It's not the old one, it's the new one. I can vouch for that personally.

EA claims you must uninstall the old version first before installing the new one so don't install this on top of your existing CAW.

I use custom content, but sparingly, from creators I trust and I check for updates when a new episode comes out.

People are quick to blame mods when there is a problem with their game and tend to overlook custom content as the cause, but a poorly created custom content item can do a lot of damage. There are certain custom content items that have caused far worse problems than any mod every has.

As you found out, it's not Awesomemod causing that message but something else. Congratulations. You now get the fun part of trying to narrow down what you downloaded that's causing that.

As for the CD check, it still works. I just tried it. Be sure that Awesomemod is indeed loading, you could try to the showconfig command for a quick test, and then be sure your config has the CD check disabled.

Also be sure you are running the game directly via the TS3EP02.exe (or TS3EP01 for WA, TS3.exe for just the base game etc) or 3Booter. Don't run from the launcher as the launcher itself will check for a CD and block you from running the game if it doesn't find one.

If you absolutely must use the launcher put your disc in or get a NoCD crack. If you do the latter make sure you make backups of the files that get replaced. If you don't you will not be able to patch in the future.

If you want to continue using Awesomemod you need to update to the latest patch. This will always be the case except in the interval between a patch release and when Pescado has gotten a chance to update for it. If you aren't sure check the version numbers in the first post of the Awesomemod thread or the RTFM.

In any case, you need to make a decision patch and Awesomemod or no patch and no Awesomemod.

FWIW, I patched and nothing blew up.

I have no direct experience with the old method post Ambitions so I was only going by what I'd heard from others.

Personally, I think everyone should use the new method. EA (hopefully) won't do anything that breaks it and it should (again hopefully) prevent people from posting 'ZOMG MODZ DONT WERK W TEH XPANSHUN' when really they just forgot copy the damned dll over to the new directory.

Supposedly Pescado is an advocate of continuing to use the old method, but he is old and stubborn so that is to be expected.

That thread is old and was created prior to Ambitions and EA's new method for installing mods.

The resource.cfg Coconnor references is specifically for the old method of setting up for mods. You should not use it with the new method. You can't mix the methods, pick one and go with it.

The one SJActress references in the reply is for the new method and is fine to use. There may be some variation among the different resource.cfg files you encounter from different sources. That's fine but the main thing is if you are using the new method none of the paths in the resource.cfg should reference the 'mods' directory at all.

If you aren't sure follow the instructions at Mod the Sims to make sure the old way is uninstalled and you are installing the new way correctly. Follow them exactly and don't deviate. Get rid of any old resource.cfg files in the My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/ structure and all its subdirectories and use the one Mod the Sims links in the new way instructions or just use the tool I linked above.

If the way you have it now already works for you and you are happy with it, it should be fine. It's possible EA could do something to bork it up in the future, but seems unlikely they would intentionally bother doing so.

The main thing is you just have to copy that DLL over to the directory where the episode exe (ie TS3EP01.exe, TS3EP02.exe etc) is every time you install a new episode. The EA method eliminates that so it simplifies things a bit.

That may be an unrelated issue. Try temporarily removing or disabling all your mods and custom content and seeing if it will load. If not then try a new game (again without custom content and mods).

If you get the game to load in those instances it's likely some old mod or downloaded content causing the issue.

In theory, you shouldn't explicitly need old episodes patched as long as the base game and most recent episode are.

If you don't use a config file you will simply get a fully functioning awesomemod with all the default settings as Pescado has set them.

To pacify people who wanted to turn this, that or the other setting on or off he made the configuration page that generates the file, but it's completely optional.

You can also change settings in the game via the setconfig command but those changes won't stick the next time you reload the game.

It works just fine with the new method. Until you figure out what you did wrong it probably won't work with either method.

I'm going to guess it may be the resource.cfg and that maybe you inadvertently grabbed or copied the wrong one?

If your awesome.package is in My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods/Packages/ (or some subdirectory in Mods/Packages) then that's where it should be.

If your resource.cfg is in My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods/ then that's where it should be.

Next I would open up your resource.cfg in Notepad or some other text editor and make sure it looks something like this:


This above came directly out of the one linked from the Mod the Sims tutorial.

It's especially important that all of the paths NOT have "Mods" in them. So it should be 'PackedFile Packages/*.package' etc and not 'PackedFile Mods/Packages/*.package'. The old way had the resource.cfg in the directory one above the mods folder, but in the new way it's in the mods folder so it shouldn't reference it in the path or the game won't find it. If the mods folder is referenced in your resource cfg do a find and replace to replace mods with nothing or just copy and past the above.

