Sims 3 Dragon Valley just won't download

[violin4girl]

Okay please help!!! I bought Dragon Valley for the Sims 3 from Origin. I took the code and registered it with the sims 3 website. I clicked download and it popped up in the sims 3 launcher. It appears as an item. Is this part of the problem? I've read other chats and tried to follow them but it doesn't work. I went to the in-game menu and clicked on the download dashboard. I tried to install the baby dragons and the world. It goes through 2 cycles of downloading and finally says "installed to main menu", but when i go the drop down for sims worlds, it isn't there. I can't access any of the dragons or the world! Please help! I think i have wasted $21 dollars on a big piece of bull. I bought this 2 hours ago and i can't get past the queued downloads.

[puzzlezaddict]

@violin4girl  Start by removing any already downloaded files: go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Downloads, and delete anything that says Dragon Valley.  In fact, it would be best if you put aside all Sims3Packs in the Downloads folder, at least for now.  Once they're installed, there's no benefit to keeping extra copies in Downloads, although you might want to preserve them elsewhere if you ever need to reinstall your content.

Please also make sure no Dragon Valley content is showing as installed in the launcher.  If it is, uninstall it.  Then download a new copy of DV from the store site:

https://store.thesims3.com/dragonvalley.html?categoryId=12642&section=UpSell

It's best to use Firefox or Internet Explorer, both of which work better with the store than other browsers.  Open the launcher, install DV, and test in-game.  Be sure to delete the five cache files within the Sims 3 folder in Documetns before launching the game.  (They should be deleted any time you add or remove content from this folder.)  For reference, they are:

• CASPartCache.package
• compositorCache.package
• scriptCache.package
• simCompositorCache.package
• socialCache.package

If DV doesn't install at all, or if it doesn't appear in-game, please move your entire Sims 3 user data folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop.  Open the launcher to create a clean folder with no content, download just DV, nothing else, install it, and test.  Let me know whether it works.  Please also let me know how much other store content you own, as in, if it would be a pain to reinstall all of it.  There are a couple different approaches, depending on whether you want to preserve your existing installed store stuff or wouldn't mind starting from scratch.  The rest of your content is easy to move around either way.

[violin4girl]

@puzzlezaddict Thank you! I will try that now!

[violin4girl]

I feel like i wasted $21 dollars and all I got was a purple dragon. Not only did it take me a full month to figure out how to download the game, but the only part i was able to successfully download was the purple dragon. This sucks! Anyone with a solution? Please help! I've tried everything!

[violin4girl]

Scratch that. I got nothing... i can't find the dragon.

[puzzlezaddict]

@violin4girl  Did you try downloading Dragon Valley into a clean Sims 3 user data folder?  I did so this morning, using Firefox, and it worked: the world installed, I can start a new save there, and all the content appears to be present.  I also hatched all three types of dragons.

Can you start a save in Dragon Valley, and can you place and hatch a dragon egg?  They're in Entertainment > Misc.  What kind of dragon hatches depends on how you talk to it, e.g. the fire conversation leads to a red dragon, the weather to a green dragon.  If you want to be sure you have all the content, you can buy a bunch of eggs and put them in a row, then see what happens.  Let me know whether any of this content is present.

[violin4girl]

@puzzlezaddict I can't even get the pack to download. My brother is better with technology than me so he checked the specks and says the game should work on my computer. I try to download the game and it says it has installed, but all that has really happened is the file has been duplicated. I have deleted all copies and tried again from the very beginning only to be met with the same result. I have also deleted all of my other store and exchange content. I went into a new world to check for the dragon eggs but they weren't there.

[puzzlezaddict]

@violin4girl  There's a difference between deleting files and moving the entire folder in which those files reside.  So please move the whole Sims 3 folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts.  If you've already done it, do it again, then clear the browser caches for Firefox and Internet Explorer.  Even if you never use IE, the launcher does for some purposes.  Be sure to uncheck the box to preserve data for favorite sites.

https://kb.wisc.edu/page.php?id=15141

Restart your computer, open the launcher to create a new Sims 3 user data folder, and don't add anything at all to this folder.  Just download Dragon Valley, using Firefox.  When it's downloaded, try to install it, again without adding any other files.

If this doesn't work, please create a new admin user account on your computer, open the launcher, and try to download and install DV, again through Firefox.  If it works, there are easy ways to transfer the folder to your main user account, but the first thing to do is test and see whether you can in fact load DV and buy a few dragon eggs.