I'm using a crack for the time being, and have not yet heard of a better way to avoid getting securom. It installs itself when you use the original exe, so double-clicking that in order to run the game is not an option. It appears, from a quick Google search, that there isn't any other solution at the moment., though I'd be glad to be proved wrong. The good news is, I have not experienced any borkage as a result of using a TSM patch, so it's worth trying.

Some screenshots can be found here, if anyone has doubts about the existence of securom in the TSM patch.

So there IS a backup, if that option hasn't been set to only one autosave. As I understand it, autosave keeps two saves, by default, and alternates between then.

OP: So, then, try the second save, not the most recent one. If you've disabled the option, or told it not to keep a second save, then I'm afraid you can't recover your game.

What do you mean? Doesn't your game automatically make backups of your saved games in MyDoc\The Sims 3\Saves? I've always had the most recent save and one before that in my folder. For example, I would have Bridgeport.sims3 and then Bridgeport.sims3.backup. I've never used autosave, but it seems odd for you not to have any backups. As I've said, the game creates them automatically, unlike TS2.

Try the backup; perhaps it has not saved twice and your game is still there. To prevent this in the future, name your games differently.

Is ErrorTrap compatible with Awesome these days? Because it is, after all, a core mod. I do remember trying to use the two together, but that was at least 2 patches ago, if not 3, so it's probably no longer relevant right now.

Have you tried installing any other mod? One of Twallan's, perhaps? This is your only hint.

True, just tested.
I had to move the unicorn by hand though, because it is unreachable where it spawns. It will not more away from that spot, and no Sim manages to reach it. Do you think that the location where the unicorn spawns can be modified in-game? Is it some sort of hidden spawner, or is it vastly different from the gem/metal/seed spawners? Is it modifiable with AM?
At this point, deleting the rocks which mask the unicorn does nothing except make it visible to the player.

I have managed to spawn the unicorn, thanks. I haven't tested the nuke command though, because Pescado's suggestion worked. But, even though I now see the unicorn, I think I'll have to tweak the lot a bit, because it seems to be having problems leaving the spot where it spawns (pathfinding?). I'm not sure that will work, because the unicorn does not spawn on the lot, though very near to it. I'll start a new world and test again when I get the chance.

The requirement for adopting a unicorn is having 3 other animal BFFs, right? My Sim has that, but the unicorn keeps refusing the invitation. Because I was impatient (wanting to test and it being a LTW) I just dragged the bars to BF status and waited for it to change to BFF. I have tried this with just horses, then with a horse+cat+dog. None of them worked, the unicorn still refused.

The rocks next to Louie Falls (where the unicorn spawns) are not part of the lot, I've just checked, so I can't move/delete them. Is there any other way to fix this? I've never worked with CAW, but if that's what it takes I can try.


I have debug commands, and shift-clicking the mailbox does not bring up anything about unicorns, only the usual make needs static, make everyone happy, make friends, make me know everyone, object, force NPC and set career options. the Force NPC menu does not include an option for unicorn. (but there is one for the grim reaper, strangely)

Pescado, is this something AM can handle?

I agree with the horse mating thing, and can add that this HORROR also rears its nose when trying to mate, say a brown or black horse with a white one. I will upload a pic if necessary. but the resulting foal, in my game at least, was half brown and half white. LITERALLY.

In addition to that, can an issue with unicorn spawning in Hidden Springs be investigated? I've been trying to see one for ages, and, though my Sims get the memory for having seen it, and get wishes to watch it, I cannot see the damn thing. EVER. Paused the game, looked around n times. Restarted the game, waited until the next evening, looked around, no sign of it. All this, of course, with the multicoloured cloud thingy which appears above the place where an unicorn spawns. This also happens in a new game. Am I the only one?
Alternatively, perhaps a shift-click spawn unicorn command? I could work with that, but I kinda wanted a unicorn (or at least the possibility of getting one) without the tombola that is Nraas instant impregnation and hoping for a unicorn (the name of the unicorn is provided by the watch [name here] horse wish).

