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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Aug 2020 at 2:52 AM
Default Need help with finding specific song(s) via SimPE
Hi all. So, the Happy Holiday stuff pack came with a funny little snowman stereo which played Christmas-themed music that, as it turns out, is very hard to find on the internet. So I decided to go and extract the audio files for myself.

The necessary audio files appear to be located in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Double Deluxe\Base\TSData\Res\Catalog\Bins\H05.bundle.package

I went ahead and extracted the entire audio contents of the package file, which helped reveal 5 of the songs from the stereo... however, I know for a fact that there are still at least 2 other songs from the stereo yet to be found. And there's where I'm stuck. Where the heck could these two other songs be? Sorting by file size (or by the audio's "Title") helps a lot but pretty much all other files I try to play give a compatibility error in my media players. Only those 5 songs would play, yet I know there are more than 5 in the game.

Any advice on where to look/what to do? I'm determined to data-mine these other 2+ elusive Christmas songs that seem to be missing, yet still play in-game.
Screenshots
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Instructor
Original Poster
#2 Old 22nd Jan 2021 at 12:12 AM
Hey y'all. This thread is 5 months old, but I finally figured out the issue and figured I'd post about it anyway for anyone else on the internet in the future.

As it turns out, both the Holiday Party Pack and Happy Holiday Stuff Pack contain this item, each with their own 5 songs that play. If you have the Happy Holiday Stuff Pack installed, those 5 songs take precedence and replace the ones from the Holiday Party Pack... the Ultimate Collection (the version I'm using) that EA released in 2014 apparently only contains the Holiday Party Pack, which is why I couldn't find the other 5 songs that I used to hear way back in the day. What a strange oddity.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#3 Old 22nd Jan 2021 at 2:29 PM
I have some more information on this, I was interested by your post so looked at the files.
I have a disc installation, but I don't have the Holiday Stuff Pack- instead I have the original two patches that EA released (the first Store pay items I think) on their website. They were called The Sims 2 Holiday Mini Pack and the Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack. Both were just a few pounds each and were executables, which you installed in the same way as a patch. The mini pack was released, if I remember correctly, as a solution when the Sims 2 Holiday Stuff disc was released- if you already had purchased the Party Pack, you would be paying again for those items if you bought the Holiday Stuff disc, so they released the mini pack patch for people like me who already had part of it.
Anyway, in my game the snowman mp3 files look the same as in your image when extracted from H05-

E0A4C48A-0B8AB3CD-FF57A559 snowman_music2
E465D93D-0B8AB3CD-FFD1E9A2 snowman_music3
EDE7E253-0B8AB3CD-FF5B3CAF snowman_music1
FA228938-0B8AB3CD-FF4E96B5 snowman_music4
FEE3948F-0B8AB3CD-FFC8DA4E snowman_music5

My game is fully patched and I used the grumpy loader, so that whenever an install 'checked the game was up to date' the patches would work.
So what I did was to remove my EAGames folder from my install location, then I ran the Sims 2 Holiday Mini Pack and Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack executables again. Of course, the exes created a new Sims 2 folder, and added the H05 and H06 files, as well as the skins file. It also added the updater files (TS2UPD.exe and TS2UPD0.exe) but naturally those wouldn't run as there were no files existing to patch, so it told me I needed to reinstall Sims 2. Then, I opened the new H05 file in SimPE and extracted the MP3s. And look, they are different! It seems that a patch somewhere along the line changes these resources, even for the disc install.

E0A4C48A-0B8AB3CD-FF57A559 we_wish_you_xmas
E465D93D-0B8AB3CD-FFD1E9A2 uponthe_housetop
EDE7E253-0B8AB3CD-FF5B3CAF jingle_bells_bill_mix
FA228938-0B8AB3CD-FF4E96B5 ald_lang_syne_mix
FEE3948F-0B8AB3CD-FFC8DA4E jinglebells_carhorn

Ah yes, there's the car horn jingle bells that we all remember!
I guess you could import these old MP3s back into your patched H05 and have the snowman play those instead, but as you can see they have the same instances so you can't have both. A solution would be to merge the MP3s and then import them, maybe merge snowman_music5 and jinglebells_carhorn and have that replace FEE3948F-0B8AB3CD-FFC8DA4E.
I uploaded the MP3s anyway in case anyone wants to look at them:
https://simfileshare.net/download/2295496/
Are these the tunes you remember, @thesammy58 or are there more somewhere?

