I'm having the exact same problems as everybody else! The thing is, I'm not sure if Seasons is the reason for me. After I installed it, I was able to play it for a few months until the end of March. Now, my game loads and what-not but once I start playing, it freezes after 5-15 minutes, forcing me to shut off my computer and restart it.
I had the same issue. Seasons worked for me until around mid-March, and it's been unplayable since, even with University Life installed. I can't even get past Create A Sim to start a new game on my 3 day old Late 2012 21.5 inch iMac with everything upgraded. The sims turn black or red or their skin becomes the clothing, and then it crashes to a Debugging error. I uninstalled Seasons and was able to create a family, but once I moved them into a house, it crashed. Very frustrating!!
I have had the same problems, though I am unsure as of when they started occurring because I didn't really pay much mind at first. It very well could have been with seasons though so I will try getting rid of the festival grounds and see if that fixes anything =]
Well I was about to purchase Seasons through Origin but after seeing this thread I'm not so sure I should waste the $40.
I've yet to come across any problems running Sims 3 (base game), Sims 3 Supernatural, or Sims 3 University Life. But if I get Seasons and I start crashing, then I'd be mad.
I think I am onto something. I followed the advice that I found here and moved my entire /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder to the desktop. Then I played for a good 2 hours, including a trip to France, with no crashes and no problems.
The post that originally suggested this tactic, also suggested removing a series of cache files if it turned out that removing the /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder worked. However, I had tried that before without success. So I deleted the contents of my ContentPatch file. I realized that my problems started around the same time as the dates on those patch files, so I just deleted them.
I also noticed that the original /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder that I had been using had a file called .cfg in it. The new /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder that the game just created didn't have this. So I deleted it, just to see what would happen.
I started the launcher, and the launcher asked to patch my game. I let it. Then I continued playing. I played for about 2 hours with no crash. I haven't tried going abroad yet. I got the dreaded Error Code 12 during my third save of that session, so I quit. Still, it's not crashing every 20-30 minutes for no apparent reason, so perhaps thats one problem solved.
It seems like the files patch files that I had are identical to the new ones that were downloaded. So maybe it was that rogue .cfg file My game did not create a new one, so I'm not sure what it was or why it was there (I kept a back-up of it).
(I have everything up to an including Seasons (except Showtime). No stuff packs. No mods. Only some content purchased from the EA store.)
Some people told it's work fine before March, but I bought it 3 days ago, now I need to get payback money from 7 days warranty because EA sold a 40USD round-shape "PLASTIC".
Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB
Software: OS X 10.8.3
How does one go about deleting certain files within the sims folder? For my Mac, there is no folder (that I can see) that EA stores the files for the game, so I can't figure out how to uninstall if I need to. I tried moving the folder to desktop, which did not work. I just bought this game today and I'd like to at least play for an hour to experience it rather than consider it a $40 waste.
EDIT: I've been working on this for a couple hours now. I have gone through all the folders under The Sims 3 and have deleted just about everything that I could. For some reason, I still had some custom content and saved games left, even though I deleted all of my saved games. I increased my RAM, but my main issue has been with moving the Sims 3 folder to the desktop, where another folder should have been created in it's place. This was not the case for me and I'm not sure why. The game is still crashing immediately when I go into Create A Household. I'm going to continue to mess around with it today, but for those who are also having issues, you should follow the instructions on this post as a start. (This post doesn't tell you to delete everything - I only did that because I can't uninstall/reinstall my game as my original base game disk is nowhere to be found!) http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/658546.page
Oh, and this is the info about my mac:
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E2068)
(I know I need to update my software, it just hasn't been working since my hard drive was replaced about a week ago).
It seems like the files patch files that I had are identical to the new ones that were downloaded. So maybe it was that rogue .cfg file My game did not create a new one, so I'm not sure what it was or why it was there (I kept a back-up of it).
Could have been the resource.cfg file if you have ever used mods or installed other types of package file? It's not something that the game would regenerate, which would explain why it didn't return. It would be something that you would have had to download and manually add to your Sims 3 files.
How does one go about deleting certain files within the sims folder? For my Mac, there is no folder (that I can see) that EA stores the files for the game, so I can't figure out how to uninstall if I need to. I tried moving the folder to desktop, which did not work. I just bought this game today and I'd like to at least play for an hour to experience it rather than consider it a $40 waste.
