my victory over a hack conflict.

[TortureTheNannies]

three months of minor glitch. testingcheats, shift click newspaper. get an error. I want to celebrate this victory. I do not need help or support with it. The problem is fixed.

Object id: 176
name: N003_User00116 - Lora
Stack size: 3
Error: Missing Action String in table.
Iterations: 0
Frame 2:
Stack Object id: 87
Stack Object name: JobData - Adult - Slacker
Node: 15
Tree: id 4133 name 'DEBUG - Get Any Job TEST' version -32759
from Newspaper
Prim state: 0

So, I take all the hacks out, put about ten at a time back in the folder, and narrow the problem to four. Testing one addition at a time, I found the culprit. It is a trusted author and something I thought safe for years. But it must've been a re-download. Just when I thought "This must be SAFE" I look and it said "built and tested for SEASONS" .. I only use OFB. Frig the hack and replace it. Really it's tedious work, but remove and replace files is a good way to test what hack is to blame.

Now is the time for a celebration walk. Whew!

[Alijah]

It's always such a gratifying feeling when you finish trudging through gigabytes of files to find the ONE file that is borking your game. Congrats!

[TortureTheNannies]

I'll have to see if I downloaded a previous version of the same hack. but I already have something to replace it. And testing shows the replacement works fine. Now to see if the neighborhoods are still in good shape. It seems like a minor problem that did not damage everything.

[joandsarah77]

Yah! *pops confetti* After doing the 50/50 method twice I know the feeling well.

[Bwinney43]

I had a similar triumph myself. For the longest time my animals wouldn't age. Traced it back to a hack that allowed vampires and zombies to age. Must have been conflicting with something.

It's always nice to have these little victories.

[TortureTheNannies]

Congrats to both of you two. I think my brain grew one size today, or at least I used it.

[maxon]

It's always such a gratifying feeling when you finish trudging through gigabytes of files to find the ONE file that is borking your game. Congrats!
Yeah - and it's ALWAYS the last one.

[Alijah]

Yeah - and it's ALWAYS the last one.

About halfway through the 50/50 process, I start asking myself, "does this bug REALLY bother me?"

For the longest time my sims could't use robots because I had clashing mods where they jumped every time they turned it on. Every time I got the initiative to track down the culprit, I got halfway through before I decided my sims really don't need robots, anyways.

I finally did fix it though, and my sims still haven't used a robot since.

[Rulue]

Wow. I was having a similar issue last week, with the newspaper, but it was some kind of conflict instead, since I've got all EPs. Except in my case it happened all the time and was making the game unplayable. Congrats on solving it! I went through hell, but managed to fix my problem after loads of shouting at the computer, struggling and crying, so I know very well the feeling of victory over conflicts. :D

The 50/50 method really does work. But it surely is tedious...argh.

Now to figure out how to make the random crashes stop... :C

[gazania]

There is nothing more fun in the Sims 2 when, after attempting the "easy" ways to find a problem (uncheck the items in the Installer ... yeah, yeah, I know you're technically not supposed to do that, but I find for a non-crashing problem, it's often a lazy, but useful, way to find the troublesome file), remember what stuff you downloaded last (and yes, sometimes that seemingly-innocuous wall, floor, or even a clothing item can crash a game ... rarely, but I've had this happen a few times, including with clothing), taking out the hacks and mods only, etc. you get that sinking feeling about what you have to do.

Time for the 50/50 method. So much for a hot evening!

What can complicate matters is that one file can work great by itself, and so can another file, but put them together and boom! It's time for that wonderful jump bug, freeze, crash, etc.

There is, indeed, that wonderful feeling that after what can take hours to complete, you did find the file. Congrats!

I've had cases where taking out files have uncovered actions I didn't even realize were missing, or at least I didn't think much about them. For years, I was missing the "stay the night" choice on the menu. Couldn't figure out why, and kind of wondered where it went, but since it's not often an action you can easily call up, and since I could always work around it, I admit to not being concerned about it, and not looking into the matter any further. Recently, I found a visitor mod that was working for me much better than the mod I had previously, replaced the mods, and behold! The "stay the night" function returned! I have to admit it does appeal to my Romantic Sims. A little music, a romantic meal, dim the lights. Though my ACR-related mod can sometimes rush the mood a bit!

