it did on my old computer. Except for these missing items. (And a brief glitch with the age spans that has now been fixed).

So, do I need to go back and re-download and reinstall all of the items from the Sims 3 store?
Or something else I need to do make them appear? I assume all the items should be in the folder from when I copied everything over...
I did have a quick look through the launcher, and it seemed like the lots from the store were in there (as well as some CC), but not other items (like the changing table)?

Also, I had been playing on the disk versions on my old PC; now I am using the Steam version on my new PC.

Side note -- however way I get the items back in-game, will any of the missing/replaced items revert back or will I need to manually change them/add back/re-buy them? (I'm thinking of another save game where I know I have the changing table in the home -- just haven't played that one yet, as I'm using another save as sort of a 'guinea pig' to make sure everything is working right before I get into my big massive main save).


Thanks in advance for any advice.

The contents of the The Sims 3 folder should have been enough to bring over the installs, unless something happened in the initial startup process that accidentally wiped your launcher data (assuming these were installed through the launcher).

You can check your DCCache folder to see if there are many, if any, files in there and if their file sizes seem appropriate for containing everything you've ever installed. If there aren't any large files in there, that would be an indication that they are no longer installed.
But them not appearing in the launcher itself suggests that these items are indeed missing.

As long as the data is in the same form it was originally installed, saves and lots that used them will be safe to load. By that I mean, if you had run the content through decrapify previously it will likely need that same procedure. If it was totally unmodified, then reinstalling it unmodified is also the best for maintaining instances of it in a save. There are some variables on the changes it tolerates and doesn't, but that's the general gist. You can always exit without saving if something isn't as expected.

OriginalMara wrote: ↑

November 18th, 2023, 10:13 pm

I had been playing on the disk versions on my old PC; now I am using the Steam version on my new PC.

When you install the game through Steam, the key in your Windows registry for your base game (which links to your store content) will be different from the registry key from your disk installation. In order for your store content to work you must do 2 things. First, register your Steam base game with EA / Origin under the account that you used to purchase your store content. Second, you will have to redownload your store content. Sorry that this will be time consuming, but it's the way the encryption was designed to work.

TS3 Store Content, especially the premium items but not limited to those, have never worked for many of us when switching from Origin/Disc to Steam or back again without the items having be re-downloaded and re-installed. And by not working, I mean they just don't appear as SillySimmerGirl correctly explains. I've had the same issues migrating back and forth through the Mac and PC versions for testing purposes over the years as well and find it's best to dump all of the ebc files from the DC Cache folder and just start fresh with new downloads when switching platforms. The dbc files (corresponding to Launcher installed CC) are not encrypted since they are not associated with the Store and never seem to be affected.

The usual disclaimers: individual players' experience may vary, do not attempt to fix this while drowsy or under the influence of certain substances, objects in-game may be closer than they appear, etc.

igazor wrote: ↑

November 18th, 2023, 11:56 pm

The dbc files (corresponding to Launcher installed CC) are not encrypted since they are not associated with the Store and never seem to be affected.

That's right. There won't be a problem with normal CC, only the store items due to the antipiracy encryption. The key encrypted into the downloaded store items must match the Base Game key (stored in the Windows registry upon game installation) of the computer on which the store items are downloaded.

Example: If I went to a friend's house and logged into my EA account on their computer and downloaded my store content to their computer, the content would not install into their Sims game. Even though they own the game, their key won't match. This is done on purpose to prevent piracy.

Igazor, I realize you already know all of this, but others may have been curious about how it works.

OriginalMara wrote: ↑

November 18th, 2023, 10:13 pm

it seemed like the lots from the store were in there

The lots themselves will be there as they are just a package file with "placeholders" or rather instructions about which items go where, but the items themselves will be missing and replaced with items from the base game.

SillySimmerGirl wrote: ↑

November 19th, 2023, 1:02 pm

Igazor, I realize you already know all of this, but others may have been curious about how it works.

