Author Topic: My Neighborhood has disappeared  (Read 2091 times)

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Offline LilSister

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My Neighborhood has disappeared
« on: August 05, 2012, 07:12:38 PM »
I had just finished playing a household, I saved the lot and exited to the neighborhood screen. The program stopped responding and the neighborhood screen never loaded.  I had to use the task manager to to shut down the game (I waited 15 minutes before doing this). That was 3 hours ago. I just started the game and the Neighborhood was missing. I shut down the game and opened SimPe, Neighborhood Unknown - Does this mean my hood is gone?

Offline simsfreq

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2012, 12:11:40 AM »
Was it a brand new hood?

If you go into My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods, do the amount of folders correspond to the number of hoods you have?
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Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2012, 12:15:27 AM »
Did you make a back up recently?  If so, try moving the current neighborhood folder to the desktop and putting in a copy of the back-up (only a copy, just in case...)
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2012, 04:07:52 AM »
This is not a new hood. This neighborhood is a little over a year old with 21 households;We have 3rd and 4th generation Sims. Zeph I do have a back up. I will try loading the copy.

When I created Riverside Heights I packaged a copy of the neighborhood to file (just the neighborhood no Sims). Just in case I need to move my Sims to the new hood I have a few questions: 1. Is it safe to package a household with a pregnant Sim? 2. Do I need to age babies to Toddlers before packaging? 3. How many Sims can safely be packaged in a house-it is important for me to keep families intact and many are in different households. I know this can be done in Simpe; but if I have to do this I want to make the move as smooth as possible.

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2012, 04:34:01 AM »
With LotFullofSims, I believe Inge managed to package and move around 20 or so sims safely.  You don't need SimPE to do the packaging, just click on the household in neighborhood view and select Package Lot to a File.  To keep the size down, it's probably best to move all the sims you want to move to an small lot without any cc.  When you have packaged them up, close your game and find the sims2pack.  Open it with the Clean Installer and select lot and family segment only.  Remove all non-family members manually, plus anything that the CI has not unchecked and should have been (unlikely, but worth checking.  Now choose the option to Save As, and choose the name of the file itself.  There should be a new, smaller sims2pack created, plus a .bkp of the original.  I'd suggest you then install the lot into an empty hood with no cc, then load the hood and install the family in the current house. Close your game and open SimPE and check each member of the family to make sure they are not carrying a lot of Unknown memories and relationships.  Once you have checked and cleaned up where necessary, everything should be fine and you can resave the lot (only if you needed to do any cleaning up, otherwise the one you have already should be fine.) Now try installing the family into your intended final destination and set about splitting them up into the houses you want them to be in.

I don't think it matters about babies and toddlers, but I do think you have to do this when no family members are at college.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline miros1

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2012, 04:36:13 AM »
I'd try making a new back up, then deleting NeighborhoodManager.package.

If it's any consolation, Greg Bennet had almost the same thing happen.

Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2012, 04:59:56 AM »
I just tried a copy of my back-up file and it loaded. I didn't enter the neighborhood but it was there. I'll have to get LotFullofSims; BTW I meant setting family ties in Simpe not packaging Sims, lol.  Sims at college will be returned home to move with the family.  I will also have to package my Townies, they were created in CAS and I don't want to lose them either. I wonder what causes this "unknown" thing to happen.

Miros when you say make a new copy of the back-up do, I need to load the game and enter the neighborhood, then exit and make a copy?

I wish I could stay home from work to fix this today; On the bright side, I have you guys to assist me in the transition and I'm gratefull. Oh my I've gotta dash...gotta go to work. Thanks Zeph and Miros, I'll be checking back here after I get to work :cheese: I'm sure I'll have more questions and such by the time I get there. 


Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2012, 05:24:07 AM »
Problem with moving students home in order to move them is that you might have trouble putting them back in college, at least until your hood is set up and you can have one of the premades move them in with Inge's cat - and you might have problems with their semesters and grades, etc.  I just think it's too chancy and would wait until they have graduated, while younger siblings, if necessary, could be aged down a bit with the Blender so they don't miss out.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2012, 08:04:37 AM »
I am not really worried about the Uni-Students that is an easy fix; Preserving the families is more important to me right now; I have several items that will assist with setting grades.  I have too many playable sims in University from Freshman thru Seniors and I'm not sure how long  I'll be able to play the nieghborhood copy. Since I don't know what caused the problem, I am thinking it would be better to prep all the Sims to be moved. Just wondering: My Fraternity and Sorrority Houses is it O.K. to package them with Sims?

When I get home later I will load the game - and go into the hood since Miros suggest I delete the neighborhood manager, I've got to update Sims bank account information because I've found out last year when you delete the Neighborhood Manager it also empties their bank accounts. I really hope resetting the neighborhood manager will do it; just in case I'm preparing for armageddon :cheese:.

Offline miros1

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2012, 10:16:53 AM »
I just meant make a back  up of your game the way it is, just in case  you accidentally screw it up worse.

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Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2012, 12:44:51 PM »
Usually when you have a bad save, the cause can be traced to a large game file and low end computer specs.  One thing I would suggest you do is increase the size of your paging file, and generally cut out as much background stuff as you can.  I usually follow Paladin's tutorial to get me started, then use CCleaner to disable unnecessary start-up stuff.  The other thing I do, since I'm still playing on this PC rather than my new one (soo lazy...) is to keep my Downloads folder small, with a groups.cache below 500kb, and save and exit fairly frequently.  Oh, and reboot before restarting the game, too.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2012, 01:28:37 PM »
Miros I always keep a back up copy! I loaded the game with a copy of the back up;

Zeph I have more than enough memory on my computer (4 GB w/out of the 2 GB usable I have 120 GB free; although I don't have one of the most expensive computers my specs are more than enough for playing the Sims(per my IT guy at work) . I only have a total of 230 Sims in my hood (have few more recent births and several  more on the way). I did play a long time without shutting down and saving. I don't usually abuse my computer but I will admit that I my have put it to the test this past weekend.  I won't let that happen again if this is the result. 

Now about my downloads folder - I don't know about the 500K but I can lighten the load it's carrying of unnecessary and unused objects.

I just went to Paladins - The tutorial is for Windows XP - I have windows 7. Will have to take time and read through when I get home.

Thanks again Miros and Zeph I will keep you posted regarding my progress.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 01:35:41 PM by LilSister »

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #12 on: August 06, 2012, 05:16:27 PM »
Some of the suggestions should work with W7 too, I think.

Oh, I said 500 kb, not 500k - a 500k groups.cache would be enormous!  Bear in mind, the more stuff you have, the less memory you have to play the game, and TS2 doesn't seem able to use more than around 2GB of RAM, and needs almost half that to save and exit.  At least, that's my experience.

Just out of interest, did your Logs folder get a record of the crash?
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #13 on: August 06, 2012, 08:53:21 PM »
I've increased my paging file to the recommended max for my computer (4506); programs that needed to be disabled were actually done last year.  I will let my IT guy at work look at it again to see if anything else can be done. I'm not that savvy so I don't want to fudge around with stuff I don't know about.

The log file didn't capture it.  I do have a log from late yesterday evening with empty notepad files and audio errors. 

Question: Which LotFullOfSims mod do I use Ancient Highways or Jordi's? or does Inge have one?

I'm working on my DL folder. Problem is I created all of my community Lots and items I've downloaded were downloaded specifically for the lots. I'm going to have to go in to view the catalog so I can what folders I need to remove. Thank goodness for organization.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 09:21:20 PM by LilSister »

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #14 on: August 07, 2012, 02:31:59 AM »
I think BoilingOil has one....

Your paging file can be twice the size of your RAM - those Windows recommendations are really for normal home use, web browsing, downloading, shopping, doing homework, etc., they don't allow for the excessive amount of memory usage by gamers.  If your hard drive is between 500 GB and 1 TB, then allowing 8 GB or so for the paging file is a drop in the ocean.