I lost the teenage "zit" actions a long time ago. It's probably another hack or mod not playing nice with them. I admit to not losing a bit of sleep on that one. That can stay lost, AFAIC. I couldn't even hazard a guess which hack or mod got rid of it.

[joandsarah77]

Lol lost zits. :lol: I'm sure your teenage sims are not in a hurry for you to get them back.

[aUserName]

three months of minor glitch. testingcheats, shift click newspaper. get an error. I want to celebrate this victory.

:beer: :beer: :jest: :D :p :) :bunny: :D :up: :D :bunny: :luff: :beer: :gjob: :bunny: :) :jest: :up: :p :luff: :beer: :beer: :beer:


Recently, the mailboxes on some of my lots in a new hood started disappearing. I thought I had corrupted the hood, but I couldn’t see how I could have wreaked it. Then, I realized I’d installed an invisible recolor of the mailbox that was actually a default replacement. :faceslap:

(It was strange though, since it didn’t always turn my mailboxes invisible.)

[Peni Griffin]

Personally I love that the teens get zits. And the animation when they find one while checking themselves out in the mirror is wonderful. They hide their faces in their hands in utter despair!

[sushigal007]

Ah, that feeling of satisfaction when you find the problem file. I had one recently that randomly crashed my game, turned out to be a default replacement. I was only able to catch it after I started obsessivly saving every five minutes, then two actions after one save, it crashed. So I was able to repeat those actions until I found it.

Only now my dormies can't eat. They'll eat at restaurants, they'll eat snacks, all other houses can eat just fine, but these dormies just can't cook or eat the dorm chef's meals. I'm waiting to send some kids to another college to see if it's a dormie thing or just that lot because noooo, can't face doing the 50/50 again!

[labellavienna]

This is why I have my hacks in a separate file, I used to have an issue where i had an UGLY default skin spanning back in 2005 (when it looked cool)...I had no idea where that default skin was located since I have around 15 gigs of CC. Back then people didn't label their defaults as...defaults. So it was a tedious testing process. But I finally found it, and yay now I can use different default skins! I learned my lesson after that for sure.

[Simsica]

I just did 50/50 the other day and it took me about an hour to complete. I was pleasantly surprised with how painless the finding of the culprit was after I gave up on the more "easy ways", as gazania aptly called them here. I usually try anything else before giving in to the 50/50 method.

Not anymore! 50/50 FTW! It is by far the best way to deal with this issue. I admit it, finally.

[DigitalSympathies]

I had one a while back which caused my public game (the one with multiple people in my house using the same 'hood) to randomly crash without warning or provocation, and I hadn't realised it but after about a month I hunkered down with a bag of M&M's and a bottle of Coke and found the culprit in a bunch of broken Exchange files.

Now my issue is the idiot who decided that installing 10 zillion lots from T$R was *such* a great idea, especially when it turns my bigger handbuilt lots (anything over 2x2) into flashing pink horror stories . . . /buries face in hands

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9522/snapshot3cbc0a3d5cc0405.jpg

:faceslap:

[joandsarah77]

Yikes :!: Makes my repeatedly arriving school bus seem like small fry. That is the kind of glitch to make me do an immediate 50/50 if I have no idea which folder the culprit is in.
Hope you find it quickly.

[DigitalSympathies]

Thing is that it's from one of around 60 installed lots.

I think imma call it a day. LOL.

[Simdrew1993]

I'm glad you found your hack culprit. I've had those before, I have some right now, currently I have two problems myself, I have a problem with one of my default skins 1 out of 4 and it's the pale one and it looks weird the skin is the right color but the face is real dark tan it looks funny, and my other problem is my Sims cannot go to community lots any longer, when they arrive the game pauses and everyone including my sim and their car and all people vanish and it loads up buy/build mode, it does this if the sim drives,walks,flies in helicopters or flies on a broom to a community lot, but if they call a taxi the game doesn't load buy/build mode it loads fine and works right, I have not yet found my culprit...

So should I use clean installer? is that the 50/50 method I keep hearing about or am I mistaken, I've used clean installer and have gone through my downloads and every rule about what to do, everything I could possibly think of and have had no luck.

[joandsarah77]

50/50 means removing your Download folder to the desktop and splitting it into two. You put one half back and test it, preferably in a test hood with a sinbin family who don't matter. If your problem has gone you know it's the other half, if not it's in the half currently in your game. Halve the section with the bad file and try first one half and then the other half and you keep halving folders until you have found the file. It isn't fun and as someone said it always seem to be the last file! It gets more complicated if you have more than one conflicting or corrupt file. You will probably want to put sections into carefully labelled folders so you know what's what.

