Store bought items need to be redownloaded and Installed every time!

[thaqueenofchaos]

Hi everyone, 

I have the problem that I need to keep installing my store bought items. My 3rd party content installs fine through the launcher, but the 'official' stuff need to be installed in a very round about way. Not through the launcher, but the In-game Downloads Dashboard. Which takes forever, since it's 5 pages of downloads. 
I didn't mind it, since I did it like once a year, but now I have to do it every time I restart the game. Since it takes an hour to install all the items this is pretty infuriating. 
I've tried the 'https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/Sims-3-store-content-will-not-install/td-p/46724' solution. It lets me install stuff, but when I quit the game and restart it everything is gone again and I need to download and install everything again from the Downloads Dashboard.

Please help, because I dread playing the game right now. 

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@thaqueenofchaos  Can you check and make sure that you don't have a duplicate TS3 folder somewhere?  Missing content is a symptom of the game not being able to find its existing folder (and generating a new one), or of the files being added to the "wrong" folder.  Normally, you wouldn't see the installed content in your game even the first time, but installing store stuff while in-game would put it in the proper folder, at least temporarily.  But if that folder is uploaded to OneDrive after you quit, the game would just spawn a new one in Documents the next time you play.

Anyway, the easiest thing to do is to pull any TS3 folders you find out of OneDrive and onto your desktop, then disable OneDrive entirely.

If this isn't what's happening, you might want to try installing your store content into a completely clean folder.  Remove the existing folder from Documents (not just DCCache), let the game spawn a new one, and install a couple of items.  Test your game a couple of times; if the items show up, you can add more.  It's best to install no more than 4-6 items at a time, to avoid corruption; worlds should be installed separately, not in a batch with anything else.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@thaqueenofchaos  Can you check and make sure that you don't have a duplicate TS3 folder somewhere?  Missing content is a symptom of the game not being able to find its existing folder (and generating a new one), or of the files being added to the "wrong" folder.  Normally, you wouldn't see the installed content in your game even the first time, but installing store stuff while in-game would put it in the proper folder, at least temporarily.  But if that folder is uploaded to OneDrive after you quit, the game would just spawn a new one in Documents the next time you play.

Anyway, the easiest thing to do is to pull any TS3 folders you find out of OneDrive and onto your desktop, then disable OneDrive entirely.

If this isn't what's happening, you might want to try installing your store content into a completely clean folder.  Remove the existing folder from Documents (not just DCCache), let the game spawn a new one, and install a couple of items.  Test your game a couple of times; if the items show up, you can add more.  It's best to install no more than 4-6 items at a time, to avoid corruption; worlds should be installed separately, not in a batch with anything else.

[thaqueenofchaos]

Thanks dude!

I didn't find a second TS3 folder, but deleting the entire folder and spawning a new one seemed to fix at least the installing through the launcher.
Haven't tested extensivly yet, but looks fixed for now.