Then I do apologies then. Anyway, I already fixed the problem thanks to the Sims2Pack Clean Installer. I disabled the lot that causes the blue rectangle lot, and then deleted the lot file. The cause of the problem is that the lot is near both of my community lots. I'll create another thread next time if this happens again.

Again, I do apologies for posting in the wrong topic.

Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Computer specs: 2.7 Ghz processor, 4.96Gb RAM, atiumd64.DLL
Games: All of them, and I had all of them when backups were made
Details of Neighbourhood loss: I stopped playing the game after old computer crashed. Had back-ups made in SimPE before crash. Went to reinstall all the games plus my back-up which was of Pleasantview N001, but it won't show up in screen.
Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? Everything is there.
Sim PE Investigation: Yes I can see everything, I couldn't see any sort of corruption but then again I am not particularly sure how to properly check.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: It's a completely different system and I can't get my SimPE back up to install into the game despite there being nothing noticeably wrong with the files.
Any other relevant information: Whenever I start the game it creates an empty folder titled EAGames, and inside that: TheSims2, exactly the same as the one with my content, but there's nothing in it, every time I attempt to copy and paste the other, and restart the game this folder shows up. I've tried SimPE backup restore, manually installing each neighborhood eg uni, downtown etc, start game nothing is there, tried manually copy and pasting the back-up N001 file where the old one was after I deleted it, still doesn't show up in game, running out of idea here, some help would be fantastic!

SimPE doesn't make proper backups. Please see here:
http://simpeforum.ambertation.de/si...-hoods-in-SimPE

Here is a link to the correct way to make a backup:
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Back_Ups

If you are copying and pasting just the one file (N001_Neighborhood.package), then it will not work. You need to delete the newly generated Neighborhoods and replace that folder with the entire Neighborhoods folder from your backup.

That's the thing, I am not just trying to paste in that specific file, I am trying to put in the whole contents of that neighborhood, the lots folder, the characters, storytelling, thumbnails etc, none of them are .bak files they looks like every other neighborhood file, and the N001_Neighborhood.package file, to my knowledge, isn't corrupt it's the right size and everything.

So what your saying is to delete all the generated hoods and just replace it with my N001 files?

Also to add, basically I has saved my N001 separately from my other hoods because I didn't really play them. I did also have a back up with the other hoods separate from N001, for god knows whatever reason i tried throwing the N001 in with the other hoods from my other backup and was able to save most of my CC (sigh of relief). The result was nonetheless to say bizarre, I got two Desiderata Valleys, two Belladonna Coves, and none of the others. All the hood files are named different ie N001, N002, N003 etc exactly the same as the name given by the basegame. If all is lost and I have royally screwed up I managed to clone some of my favourite sims out of the N001 backup to restart again, but I was wondering there are a few lots I wouldn't mind saving as well, is there anyway to extract them using SimsPE like I did the sims?

The folder name is not the only thing that can conflict; sometimes the internal hood ID conflicts as well. You may have a conflict between some of your backup neighborhoods and the generated versions. Try removing the entire generated Neighborhoods folder and replace it with your backup Neighborhoods folder. That should avoid all conflicts. Alternatively, try deleting all of the generated neighborhoods and just copy in your N001 folder and nothing else.

If that doesn't work and you can't see your neighborhood, you can just copy the lot packages from your neighborhood Lots folder to your new LotCatalog folder. Rename all of the packages to have filenames which match the naming conventions in that folder (ie, cx_00000001.package) and then run the game. Your lots should appear in the lot bin in your game.

Doing this didn't work. Do you have a link to a tutorial because I may have done it wrong. Also I did try moving N001 into the Neighborhood folder by itself, deleting the base hoods, doing this didn't work.

