I ALWAYS refuse to allow the game to connect to the internets, so that's not a variable in my case.  The error just popped up two days ago when I tried to install a package.  That's not bothering me as much as getting rid of the damn things all together. By things I mean Sims3packs and by damn I mean motherfuckingcocksuckingpaininmyass things.  This is how angry and frustrated I am at the bastard who came up with them and the launcher, and the horse he rode in on.

Would golden showers count in the daily tally? 

I absolutely DETEST the launcher.  I want to never have to use it again and be able to organise and manage my cc with the ease of the ability to put it all in proper folders, etc.  Plus, something finally broke the fucking thing and I cannot install new Sims3Packs, or uninstall crap through it, although I can still successfully install/uninstall CC .package files just fine.

My question is:  supposing I finally figure out how to convert/extract the package files from Sims3packs -- I'm on a Mac and Delphy's multi installer (mono) maybe works 30% of the time, telling me there is nothing to extract even though the content installed from the packs works fine in the game -- and 3viewer sort of works,  would it be safe for me to dump all the .dbc files in the DCCache folder after installing all the corresponding .package files, or would this completely bugger up the game?  The CC installed via the launcher consists basically of residential lots, furniture, clothes and hair, and some patterns that came with the lots.  Also, I plan to reduce the amount of needless rubbish I was never interested in as well - for example, decor that came with furniture sets - so the .package files won't exactly represent the entirety of what is now in the DCCache folder.  So, would this just blow up my game?

Incidentally, in case this is relevant, the error I suddenly started getting from the bloody thing is:

Unable to start game
Service initialization failed (0x024e424f)

and then:

Unhandled exception 0x80000003 at address 0x0057b056.
Do you wish to debug it ?

...but then the game loads up fine.

People, I did use the search and all that came up was a whole bunch of irrelevant crap and definitely not an actual solution.  If there is a thread discussing this with an actual way to fix it and I've been unable to find it - and apparently there is since this is what a couple of you have communicated - could someone then direct me to it?  I'd greatly appreciate it.

@Eeyore:  at first I thought this was the case but I've restarted a few times (after the crashes) with moveobjects definitely off but it doesn't work or change anything and the crash still ensues.

First, I have yet to even play the game for the first time - I am still preparing my hood, creating houses and furnishing and decorating them.  I've created all my custom sims and have moved all but one fambly in. 

I was finishing customising the last lot (which I downloaded from MTS) using a default game door, a cc door, cc windows and one default game window, when some of the windows and doors stopped creating the space they're supposed to create when plugging them in the walls so you can see through them.  Basically, they appear imbedded in the wall and you can still see the wall where there's supposed to be empty space.  Soon after this began, the game just craps out without giving me an error message or anything, taking me straight back to the finder.

My question is the obvious one:  anyone know what this means?  Is there an easy fix to this, like a debug or reset command? Is something corrupted?  Is the crashing and the door/window issue even related or is it a coincidence?  This happens with both doors (EAxian and CC), but just the CC windows.  I tried using another set of windows but the game still crapped out.  On this lot, I've managed to furnish about half of it, mostly with cc.  I'm assuming this is just a problem with this lot because I've spent hours with the other lots and everything worked fine, although using different objects, again, mostly cc.  This particular lot is a "medieval village" looking lot which I would love to be able to still use so I'd prefer to fix it if possible before dumping it and using something else.

The cc windows and doors are the medieval set from MTS, Crusade doors from TSR and Bistro windows again, from TSR.  The EAxian door that also got buggered is the wooden, rustic looking one.

I have all expansions except for HEL, running them on a MacBook Pro 5, 1; MacOSX 10.6.6. Again, I haven't even begun playing yet, so this is after a fresh installation.  The game is fully updated (as far as the launcher tells me: 6.2.4.010001) and in case this is at all relevant, I am playing Riverview.

Thanks for the help.

This sounds to be more or less what I'm looking for as well, except I still have a couple of points I need clarifying.  First, I enabled Awesome story mode and blessed the first and only custom family I played.  I dumped the others and re-moved them in and blessed them before actually playing them.  As far as I understand this, all I need to do now is set them all to aging off as a sort of default and remember to turn on aging when I play them, right?  So, question:  When I played one of my other families for the first time, they already had some relationships with townies and other custom sims established - not strong ones, probably just that they've met.  One of my blessed sims even had a want to be friends with another of my blessed sims who I haven't even played yet.  Is this NORMAL behavior for Awesome story driver/chosen setting or is something screwy?  Also, is Awesome story driver something that just works in the background or can I access settings via an object or the active sim or whatever?  Are there even settings to access like other story progression mods.  Still not clear whether this is something we can customize ourselves or if it's just a fix.  Thanks.

So, if I played two sim days with my first family with TS2 aging on, can I assume that NOTHING has happened with my other unplayed as yet families those past two days (Monday and Tuesday)?  Kids in my other families didn't need to go to school or adults to work, etc.?  Is there a point to blessing them if TS2 aging is enabled?  Thanks.

