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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 3:43 AM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Trying to Rescue/Renovate an old game
I started this game back in Dec 2005 and played it regularly up until a year or two ago. At that time I had to replace my motherboard, CPU, graphic card and RAM. Hard drive was still good. The friend who helped me with it said I should install a second harddrive and reinstall my Windows on the new one in order to get the new drivers in correctly. With that done everything was beautiful. However I could not access my Sims 2 game since it was not in the new registry. Had no idea how to fix that so decided to reinstall. Unfortunately my base game CD proved to have been damaged. Could not install. So I downloaded and installed UC. My old game has had nothing but trouble since. Now I can't necessarily blame UC. After all it was a good 10 years old, has several subhoods and over 1200 character files. Plus nearly 5 Gb of downloads. And during those 10 years I have probably done every one of the Do Not Do items listed in the How to Avoid Corruption wiki. It got to the point that it would crash when trying to load. I started a new medieval game and played that for a few months and started having problems with it. Got disgusted and played Civ II for several months. A few weeks ago I was missing TS2 so much that I started a brand new game with no downloads. Have been gradually adding them back in.


But that old hood is important to me. I started it as a result of a short story I wrote which I liked so well I wanted to turn it into a novel. The game became the baseline for my writing as the families progressed through the years. I haven't been able to write on that story since it quit working for me. So I decided I would have to fix it somehow. Tried loading it again. Same thing. Crash. Copied the neighborhood into my newest game folder. Woohoo, it loaded. Entered several houses but did not try playing as missing CC was obvious everywhere. Decided to try using SimSurgery to extract the main characters and putting them in a new hood. WAAHH. SimPE could not load the hood. Every time I tried it would hang on loading Custom Semi-Globals or Mansion objects. It would just sit there, as long as 30 minutes. Finally I loaded the new hood first, made sure it loaded all those things plus whatever needed for Sim Descriptions. Then I used Neighborhood Browser to select the old hood. This time it loaded. I extracted the first 19 characters.

Then I came back here to reread Game Problems. I was pretty sure I had done the 50/50 downloads testing back when the problems started but decided to do it again. Removed the whole downloads folder. And Omigosh, the hood loaded. In the old game folder. No crashing. Immediately added back LotFullofSims and the various anti NPC townie and stray hacks plus Insim. And all the floors, walls and other probably safe items that I had put in a subfolder for things I knew I had used in that hood. Loaded without problems. Have been adding back other probably safe items as there are still blank spaces on floors and walls plus every bed is the same Maxis bed and lots of other furniture are identicals.

I suspect I will still have to remake the hood. There are so many things wrong. Jump bugs. Sims who have lost their ancestry. Though I can probably fix that with Insim. maybe.

So, does anyone have any thoughts as to what else I can do? Would I be able to salvage the houses? Or will I have to rebuild every one of them? That's base hood and 3 subhoods full of houses, plus a custom college campus. Plus a boarding school in each residential hood.
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Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#2 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 5:30 AM
Your best bet with the old hood is make a backup and run Hood Checker on it and see what it can mop up, but if it is corrupted (probably is) it always will be and you can only mop up so much in a flood. You might also want to extract sims, save good lots and use hood replace to make a copy of the roads and deco. It's called a hood rebuild but it takes fair amount of work. When you extract sims you will also want to jot down all their important information before extracting and cloning them.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#3 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 1:45 PM
You will also need your old download folder to even have a chance to being able to run it.

After using the Hood Checker on the copy of the hood here is what I would do.

1. Remove current Sims 2 folder from My Docs. place it in a safe place. (On your desktop is good.)
2. Start up the game and let it gen up new Sims 2 folder in My Doc.
3. Place in your old CC/downloads folder and start up the game open one of the hoods then shut down the game.
4. Place in your old hood and start up the game and check it if will work.
If it works your good to go but if it does not work try and delete the cache files and try again, if it still does not work then it may not be usable.

If the hood will not run and you want the sims out of it Mootilda's program "SimRetriever" will extract them for you. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=503733

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Instructor
Original Poster
#4 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 12:56 AM
Here's what I've done so far. Yesterday I copied the complete old folder to desktop. Then I deleted the Downloads folder from the original. and proceeded as I stated in the third paragraph above. Later I read Jo's post and ran the Hoodcheck. It found one sim with no character folder which I think is the toddler BigWheel that I downloaded. There were a bunch of non-existent Sims listed plus a bunch of memories with no subject. Mostly Sim has X grandchildren, best friends, or lovers. Then at the bottom were 3 townies who had keys to non-existent lots. I ran the Remove option and it got rid of the non-existent sims.