If you have a fair idea of what you have used, then running through your Downloads with Clean Installer would probably be easier, as it doesn't prevent you removing stuff as you go, in fact, it will move stuff to another folder itself, you just need to tell it where to put it.  A lot of memory can be used up when you install sets, and only use, perhaps, the seating and surfaces, while all that deco that creators love to include just sits there untouched.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline BoilingOil

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #15 on: August 07, 2012, 02:47:50 AM »
I wouldn't advise using AH's version of LFoS, because it conflicts with a few things (for example, TJ's Preg-for-All-Genders). And since AH's mod is an AL-updated version of Jordi's, I expect that Jordi's version conflicts with some stuff as well, and may not even be AL-compatible. I never heard of Inge having done anything like this, though.

But, as ZZ already guessed, I *do* have one myself which doesn't conflict with anything and is very small. It's named BO - Unlimited Sims. And I know of another mod by Cyjon: Bigger Families. It's also very small, and perfectly safe to use!

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #16 on: August 07, 2012, 10:44:49 AM »
Zeph , My paging file has been increased beyond Mfg recommended limits.  I followed the info provided on Paladins chart. Are you suggesting that I increase it further?

Also, I find it better if you are removing objects from your game to go in game and remove them from the lot, and then remove folder from downloads. This way you know exactly what you are removing and you won't  have strange objects on your lots taking the place of objects that you've removed. In addition, I don't want to permanently delete the content. I keep it on a scandisk in case I want to use it again. Also helps when removing recolors.

From what I understand I played the game too long without shutting down my computer and allowing it to rest.  I had the game for 12 hours straight - I wasn't actually playing the whole time - I had built a couple of lots and redecorated a couple of others; when I'm building and decorating I don't realize how much time passes. Then of course after building something new you've got to have your Sim test it.  I won't do that again.

I've decided to use one copy of the backup file to package the Sims and get updated copies of my lots. Once I get my Sims situated (memories, cleaned, etc. I will see how long I can continue to play another copy of the backup.


Question: I used Theos Deleter tool and I deleted over 500 townies (not at one time - batches); could this also be part of the problem?  When making major changes like that should I have refreshed my neighborhood manager file?  Also, How large is too large for neighborhood files?

Sorry for all the questions - I just want to know what I can do to keep this from happening again, if possible. I really appreciate all the help I'm receiving.

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #17 on: August 07, 2012, 03:04:57 PM »
Last question first, yes, after such major changes, deleting the NM would be a good idea, I think.

I've found that building and decorating a medium sized lot or above can take just about all the memory I have.  Also, a large base hood as it grows can use a great deal more than a small subhood or college hood, play one of each for a couple of sim days and then shift to the desktop and ctrl/alt/del and you'll see what I mean.

I didn't mean to use the CI to delete content you currently use, just the stuff you know you never have put in any of your lots.  And I agree, I never delete anything, just move it elsewhere, and I already have back-ups of everything I use.  I never actually even delete stuff that is obviously faulty, just keep a copy of it in a folder named, believe it or not, faulty, so that I don't make the mistake of putting it in my game again!

My paging file is currently 4GB, while I have 2GB RAM. When I defrag, that little strip of green looks very small indeed. I don't honestly think Microsoft have updated everything to reflect the much larger hard drives that are available nowadays.

What I would suggest is that, when you start your new hood, you use a smallish main hood, and maybe two or three shopping districts, just so you can optimise your playing time. Also, in a large hood, doing this can make it a little easier to manage a rotation.  You may even find that, by moving some families to a subhood, and using Mootilda's Hood Replacer (or do I mean shrinker?) thingy, you could make that main hood a little smaller and you might be able to continue playing the original hood without necessarily going to the trouble of moving everyone.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 03:06:33 PM by zephyrzodiac »
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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #18 on: August 07, 2012, 04:09:37 PM »
Zeph what is the numerical value for the 4GB of virtual memory?  I now have it increased to 4506 - I thought that was it. Have you ever used the Hood Shrinker (or is it the lot shrinker)? I'm a little leery because I didn't have a good experience with the one that checks for corruption. :blink: I have the mainhood and one shopping district - I think I will try creating another sub-hood and move some of the Sims and see what happens.