This is the closest thing to a tutorial that I have:
http://www.modthesims.info/journal....howentry&e=4911

Hello~
So, all my neighborhoods except Desiderata Valley disappear when I add my Custom Neighborhood N004 to the Neighborhoods folder.
I bought Freetime when the digital download was on sale for 5 dollars on Origin (this was about a month or so ago) . I backed up my files and installed it, and all the neighborhoods were gone except Desiderata Valley.
Then, I uninstalled/reinstalled all my games except Freetime, and everything went back to how it originally was. I removed all my files to make it a clean slate and then installed freetime again, and all the Maxis neighborhoods were there like they should be. I then replaced the files with my backup, but without my Downloads and N004 folder. That worked well.
After that, I tested with the custom content and everything was still fine, but when I added my custom neighborhood, the neighborhoods disappear again. I do just about all my simming on that neighborhood, so I'd really like to be able to use it with Freetime.
Somebody please help~

It worked!!! You are amazing thank you so much. It didn't work the first time because I had 1 too many zeroes in the file name when I got up to the 100's, I only just realised that all the digits had to be aligned eg.

cx_00000001
cx_00000010
cx_00000100

etc.

I am pleased as punch, now to repopulate!!

It really sounds like your custom neighborhood conflicts with the shipped neighborhoods. I can think of two possible solutions:

1) Keep two EA Games folders: one with your custom neighborhood and one with everything else. When you want to play, make sure that one is named EA Games and the other is not (ie, call it EA Games Not In Use, or something like that). Swap between the two folders as needed.

If you can run the AnyGameStarter, you can accomplish the same thing by setting up an AnyGame for your custom neighborhood.

2) If you are familiar with SimPE, you might be able to resolve the conflict. Make sure that you have your custom neighborhood backed up somewhere safe. Then, copy it into the Neighborhoods folder with the shipped neighborhoods.

Open your custom neighborhood package in SimPE. Select ID Number (IDNO) in the left pane. There should only be one record in the right pane, select it. In the Plugin View, you should see the current neighborhood settings. Click on "make unique" and check that it changed the UID number, then commit, and save.

You may also have to do this with each of the subhoods attached to your custom neighborhood. For each downtown, university, suburb and vacation neighborhood in your custom neighborhood folder, ask SimPE to give you a unique UID. This should ensure that none of your neighborhoods conflict.

Hi,
So this is my problem... After upgrading my computer from Vista to 7, I had to re-install all my sims 2 games. Of course, I wanted to play my saved games from before the upgrade, so I deleted the new game files and copied my backed up Sims 2 folder into Documents/EA Games. Loaded the game, it asks me if I want to enable custom content (like it did before), I click yes. No neighbourhoods. At all. Just the option to create a custom one.
Reload game, click no to custom content. Same thing happens. Checked the neighbourhood folder, all the files are there and look normal (I think).
Have tried playing the game as administrator, in xp compatibility mode, in vista compatibility mode. Uninstalled all games and re-installed in the recommended order, nothing changed. Uninstalled and re-installed in vista compatibility mode and as administrator. Nothing works! No matter how many times I copy my backed up files and load the game, no neighbourhoods appear. Sometimes, after I've done something a little differently (can't remember what that is though) Belladonna Cove and Riverblossom Hills appear but nothing else. The only way I can seem to get any neighbourhoods is by playing the new game files. But I really want my custom neighbourhood back! It's the one I play the most, and all my favourite sims are in it, is there any way of getting it back??

Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
Computer specs 2.10 Ghz processor, 4Gb RAM
Games DVD Base game, Uni, Nightlife, Open For Business, Glamour stuff, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Apartment Life, Mansions and Gardens.
Details of Neighbourhood loss No neighbourhoods appear after I've restored a back up, only the option to create a custom neighbourhood.
Neighbourhood File details Everything's there.
Sim PE Investigation: I don't have Sim PE.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista.
Any other relevant information: When I was upgrading to Windows 7, it didn't quite work and I had to do a system recovery back to factory settings with Vista, then do the upgrade again. Maybe this corrupted something?? I also used to have the Store edition too, but I can't get that back since upgrading... Is that vital?

First, do you have the same EPs and SPs that you had before your O/S upgrade?