Today I continued adding in more of the old downloads, a Gb or two at a time, loading the game, entering one or more houses, checking to see if everyone had the proper hair and clothes and whether there were missing walls, floors or objects. During one such session, I noticed that all the beds that had previously had the basic light blue spread now had a fancy pale green floral custom spread. I recognized it but was sure that I had not used it so extensively. In one children's room with 4 beds every bed had it. During a later session in which I had added more custom bedding most of those were changed to other custom spreads. I thought that was strange. Anyway, by the time I got all the old downloads back in the game was still loading with no problems, although of course it was taking longer with each addition. But still not more than 6 minutes from start to the neighborhood menu. 3 more minutes to get in the neighborhood and two and a bit to get into a lot.

I have not tried to play anything, just checking that things looked right. I used Insim to put everyone in their daytime clothes since I always save early in the morning to avoid sims being gone to work or school when I save. However I did note that one male sim had been completely reset. He had no aspiration, no career, no relationships, no personality points, no skills, no hobbies, nothing except interest points. And he had been reset back to the first day of adulthood where before he was just a few days from elder.. This apparently had just happened. I have seen this in several other sims in the various subhoods, all adult males I think. And it has been going on for a while. I summoned one man who was missing from his father's family tree and found only a few relationships but only two children on his tree and one of those was a teen. So apparently he was reset quite a few gamedays back, before those children were born. Running across sims like that originally was the first thing that told me the hood was corrupted.

@joandsarah77 Specifically what info do I need to jot down? I have half a dozen or more notebooks that I have recorded details of play in over the years, but looking through them I saw that I don't seem to have recorded personality points though I have Zodiac signs. I have LTWs but not Aspiration. And I have used Squinge's Any LTW hack so I can't assume from their LTW. And some of them have secondary asps. I've never bothered recording skill points since that changes often. But how much can carry over when remaking them in CAS? I am very concerned about genetics. This whole hood story has been about genetics. I started with 14 adults and 6 children with 8 family names. They have only intermarried among themselves. Will the extracted sims have the genetics from both their parents when they are created in CAS? Or only the trailts that are visible.

Is it safe to export the houses into the Lot Bin? I have CJ's Lot Inspector but every lot I have checked so far was deemed safe. I know I have to move the family out of it first. Hmmm, I did that back when the base hood got too crowded and I moved junior branches of the families to subhoods. Those lots should still be in the Lot Bin, shouldn't they? I'll have to go in the game and look. For the hoods themselves I don't think I made any changes to hood deco and all of them used terrains from the Terrain folder. I used the Pleasantview terrain for the base hood but would like to find one that looks more like the setting in my head. (That Pleasantview terrain doesn't automatically come with all the townies in the original, does it? I can remember using Delete All Characters on some hood when I created it, which I now know is a No-No)

@marka93 Wish I had read your post this morning before I did the downloads check the long way. I would have saved hours. I have SimRetriever but have never understood quite how it works. I went to her page and read all the instructions again. Looks like I would still have to extract them with SimPE afterward. That is mainly to use if you can't access the hood with Simpe, isn't it? Which I can do. At least I managed it once and got the original 20 sims. Haven't tried another batch yet as not sure if younger sims would have the correct genetics. I may experiment with it to see just what happens.

Thanks to both of you for your replies. Any further suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#5 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 2:02 AM
I've never used the SimRetriever so I have no knowledge on how that works but I did extract and clone many sims back in 2010 when I did my hood rebuild. I wanted the clones (extracted sims need to be cloned since they come with bits of data) to be as close to my original sims as possible so I jotted down their hobby, personality points, zodiac, main 3 interests and non interests since these effect what they talk and argue about and to me that's an important part of a sims personalty. How many skill points they had anything else that I thought was relevant. The clones come as brand new never played with sims, I had to reset everything with the SimPE or in game mods like the bat box. You can certainly keep genetics if you have the parents cloned as well although I added mine in simpe.

For lots I would clean those in SimPE and or use Chris hatches new lot cleaner. I'm old school I guess i trust SimPE more since I can see the results. You do not want to bring old sim refrences from your old hood to your new hood.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 3:55 AM
I wonder what the main changes of UC is compared to if you were to manually do the discs and patches route... or even if it would make any difference in trying to re-establish previous games. I noticed that instead of individual EPs and SPs that they bundled as much as they could (e.g. Double Deluxe, etc.) I'm not even going to attempt putting my custom lots back into a live production run of UC because so many were borked along with the entire old hoods. Just for fun I ran Hoodcheck on a pristine UC install on all the defaults - they All had problems without me even touching them. I used to keep an old Edsel in the closet just to play old games but I stopped because I got spoiled by newer hardware.