If your resource.cfg checks out okay, no references to the mods folder or you fix it and it is still not working there's a tool to automatically configure your setup for using mods here:

http://www.customsims3.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=apcro2nboqq8po1ctc6pkadap1&topic=2420

It is the new, yes post ambitions, officially EA sanctioned way to setup and install mods. See here: http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Old_Way_to_New_Way

And no, you don't need those dll files anymore if you set it up that way.

To the OP: Are you certain awesomemod isn't working? I get the impression sometimes that people expect it to show a splash screen with AWESOMEMOD!!! in 48 point neon font but it doesn't work that way. The changes are subtle until you really get into playing the game. It's pretty transparent honestly.

If you need to figure out if it's installed and running properly hit control shift and c and then type 'showconfig' in the box, hit enter and see if anything pops up. If you get menus with various settings it is running if it says command not found then it is not.

I don't understand what you are getting at? Are you saying the link to download Awesomemod is not working for you or are you questioning that it's been updated for 1.14/2.9/4/2 etc?

The link works for me and if you updated your game with the latest patch then those are the version numbers he is refering to in that update info so yes you should be able to use it.

I did. Well actually I loaded the existing awesomemod save without awesomemod, let it generate coworkers, then saved and reloaded it with awesomemod again. I know you aren't supposed to do that but nothing exploded and I've been running it for a few weeks now since then.

@Kitbug: Sounds like your neighborhood is pretty much heading for:



Starting a new save probably shouldn't have those issues and just as a general troubleshooting method it's a good idea when anyone is having issues that are easily reproducible to try starting a new neighborhood. If you don't have those same issues in the new neighborhood then your save is probably hosed.

I have been noticing the launcher seems to have Alzheimer's lately with regard to whether it has installed certain files. If you try to install them, it says they are already installed (well duh) but it seems to forget it installed them every time you restart the launcher.

As long as the content is showing up in the game it's not really a problem and I just ignore it.


re: Upgrading the fire truck

You also have Alzheimer's. It requires 5 handiness to upgrade the fire truck and always has.

See here:

http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Sims_3_Professions#Fire_truck

My personal experience confirms this as well

You can (and should) however maintain the fire truck regularly. This is different than upgrading it though.


It's Awesomemod. It won't generate coworkers unless you choose to socialize with coworkers, which of course you can't do without coworkers and since it's not a rabbithole you don't have work modes to select that option.

It's been mentioned numerous times. Maybe Pescado will fix it at some point. So far he seems not especially concerned about doing so.

There's no need. Someone made custom rabbithole rugs you can place in any building. http://www.customsims3.com/smf/index.php?topic=1931.0

Ah makes sense. I always put the files in the downloads directory and then run the launcher so I never noticed. In fact, I forgot about that double click on the sims3pack to install functionality. Then that leaves the original copy, a copy in downloads, a copy in DCBackup and a copy installed in a dbc file in DCCache. Redundancy much EA?

Someone should donate a non-awesome system to you for testing purposes, though I somehow doubt you would condescend yourself to use it.

Are they truly copies though or does it just leave the original file there once it's done installing it?

I mean why would it install a sims3pack, delete it, then put a copy in back in the same directory it came from in the first place? That's asinine.

He said Awesomestory isn't causing slowdown at night. That doesn't necessarily rule out some other part of Awesomemod. Awesomestory is one part of Awesomemod, not the whole of it.

Something particular to your configuration is causing slowdown at night with Awesomemod installed but not without it. However since you haven't really given much more information it's hard to say what the cause is.

Post a save shortly before midnight and ask Pescado to look at it. Or don't. I don't really know what else to tell you.

Before you upload a save though, make sure you are using the latest version of Awesomemod and your game is patched up to date. Note that Awesomemod is updated frequently and EA just released a patch.

If you aren't sure, just redownload Awesomemod and check for available game updates in the launcher or use the Patch Downloader Utility here: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124490

That's not a common file the patcher errors out on. Did you mess with that file? You really shouldn't.

I don't have a backup copy because I already patched.

Well the problem is if you haven't patched, and I can't quite make out from the replies whether you did or not (maybe the launcher did it in the background?) then you will still have problems.  Awesomemod is generally always meant to be run with the latest version of the game.

If you still run into problems with your current configuration after updating awesomemod today then try using this utility from Mod The Sims http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=409829

It will check your game version, see if you are up to date and if not locate patches from the base game and all expansions and stuff packs. You then should download and install them.

It just means update your mods. Or if you updated them then update your game to match them since mods will usually be created and updated for the most recent version of the game.

Also if you are that timid and need that much reassurance and hand holding then maybe you really shouldn't be using mods.

Follow the directions here and locate your rtpatch.log file. Scroll down to the bottom of the list of files it attempted to patch and you should see the file it errored out on.