I just realized I've most likely misunderstood what aging is regarding story progression.  Like I said, I have TS2-style aging enabled and I just played two sim days with my first family - from move-in day Sunday to Tuesday morning.  I went to play a second family never played before and it's Tuesday morning.  So, does this mean this second family has not aged yet since I haven't played them but time still progressed??  I definitely don't want this to happen to my custom families - I want to play one, then the others in order, all starting from the same days (not sure if I'm explaining this clearly).  So, before I start all over again, is this possible?  Is this what bless does?  Or is this something that can be done with either AM or Indie progression?

I need some clarification regarding household aging, story progression and blessed households.  I've read through all these threads but not sure what I need to do to play the way I want to play.  I understand that the game's built-in story progression is really crap and does exactly what I don't want it to do, hence the Indie or Awesome alternatives, but not sure what to use exactly or if necessary even.  What I'm interested in is basically the same gameplay as in TS2 - so, I've enabled TS2-style aging in the AM configtool.  My question is, if now aging only occurs in the active household, is blessing a family necessary, or using either Indie or AM story progression to improve it? 

I have about six different families that I've created which I like to play in turns - a couple of sim days each, keeping them aging more or less at the same rate, I hope, by having TS2-style aging on.  If I also bless these families, will this counteract the TS2-style aging, or if I use either AM or Indie progression?  I'm just not sure exactly how these work together. Thanks.

Actually, I spoke too soon.  The weird game glitches that happened before are still gone - I have access to the options menu (turned off music THANK GOD), can choose families, etc., but now I'm creating my sims and some, not all which is the confusing part, of my CAS CC that I installed manually (not sims3packs) is not showing up.  Oddly enough, all the sims3packs CC obviously installed through the launcher shows up fine.  I did use 3viewer which works on macs to look at the files but I couldn't figure out how to remove the package file from the sims3packs, if you know what I mean.  Maybe it doesn't do this?

I did research about the framework and how to do it manually - this is how I did it the first time and all the CC did show up before, and the script I used this time created the framework exactly how I thought it would so it's just plain weird that some things show in game and some do not given that they're all in the correct folder and they did show up before.

Ok - So I managed to screw up my neighborhood BEFORE I even started playing the damn game.  After placing all my lots, I saw two things: no lot button would show up empty when trying to move in sims, when going to select a family mode, no buttons would show up at all, and most empty lots - lots with no residential buildings placed yet - had residents - random sims just living there, with household incomes and all.  All I did was install CC, including lots and some sims from MTS and mods, mostly from here.

So... I dumped everything including game files, reinstalled from the same iso just to see, made absolutely sure (this time) little snitch was running whilst playing, ran the game for the first time without any mods or cc of any kind, created the framework using Marhis' script (not manually like last time) and it all seems to be working brilliantly.

Have no idea what all that was about - if anyone knows of any known scenarios that could have done this that would be great to know so I can avoid in the future.  

I have the problem without any CC or mods.  That's the first thing I checked before posting.  The only thing I can think of is that it's, er...um...not exactly a store-bought copy I'm playing with?  Which is why I linked the codez4mac forum from whence I got my "borrowed" version.  I thought perhaps someone else here could be using a pirated "borrowed", version or have done so in the past (or have heard of this being a problem with pirated versions) and could tell me this is the reason.

Thanks, LVRugger for the advice re the framework.  Do any of you know if there is a mods compatibility checker for macs?  I've seen there is one for PCs.  I understand the Highlander concept as it applies to core mods but some of the mods I'm interested in, I can't tell if they're core or not, or they would conflict with others.

Hi -

I have a mac issue I was hoping to get some help on.  First, I'm running the latest update/install as per the instructions found on www.codez4mac on my:

MacBook Pro
Mac OS X 10.5.8
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Memory
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

The issue is I cannot access any options menu at all - you know, where you get to set the level of graphics, sound, music, etc.  I click on the button throughout the game and I get nothing.  Is this a common Mac thing?  I would LOVE to be able to turn off the music.

I haven't even BEGUN TO ACTUALLY PLAY either.  A couple of years ago I took a Sims hiatus because I discovered this site only after having started my neighborhood in Sims 2 and after installing all the CC, mods, sims, etc. I was interested in, I borked my neighborhood to the extent that to continue I would have had to reinstall EVERYTHING.  It all became too much of a PITA so I quit for a while.  Now I've decided to give Sims 3 a try but am trying to sort out most (if not all) of my CC, mods, sims, etc. BEFORE starting to play.  

I know I will probably have some other Mac issues, but there doesn't seem to be a Mac thread here other than the how to framework one which as far as I see, I've done correctly.  The only questions I have re that is whether I can organize my CC in the "Packages" folder into subfolders, i.e. "hair", "furniture", "clothes" or will this screw up the game's ability to "see" the content?

Thanks in advance for any help.