Clean Installer can help if you know the name of a file or if you want to find a lost hack. Preferably all your hacks are in one folder and you can simply pull that and see how the game runs. This is one of the main reasons for being organized with your downloads. If you know a default is the issue, in an organized Download folder you would just pull your defaults and sort through those instead of pulling everything. Not that I can talk as mine is only partly organized and a lot of older files are in one large folder labelled miscellaneous...

[sushigal007]

The 50/50 method is basically - move half your downloads. If the game works, the problem was in the other half, so move half of them back in. If it doesn't work, move another half out. Keep on removing half the downloads until you find that one that is causing the problem.

[Simdrew1993]

Ok, thank you joandsarah77 and sushigal007. Sounds rough Considering I have over 13,873 files and 6.98 GB worth of downloads, this will be stressful... This would take several hours but fortunately I organised most of my downloads for the most part, although several of my hacks are labelled as misc folders as well. So I still may have problems by diving everything up, I'll give it a go anyway... Wish me luck. But first I must sleep, I'm tired.

[maxon]

Ok, thank you joandsarah77 and sushigal007. Sounds rough Considering I have over 13,873 files and 6.98 GB worth of downloads, this will be stressful... This would take several hours but fortunately I organised most of my downloads for the most part, although several of my hacks are labelled as misc folders as well. So I still may have problems by diving everything up, I'll give it a go anyway... Wish me luck. But first I must sleep, I'm tired.
Actually, it doesn't - the initial loads with quite a lot of CC takes ages but, as you remove stuff, the game loads quicker and quicker and the latter half of the exercise takes much less time. You can usually do it in half and hour or so even with a largish DL folder (and I don't mean Digital Sympathies large, I mean normal large).

[joandsarah77]

Still 13 thousand isn't too bad, I could load that in about 10 minutes, although I guess it depends on your computer. I have about 34,000 and it takes about 18 minutes to load now so there is no way to sort through that in an hour or so. last time I did the 50/50 over a couple of days. Once I got down to about 20 files it was loading in 2 minutes though.

[maxon]

Still 13 thousand isn't too bad, I could load that in about 10 minutes, although I guess it depends on your computer. I have about 34,000 and it takes about 18 minutes to load now so there is no way to sort through that in an hour or so. last time I did the 50/50 over a couple of days. Once I got down to about 20 files it was loading in 2 minutes though.
Wow that's slow - what are you using? Laptop?

[joandsarah77]

18 minutes for 34,000 is slow? No it's a PC I had put together especially to sim and hold photos and paper work. I was trying to get some more Ram and a better graphics card but the guy said 'you don't need more Ram for playing sim games’ even after I said it had to run both Sims 2 and 3 with stacks of custom content. Of course my husband agreed with him... Hmm.
Sims 2 is on the D drive the guy put in. C drive holds all my cc and other stuff and looks to be nearly 3/4 full so I'm not too happy about that.

I wonder if I could move other things to D drive as it's fairly empty, would that help it?

[katya_stevens]

Admittedly unmodded Sims 2 can only 'see' up to 2GB regardless of how much you've got installed, but the more you have the more your OS can use for itself or other programs -- I've got 8GB of RAM on mine and after making my game Large Address Aware (http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=21931.0) (so that it can utilize up to 3.5GB RAM) my game with 6.5GB of CC loads up in 3-5 minutes (depending on 'hood and number of sims). If you use a 32-bit Operating System the maximum amount of RAM you can have is 4GB; if you have a 64-bit Operating System you can have up to, well, 16 exabytes (goes giga-tera-peta-exa) which is 10^9 bytes (that's a 10 with nine zeros after it) higher than 16GB, pretty much an unfathomable amount.

It can't hurt to move things across to your D drive anyway and keep things balanced, but I'm not sure if it'd make a difference unless your C drive was really full.

[MOOKIEBLAYLOCK]

The half split method(50/50) can always be supplemented by whatever knowledge you have of the problem(s) that occurs. I had an issue where sims could not purchase groceries. Sims sent to a community lot to do so would adjust the grocery unit bar and get in line to pay , when they were helped at the register they would (no matter how many groceries they opted to purchase) be charged one simolean and end up with no basket.of food to take home. Ordering groceries to be home delivered was also not working , the truck showed up , but the transaction couldn't be completed. Other business transactions all worked fine. I started testing by pulling those download folders that most closely related to the problem. I pulled my custom foods folder , my kitchen furnishings sub folder from within my buy mode folder , my grocery and restaurant sub folders from within my business folder and a folder called Testing where I keep my recent downloads. Those folders all applied to food and cost transactions to my way of thinking.

