Category: The Sims 4

External Drive not showing in Origin

Published on by BluebellFlora28 Comments

Edit July 2023 – this issue is now fixed. See this post for the update.

If you’re trying to install your game to an external drive you may have issues if you’re running macOS 10.15 Catalina or later. Here are quick steps on how to successfully install your game to an external drive:

1.  In System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy click on Full Disk Access and add Origin if necessary.

2. Whilst in the Privacy tab make sure Origin is showing in Files and Folders

3. Open Origin and go to Preferences > Installs & Saves > Game Library Location and click on Change Folder

4. On the left menu click on Computer then double click on the ‘/‘ that appears next to a picture of your hard drive. You should see four folders – Applications, Library, System, Users

5. In the field at the bottom, where it says Directory, type in /Volumes/[the name of your external] then hit Enter/Return or click Choose.For example, my external is called Backup so the file path is /Volumes/Backup

6. The window will disappear and reappear again but you may not see your external. That’s ok, quit Origin then reopen it. You should get a Gatekeeper message popping up asking for permission to access files on a removable volume. Just click Ok

7. Now repeat steps 3 to 5 and you should see the contents of your external in the window

17 November patch, what a mess

Published on by BluebellFlora1 Comment

EA released a patch to fix the crashing issue introduced in the 11 November patch and have managed to introduce two new issues for Mac users. We currently have three potentially game breaking issues but thankfully there do appear to be workarounds for them. Please note that whilst these seem to be problems that can affect your game at any time, these threads are very specific to the November patches. Please read the links to see if your issue is one of them:

  1. Game stuck on the loading screen
    1. Link – AHQ thread here
    2. Cause – no idea
    3. Fix – right click on the game in your Origin games library and select Repair game.
  2. World select screen is blank
    1. Link – AHQ thread here
    2. Cause – could be another problem linked to the loading screen issue above.
    3. Fix – right click on the game in your Origin games library and select Repair game.
  3. Freezing and Lag
    1. Link – AHQ thread here
    2. Cause – possibly bloated saves, look in your saves folder. If you have one or more save files that is abnormally large this could be causing the issue.
    3. Fix – no 100% fix yet but try choosing Save as… when saving your game and save as a new file. If the backup saves, ending in .ver2 or a different number, are bloated try moving them to a folder on the desktop and just load the main save file.

Loving the new Sims 4 platform tool!

Published on by BluebellFlora2 Comments

So many possibilities with this new tool, it’s amazing. My favourite part is creating stairs with it and yes, it IS possible to this. They are a little buggy and the routing can look a bit odd though. My Sim walked through a wall a couple of times but managed to get to the top without any help from me.

There are, of course, some annoying glitches with them:

  • building a platform in a room demolishes the wall if the platform is built against a wall. The wall can be rebuilt but it is very annoying.
  • some objects cannot be placed up against a platform, for example kitchen counters. This is easily rectified by making sure MOO is enabled.
  • if you demolish a platform you may not be able to place objects where the platform was. Enable MOO and you should be good to go again.
  • rounded platforms don’t play well against straight edged platforms and foundations.

I made a video showing a really quick small build with platform stairs and platforms on the upper level. If you use platforms like this remember that you do need to place a one step stair from the top of the tallest platform to the floor of the higher level otherwise your sim will not be able to access the upper floor.