EDIT: I've been working on this for a couple hours now. I have gone through all the folders under The Sims 3 and have deleted just about everything that I could. For some reason, I still had some custom content and saved games left, even though I deleted all of my saved games. I increased my RAM, but my main issue has been with moving the Sims 3 folder to the desktop, where another folder should have been created in it's place. This was not the case for me and I'm not sure why. The game is still crashing immediately when I go into Create A Household. I'm going to continue to mess around with it today, but for those who are also having issues, you should follow the instructions on this post as a start. (This post doesn't tell you to delete everything - I only did that because I can't uninstall/reinstall my game as my original base game disk is nowhere to be found!) http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/658546.page
Oh, and this is the info about my mac:
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E2068)
(I know I need to update my software, it just hasn't been working since my hard drive was replaced about a week ago).
There should be Sims 3 files in two locations - some in Applications and others in Documents. The Applications is where you will find the actual games that you have installed. The folders in Documents will contain things such as your saves, downloads etc.
If you are trying to reinstall your game and are not sure about where your Mac keeps files, then you might want to follow this guide by BluebellFlora:
If you no longer have one of the CDs then you may be able to download the game from Origin. Otherwise it's going to be difficult for you to ever do a clean reinstall.
For me, it is not the lag. I can play Seasons and UL with pretty much smooth overall gameplay. But after playing for 40 minutes and being in Build/Buy for 5, my game froze whilst coming out of it. Saving for me is mostly the issue though. Right now, i am playing all ep's up to supernatural pretty well, just saving a lot.
The problem is because of memory constraints in the cider wrapper that EA used in the Mac version. The more expansions you have, the more memory intensive the game becomes. The demands the game is placing on your system memory is greater than cider can provide, so you start hitting bottlenecks and the game crashes.
This is why fresh installations seem to go well only to start crashing after using the game after a period of time. As more and more data is being pulled into your saved game the memory demands start to bottleneck in cider and the game starts crashing.
Unless EA patches the mac game with a cider update this issue is not going to stop. You can bandaid it by flushing your memory cache every so often or by reinstalling the game. But it will return. The flaw is in the program itself and there isn't much you can do about it without a patch from EA. Its pretty clear that EA has no intention of patching it.
Are the issues with Seasons on Macs resolved at all? I am trying to pick which EP to buy next, but I need to be able to play it on both Mac and PC. I'd really like to get Seasons, but not if it keeps crashing!
umm i have a mac and every time i click on something to do with the seasons pack it shuts down almost imminently. the same happens when i play island paradise, i think i may be able to play the game as long as i don't leave my home lot or by anything to do with the expansion pack.
This really frustrates me and i would like it fixed because it's kind of ridiculous.
Are the issues with Seasons on Macs resolved at all? I am trying to pick which EP to buy next, but I need to be able to play it on both Mac and PC. I'd really like to get Seasons, but not if it keeps crashing!
Not in my case. I was receiving Error 12 in game play/CAS and when I wasn't receiving that the game was freezing up in CAS - every 5 to 10 minutes.
I reinstalled my games and left 1 sp and seasons out... I also turn off wifi while playing, have nothing running in the background/nothing on my desktop (apple geniuses had told me a while back that whatever is on your desktop will act like it is an open program and hog your ram.)
To install:
Show package contents after getting it out of the .exe file (or whatever extension it downloads as - I cant remember.)
Open up your Applications Folder > This Sims 3 folder -- find sims.exe, rt click, show package contents.
Place the exe file labeled Wineskin Winery in to the MacOS folder.
I also cleared off 100 gb of space from my hd (tossed videos and games on to an extra external HD) bc I read that if your HD is full/close to full it will eat up more ram.
I took out all mods, cc, and saves. I deleted it all.
Then I redownloaded the CC only and installed it via the launcher.
I played for 6 hours with no issues - knock on wood. Who knows what helped it but those are my suggestions.... and that was after a week of trying to figure out how to get rid of the error 12 that started after Seasons was installed.... I tried everything from every sims forum I could try and no joy. :roll:
Error 12 had upset me so much bc I kept losing my games and being forced to start over I quit playing for months. :evil:
Oh. I also save my games twice, always pause, always use save as and label like this: [insert game name] 1 and then the 2nd time I save I save as [insert game name] 2. So that I dont lose my games anymore I also save like every 15 minutes lol.