Grocery purchasing returned to normal with those folders and sub folders absent from the game. Then I started doing the traditional 50/50 method until I found the culprit, a deco shopping basket designed for clutter that must have a conflict with the games original basket. I have quite a bit of cc that I keep on desktop and that doesn't make it into all (or any games) . I don't recall ever using that basket , but it may have functioned fine with the earlier EP's and only later (post Seasons?) became a problem.The folders and sub folders I initially pulled represented less than 5% of my total of in game cc , so I saved 4-5 trials ( and the most time consuming ones) on the half split method. For me , having a folder called testing/new stuff or whatever is pretty essential and always a good place to start testing for sudden problems , while keeping in mind that some things don't play well with others but function fine on their own. Also , don't be afraid to play detective and see if you can't catch ol' Col. Mustard with the candlestick a few steps faster.

[maxon]

Admittedly unmodded Sims 2 can only 'see' up to 2GB regardless of how much you've got installed, but the more you have the more your OS can use for itself or other programs -- I've got 8GB of RAM on mine and after making my game Large Address Aware (http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=21931.0) (so that it can utilize up to 3.5GB RAM) my game with 6.5GB of CC loads up in 3-5 minutes (depending on 'hood and number of sims). If you use a 32-bit Operating System the maximum amount of RAM you can have is 4GB; if you have a 64-bit Operating System you can have up to, well, 16 exabytes (goes giga-tera-peta-exa) which is 10^9 bytes (that's a 10 with nine zeros after it) higher than 16GB, pretty much an unfathomable amount.
Yeah, I forgot I did all that and have a 64-bit system with extra RAMz but still, JoandSarah, mine's never taken more than 5 minutes to load. I am not a patient person and wouldn't put up with that.

[sushigal007]

18 minutes is slow?! I would love my game to load that fast! I'm happy when it takes less than an hour.

[Simdrew1993]

In mine my game usually take's a good long half an hour to load, I have a Toshiba laptop, Windows Vista 32 - Bit, AMD Turion X2 Dual Core Processor and ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics, I'm not usually a patient person with technical things but I try to be, the game runs fast and smooth on my PC, but the loading is what takes so long. I will have to try this method again then, I've done it before, it was last year I think, where I divided all of my downloads by half's and took parts out to find problems and was successful.

[Alijah]

18 minutes is slow?! I would love my game to load that fast! I'm happy when it takes less than an hour.

Same here. I've got 5.75 gigs of CC and it takes about 19 minutes from running to program to when the lot finally finishes loading up.

I tried using the CFF explorer to acknowledge more than 2 gigs but it seems to just have made everything worse. The game ran slower than ever and the music/graphics were all choppy. I guess I'm just meant to live with random crashes.

[DigitalSympathies]

Anyone who can beat me on a six and a half hour loading time can please step over to the left and sign your name in this ledger. Thank you. *megaphone crackles*

[Darby]

Oh, I think your record is safe. :lol:

My game takes 2.5-5 min. from start to lot with 3.13 GB of CC/mods. I need to cull some CC, but there's more I'd like to add.

I really like my quick load time, and am not a fan of scrolling through huge catalogs to find stuff either. Not sure what my limit will be, but I figure I'll have to stop adding things if my game ever starts taking more than maybe 10 minutes to load.

[sushigal007]

Two and a half hours was my maximum, and the only real reason I tried to cut that down was a crash problem. Now I've fixed that, I find it's creeping back up again. But I don't think I could do six and a half hours!

[joandsarah77]

I must admit I love my cc, but six and a half hours, no you can keep that. I think I would divide up my cc per hood or something and only place part of it in at a time if it got that bad.

I tend to load up and go wash my hair, wash the dishes, clean something! I have to do it anyway so...

Wow 5 minutes?! I haven't seen that since 2007. I have a 64 bit and as far as I know only 4GB of RAM. I told the tech guy "All the American's seem to have 8" Let’s say he wasn't impressed. I don't know how to get things like Documents over to D drive. It was easy enough to install Sims to D drive, but the Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Downloads and all went to C drive anyway.