If so, is it possible that you are restoring to the wrong location? Remove the entire folder (Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2?). When you run the game, check the location that you're restoring to. Does it contain all of the save game files that you expect? If not, you may be looking at the shared EA Games folder. Look around until you find the folder which actually contains the newly generated save game, and restore your backup there instead.

Yes, I was using all the EPs and SPs I own before the upgrade, and I made my back up just before the upgrade and it included all the EPs, etc. I've re-installed all of them, so it should be the same as before...

I know the EA folder you're talking about, there's never anything in it. I haven't been restoring to that one, but to the one that actually contains all the game files, which is Documents/My Documents/EA Games. I've tried deleting the new The Sims 2 folder and pasting my back up in it's place, I've tried merging the two to see if that made any difference, I've even tried restoring each individual folder in the The Sims 2 folder. I also tried just copying my custom neighbourhood (N005) into the Neighbourhoods folder, but while it kept all the game generated neighbourhoods, my custom one still didn't appear...

Thanks for the quick reply, by the way

Merging is wrong. Everything else that you've tried should work. You've got me stumped.

Is there a way of finding out if one of the files is corrupted? That's the only other thing I can think of as to why it's not working.

Sorry, I missed your last post. No, I don't know of any way to find a specific corrupted file. The neighborhood package is the largest and most important package, so it's the one which is most likely to be corrupt.

Your best bet is to have your custom neighborhood in the Neighborhoods folder by itself, since that will ensure that it doesn't conflict with any other neighborhood. Perhaps you should regenerate the standard save game, then delete everything out of the Neighborhoods folder and copy N005 in. If your neighborhood doesn't show up when it's the only neighborhood, and with newly generated files for every other folder, then it's safe to say that your neighborhood is probably corrupted.

If you'd like to share your neighborhood, I'd be happy to take a look at it and see whether there's anything that I can do. I have a number of programs which allow me to do some internal checking on packages.

Ok, well I tried just putting N005 into the Neighbourhoods folder, loaded the game and it didn't appear, only the option to create a custom hood. So looks like it might be corrupted :/
How do I share my neighbourhood? Thanks for offering to do that.

By 'regenerate the standard save game', do you mean having all the new folders and files as if I've just installed the game and it's EPs?

To share your neighborhood, zip, rar, or 7zip the entire N005 folder and add it to a file sharing site.

To regenerate the standard save game, you just remove the Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 folder and run the game. It will recreate everything.

Oh, I didn't realise it recreates everything if you delete it all. That's good to know.

Here's the link to my custom neighbourhood folder: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43493989/N005.zip
Maybe you can find something that's wrong with it?

OK, I've got your neighborhood.

It requires the Sims 2 Store Edition. Do you have it installed?

If not, then you may have lost your neighborhood, since EA has taken down the Sims 2 site and store, and the Store Edition may not be available any longer.

I can't help you further with the hood itself, because I don't have the SE. This is the first time that I've seen a neighborhood that I couldn't open in the game. I was able to open your neighborhood in SimPE and in all of my programs which access various parts of the neighborhood, so I wasn't able to find any corruption. It's impossible to tell whether the problem is the lack of the Store Edition, or a corrupted neighborhood package.

If you are unable to get the Store Edition installed, or if you have it installed but are still unable to play your hood, you may be able to salvage some aspects of your neighborhood and then recreate it from scratch:
- You can salvage your decorated neighborhood using my HoodReplace program.
- You can salvage your furnished lots by copying all of the lots to your LotCatalog folder and fixing the names to follow the correct naming conventions.
- You can salvage your sims appearances and then recreate your families in-game from those, using SimPE to add back family ties, relationships, memories, etc.

Thanks for checking that out for me. I was wondering if that was the problem. The thought did cross my mind earlier but I forgot to mention I had the Store Edition. Everything got wiped off the computer when I upgraded so I don't have the store edition anymore I did back up the SE folder though, so if there was a way to re-download SE, my game might work again... So you don't know of any way to re-download the Store Edition? I'm pretty sure that must be the problem, because I had no problems with it before I lost the SE.

Is there any way of copying whole families, including their houses, back into the game?