I was using world adventures, pets, ambitions, and late night without problems.. then there was a sale and I bought 3 games at once (university, island paradise, and seasons). My game would run for maybe 10 minutes before crashing. Couldn't even get past creating a sim. After 3 days of hoping it would self recover, I uninstalled everything and started researching the problem. A lot of it came down to seasons.
SO, It took me a few days, but I reinstalled the base game, and played for an hour before installing another expansion and repeated. So far everything is installed EXCEPT seasons, and it is running smoothly.
Personally, I believe the problem is seasons by personal process of elimination (based on the games I do have (not sure if there is another faulty expansion).
It's unfortunate because the expansion seemed really cool, and I read it a lot of places it was a really great one- but not if us MAC users can't use it.... Maybe we can hold a burning party later and put this expansion to rest once and for all since EA clearly has no interest in the resolution of this, and many other mac related issues.
Early 2011 Macbook Pro 13 inch
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000, 512 MB
Software Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8
@amgomg0710 - what colour cotton would you like to sew EA with?
Seriously though, the problems with Seasons are memory related. So long as you regularly purge RAM during gameplay you should have minimal crashes and be able to play for hours. There is no point in contacting EA because they have no clue when it comes to Mac problems. And patching through the Launcher is not recommended, using the super patch is far more stable for your game:
I just installed seasons this morning and right on my loading screen boom it crashed i uninstalled everything reinstalled the sims 3 base game then it sed my machine was de authorised crazy write? My dad is gonna phone ea tommorow wish me luck!
@amgomg0710 - what colour cotton would you like to sew EA with?
Seriously though, the problems with Seasons are memory related. So long as you regularly purge RAM during gameplay you should have minimal crashes and be able to play for hours. There is no point in contacting EA because they have no clue when it comes to Mac problems. And patching through the Launcher is not recommended, using the super patch is far more stable for your game:
Since installing Seasons (like many of you), my game has started to crash. A lot.
I'm a member of the Simblr Community on Tumblr and there are 2 Mac users on there that are playing Seasons with no problems whatsoever. So I think we need (as a group) to find out what could be causing these issues with Seasons/the 1.42 patch.
The 1.42 patch didn't give me any problems, but Seasons does.
My Specs are as follows:
Mid-2011 iMac
2.8GHz Intel Core i7 Quad Core
AMD Radeon 6770m 512 MB
12 GB RAM
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5
I have tried reinstalling the entire game, playing without cc and even playing in a different Neighbourhood. The same thing happens no matter what.
So, if you'd like, please post your Mac specs here and maybe we can come up with a solution.
My dad contacted EA today about seasons sent them an email we sent them a letter and phoned them and them phone call was the most affective the sed they might release a new patch or take cider out.They could even make a disc for us mac users!!!But that may take some time,but its all worth it they actually listened amazing!!My dad called them when i was at school and they sed it would probs be a patch but anyways might b sorted soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@amgomg0710 - what colour cotton would you like to sew EA with?
Soz i dont understand wat do u mean by colour cotton soz im english
She was teasing you. The joke was the sewing is something one does with a needle and thread. If you're talking about taking someone to court, the word is SUE.
My dad contacted EA today about seasons sent them an email we sent them a letter and phoned them and them phone call was the most affective the sed they might release a new patch or take cider out.They could even make a disc for us mac users!!!But that may take some time,but its all worth it they actually listened amazing!! My dad called them when i was at school and they sed it would probs be a patch but anyways might b sorted soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From what I was able to parse out from this grammatical atrocity, you're saying that EA told your dad that they'd take Cider out or release a patch? For what, TS3? I wouldn't bet on it. That would require them to re-release the TS3 series for Mac. TS4 doesn't have Cider. Currently TS4 is for Windows only. Considering they never ported the end of the TS2 series to Mac, I'd say it's 50/50 whether they'd port TS4 to Mac at all, especially after the ish-show that is Cider.
As far as a patch for Cider for TS3, well, I'm not going to hold my breath.
Well, here's the problem with Cider. They got a 3rd party to add Cider in, not the actual makers of the software. So, it was a BIG mistake on EA's part. They should have contracted with the proper people which they didn't and it's cost them valuable PR. However if you follow the tips and tricks in BlueBellFlora's thread, that will make the game far more stable and playable.
The only way that EA would remove Cider would be to port all of Sims 3 to the Mac OS which frankly is not an option at this point. I do believe that they will port Sims 4 to the Mac OS as they have had success with Sim City and yes it was several months behind the Windows release, but frankly I'd rather be behind the curve and let the Windows users play Beta Testers for us Mac users.