[Helmasaur]

I don't mean to diminish the value of all these fantastic victories over hack conflicts... but does no one even know about the Hack Conflict Detection utility at Simswardrobe?

[Mootilda]

Anyone who can beat me on a six and a half hour loading time can please step over to the left and sign your name in this ledger.I'm quite sure that I could beat that time, except I prefer to spend my time playing the game.

[maxon]

Crikey - you guys are making me wince (in sympathy). I simply wouldn't play the game if it took more than 10 minutes to load. In fact, I wouldn't play it if it took 10 minutes. I think I could just (barely) cope with about 6-7 minutes.

[joandsarah77]

I try and use the hack conflict programme but 9 times out of 10 it goes non responsive and apart from showing me a possible conflict once, normally when it does run it tells me about possible conflicts which I know aren't conflicts. So given all that I don't use it very often. None of my cc glitches were from conflicting hacks except once, but I had only just put on the homework placement hack and new exactly what and where it was. My other glitches have been things such as a toddler ride on that stoped the toy bench from working or an old default file from the exchange which broke my sims pregnancy stomachs and a corrupted EM clothing file-stuff like that the hack conflict programme doesn't pick up. Maybe the thread should be named cc conflicts/old corrupted badly made cc victories.

[Helmasaur]

-shrug-

I use the HCDU every time I download a new hack, and I've never had any problems.

[sushigal007]

I don't mean to diminish the value of all these fantastic victories over hack conflicts... but does no one even know about the Hack Conflict Detection utility at Simswardrobe?

HCDU only detects conflicting mods and hacks. It does nothing to help find any other buggy content. So yes, it's a great tool, but no good when your problem is that you downloaded a broken dress.

[Helmasaur]

Ah.

I always forget custom clothes and stuff are a thing.

[TortureTheNannies]

True, HCDU can tell you when two hacks share the same command and conflict each other. In my case, it was only one buggy hack. HCDU cannot find a problem that way. HCDU cannot tell if I have Seasons installed or not. Most times, you can turn on testing cheats, and get an error log when your problem occurs. That allows me to see the object or hack name in the file. In the cause of this thread, the error log contained only a behavior, newspaper related. Another good clue is to look at the dates on your error logs. When did it first happen? My error started on April 17. Good, what content was installed on or near April 17? .. So, my 50/50 became - remove all hacks after April 17, then remove all hacks from before April 17. The problem existed, then disappeared! Good, that narrows it down. Next, I looked for anything related to newspaper behavior. It's not obvious. I removed a few more, returned things one at a time. Days after the event, I can see the hack changes jobs, and thus changes the newspaper (didn't test computers). If I had known so much from the start, it would have been much faster to find the problem!

[FranH]

I don't know how anyone can play a game that takes over 10 minutes to load. I can just barely stand my game loading in about 8, and I've had it do so for longer periods.

Because I do firmly believe that one of the ways to speed the game loading up is to reduce the size of your files, by using the compressorizer, available at DJS Sims. It does wonders for fat files that probably slow down the game loading.
From here: http://forum.jfade.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=170

[joandsarah77]

I've thought about compressorizing, but I heard it can be bad to compress files that have already been compressed and I have no way of telling what has and hasn't been done. Many of the files I've downloaded in the last years have come compressed.

[sushigal007]

Compressing can only do so much, it's not a magic fix. And I used to have a Spectrum ZX. I'm used to waiting for my games. I use the time to do some Uni work because I know I won't get it done when the game's running. Or I start the game just before my daughter's bedtime, and after that, it's usually ready.

[maxon]

I've thought about compressorizing, but I heard it can be bad to compress files that have already been compressed and I have no way of telling what has and hasn't been done. Many of the files I've downloaded in the last years have come compressed.
There were issues with it at first but I think they've been more or less ironed out. I habitually compress the texture files (recolours) of skins and have compressed a fair number of object recolours too. Packages with any kind of graphic in them tend to be the biggest. I tend not to compress anything else partly because the files are too small to bother with in the first place.

[DigitalSympathies]

I'm quite sure that I could beat that time, except I prefer to spend my time playing the game.

Don't hate the player, man, hate the game. Or, rather, love both of us and get a discount. ;) :cool:

[Simsica]

I'm curious, digitalSympathies - or Angie :) - did you solve the issue with your purple houses? Or were they pink? I never know...