A ghostly "The Sims 4" File?

[InfinityOdin]

Hi everyone!

I've been looking around a lot for this problem which seems common but not in this form, tons of good informations and solutions but none that worked for me. 

My girlfriend and I have been playing The Sims 4 forever, which means I have saves that date years long of work, builds and mods (that are mostly up-to-date and if not, tested harmless). I recently tried reinstalling the game and as I always do, put back everything (my backups) into my sims 4 folder but... for some reasons that folder doesn't exist anymore... 

Yes I checked my iCloud preferences, it's not synced, yes I launched my game to "generate" one, funny thing is the game does launch and have it's "saved games" but it's just nowhere to be found in the computer, and yes I also searched with the search bar for it. 

I usually used the folder icon to find quickly the specific save files and even now it doesn't bring me nowhere clicking on it or either searching for the specific path shown in the screenshot below.

So what happens is I try to put an original "The Sims 4" File into EA's folder, but it's completely ignored and uses a ghost one that isn't anywhere visible and I can't use my old saves, can't use any mods or anything custom... Sad

SO does anyone have this problem or similar? Any solutions?

Thank you!

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@InfinityOdin  There's no way the game would run without generating its folders somewhere.  The question is where.  I messed up one character in the previous command (sorry, I'm still trying to get better with Terminal) and gave you one that would only search the current user folder.  This will search your whole hard drive:

find / -type d -name "*The Sims 4*" 2>/dev/null

In case you're curious, the / means the whole hard drive, even if it's partitioned; the -type d means directory (as opposed to individual files); the name *The Sims 4* means anything with that string in the name, and the last part filters out errors that you'd get when running it, mostly permission denied for system files we're not supposed to be able to access.  Unlike searching the user folder, this one will in fact take a little while, but only in terms of a minute or two.

[puzzlezaddict]

@InfinityOdin  Searching for the saves in a Finder window doesn't typically work because the Sims 4 folder isn't indexed by Spotlight.  The folder in your screenshot is, I believe, not invisible, just in a different location.  (Mine says "Shared" rather than "Public," but that might be a localization difference.)

Open a Finder window and click on Macintosh HD (or whatever you've renamed your hard disk) in the left panel.  If you don't see it, click Finder in the upper left corner of your screen, then Preferences > Sidebar, and check the box next to hard disks, in the Devices category, and it should appear.  Once you click Macintosh HD, open Users > Public, and you should see the Documents folder listed in the screenshot.  Let me know if adding a save to that folder doesn't work.

[InfinityOdin]

@puzzlezaddict Thanks for your response!

Good to know, I just checked though but I can't find any "Public" in that file so I got lost in that attempt earlier. Here's a screenshot (with the EN translations in red).

[puzzlezaddict]

@InfinityOdin  Okay, so in the "Partagés" folder, there's nothing Sims 4-related?  It seems like what may have happened is that at some point, you set the computer to share certain files, and that setting is flowing down to Sims 4.  But of course the first thing is to find the save in your original screenshot.  If it's not in Partagés or any of the other user folders, you can look for any and all Sims 4 folders using Terminal.  Open Applications > Utilities, launch Terminal, and enter exactly this:

find ~ -type d -name "*The Sims 4*" 2>/dev/null

The scan will take a while to run, and you'll get a number of results, but you'll see a full list of all Sims 4 folders on this hard drive.  If you have any issues sorting through the results, feel free to copy and paste them or post a screenshot.

[InfinityOdin]

@puzzlezaddict That's a new one, I'm totally new to code language so I'll remember this one!

Unfortunately, I just tried and the only file it finds is the one I'm trying to put into the game (My backup with my old games) It took seconds though is it normal (after accepting every access requests)? Even on second and third tries...

I also checked everywhere in the shared files there IS a "DOCUMENTS" file but it only has things unrelated to EA... So still no clue!

I am so lost lol, is there any way EA would have a glitch and run on it's own without that file? 

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@InfinityOdin  There's no way the game would run without generating its folders somewhere.  The question is where.  I messed up one character in the previous command (sorry, I'm still trying to get better with Terminal) and gave you one that would only search the current user folder.  This will search your whole hard drive:

find / -type d -name "*The Sims 4*" 2>/dev/null

In case you're curious, the / means the whole hard drive, even if it's partitioned; the -type d means directory (as opposed to individual files); the name *The Sims 4* means anything with that string in the name, and the last part filters out errors that you'd get when running it, mostly permission denied for system files we're not supposed to be able to access.  Unlike searching the user folder, this one will in fact take a little while, but only in terms of a minute or two.

[InfinityOdin]

B r i l l i a n t  !!! Simple and It worked, I don't know how or why but with the terminal pops it out!!

I've been struggling this problem for months! I guess the spotlight or normal computer search just wasn't digging it out.

Thank you so much! For solving it and for the command tips! ^^

Have a good day!

[Bluebellflora]

@InfinityOdin

That's not the normal file path for the game to store the Sims 4 folder. Where did you download the game from?