They probably will release a final patch or two for the game and may add some fixes to the Mac side like they did with the 1.63 patch.
So, EA if you're reading this, contract with Aspyr to port your game (the WHOLE series not just part of it) and I might just buy Sims 4. In the meantime, I'll happily play Sims 2 and 3.
Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning.
Comments
Shall report back
-Auby
I've yet to come across any problems running Sims 3 (base game), Sims 3 Supernatural, or Sims 3 University Life. But if I get Seasons and I start crashing, then I'd be mad.
The post that originally suggested this tactic, also suggested removing a series of cache files if it turned out that removing the /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder worked. However, I had tried that before without success. So I deleted the contents of my ContentPatch file. I realized that my problems started around the same time as the dates on those patch files, so I just deleted them.
I also noticed that the original /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder that I had been using had a file called .cfg in it. The new /Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder that the game just created didn't have this. So I deleted it, just to see what would happen.
I started the launcher, and the launcher asked to patch my game. I let it. Then I continued playing. I played for about 2 hours with no crash. I haven't tried going abroad yet. I got the dreaded Error Code 12 during my third save of that session, so I quit. Still, it's not crashing every 20-30 minutes for no apparent reason, so perhaps thats one problem solved.
It seems like the files patch files that I had are identical to the new ones that were downloaded. So maybe it was that rogue .cfg file My game did not create a new one, so I'm not sure what it was or why it was there (I kept a back-up of it).
(I have everything up to an including Seasons (except Showtime). No stuff packs. No mods. Only some content purchased from the EA store.)
Memory: 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB
Software: OS X lion 10.7.5
Some people told it's work fine before March, but I bought it 3 days ago, now I need to get payback money from 7 days warranty because EA sold a 40USD round-shape "PLASTIC".
Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB
Software: OS X 10.8.3
And in case you all haven't seen this, this is the "official word" from EA about Seasons crashing the game for Mac users.
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/626965.page
EDIT: I've been working on this for a couple hours now. I have gone through all the folders under The Sims 3 and have deleted just about everything that I could. For some reason, I still had some custom content and saved games left, even though I deleted all of my saved games. I increased my RAM, but my main issue has been with moving the Sims 3 folder to the desktop, where another folder should have been created in it's place. This was not the case for me and I'm not sure why. The game is still crashing immediately when I go into Create A Household. I'm going to continue to mess around with it today, but for those who are also having issues, you should follow the instructions on this post as a start. (This post doesn't tell you to delete everything - I only did that because I can't uninstall/reinstall my game as my original base game disk is nowhere to be found!)
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/658546.page
Oh, and this is the info about my mac:
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E2068)
(I know I need to update my software, it just hasn't been working since my hard drive was replaced about a week ago).
Could have been the resource.cfg file if you have ever used mods or installed other types of package file? It's not something that the game would regenerate, which would explain why it didn't return. It would be something that you would have had to download and manually add to your Sims 3 files.
There should be Sims 3 files in two locations - some in Applications and others in Documents. The Applications is where you will find the actual games that you have installed. The folders in Documents will contain things such as your saves, downloads etc.
If you are trying to reinstall your game and are not sure about where your Mac keeps files, then you might want to follow this guide by BluebellFlora:
http://bluebellflora.wordpress.com/the-sims-3-on-a-mac/how-to-do-a-clean-uninstall-and-reinstall-on-a-mac/
If you no longer have one of the CDs then you may be able to download the game from Origin. Otherwise it's going to be difficult for you to ever do a clean reinstall.
This is why fresh installations seem to go well only to start crashing after using the game after a period of time. As more and more data is being pulled into your saved game the memory demands start to bottleneck in cider and the game starts crashing.
Unless EA patches the mac game with a cider update this issue is not going to stop. You can bandaid it by flushing your memory cache every so often or by reinstalling the game. But it will return. The flaw is in the program itself and there isn't much you can do about it without a patch from EA. Its pretty clear that EA has no intention of patching it.
This really frustrates me and i would like it fixed because it's kind of ridiculous.
Not in my case. I was receiving Error 12 in game play/CAS and when I wasn't receiving that the game was freezing up in CAS - every 5 to 10 minutes.