I certainly was! I always assumed the DRM only checked at the launcher itself during install, I guess that's what I get for being certain despite never moving files between setups myself.
Thank you for elaborating

Thanks all.
It does make sense that it would only be associated with my old PC/game, and I'd need to redo it all... annoying at it is, lol.

However, I've run into another issue... trying to register my base game on the Sims 3 page (https://www.thesims3.com/registeragame.html ; I never used Origin and don't want to start now) with the key from Steam, and it's telling me it's invalid. I tried multiple times, in case I typo'd, but no go.
Do I need to remove/replace the old key somehow? What I mean is, maybe I cannot have two base games registered? Or maybe there is something else going on. A quick Google has revealed this to be a common issue with folks registering their new games, so perhaps my issue is related.

Also should I eventually register all my EPs and SPs as well with their Steam key counterparts? (If I can get it to work?)


(As a side note I did check the DCCache file and it has 22 ebc files along with their corresponding tmp files, most at 200k+ KB each, so I would assume that is all the store content I had before. Purchase history on my account is taking forever to load so unable to check there right now lol)


Hmm, I just took another look through the launcher, and under the Downloads, it is mostly CC, but there are a few items I'm sure are store content, but are not marked as installed. Monte Vista is in there (which is already in my Installed Worlds folder), as well as a couple hair styles and what I believe are registration gift packs (i.e. Atomic Age Pets).

For the base game key, you could contact EA customer support and ask why it's not working. Take a screenshot of your Steam library, with the CD keys showing, as proof of purchase. But don't let the support rep tell you that you need to link your Steam and EA accounts or anything like that. If you have trouble finding the live chat option (and definitely use that rather than email), try this link:

https://help.ea.com/en/help-contact-us/ ... ssing-game

Make sure you're signed into an EA site before clicking the link and that the location in the lower-right corner of the browser window is set to U.S. or U.K.

It may be that this key can't be registered no matter what you do, and that would be unfortunate. In that case, I'd suggest downloading and trying to install something from the Store into a clean Sims 3 user folder to see whether it works. The clean folder will eliminate any other potential sources of error, and you can trash it and restore your current user folder when you're done. If the Store content doesn't download or install properly, try registering a CD key for one of the packs and see whether that goes through, and whether it allows the Store content to work.

The Sims3Packs in Downloads won't work, at least the ones for Store content. (The ones for custom content are reusable.) In your position, I'd actually just start over with a clean user folder, transferring the files I wanted to keep as I was ready to use them. But if you don't want to do that, I'd at least empty out the Downloads folder, setting aside any cc you might want to reinstall later and trashing the Store downloads; and also deleting all the .ebc files in DCCache and everything in DCBackup. Since these files are all useless now, there's no point in keeping them around, and in fact they might interfere with your ability to install or use your Store content going forward.

Bit of an update...

I decided to try a couple things first. Since I saw there were a few store items randomly in the downloads folder / in Downloads in the Launcher, I hit install to see what happened. And got an error, unsurprisingly. But at least I ruled it out.

So as suggested, I removed all the store items from Downloads, and emptied out the .ebc from DCCache. (DCBackup was already empty except for the merged file).

The as a further experiment, I went to the Sims 3 store and grabbed an item and hit download. So far so good. Hit install... and it installed, no problem. Tried a few more sets, and they worked too.

Loaded up my game and lo and behold, those items were now showing in Buy mode.

So weird. Maybe I had registered my new Steam Sims 3 keys back when I purchased them years ago and forgot? Who knows. But this seems to have corrected the issue. No annoying chats with EA needed ha.

Now just to re-download everything... phew. Hoping I don't miss anything. My Purchase History isn't loading, so I'm just going category by category through the Store content tab on the site.

And hopefully any of the 'missing' items will return to where they were haha. We'll see.



Thanks again for all the advice and help...