Game data corrupt after editing sims?

[eeyore226]

I can say I'm a decently novice SimPE user. I've gotten into a kick where I want to edit all of my townies so they are wearing nicer outfits, and using non-default skintones. I've edited quite a bunch of them, steering clear of "area" specfic sims (island, far east, mountain) by changing their skintones, turn-ons and so forth in SimPE.

Except, there seems to be in my latest pool, one sim that keeps corrupting my data. I've luckily made very recent backup copies of my game, so to test it out, I edited the same bunch, and it caused my game to prevent from loading. The problem is fixed once I copy my backup files back into the game.

However, I've never encountered that before. Could it be a specific sim? I'm not doing anything different that I haven't done before.

My sim list:
Remington Gonzaga
Joseph McGraw
Seth Baena
Sophie Cameron

I have a strange inkling that it is Sophie, but that doesn't make sense how a sim could corrupt my data like that! It's stopped me from continuing my editing, and it's bothering me so much. I can't keep playing, editing these sims, and corrupting my data and copying over the same backup.

I know the simple answer is "stop editing" but I don't want to. I've never had this problem before, and I'm wondering if it could be sim specific.

PS
I know this seems like a SimPE problem, but I know that here I get top notch help. :p

[whiterider]

Stop editing... or just skip those sims and edit the rest? :)

[eeyore226]

Hahah! I know! So much easier, right? :P (I have your uber major pack, whiterider!)

I have singled it out to what appears to be Seth Baena as the cause! Which surprised me so much! I guess I'll just have to kill him off, so I don't try to do it again. :O Has anybody else experienced this? Just one sim and what I found out was the cause, was NOT even SimPE! It was changing this clothing and hair! (Sheesh! I was just giving him a chin beard!) and after I saved, i immediately closed, and restarted and the game was corrupt again.

It's just super annoying, because I can't figure out which game folders to just copy and paste instead of pasting down my whole game again. I've tried just 'hoods, but it seems to be some other folder too.

EDIT!!!

I have figured it out. I can "fix" the problem by just copying over the last two files of: Content Registry and Group Cache. Now I'm wondering if I just copied those two from a backup from a month ago, and I have played for a while, will just changing those two damage my game? I'm not sure what they do, exactly. I have already copied all of the files over as I tried to figure out what "fixed" it, so it doesn't apply to me now. I'm just wondering about it for the future. :lol:

[Peni Griffin]

Did you change him to CC you haven't used elsewhere? Because the problem might not be the sim; it might be the beard!

I know the FAQ says certain files are so unlikely to cause problems as to not be worth worrying about; but I had a blouse that crashed my game every time I tried to use the photobooth to take a picture. Any kind of file can get corrupted.

[eeyore226]

And the beard is actually in game!! :O I almost never use it in my game, but you know what? I'll test that out. I currently don't play with any sim that uses that beard.

But if it is the beard, what on earth do I do? It's an in-game thing! Just ignore it, I guess? :P

EDIT

So it is NOT the beard. After some testing I found out that it's the pants! And after I tested out two pairs of the same pants (just recolors) they both cause "corruptions" and it is fixed by copying both the content registry and the group.cache. Why? What does this do? Could I effectively "fix" all of the recolors like this? :blink:

I got the pants from a respected creator on here. It's been so long since I've downloaded them, but everything I have is from here. :lovestruc So it can't be because I downloaded a "bad" file......

[whiterider]

Don't bother copying the groups.cache, just delete it. Fixes many problems. :) As for the ContentRegistry, I must admit I've no idea what it's for.

[eeyore226]

I just copied over the ContentRegistry over since it didn't seem to make a fresh one.

Why is it that now, if I edit my sims, or have them wear certain pants, I need to delete my groups.cache just for me to load up the game? :faceslap:

I mean, I'm super glad I found a "solution". :D

[Peni Griffin]

I just delete both cache files every time I play; it really frees up the glitches.

Think of cache files this way: They're post-it notes. If you stick a post-it note on your desk to write down notes of information you want handy throughout the day - the plumber's phone number, what time you expect him, which prescription you need to pick up, when choir practice starts - by the end of the day, your note is overwritten, erased, crossed out, outdated, and generally not good for much. So rather than using it again the next day, and maybe calling the plumber when you should have called the vet, or getting someone speaking Spanish because the number you dialled was half vet and half plumber, you throw that note out and start a fresh one. That's about how cache files work.

