So I read that saving with a ghost on your lot in Sims 2 corrupts your game, because it can make the gravestones or urns disappear. However, I accidentally saved with a ghost on my lot, but the gravestone was not deleted by the game, so I continued playing, hoping it was fine because the gravestone was still there. But, after playing for only a couple minutes, Mrs. CrumpleBottom appeared outside the house. I know this is a bad sign, and if I remember correctly it is a sign of corruption. However, I was wondering just how bad of a sign is here appearing? And, is my game still corrupted by saving with a ghost despite the gravestone still being there? And to fix this corruption, would it be okay to just delete the files in the EA GAMES Sims 2 folder in my documents and restore an older backup from before I saved with a ghost on the lot? Or I do I need a full uninstall and reinstall of my game (Sims 2 Deluxe) and expansion packs (only University is installed right now)?


UPDATE: I ran remove on hoodchecker and went to continue playing with the family, hoping CrumbleBottom would not appear again. My plan was to play until morning for the ghost on the lot to go away, and then move the gravestone to a cemetery. However, another sim randomly appeared in front of my house, this time a sim named Caryl Gray. This reminds me of the time before I had saved with the ghost on my lot (at least I'm pretty sure) and right as one of my sims started giving birth, an old lady sim who I had realized was in my yard said bye and left. Why do old ladies keep randomly appearing in my lawn/in front of my house?
Update: The ghost scared Caryl Gray and she didn't die and she left. Is that okay? Then Mrs. CrumpleBottom appeared and the ghost scared her, and she was fine. Is that okay? Then I soon after used moveobjects to get Mrs.CrumpleBottom off the lot, as I don't believe she had any way to get off the lot. I then waited till it finally got light at 7, and the ghost was gone and I saved.

Okay, first of all, calm down. You don't need to reinstall your entire game. It is very unlikely to corrupt it to that point. If you want to be completely sure that nothing has happened, look at the objects.package files. You can find them in the EA Games folder in Program Files in TSData/Res/Objects. Compare the file size and the date with the files on your installation CDs. As long as they match, nothing has happened to corrupt your game.

As for your neighborhood, the only bad thing that can happen when you save with active ghosts on the lot is that the gravestone might disappear, which did not happen. Therefore, you did not corrupt your neighborhood by doing this. There's a mod called nounlinkondelete that prevents corruption from deleted gravestones, which you can install to be safe if anything happens in the future. You can find the link here: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=532696

Mrs. Crumplebottom appearing is weird, no way around that. The thread I linked also has a link for the HoodChecker program, which checks your neighborhood for signs of corruption and attempts to fix them. You should probably run it and see what it can find. It'll look pretty bad the first time, but most errors should be gone after you use the Remove function. Generally, anything that HoodChecker can remove is not an issue. It's just small game errors that can eventually pile up to cause actual signs of corruption - your Crumplebottom sighting may have been caused by that.

Are your object.package files read only? That is the bets safe guard from Mrs C corruption. She is not a sim but an object in your installation files and making it read only stops her being changed in anyway because if she is corrupted, yes it is a full reinstall.

With the graves I hope you have the essential fix there? No unlink on delete? This prevents hood corruption from deleted graves. I would put that in right away if you don't.

The place that she appeared in, is it downtown?

She did not appear downtown, just in front of my house/residential lot.

Okay so I checked both of those files 31,590 KB. However, should I still run hood checker? I have never used the remove function on hood checker before and I'm a little scared to. Despite the package files being the same, I think there's still some corruption in my neighborhood as I've deleted a family from the family bin before. However, I'm relieved if I can continue playing from the point I was at instead of having to restore an older backup.

The package files are to check for game corruption, which is different from hood corruption. Game corruption means you've managed to change something in the installation files and can only be fixed with a reinstall.

HoodChecker looks for signs of neighborhood corruption and removes the easier ones - stuff like "Met self", "Second person does not exist", etc that just happens during gameplay and can cause problems eventually.

Unfortunately, since you deleted a family before, your neighborhood is irreversibly damaged. But as you've seen for yourself, you've been able to play it for a while without seeing any weird things. HoodChecker can help you keep your neighborhood going even longer, people have played corrupted neighborhoods for years without any issues. As long as you keep making backups, you should be fine, and if your neighborhood does eventually break down, there are still ways to salvage it.

If you did that, there is corruption in your neighbourhood and you will never get rid of it.

However, what you did sounds fine to me and you might well be able to continue to play that neighbourhood for a long time.

I've run hood checker many times before, and have many things such as sim met self which I didn't realize hood checker can remove, so I'm very glad it will be able to help. Plus, my game has just been backed up so I'm excited to put my neighborhood in a better place (I back up very often). I am going to do all that I can to make this neighborhood live a long time, hopefully a couple years because I imagine I'll get bored of it eventually, but I've grown very attached to these sims and may never get bored of it. I plan on soon learning how to use sim pe so I can copy their apeparnces (I think you can copy memories and such too but I might not bother with that). So, I might just copy the sims appearances, and take notes on their family relations and personalities and such so I can just make them again in a new clean neighborhood someday

Just a random question, but was the ghost a child? Sometimes when child ghosts haunt, members of the Default family will come to "take them home" because they are past their curfew. I've had the Ideal Plantsim come. It shouldn't break anything but I normally use the teleporter to make both ghost and "parent" leave immediately just in case.

The ghost was a child. However, I'm confused by what you mean by default family.

The Dafault family is where all the dead sims are placed, as well as the NPCs, like Mrs Crumplebottom and the Grim Reaper.

What happened was this: You had a child on the lot that did not belong to your family (because as a ghost they were in the Default family). It's getting late, the child is still there (because they're a ghost). A random adult from the child's family comes to pick them up. The game picks Mrs Crumplebottom. Panic ensues.

That's a normal issue with child ghosts. No corruption. :-)