EDIT: Try this link if the long one doesn't work:
http://simfil.es/2295496/
Refresh if you still get an error.
Screenshots
Instructor
Original Poster
#4 Old 30th Jan 2021 at 3:44 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simsample
I have some more information on this, I was interested by your post so looked at the files.
I have a disc installation, but I don't have the Holiday Stuff Pack- instead I have the original two patches that EA released (the first Store pay items I think) on their website. They were called The Sims 2 Holiday Mini Pack and the Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack. Both were just a few pounds each and were executables, which you installed in the same way as a patch. The mini pack was released, if I remember correctly, as a solution when the Sims 2 Holiday Stuff disc was released- if you already had purchased the Party Pack, you would be paying again for those items if you bought the Holiday Stuff disc, so they released the mini pack patch for people like me who already had part of it.
Anyway, in my game the snowman mp3 files look the same as in your image when extracted from H05-

E0A4C48A-0B8AB3CD-FF57A559 snowman_music2
E465D93D-0B8AB3CD-FFD1E9A2 snowman_music3
EDE7E253-0B8AB3CD-FF5B3CAF snowman_music1
FA228938-0B8AB3CD-FF4E96B5 snowman_music4
FEE3948F-0B8AB3CD-FFC8DA4E snowman_music5

My game is fully patched and I used the grumpy loader, so that whenever an install 'checked the game was up to date' the patches would work.
So what I did was to remove my EAGames folder from my install location, then I ran the Sims 2 Holiday Mini Pack and Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack executables again. Of course, the exes created a new Sims 2 folder, and added the H05 and H06 files, as well as the skins file. It also added the updater files (TS2UPD.exe and TS2UPD0.exe) but naturally those wouldn't run as there were no files existing to patch, so it told me I needed to reinstall Sims 2. Then, I opened the new H05 file in SimPE and extracted the MP3s. And look, they are different! It seems that a patch somewhere along the line changes these resources, even for the disc install.

E0A4C48A-0B8AB3CD-FF57A559 we_wish_you_xmas
E465D93D-0B8AB3CD-FFD1E9A2 uponthe_housetop
EDE7E253-0B8AB3CD-FF5B3CAF jingle_bells_bill_mix
FA228938-0B8AB3CD-FF4E96B5 ald_lang_syne_mix
FEE3948F-0B8AB3CD-FFC8DA4E jinglebells_carhorn

Ah yes, there's the car horn jingle bells that we all remember!
I guess you could import these old MP3s back into your patched H05 and have the snowman play those instead, but as you can see they have the same instances so you can't have both. A solution would be to merge the MP3s and then import them, maybe merge snowman_music5 and jinglebells_carhorn and have that replace FEE3948F-0B8AB3CD-FFC8DA4E.
I uploaded the MP3s anyway in case anyone wants to look at them:
https://simfileshare.net/download/2295496/
Are these the tunes you remember, @thesammy58 or are there more somewhere?

EDIT: Try this link if the long one doesn't work:
http://simfil.es/2295496/
Refresh if you still get an error.


Yes, those are the tunes! There are 10 in total between the two versions I believe. This is wonderful information and I’m so glad someone else took the time to sleuth around as well. I was starting to think I was just going crazy and that the other 5 songs simply never existed. By the way, merging the MP3s is actually a genius idea. I may have to do just that for nostalgia’s sake. Thanks @simsample !
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#5 Old 30th Jan 2021 at 12:35 PM
Yes, that's correct, ten in total. Glad to have helped @thesammy58 !
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