The Neighborhood package file for the mainhood is 11,062 KB; is that too large? Also is their a limit or a safe number of Sim Households to have in the mainhood and subhoods? I'm also thinking I should just play my legacy family the St. James; their two daughters have married and started families - one still lives at home with her parents; but their brother will soon graduate and get married. That was may orignial plan - but then I got attached to the other families and well.. you know.  I would much rather preserve the hood I have if I can - moving everyone is a task and I'm not really looking forward to it. What do you think?
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 04:20:53 PM by LilSister »

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #19 on: August 07, 2012, 04:35:35 PM »
No, it's not the lot shrinker, it's the one which allows you to make a hood template smaller.  I don't really know much about it, but I do remember Sleepycat telling me about it some time ago when I was having problems with an overlarge base hood.  I believe you have to move all your houses to the middle before you use the program, but I decided to play another theme, so never got around to it.

4GB is 4506 MB.  If you have 4GB of RAM, you could double that.  If you don't like the effect, you can always change it back again.  I would also recommend that you use Paladin's tutorial to make the paging file static - ie, both minimum and maximum values should be the same, and prevent Windows from constantly changing it, as this, in itself, can cause memory loss in your game.  Disabling startup for a lot of other Windows services (you can use CCleaner to do this, it only highlights those features that are safe to disable) can help to improve the amount of virtual memory you have available, too.  Also, if you have a memory-hogging anti-virus, such as McAfee or Norton, when it runs out, look to replace it with something like avast!, which has a gaming option and is very economical to run, and also free for home use.

My current theme has a Neighborhood.package for the main hood of 3.08 MB.  I play currently around 60 households, but only around half of them are in the main hood.  On the other hand, the theme I was having problems with has a file of over double that for the main hood, far more households living there, and was played for a lot longer.  The system I currently play on is quite an old one and the specs are a great deal lower than yours, so you should be able to play that sort of amount without problems, I would think, but not if Windows and other programs are constantly deciding to start checking for updates, etc. while you are playing your game.
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Offline BoilingOil

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #20 on: August 08, 2012, 01:08:23 AM »
4GB is 4096 MB.

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Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #21 on: August 08, 2012, 04:13:45 AM »
Oops, I knew it was somewhere around there, but I was tired and didn't check carefully enough.  But I will have used the correct figures when I changed my paging file.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #22 on: August 08, 2012, 06:44:55 AM »
I used one back up copy to package the St. James Family just in case something goes wrong in the other copy.  I summoned all family members to one lot (moved in extended family as necessary); I then moved everyone to an empty lot. I used the bat box to clear any left over trash memories and Moniques gnome to remove Sims from their panel that were not in the current household; Since they have a pet, I cleared his memories also. I also aged the babies to toddlers because babies can also carry memories of people outside of the household that they have met. I then packaged the lot to file. I then resaved that packaged file with only the packaged lot, and the family files.  For some reason the packaged copy did not have a lot segment.  I then installed the lot into a trash hood and used the bat box to wipe all corrupt memories.  Doing this took away all of their important memories like getting married, having children and grandchildren; is that normal? After getting rid of the corrput memories i checked in Simpe and there are no memories related to anyone from their previous hood of Riverside Heights; however they have gossip memories from Sims in this trash hood they haven't even met. Never will understand that part.  The problem that I discovered was that one of the kids was not packaged in the file; I missed him when going through the installer, so I have to do it again - just wanted to know if I was on the right track.

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #23 on: August 08, 2012, 08:06:43 AM »
I think you went about this the wrong way.  Package the lot to a file and use the Clean Installer to save the lot and family segments.  Install the new, smaller sims2pack.  Load game, place lot, save and exit.  Try using Mootilda's Hood Checker to check their memories.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline miros1

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #24 on: August 08, 2012, 08:47:57 AM »
The Batbox tends to overachieve.  JMP thinks a lot of the memories you mention are crap, so his hacks trash them.

I think BO has some clean up hacks.

Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #25 on: August 08, 2012, 09:23:50 AM »
I think you went about this the wrong way.  Package the lot to a file and use the Clean Installer to save the lot and family segments.  Install the new, smaller sims2pack.  Load game, place lot, save and exit.  Try using Mootilda's Hood Checker to check their memories.

Zeph, Perhaps I didn't explain it clearly, but that's what I did - I just didn't package them in their home lot - too much custom content. I moved them to an empty lot first - Actually thats the way you said to do it (referencing one of your previous post in this thread); did I misunderstand - what exactly did I do wrong?  Why is Simpe not sufficient for checking memories?...I am not partial to the Hood Checker; used it on a hood when it  was first  introduced-thank goodness it wasn't  my mainhood-that's all I'm saying.  Have you ever used the hood checker? 


Miros, I will look into BO's mods and see what he has that I can use.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2012, 09:37:16 AM by LilSister »

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #26 on: August 08, 2012, 12:32:48 PM »
I use the Hood Checker all the time.  No problems with it, apart from the few memories it highlights as corrupt which I can't fix via SimPE, and the Batbox doesn't see as corrupt. 

And, yes, most of what you did is what I suggested, but nowhere did I mention the Batbox. 

I suggested the Hood Checker since it does save an awful lot of time in SimPE!!!

And BO certainly can help.  Try installing No Sim Loaded BEFORE you start moving families, and if you never used it, be prepared for a bit of a wait.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #27 on: August 08, 2012, 01:17:17 PM »
I already have BO's NoSimLoad - it's been installed for quite sometime now - did you forget it was you who told me about it? :cheese:; and no you didn't mentioned the BAT Box; however it was mentioned and discussed in another thread in the Forum as a tool regarding moving Sims from one hood to the next (and I've used it before).

I had a neighborhood borked by using the Hood Checker -  I am leery of fiddling with things that I am not knowledgeable about and can't fix if something goes wrong. Once burned twice shy you know.

I've moved a single sim from one hood the the next without incident -but never a mass migration such as this. So forgive me, I am not questioning you - it's just if things get further fudged, I won't be able to fix it.

I guess it can't hurt to run it on the Sims moving in the trash hood - but I don't feel comfortable using it on a regular basis; I know that I may be in the minority concerning the hood checker.

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #28 on: August 08, 2012, 02:04:20 PM »
Sorry, I had forgotten.  By all means run the Batbox nuke trash memories, but avoid nuking the corrupt ones, at least as far as any default sims are concerned - a lot of them do have corrupt memories, but you need to correct them in SimPE unless you want, for example, Don Lothario to have no memories of his family history.  (Of course, if you are moving Don without his ancestors, then you should nuke those memories)  If your CAS or BIG sims have corrupt memories, again try correcting them in SimPE - unfortunately, since the BatBox doesn't list the corrupt memories it finds before nuking them, you would need to check each and every memory to find those which refer to the wrong subject, or no subject at all, or refer to an Unknown.  It can be a long and wearisome job, but if you want to continue playing families where some degree of corruption has set in, it just has to be done.  Often, the problem can be traced back to a time when the player didn't realise the dangers of in-game deletion of sims, but whether this is so in your case, of course, I don't know - probably depends on how many years you have been playing this hood. 

Basically, if you've moved (or, to be exact, copied) a single sim from one hood to another without problems, then there should be no reason why you can't move a large, extended family.  Just, whatever work you had to do with the one sim is multiplied.

One thing I would suggest is to remove custom makeup and clothing before you move the family, keeping a note of what particular custom clothing you want your sims to have when you start to play them again, and then pull the entire make-up and clothing folders from your Downloads before you package them up - the amount of stuff that gets into the package from both your resident sims and all their acquaintances can be enormous.

One further thought, if you didn't get a lot segment, then use a small, unfurnished house, not an empty lot.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2012, 02:07:47 PM by zephyrzodiac »
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #29 on: August 08, 2012, 03:09:24 PM »
How important is the lot segment? is it really necessary? I already have them packaged on the empty lot minus the custom content (with the exception of what they are wearing).


