Game crashes during loading screen because of Buy Mode CC.

[ArnaBarnari]

Just yesterday I wanted to download CC for Buy Mode (never done that before, only skins, hair, eyes, makeup etc, that show up in Body Shop), and I went and did that. I only have The Sims 2 and Open For Business so I make sure to download stuff just for those so the problem is not with that I think.

I went on a Buy Mode downloading spree and downloaded bucketloads of files, and then I went to play the game and it crashed during the loading screen, saying something like: "This application has crashed. This application will now terminate." And sometimes it doesn't even get to the message, it just freezes and I have to restart my computer.

So I searched FAQ's and googled and found out that it either might be my audio or video card, or because of CC. So I put my downloads folder on the desktop and the game worked fine with no CC. I did the 'test/safe' method, putting half in the downloads folder and opening the game, putting files into the 'safe' folder if they were good (took me hours..). And finally I found out that the problem was with the Buy Mode content. If I don't have that in the downloads folder the game works fine. Now, I have CEP, if that counts for anything (although I don't know what it is, I just downloaded it and it works because when I click the potty for example, I see one potty icon in the description area. So that works fine.)

I also have all the meshes for the Buy Mode stuff, so it's not that either. And it's just any Buy Mode CC, not just one corrupted download. All.

Oh, and I've tried deleting my cache files.

This is driving me daft so please, could someone help me?

(Do I need to post system information? If so, where can I find it?)

Thanks in advance,
Arna.

[HystericalParoxysm]

It sounds like it could actually be a problem with the particular custom content you downloaded.

Just because someone has indicated that the item requires the base game or a particular EP doesn't mean they're necessarily -right- about that. Unfortunately many beginning creators make the mistake of thinking that because they base their item on a base game item or one from a particular EP, that it will only require the base game or that EP. Unless they set up their SimPE in a particular way, this is not always the case - it can end up grabbing bits of information from other EPs which makes the item either not show up, or crash the game for people who don't have those EPs. For example, Seasons adds new options to fridges - even if you clone a base game fridge, if you have Seasons enabled in your SimPE options, the fridge will require Seasons, and will not work/will crash the game for people who don't have Seasons.

If it's gonna crash due to that, it crashes on loading - which leads me to believe that this is your issue.

To find out for sure, let's get you to test stuff that is 100% guaranteed cloned properly and working as it should: Numenor's stuff.

Try downloading some of this stuff (http://sumomo.modthesims2.com/download.php?tag=&f=385&showType=3&gameOrig=1&filter=0&typenormal=1&typepicked=1&typefeatured=1&username=Numenor&csort=0&go=Filter+Downloads). These are things made by Numenor that should require nothing but the base game. Numenor's about the most knowledgeable creator about the way the game does things, so if his stuff isn't going to work, nothing will.

Take out -everything- else temporarily (just cut and paste the contents of your Downloads folder to another folder temporarily - your Desktop is a good place) and only put in some of Numenor's items listed there.

Then delete your cache files as well as the contents of your Thumbnails folder.

Then try loading the game and see if you can get into buy mode for that stuff.

If it works like that (which I'm about 87.3% sure it will) then it's a matter of the particular items you've downloaded not actually being compatible with your game - either you missed that they required more than you have, or the creator put the EPs required wrong. If the latter is the case, then I'd go back to the thread/site you downloaded from and politely alert the creator to this fact. I can dig up a link for you to give them so they can clone their items properly so this doesn't happen again, and so they can fix it.

[ArnaBarnari]

It sounds like it could actually be a problem with the particular custom content you downloaded.

Just because someone has indicated that the item requires the base game or a particular EP doesn't mean they're necessarily -right- about that. Unfortunately many beginning creators make the mistake of thinking that because they base their item on a base game item or one from a particular EP, that it will only require the base game or that EP. Unless they set up their SimPE in a particular way, this is not always the case - it can end up grabbing bits of information from other EPs which makes the item either not show up, or crash the game for people who don't have those EPs. For example, Seasons adds new options to fridges - even if you clone a base game fridge, if you have Seasons enabled in your SimPE options, the fridge will require Seasons, and will not work/will crash the game for people who don't have Seasons.

If it's gonna crash due to that, it crashes on loading - which leads me to believe that this is your issue.

To find out for sure, let's get you to test stuff that is 100% guaranteed cloned properly and working as it should: Numenor's stuff.

Try downloading some of this stuff (http://sumomo.modthesims2.com/download.php?tag=&f=385&showType=3&gameOrig=1&filter=0&typenormal=1&typepicked=1&typefeatured=1&username=Numenor&csort=0&go=Filter+Downloads). These are things made by Numenor that should require nothing but the base game. Numenor's about the most knowledgeable creator about the way the game does things, so if his stuff isn't going to work, nothing will.

Take out -everything- else temporarily (just cut and paste the contents of your Downloads folder to another folder temporarily - your Desktop is a good place) and only put in some of Numenor's items listed there.

Then delete your cache files as well as the contents of your Thumbnails folder.

Then try loading the game and see if you can get into buy mode for that stuff.

If it works like that (which I'm about 87.3% sure it will) then it's a matter of the particular items you've downloaded not actually being compatible with your game - either you missed that they required more than you have, or the creator put the EPs required wrong. If the latter is the case, then I'd go back to the thread/site you downloaded from and politely alert the creator to this fact. I can dig up a link for you to give them so they can clone their items properly so this doesn't happen again, and so they can fix it.



Oh, thank you so much for answering! I put my CC content (except for the CEP, shouldn't I leave it in the downloads folder?) into a file on the desktop and downloaded Numenor's "Streetfire in a Trashcan". So there were only CEP and the trashcan in the downloads folder. I also deleted my CACHE file (just had the groups.cache file) and the Thumbnails content and then I opened the game, and VOILA! It didn't freeze or crash or anything! So thanks for that!

But when I get through the loading screen where I select neighbourhoods I get a window that says I have disabled CC, asking me if I want to enable it, and then it lists files that could corrupt the game, and it listed the trashcan. Should I worry about this, or should I just enable CC.

Thanks again,
Arna.

(It's weird though that it's a problem with the particular content, because I only downloaded MTS2 Featured Downloads and MTS2 Picks.)

[simsample]

Yes, you have to enable CC at this warning, then when in game you need to check the game options to make sure CC is activated, and disable the custom content dialog. Then you need to restart the game, and everything should show up. That could have been what the problem was before.
http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:GCCTSU2