Ok, so the scenario, in my pre-pets-patch game if as follows:
1. Teen tries to set booby trap or is out after curfew => Teen is scolded and forbidden to leave the house.
2. Teen must go to school, therefore sneaks out (at my order) to go. (S)he gets the 'sneaking out' or whatever it's called, moodlet, specifically for going outside while punished. (or so the description said.)
3. Teen returns home after going to school and is promptly grounded again for going outside the house while grounded. Timer resets to 48 hours.

The 'scold' interaction is autonomous, I have never actually told an adult to punish a teen, since I WANT them to set the blasted trap.
Obviously, I have the 1.24 patch final Awesome, since I refuse to bork my CC, and am not keen enough on Pets to jump through quite so many hoops for it. Perhaps I will install when I have the time to deal with the borkage it will trigger.

It isn't. I just kill the moodlet, but the teen will get grounded again if he/she leaves the house, no matter where they're going.

I assume you were talking to me, since I've mentioned some mods. My point was not please to fix my my game it's borked, or even look how crappy EA's coding is, but rather, this is not a pets related issue, therefore should not be considered part of the borkage that came with that EP/patch.

I've also encountered the blank LTW, so that's not Pets-exclusive either.

I also have this problem sometimes, most recently when my sims (not the whole household) returned from a vacation. However, a game restart allowed the sims in question to return home without the glitch reoccurring, and I have not been able to reproduce it, so I think it's random. I'm not sure what happens if you save when you have the glitch and reload, because I didn't think to test then, and haven't gotten the glitch since. It has only occurred 2 times that I can remember.
Just to mention, I'm talking about a stuffed household with 14 sims, in a game with awesomemod, a ton of buzzler mods, Nraas careers, overwatch, master controller, second image and portrait panel. It's also worth mentioning that I have neither Pets, nor the dreaded, CC-borking 1.26 patch installed, so the issue is not specific to either of those.

I don't have any of moryrie's files. I suppose you mean the store made shiftable ones.

I'm running awesome 2011-Oct-02 21:36:39, if that helps.

Not in my case - I haven't downloaded Barnacle Bay.

Mine can't either, I just checked. In addition to that, I can't feed anything to an omniplant either. I click on the plant, click on 'feed', hear the click sound and then nothing happens. I figure a list-type menu should appear, like the one for giving gifts or playing chess, but no.
I haven't used an omniplant before, but I suppose the feed command should enable one to, you know, feed the plant. My sim does have some fish in its inventory, so it's not that. Does anyone else have this problem too, in addition to the mailbox one?

Yes.
And, indeed, I would be careful with P&N as a whole, because at least one (that I have encountered) quest is broken, and I remember reading about many people having problems about completing some of the new quests at the time. It somewhat ruins gameplay.

Only your most recent EP needs to be cracked, if you insist upon cracking.

900Mb is kinda large for a single save file, but then, if you played for long enough...

Use a noCD mod rather than a crack - it helps with the invalid file errors when patching. As for UAC, I think going to control panel -> User Accounts -> change UAC settings will give you some details.

I know FPS limiter works, because I have been using it since I started playing the game. I've only been having this problem since I installed the latest patch. Besides, I fail to see a difference between an older, but modified to suit medieval .bat, and one generated by the limiter, if the .bat is modified properly, and placed in the FPS limiter's folder.
You imply that I should use a mod instead of a crack. Yes, I would do that, but, since, as I have said, using the original exe results in an error, I have little choice. To be more specific, using the original exe only results in an error after I uninstall the new securom version, otherwise the game launches just fine. Point is, I DNW securom, thanks, so that's out of the question.

Is my only option not patching?

ETA: This is what the P&N EULA has to say about Sony's Securom incarnations:

I don't trust them. Can anyone hazard an opinion on whether this can be allowed to exist on my/any PC?

ETA2:
http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/threads/4978-Warning-EA-has-introduced-SecuROM-to-TSM-in-a-patch-%28apparently%29
So, no, it's not safe and should be killed with fire.

About  the game, with crack installed, TSM P&N loads just fine. FPS limited too, since I managed to fix that. You have to make sure the .jar file is not associated by default with an application other than Java. Open with will not do, eet wants default association.
Now, when I tried to remove securom last time, it broke my game, as mentioned above, so I'm not looking forward to retrying that method... On the other hand, I can't really play the game as it is, either.