This is a custom hood I've been playing a little over a year. All of my Sims that are moving were either created in CAS or born in game (with the exception of Townie Randy London who is married to a born-in game Sim and has 3 children.)

I've only used  Theos Deleter tool to delete  Sims.  I've never had any real unfixable problems with this hood until the bad save. I'm still going to try to salvage it by moving Sims around and creating another sub-hood from my backup copy.

Although I wiped all the corrupt memories the family ties are still in tact. Would it be easier to add back the memories as opposed to trying to manually delete over 200 corrupt memories? or does it really matter that those memories are gone since they still "know'"  that they are family?


I' m going to re download the hook check  and allow it to take a look - although I know several people who have been playing their hoods for over 3 years and I know for a fact that they have done some screwy things but their hood is intact. I don't get it.

I'm still going to try to salvage the hood I'm just preparing for the worst just in case.

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #30 on: August 08, 2012, 05:22:27 PM »
If it's memories like *Potty trained by...* then I don't suppose it really matters.  I just tend to like my sims to retain all their important event memories.  If you are able to install the family while on the unbuilt lot, then that's all that matters, or alternatively, if having no lot segment means the family appear in the bin and can be moved into a lot, again, that's all that matters.  Since you have back-ups, then you can experiment to see what works for you, and with this size of family, you need to carry over as little extraneous matter as possible, and since the lot packaged up without problems, you would appear to have made the family small enough.  Have you actually installed the family yet?

You know, when I was playing the base game, on a very slow machine with a tiny amount of RAM compared to what we have today, I could leave the game running, drop down to the desktop and hibernate, and keep the game running for several days and several play sessions without problems like bad saves.  The problem is that each EP that is added appears to need another 250 MB RAM, so when you add those up, plus all the stuff packs and downloads we have these days, then the game is using a heck of a lot of RAM just to load up.  Windows 7, although it gives you more RAM than the average XP machine, also uses a lot more of it for background tasks, which is probably why you had this bad save.  If you can disable as much as possible at start-up, and stop unnecessary checking for updates, you can enhance the amount of RAM available to the game, and it may well be that you can continue to play your existing back-up without further problems.

So, go ahead and package everyone from the back up you have installed, and then, since you don't want to have to rehouse them all, remove that back up and copy the original back up in its place and, after doing what you can to improve the amount of virtual memory available, try playing again and see what happens. 
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #31 on: August 09, 2012, 10:14:36 AM »
Yes I did install them -that's how I knew I forgot one of the children...lol; I'm going to start over with the testing and  - I want to see if Mootilda's Hoodchecker will save the memories (like being potty trained, marriage,etc).  All the married Adults were having their first kiss again.

I did a radical purge of my DL folder - got rid of anything I couldn't identify; purged my make-up folder which was ridiculous - do I really need 100 eye shadows? and 65 eye liner? and let's not get started on the lipstick and other stuff! My clothing files are also ridiculous (just like my closets :cheese:). Needless to say I've still got a lot of work to do on the DL folder. I'm an organized pack rat in real life and hate to get rid of anything so you can imagine my DL folder.  I've finally got it down to just under 17,000 - don't gasp - that's a drop in the bucket compared to what I took out and what I have zipped to file. Still my load time was under 10 minutes and from what I hear from other people that's saying something. I'm shuddering to think what some of my lots look like since I also purged the Walls and Floor files - good Lord I didn't realize all the stuff I had.

I do remember reading something here on the forum about compressing recolor files - that's something I'd like to find out more about. I also saw something about a mod that stops the group files from being created. Anyhoo, I'm loading the game now.
 

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #32 on: August 09, 2012, 11:38:28 AM »
The Compressorizer by JFade. 

http://forum.jfade.com/viewforum.php?f=11

I use it for everything except object meshes.

Walls and Floors - if you have the original Base Game and not De Luxe, you should be able to put the folders for Walls, Floors, Terrain Paints and Roofs directly into the The Sims 2 directory instead of Downloads.  I don't know if it helps with load time, but it definitely makes the Downloads folder more manageable, especially if you want to use Clean Installer to check for duplicates.