I reinstalled my games and left 1 sp and seasons out... I also turn off wifi while playing, have nothing running in the background/nothing on my desktop (apple geniuses had told me a while back that whatever is on your desktop will act like it is an open program and hog your ram.)
I also downloaded Winery to stabilize cider:
http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php?page=Downloads
To install:
Show package contents after getting it out of the .exe file (or whatever extension it downloads as - I cant remember.)
Open up your Applications Folder > This Sims 3 folder -- find sims.exe, rt click, show package contents.
Place the exe file labeled Wineskin Winery in to the MacOS folder.
I also cleared off 100 gb of space from my hd (tossed videos and games on to an extra external HD) bc I read that if your HD is full/close to full it will eat up more ram.
I took out all mods, cc, and saves. I deleted it all.
Then I redownloaded the CC only and installed it via the launcher.
I played for 6 hours with no issues - knock on wood. Who knows what helped it but those are my suggestions.... and that was after a week of trying to figure out how to get rid of the error 12 that started after Seasons was installed.... I tried everything from every sims forum I could try and no joy. :roll:
Error 12 had upset me so much bc I kept losing my games and being forced to start over I quit playing for months. :evil:
Oh. I also save my games twice, always pause, always use save as and label like this: [insert game name] 1 and then the 2nd time I save I save as [insert game name] 2. So that I dont lose my games anymore
Hope some of that helps someone. 8)
SO, It took me a few days, but I reinstalled the base game, and played for an hour before installing another expansion and repeated. So far everything is installed EXCEPT seasons, and it is running smoothly.
Personally, I believe the problem is seasons by personal process of elimination (based on the games I do have (not sure if there is another faulty expansion).
It's unfortunate because the expansion seemed really cool, and I read it a lot of places it was a really great one- but not if us MAC users can't use it.... Maybe we can hold a burning party later and put this expansion to rest once and for all since EA clearly has no interest in the resolution of this, and many other mac related issues.
Early 2011 Macbook Pro 13 inch
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000, 512 MB
Software Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8
1. Update the game to the latest patch (in launcher)
2. Switch ur mac off once it has updated
3. Switch on and access ur launcher
4. Double check or triple check that the latest patch has updated
5. Then try the gameplay
If this method does NOT work contact EA immediately
Enjoy simming!
P.S this is kind of a hack EA IS responsible for it's not fair only PC users get it
This has helped me figure out why u can't get seasons for mac anymore
We mac users should sew EA for crashing our game and computers :twisted:
Seriously though, the problems with Seasons are memory related. So long as you regularly purge RAM during gameplay you should have minimal crashes and be able to play for hours. There is no point in contacting EA because they have no clue when it comes to Mac problems. And patching through the Launcher is not recommended, using the super patch is far more stable for your game:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/740366.page
Soz i dont understand wat do u mean by colour cotton soz im english
My dad contacted EA today about seasons sent them an email we sent them a letter and phoned them and them phone call was the most affective the sed they might release a new patch or take cider out.They could even make a disc for us mac users!!!But that may take some time,but its all worth it they actually listened amazing!!My dad called them when i was at school and they sed it would probs be a patch but anyways might b sorted soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HAPPY SIMMING!!!!!!♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THANKS EA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She was teasing you. The joke was the sewing is something one does with a needle and thread. If you're talking about taking someone to court, the word is SUE.
From what I was able to parse out from this grammatical atrocity, you're saying that EA told your dad that they'd take Cider out or release a patch? For what, TS3? I wouldn't bet on it. That would require them to re-release the TS3 series for Mac. TS4 doesn't have Cider. Currently TS4 is for Windows only. Considering they never ported the end of the TS2 series to Mac, I'd say it's 50/50 whether they'd port TS4 to Mac at all, especially after the ish-show that is Cider.
As far as a patch for Cider for TS3, well, I'm not going to hold my breath.
The only way that EA would remove Cider would be to port all of Sims 3 to the Mac OS which frankly is not an option at this point. I do believe that they will port Sims 4 to the Mac OS as they have had success with Sim City and yes it was several months behind the Windows release, but frankly I'd rather be behind the curve and let the Windows users play Beta Testers for us Mac users.
They probably will release a final patch or two for the game and may add some fixes to the Mac side like they did with the 1.63 patch.
So, EA if you're reading this, contract with Aspyr to port your game (the WHOLE series not just part of it) and I might just buy Sims 4. In the meantime, I'll happily play Sims 2 and 3.