ETA3: After registry and hard drive searching, I can say this: Using a crack prevents securom from installing. Never use the original exe and you should be fine. Create firewall rule too, you never know. Installing P&N fixed whatever was wrong with the game originally. I must have wanted to check if the game ran after patching without a crack originally, and could do that because I had a miniimage in daemon tools, and that's how securom got there in the first place.
It seems to work now (without securom), and it's not going online in any case, but TSM is probably not the only game to get securom-adding patches, so check whatever other EA (and not only, probably) games you play too.

TL;DR: Always use a crack with TSM, at least from version 2.0.13 onwards. If securom was evil enough to warrant suing EA, you don't want it on your PC.

Here's what happened: I installed the latest patch yesterday, then played the game without any issue. Happy that the patch didn't seem to have broken anything, I tried to create a .bat to limit fps (because it exceeded 150, let alone 30 or 60), and found that I could not (i.e., the .bat would not appear, and an adapted ts3 .bat would fail to start the game, with an error.). I found, by searching google, that my error (13003) was securom specific, therefore, I went ahead and used the reclaimyourgame tutorial in order to get rid of the new version of securom (or whatever they've named it this time). I believe it (the new version of securom) was malicious because the sony securom uninstaller actually detected a securom component on my PC, and because it threw a securom specific error.
After this, I restarted my PC, cracked my game (attempting to play with the original exe made the game throw the 13003 error), and tried to play. at this point, I clicked to skip the intro and passed on to the loading screen. It asked to go online, to which I said no. Now, every time I try to play, the loading bar becomes completely green, and then my game CTDs, with no explanation. Since this started only after I uninstalled the securom thingy, I assume it has to do with that, and the fact that I did not let the game go online.
Has anyone run into this error?

Because I know people will wonder, my bat reads thus:

The Sims (at least 3), has the benefit of NoCD mods, such awesomemod or Twallan's. So, no need for ''cracks'' (the reason for quotes is for me to ask why plural).

This appears to be a problem with the registry entries for TS3. Have you tried to search the registry through regedit -> find ? Because if there's nothing there, only a reinstall will help. I think that, if there's no registry entry, the program files folder can just be deleted.
Also, I don't think the problem was caused by windows not shutting down properly. This reaction could have been triggered by that, but my win7 installation has done that plenty of times and nothing like this has ever happened to me. And I can't be called a careful windows user, really.
(it is worth mentioning that I did read the whole topic, even if I did not quote the last post.)

I can confirm that location should have no importance. My TS3 installation, with all EPs and no SPs in in D:\Electronic Arts, using windows 7 64bit. When I was using Win7 32bit, I had TS3 installed on another physical hard drive entirely, not just another partition (though this should make no difference as far as I'm aware, but then, what you're experiencing shouldn't happen either, so...) and it worked. Though vista wanted the last EP in program files for some reason, if I wanted to use CC. I triple checked and it was not a framework fail - I happily merged the newly created folder with the (backup) older one (this was before ambitions) when I reinstalled the EP in C and it automagically worked. I think that eliminates the possibility of Win7 being the cause , or the fact that you use the 64bit version of it, but I don't have an explanation of why this happens.

Besides that, which was probably TL;DR for some, I have this idea: have you tried patching manually (not during the amb installation, if that's you most recent EP), before installing? Because I do vaguely remember a new patch between Amb and LN, though I might very well be wrong, and I think that's when I switched from vista to 7, and I no longer had to install the latest EP (amb, then later LN, though I had amb only on Win7) in program files instead of wherever I pleased. Simprograms, however, seems to support the existence of such a patch, by not listing LN updates for 2/3 patches available for amb, specifically the first 2 here.

I found installing a crack rather fool-proof, (with the exception of making backups - people tend to forget that), so I was wondering if anyone (most likely the original poster) knows why the crack didn't work in the first place, after all.


I was talking only about TS3, however, I'm part of that group you mentioned, and I agree that that's the explanation for people using cracks for TS3. Meh, I stopped using cracks the moment I first poked the awesome config tool. As a side-question, though, because it's just occurred to me: I've never seen a NoCD mod for TS2, only cracks... which kinda bugs me now, since nobody can say TS2 has no 'modification system'.