The Hood Checker shouldn't remove important event memories, although if they are corrupt it will let you know.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2012, 11:45:15 AM by zephyrzodiac »
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #33 on: August 09, 2012, 01:00:03 PM »
Zeph you are a Goddess!!! The Hood Checker SHOULD be used first in order to save important memories. I reinstalled the St. James family, exited and used the hoodchecker first- it left the important memories. I then went back in game and use the bat box to wipe the left over over corrupt memories, exited the game and used the hood checker - all good! I then opened Simpe - I have a concern - my neighborhood character file shows 11 Sims (St. James Family); Simpe shows 39 Sim Descriptions (St. James Family, Game NPC's  and 11 Unknown Sims) and 78 SWAF files - should I have that many SWAF files?

I am now going to put the family in their house.  Should I play them in the trash hood for a few sims days and then move them to their permanent hood or should I move them first? Then again I guess it doesn't matter because there are no other Sims except them.

Thank you for the link.  Unfortunately I have Sims 2 Deluxe, not to worry minor set back. I had way too many walls - I took out 92!



« Last Edit: August 09, 2012, 01:03:18 PM by LilSister »

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #34 on: August 09, 2012, 01:15:59 PM »
39 sims and 78 SWAF files... that sounds very much like there's two SWAF files for each sim (2x39=78). You could, in the Resource tree, select the SWAF files, and then in the resource list sort them by name. If every name appears twice (this should not happen), then you know. But which ones you should remove? I guess you could try to figure them out by instance number, but I don't know how to explain that.

And for all I know, I'm horribly off-key here. Just the 2x39=78 thing struck me as VERY coincidental.

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #35 on: August 09, 2012, 01:46:45 PM »
I was thinking the same thing -I'm going to check Simpe; Since this is a trash hood should I'm going to move them now before playing them;  I don't want them to be fudged up after getting them straight.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2012, 02:09:16 PM by LilSister »

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #36 on: August 09, 2012, 03:34:24 PM »
I have a feeling those extra SWAF files have tagged along with the family, and are from the clones.  The simplest way to remove the unnecessary SWAF files is, as BO says, to run through them in SimPE, but you may need to make absolutely sure that the ones you delete are not using the instance numbers of your playables.  However, hopefully they will be attributed to Unknowns, and there should not be a problem.  I would, however, get them cleaned up before you move them to the intended destination.  I'd also suggest that, once you have cleaned up the SWAFs, you save the family + lot to a file, as before, and then play them for a couple of days (sim) to make sure they are playing nicely.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

http://www.4shared.com/u/yCrnLoEP/Zephyr_Zodiac.html

Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #37 on: August 09, 2012, 05:41:21 PM »
The additional SWAF files were unknown Sims. I made sure that the St. James Family didn't have any duplicate files. I only deleted the unknown Sim SWAF files. I'm going in game to see how everything works.

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #38 on: August 09, 2012, 06:43:13 PM »
Keep us posted! :popcorn:
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #39 on: August 09, 2012, 08:24:48 PM »
 :cheese: :thumb: We have success!!! Only my fellow Simmers can understand the joy I'm feeling right now.  The St. James family is settled in their lot. No problems at all other than 12 sims is too many in the house.  No empty conversation bubbles , all memories in tact and the proper amount of SWAF files. Bertrum, Jr., the Uni Student even went to class and I didn't spawn the Semester Tester, that was a bonus.  Mayor St. James went to work - everyone else had the day off.  I just ran Mootilda's Hood Checker and no corruption to be found. Zeph, BO & Miros you guys Rock!!!! I couldn't have done this without your support. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! :biglaugh:

I'm so psyched I don't even have a desire to play the original neighborhood. I can't wait to get them split up and settled back in their respective homes.  I even created a clean neighborhood to put them in. I plan to move the rest of the Sims from Riverside in batches at a later date and use them as townies and uni students. Is it O.K. to package them and move them now?
« Last Edit: August 09, 2012, 08:27:08 PM by LilSister »

Offline zephyrzodiac

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #40 on: August 10, 2012, 02:36:40 AM »
Fantastic!