Kidney stones are never round pebbles... they are more like jagged stalactites.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 3:58 AM
Yes. because the neighborhoods shipped with the game are already corrupted! this is why many of us will use fixed templates.

Je mange des girafes et je parle aussi français !...surtout :0)

Find all my old MTS Uploads, on my SFS, And all new uploads Here . :)
Instructor
Original Poster
#8 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 4:39 AM Last edited by hedgekat : 18th Sep 2017 at 5:23 AM.
I tried Simretriever this evening. I thought, "what the heck, I already have the hood backed up. maybe I will learn something." LOL I found out there are no missing sims in that hood. Simretriever found nothing to do. I suppose if I had told it I could not load the hood in SimPE it would have extracted all the sims in the hood to a new temporary hood for me to extract. Including all the npcs and townies. Ugh. So guess it is time to start rebuilding the hood. Have been going through all the neighborhoods here on MTS trying to find one that looks more like what I want than Pleasantview does.


From what I can tell from my UC install, it has all expansions and all but one stuff pack which appears to be Celebations. I don't know the numbers of all the SPs but all but two of the numbers are included in the various collections and Glamor Life is included in UC by its own title. Family Fun stuff was the only one I didn't have. I have Celebrations on disk but haven't try to install it with the UC. Afraid I might mess it up and have to reinstall the whole thing. Took me two days to download and had to do it twice as the first time got corrupted.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#9 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 7:23 AM
UC should contain all EP's and SP's, plus it comes pre patched. You only ever install it once, after that you repair by right clicking the game in Origin. If you are missing Celebrations you may need to repair.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
#10 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 4:08 PM
That is invaluable info jo! I don't use Origin and typically use a Sims shortcut that goes directly into the game.

Kidney stones are never round pebbles... they are more like jagged stalactites.
Instructor
Original Poster
#11 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 11:06 PM Last edited by hedgekat : 19th Sep 2017 at 12:04 AM.
@swillfly Didn't you download UC from Origin? I got my copy that way plus downloaded several expansion packs for TS3. But I quit updating it or logging in since the time they tried to update computers to require signing in to play TS3, I definitely do not want to have to play online. That was one of the reasons I dropped TS4.

@jo I just checked my UC folders again. It shows SPs 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in the various collection folders and Glamour Life with its own folder. SPs 2 and 3 are missing so one of those must be GL Is Celebrations supposed to have its own folder too or be in one of the collections. I have it on disk by itself. oh, wait! Maybe Celibrations in SP 4? I never bought Double Deluxe so don't know what that SP is. I have the Uni and Business collections so can identify 5, 6, 7, and 8. And I remember that Family Fun Stuff was the first SP and M&G was the last. DUH! I just googled stuff packs. Holiday Stuff. It's not listed in any folder but I know I've seen all those wallpapers in the game.
Mad Poster
#12 Old 19th Sep 2017 at 4:08 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
UC should contain all EP's and SP's, plus it comes pre patched. You only ever install it once, after that you repair by right clicking the game in Origin. If you are missing Celebrations you may need to repair.


There are updates to UC because of windows updates and so on you need to right click on UC icon in Origin and check for updates and you will be surprise at how many there may be.

Last time I install UC on my other computer there were 6 updates that needed to be install and that was over a year ago.

The updates don't fix the game what they do is make the game run with newer updates that come form windows.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#13 Old 19th Sep 2017 at 7:17 AM
Do you have the celebration cakes showing under party? There are 3 of those.

As marka said, do get updates. That is different to trying to remove it and reinstall it though.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Instructor
Original Poster
#14 Old 22nd Sep 2017 at 3:36 AM
Is there a way to log in to Origin without having to install an update? I have not updated since they tried to force everyone to play Sims 3 online.

Yes, I do have the Celebration cakes. I think. I did notice a birthday cake and a wedding cake besides the ones from base game. Decided the missing SP # has to be the Holiday pack. I have the free Holiday Pack that came out before the first SP. Don't know why they issued a second one as a Stuff Pack. I suppose they must have put a few extra things in it.

