Trouble installing Sims 3, any ideas?

So my fiance purchased and downloaded a copy of The Sims 3 from Direct2Drive. She tried to install it but got the error message "Could not verify the integrity of the installer", after which the installer quits. I did some digging in the package and found tginstall.plist. Inside is an array which says InstallVerify, followed by a string which checks the MD5 Checksum of a file in the Install directory, INSTALLDATA.tgz. Thinking that perhaps the checksum had been corrupted in transit, I went to terminal and ran MD5 INSTALLDATA.tgz, and was returned the exact same checksum that is already listed in tginstall.plist. So if the checksum matches, and I can find no other references to anything else the installer is checking, what could possibly be the problem?

By the way, simply deleting the entry in the plist does not cause the installer to skip the verification, it just crashes.

I don't have the answer to your question, but I can tell you that you aren't the only one having trouble with the digital download version. You might want to check out the Sims 3 forum....there is a sub-section for Macs and for technical difficulties.

Sims 3 installation fiasco "Could not verify the integrity of the installer"

When I read the first post here I was glad to see that it was not just me that was having the problem (since that would have meant a global problem/fix), however now after several days and more people reporting the same problem I was expecting a solution.

I am having the same problem and have had no luck. I have sent 4 messages to D2D with only generic, intelligence insulting replies; giving only instructions on how to download and install.

Courtesy of: **Google him**
______________
Rich Metcalfe
Senior Support Specialist
Digital Distribution
______________

It looks like to me that EA does not directly support the duel platform electronic version, nor do they offer a Mac download themselves. Their lack of support is reportedly due to lack of Mac support for their download manager. Instead they reference third parties; that it looks like have repackaged the binaries with their own Mac installer. D2D has had this problem in the past so this is nothing new.

I have been watching the other forums and have not seen headway anywhere else either.

I have picked apart the tginstall.plist, substituted values just about everywhere else as well, to see what the install could be checking, with no luck. My next step is going to be doing a manual install and seeing what happens from there. The launcher works just fine.

Another interesting thing is that if you expand "installdata.tgz" it starts the Sims 3 Launcher program. The program however looks like it only will look for a CD when you attempt to start it. There is more to dig around in if you view the content of "The Sims 3" (from inside installdata.tgz") There may be a way in here to redirect the launcher program to local source files.

I will be checking back here and posting until I get this fixed.
Any insight appreciated !!

I finally got it to work.

What I did was make a new disk image in Disk Utility, then copied all the Sims 3 files over to it.

In the tginstall.plist file there is a value which says "ForbiddenGameID". Delete that, and also delete the "InstallVerify" value. Save, launch the installer, and it should work.

The installer uses the variable $INSTALLVOLUME inside ginstall.plist to describe the relative path for source files, however it assumes that the files will be at the highest level in the root of $INSTALLVOLUME. $INSTALLVOLUME/installer is where it looks for the first file (installdata.tgz) that contains the CRC data the installer needs to verify file integrity.

The installer was written assuming that the files would be at the highest level of the volume like the root of a DVD or in the case of the Mac Only install, a DMG file.

So the fix is to create an 8 gig .dmg, copy the files from within TheSims3_ddsetup_1.0.631.00107(2).zip inside the mounted volume, and run the install. If you need to save space and cant afford having the original zip and the .dmg on your drive you can always delete the .zip, create the dmg and download directly to the mounted volume.


$INSTALLVOLUME/installer/INSTALLDATA.tgz=5e9341cd6eb3f0a26cff7dfb49934aac1936b410

viper911h said:

The installer uses the variable $INSTALLVOLUME inside ginstall.plist to describe the relative path for source files, however it assumes that the files will be at the highest level in the root of $INSTALLVOLUME. $INSTALLVOLUME/installer is where it looks for the first file (installdata.tgz) that contains the CRC data the installer needs to verify file integrity.

The installer was written assuming that the files would be at the highest level of the volume like the root of a DVD or in the case of the Mac Only install, a DMG file.

So the fix is to create an 8 gig .dmg, copy the files from within TheSims3_ddsetup_1.0.631.00107(2).zip inside the mounted volume, and run the install. If you need to save space and cant afford having the original zip and the .dmg on your drive you can always delete the .zip, create the dmg and download directly to the mounted volume.