And yes, I think you can package them now.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline BoilingOil

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #41 on: August 10, 2012, 03:19:18 AM »
Great news, LilSister. :thumb: Glad you got that sussed now. And in the process, Mootilda's Hood Checker also scored some credit with you. :P

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #42 on: August 10, 2012, 08:40:36 AM »
Thanks BO! Yes, Mootilda's Hood Checker scored big time for me this go round. Using the Hood Checker BEFORE the batbox enabled my Sims to retain all their important family memories, secrets and milestones and that really meant a lot to me.

« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 08:42:08 AM by LilSister »

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #43 on: August 10, 2012, 11:40:34 PM »
The Compressorizer by JFade.  http://forum.jfade.com/viewforum.php?f=11I use it for everything except object meshes.


When you say everything does this include Furniture (sofa's, tables, chairs)?  Also, I can't find the post with the link for mod that prevents the group cache from generating. Thanks.

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #44 on: August 10, 2012, 11:51:25 PM »
Yup, according to *my* dictionary, everything means everything, as long as the files in question aren't meshes!

And the groups.cache thingy is easy to make yourself:

Go to the folder "My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2" and delete the old Groups.cache file. Make a new file in notepad, and put absolutely NOTHING in it, not even a space. Save it in the same place where you deleted the old one, and give it the original name back "Groups.cache" (you may need to fiddle with settings to prevent windows from adding the .txt extension to it. And remember to use a CAPITAL G!). Then open this new file's properties, and tick the "read only" box. That should do the job already.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 11:54:44 PM by BoilingOil »

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #45 on: August 11, 2012, 01:35:35 AM »
Ut oh! I thought it was only "object" meshes that shouldn't be compressed. I've already compressed all clothing and hair files that included the meshes. How bad have I messed up the files?

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #46 on: August 11, 2012, 01:54:01 AM »
Not at all.  Actually, compressorising hair meshes saves you very little space. Compressorising object recolours and save oodles...

The only reason for not compressorising object meshes is that many creators didn't make them resistant to compressorising, and they lose their catalog description and revert to the default object.  This can usually be corrected in SimPE, but it's time consuming and not always easy to work out what the original name of an object was, especially those that didn't come in sets with a collection file.  However, some double bed meshes are definitely worth compressorising, you can reduce the size if the file by as much as 75% in many cases.

If you run the compressoriser through your walls and floors, it can improve the order if the files in the catalog, at least until you add another wall or two.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Offline LilSister

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #47 on: August 11, 2012, 09:42:57 AM »
Thanks Zeph that was a load off! However, I do have a back-up of my DL on a scandisk which I keep updated. Thanks again Zeph for all your help I really appreciate it.

I was wondering about something I have a mod thats supposed to  prevent Townies from losing their memories once they join a Sims household, but I noticed that if you make a playable Sim a townie they lose their memories - is there a way to prevent this? Something else I realized too late when moving my Sims, I packaged their homes to file and uploaded them thru CI to make sure there wasn't anything in them that should be; upon moving Sims in I discovered their family photos and custom paintings had disappeared. Is there a way to prevent this? If not, next time I will remember to put those things in their inventory before moving them.

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #48 on: August 11, 2012, 09:56:46 AM »
Try using Inge's transporter cat to make sims townies.  And, you do, I think, have to put stuff like that in their inventories.
"All the world's a Neighbourhood, and all the men and women merely Sims."  ZephyrZodiac with apologies to Willie Waggledagger.

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Re: My Neighborhood has disappeared
« Reply #49 on: August 11, 2012, 01:57:34 PM »
Family photos and custom paintings virtually always get 'lost' when sims move. And especially if you move them from one hood to another, there's absolutely no way to prevent it. I've never even heard of a mod or any other method to prevent it during a normal move. But maybe ZZ is right, and some of it can be saved by making sure these deco items are stored in sims' inventories before moving them.

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