If I were you, I'd get rid of those pants, too. Since the most probable thing is that they were corrupted during the download, you can always go get them back and see if performance improves.

[eeyore226]

That's actually a really, really great idea! Thank you so much for information about the cache files! And I'll redownload the pants. :giggler:

Here is a question that I think relates to cache files. Since I've deleted it, my legacy family has lost all of their photos. :cry: They are still in the folder on the computer, since I found the recent wedding, but nothing IN the game. Not even in the "plus" extra section. Why?

[Peni Griffin]

That's - very odd. I delete my caches daily and still have all my picture thumbnails. Those are in the neighborhood storytelling folder, not your cache files. Look in your recycle bin and see if you can get them back - they should all have names formatted as "thumbnail, Random String Identifying household; Random String identifying picture.jpg"

[eeyore226]

I have the photos in the storytelling folder under neighborhoods. :P Phew! I also have their thumbnails in there. Should I move them around? I checked my other families, and they seem to have everything in the right place.......

And the family in question has all of their photos in the correct folder with the correct thumbnails too!

[Peni Griffin]

I wouldn't; if they're not in the storytelling folder, the .xml file for the story won't know where to look for them. That one has the file format webentry-Random String Identifying Household.xml. I once accidentally deleted the text in the .xml file by choosing the x rather than the checkmark when trying to order photos (and now I'm afraid to order photos!), but in that case the thumbnails still appeared.

[eeyore226]

So is there any way to remedy my problem? :P

I mean.... in all fairness, I did have over 1000 photos for my legacy family. It's just upsetting to not have them in the game, if I ever (who am I kidding) wanted to upload them....

[Peni Griffin]

The only thing I can think of is, if you back up your neighborhood in the usual way - i.e., copying the entire neighborhood folder to a second location - it will have the storytelling file in it, and you can restore from that, at least up to the time of your last backup.

However, if the thumbnails are still in your storytelling folder, and your game just can't read them, I'm stumped. You could still try restoring the backed-up thumbnails (just arrange them by name, so all the thumbnails from your legacy are together and copy them in a block) just to see - maybe all those thumbnails got corrupted at once, somehow.

I hope you can figure it out, because I'm pretty dependent on my in-game story and if it can happen to you, it can happen to me.

Is it just the thumbnails? What happens when you look at the album view, which should give you the full-sized snapshot?

[eeyore226]

There are NO photos in the legacy family's album. Everybody else seems to have photos... :\ So it's a very weird situation. I could try replacing the photos from the backup I have....

EDIT!
Actually... I have other families that seem to be affected too! It has to be the thumbnails that are corrupt...!!

[Ghost sdoj]

I believe I remember a thread about how to have pictures taken at college follow the sim after graduation, but I can't remember where it was... (I'm going to blame that on my brain operation, although it's probably just me getting older. lol) As the result of a sim leaving college is a folder full of pictures that the game doesn't associate with the family anymore unless you take steps to fix it, that same procedure might help you here. Or it might not.

[eeyore226]

Oh! That would actually be pretty helpful! Because I did have that problem before. :P But my problem now is that NONE of my families have photos associated with them. It's so extremely weird, since not even the pre-mades have them anymore. I still have ALL of the photos in the folder on the computer. In-game, when you press the "+" button, photos are still there. Some are missing.

I've noticed that the old photos don't have "thumbnails_" associated to them any more. All of the new pictures I've taken since have.

[Ghost sdoj]

That might explain it. Somehow the thumbnails were deleted and it absolutely needs the thumbnails in order to find the snapshots.

It sounds as though you have a lot of pictures. It would be somewhat time consuming, but if you have ones that you are desperate to have back, you can open the snapshot in a good image editor (that allows you to resize by pixel dimensions) and resize the snapshot to thumbnail dimensions, then save as a new image with the thumbnail name. (Basically re-creating the thumbnails.) The "alphabet soup" name attached to the picture needs to be the same for both the thumbnail and the snapshot. And if you haven't figured out what happened to the thumbnails, I would save spare copies somewhere else on the computer so you can restore them again.


And if having all the missing thumbnails restored doesn't help, I'm stumped.

[eeyore226]

That's a pretty good idea! I thought that it would have to lead to that... :P It is very time consuming to do that.... But I can always try one or two and see how it works! I'll do that soon!