I am so frustrated right now that I want to smash something but don't know what to smash. Bashing my head on the wall, pulling my hair out or screaming my throat raw are all unpleasant options. Monday things were going nicely. Put in a few last bits of content and some new SC4 terrains to check as possible hoods for rebuilding. GAH!!! It wouldn't load. I removed what I had just added. Still wouldn't load. Removed all downloads and the hood folder. Still wouldn't load. Started a new game folder. Loaded. added in SC4 terrains. loaded. Tue and Wed. checked out a dozen terrains and chose 3 possibles. Added back half the downloads. Loaded. Added other half. Loaded. Added hood. Loaded. Duh??? Worked on identifying content used in two of the main houses and made floorplans on graph paper. Took pictures. Ready to start rebuilding hood this morning. This morning game would not load. WAHHHHHHH!. What happened? I added nothing new. Renamed that folder, went back to the next newest one that had worked with the corrupt hood the last time I tried it. It loaded. Today I have been identifying all 100 family homes in the base hood and 3 subs. Many of them were downloaded from MTS. Many were made by me in older hoods and added to LotBin. (Is there a way to tell if they are good? It's been so long that I have no idea whether I put them in Lot Bin before they were inhabited or not.) I found many of both sorts in a stored Lot Catalog from long ago.

In cruising those houses today I found one that I could not enter. Crashed the game both times I tried. Can that happen because some modded content that was placed in the house is not in the Downloads folder. Several houses I have entered had stuff that was obviously missing. One had 3 floating Venus De Milos with two teen sims embedded in them. I have no clue.

Is it possible to still buy SC4? I would really like to make a terrain that looks like the one in my head.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#15 Old 22nd Sep 2017 at 4:18 AM
Are you deleting the cache files each time?

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#16 Old 22nd Sep 2017 at 6:51 AM
I got SC4 - Base Game + Rush Hour - for less than $7 on e-bay a few months ago. Shop around - somebody's selling it cheap online. Check your local used-book store, too. Most of them sell used games, too, now.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Instructor
Original Poster
#17 Old 22nd Sep 2017 at 7:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
Are you deleting the cache files each time?



No, I wasn't. I used to do that every time I played when I played regularly. I thought of that just this morning. Deleted those files in both the game folders that had quit on me and both loaded perfectly. Had to slap myself upside the head a few times for my forgetfulness.
Mad Poster
#18 Old 22nd Sep 2017 at 8:25 PM
The UC does not seem to update any longer, @marka93 - I had to update the Sims 4 (again) yesterday, and check every time when I have to - haven't seen an update for UC in a very long time.
Turquoise Dragon
retired moderator
#19 Old 22nd Sep 2017 at 9:37 PM
UC includes everything

they just used combination packs, so some of the stuff is listed weird.

Glamour life stuff is its own pack but celebration stuff is in double deluxe sp 4
Instructor
Original Poster
#20 Old 23rd Sep 2017 at 2:09 AM
Well, I guess I am ready to start rebuilding. I have set up a new hood and placed lots for the first five houses. Same terrain I used before but I am going to save the houses to Lot Bin before putting the sims in so I can change the terrain later. ( I will need to move the sims back to the Sim bin and the houses to Lot Bin before using Hood Replacer, right? Because roads and such won't be in the same places.)

I have 20 sims extracted and put in Saved Sims. Am ready to load Bodyshop and clone them. Not quite sure how to handle the children. I originally made them in CAS using Make a Child so they had genetics and it really showed. That won't be retained in BodyShop will it?
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#21 Old 23rd Sep 2017 at 3:00 AM
You need to use SimPE to set genetics.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#22 Old 23rd Sep 2017 at 5:45 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
The UC does not seem to update any longer, @marka93 - I had to update the Sims 4 (again) yesterday, and check every time when I have to - haven't seen an update for UC in a very long time.


UC only gets an update when Windows gets major update that screws up UC from playing nice with Windows.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#23 Old 23rd Sep 2017 at 12:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by hedgekat
( I will need to move the sims back to the Sim bin and the houses to Lot Bin before using Hood Replacer, right? Because roads and such won't be in the same places.)

Doesn't matter - you can grab and move the lots just the same as you always have been able to. Just don't put them occupied in the lot bin. Lots don't have to be connected to a road.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Instructor
Original Poster
#24 Old 26th Sep 2017 at 1:06 AM
@maxon The idea of the lots being separated from a road doesn't bother me as much as the idea of a road on the new terrain going right through a house. Wouldn't that cause problems?
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#25 Old 26th Sep 2017 at 7:49 PM Last edited by maxon : 26th Sep 2017 at 8:06 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by hedgekat
@maxon The idea of the lots being separated from a road doesn't bother me as much as the idea of a road on the new terrain going right through a house. Wouldn't that cause problems?

Neighbourhood roads and lots/houses belong to two separate things. Houses/lots snap onto roads but that's the limit of their interaction. The road on the lot isn't the road in the neighbourhood.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
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