This is really getting off of the topic of this thread, and outside of my area of expertise. So, I'm going to suggest that you post this as a new thread in the Sims 2 Help forum. Explain that I've been helping you with your missing neighborhood after moving to a new machine, that we believe that your neighborhood may be dependent upon the Store Edition, etc.

Questions about salvaging your neighborhood can remain here; I just think that you need to ask someone else about the Store Edition.

Yes, there is. See "The Hard Way" here:
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...elp:Moving_Sims

Unfortunately, that technique requires that you run the game and package your occupied lots, which is clearly not an option for you.

It may be possible to salvage everyone by creating a brand new neighborhood and copying all of the necessary records from the old neighborhood, including: NGBH, NHTG, NHTR, NHVW, LTXT, FAMI, FAMT, STR#, SDSC, SDNA, SWAF, etc. etc. etc.

One problem with that strategy is determining exactly which records to copy. The other is that some of those records may actually require the Store Edition. It could be a long process of trial and error, creating a fresh new neighborhood each time.

[Update:]

Looks like a winning strategy, though. I created a new empty neighborhood (using empty templates) and copied the following, in order: STR#, SDNA, SDSC, SWAF, FAMI, FAMH, FAMT, and LTXT and ended up with a neighborhood full of playable occupied lots. You'll also need NGBH for the memories and NHTG and NHTR for the neighborhood terrain. Some of your SRELs are corrupt, but you can probably copy the rest of them and get most of your relationships. You might want to copy CTSS and IDNO to get the proper hood IDs and descriptions.

To copy all records of a particular type: open your old neighborhood in SimPE, select the record type that you want to copy in the left pane and then select all of the records in the right pane. Right click anywhere in the right pane and select "Extract", then save the records to your hard drive. Open your new neighborhood, right click anywhere in the right pane and select "Add", then choose all of the extracted records.

If you want to re-create your neighborhood completely, you'll have to add back an empty subhood for each original subhood and copy (at least) the CTSS, IDNO, NHTG, NHTR, STR# and LTXT for each one.

One other thing: I'm not sure which game engine is required for the Store Edition. I created the new neighborhood with all EPs and SPs (except the Store Edition) and that worked. You might want to ask in your other thread about which EP you'll need if you can't get the SE.

[Another update:]

I realized that I had a way to find some information about the game engine version. I checked the internal version of the SDSC records in your neighborhood. Your save game requires either the Store Edition or Apartment Life or higher. It may require Mansion and Garden; I just don't have any way to check that.

This has happened to me before, I have tried to load a custom hood only to not have it show in the main selection screen. I have followed the directions on the first post of this thread and still no luck. The folder looks different than the others in the Neighbourhoods, I opened Sim PE and it doesn't even show in the Neighbourhood Browser there. I can't even extract my sims to save them should I need to rebuild this hood once again, Sim PE can't find it so I can't extract. The last SP I put on was Mansions and Gardens, but as recently as last week it was working fine with no issues. I have not installed any system updates other than the Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and even after that was on it was still working fine and showing up.

System: Windows 7 Premium
Processor: AMD Athelon II Quad Core
RAM: 4 gigs DDR3
HD: 750 gigs
EP's and SP's: All EP's, all SP's except Ikea, Kitchen and Bath Design

In general, it's much better to be specific. Telling us that you tried "everything in the first post" isn't nearly as useful to us as telling us exactly what you tried in your own words. For example, say "I tried to remove the NeighborhoodManager.package; my neighborhood did not appear. I tried copying the NeighborhoodManager package from Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods; my neighborhood did not appear. I tried ... etc. etc.".

Try moving or removing everything in your entire Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods folder. Then, copy in just your backup neighborhood folder that is causing you problems. Does that help?

Don't bother to restore the other neighborhoods until you have actually managed to get your neighborhood displayed. Many people find that they have a conflict between two of their neighborhoods and playing only one neighborhood at a time will completely remove that possibility.

Try deleting all of your caches. Does that help?

Try removing all of your CC. Does that help?