$INSTALLVOLUME/installer/INSTALLDATA.tgz=5e9341cd6eb3f0a26cff7dfb49934aac1936b410

Click to expand...

I created the DMG file, and did as you said, but it's still saying the same thing?

Any help would be appreciated

ADKhikerVW said:

I finally got it to work.

What I did was make a new disk image in Disk Utility, then copied all the Sims 3 files over to it.

In the tginstall.plist file there is a value which says "ForbiddenGameID". Delete that, and also delete the "InstallVerify" value. Save, launch the installer, and it should work.

Click to expand...

EDIT:

I found them, changed it like you said. But, all that happens is it starts to verify and then it crashes, asking me if I want to relaunch. No good =/

Did I mention I will love whoever can solve this for me longtime? I'll even make a Sim after you and let it bask in a glorious mansion or something...
Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi where do you find tginstall.plist ?????
Thanks

Ok i found it !
But how do you save it ? cause i can't save as the same extension ...

Ok now i found how to delete
AND ... now, when i lauch install that doesn t work and quit the application because of error ...
Pfff ...
WHO CAN HELP !!!

Weird it worked for me the first time, but I just unzipped it again and tried to see if it would work a second time, and it didn't. I must have done something else I forgot about. I will check and try to figure it out.

It will be so great if you can find !!!
Thanks a lot

ADKhikerVW said:

I finally got it to work.

What I did was make a new disk image in Disk Utility, then copied all the Sims 3 files over to it.

In the tginstall.plist file there is a value which says "ForbiddenGameID". Delete that, and also delete the "InstallVerify" value. Save, launch the installer, and it should work.

Click to expand...

I was just wondering how you got this work? I edited the tginstall.plist file and deleted forbiddengameid values and the installverify value, saved and re-launched. The installer paused for a moment and then closed off with no error message i didnt even get the cannot verify the integrity of the installer. I have heard that the digital download version of sims 3 is only good for the PC in a windows environment. Not sure if there is a way around it or if its even possible to run it on a MAC

ADKhikerVW said:

Weird it worked for me the first time, but I just unzipped it again and tried to see if it would work a second time, and it didn't. I must have done something else I forgot about. I will check and try to figure it out.

Click to expand...

I really appreciate your help! It's so frustrating

bf21789 said:

I really appreciate your help! It's so frustrating

Click to expand...

There is an actual digital download (MAC) version of the SIMS 3 which I found on d2d's website. As far as getting the PC digital download version working on the MAC brings up some concern, anything is possible I guess especially in the digital world.

I purchased the Digital Download MAC version.
That's why I'm baffled why it didn't come as a DMG. When I go to my purchase history it is INDEED the Macintosh version.

viper911h said:

So the fix is to create an 8 gig .dmg, copy the files from within TheSims3_ddsetup_1.0.631.00107(2).zip inside the mounted volume, and run the install.

Click to expand...

Woohoo! Thank you so much, it worked for me (Windows Sims 3 from direct2drive on OSX 10.5.6.).

VitaminF said:

Woohoo! Thank you so much, it worked for me (Windows Sims 3 from direct2drive on OSX 10.5.6.).

Click to expand...

So does this mean making a DMG version of the OSX version doesn't work?
The DMG only works with the Windows version?

Because I have a bunch of .exe files, but, of course, they don't run on a Mac.
I don't have boot camp or any of those crossover things, nor do I want to install them...

bf21789 said:

So does this mean making a DMG version of the OSX version doesn't work?
The DMG only works with the Windows version?

Because I have a bunch of .exe files, but, of course, they don't run on a Mac.
I don't have boot camp or any of those crossover things, nor do I want to install them...

Click to expand...

Honestly, i don't know. I got linked from the download site for Sims 3 Mac (US) to Sims 3 PC (rest of the world) because direct2drive is probably made by not so smart people. And because I'm obviously an idiot, too, I accidentally downloaded that PC version and not the MAC version.

So: I have a) a Mac, b) the Windows version of Sims 3 (that supposedly works on a Mac, too), and c) the DMG version worked for me (that's why I gave those details in my last post ;D ).

I don't have boot camp (no idea what that is) or anything else, all you'll need is on your Mac to create a DMG. Don't know how to describe the process, I'll leave that to someone who knows the right terms.

Any...experts?