Won't Load Lots

[scarletlady]

I was having this problem where I would create a sim [Daton Cooke], then go to put him in a house. Well, the lot wouldn't open - at all. I had to go out of the game, close it and start again.

I found that Daton Cooke had been moved in, so I went to play with him thinking it was a one time thing, and then encountered several problems on the lot itself, such as freezing etc.

I tested lots of different lots and none of them would work. So, I found the Game Help FAQ from SimWiki, because I feel rude asking for help if I haven't even attempted to solve the problem myself. I tested to see if it was game files, it wasn't, everything was fine [I recreated the exact same situation every time].

So, I tried custom content, and yes, it was that. I took all of the game hacks that i'd downloaded from the 4th of June onwards [because I knew the problem had started on or around the 5th of June] and put them in their own folder on my desktop. Without these hacks, the game worked fine, and there were exactly 30 of them.

I decided upon a process of elimination - I took all the ones on the left hand side, 15 of them, and added them to the downloads folder. The problem happened, so it meant the problem hack was on the left. I split them into two sections, the top 8 and the bottom 7. I took the bottom 7 out of the downloads folder and the problem still persisted, meaning it was one of the top 8.

Anyway, you see where i'm going with this. Out of a process of elimination it seemed the problem was the sleeping naps mod. I thought everything was fine so went and downloaded clothes and more this morning, including a neighbourhood. But, when I went to play The Sims 2 again, the problem was there!

So, surely, it must be something i'd added. Only, my Delphy Downloads Organiser isn't showing that I installed any content from today, the 7th of June, even though I have -_-. So now I don't know what to do - I deleted the neighbourhood but the problem is still there. I really don't know what to do anymore because the Delphy organiser won't help me.

I've only downloaded clothes this morning, besides the neighbourhood - but I deleted all of that! So, really, what is going on?

Any advice, please? Thank you in advance, much appreciated!

Edit:// I'm thinking that this should have been posted in the general section as opposed to the AL section, my apologies, I didn't see the general section till much later.

[Theraven]

did you sort through all your hacks before installing AL? Make sure you don't have old, non-compatible hacks in the DL folder.

If you install new EP's - ALWAYS check whether a hack has been updated before putting it into the DL folder. Problems can (and often will) show up either immediately or after a time. I experienced crashes myself, because I forgot to update some mods I'd forgotten I had.

It could be that the sleeping hack conflicted with another (old) hack, that is still doing weird things.

[scarletlady]

I only started downloading CC after I got AL because I never knew how to do it before that [my fiance had to spend ages reading through Sims guides to teach me how to do it *blush*], so I don't think it can be older hacks as I don't think I have any...

Edit:// I'm thinking that this should have been posted in the general section as opposed to the AL section, my apologies, I didn't see the general section till much later.

[ancienthighway]

If a lot doesn't load, it's usually a problem of CC requiring a EP/SP you don't have.  Do you have all EPs and SPs?

All of my mods, to include Sometime Nap, were developed with AL.  I don't think that's the problem.  If it was, the lot would load and everything would work fine until you had a sim try to nap.  Then either the sim would "jump" off the couch or you would get an error message with an error log generated.  It's that was with all mods.  Modders are pretty good about stating what EP/SP are required for their mods to work too.

Creators of other custom content, hair, clothes, furniture, or anything else that requires a mesh, don't always state what EPs/SPs are required.  If you have one of these "bad" meshes, that is a mesh that requires something you don't have, the game will hang.  The only way to find them is with the binary search you've been doing.  However, you can get a better idea of what type of mesh is causing the problem by going into game and trying a couple different things.

Go into CAS.  Then with each sim age of both genders page through every CC hair and clothing.  If CAS hangs while you're doing this, it will be the type of mesh you were paging through.

Place a new lot.  Go to Build Mode and page through every tree and bush in garden mode.  A hang there will be an object mesh.

Go to Build Mode.  You'll have to page through everything here.  A hang will be an object mesh again.

DDO will show you the type mesh.  If you create folders for hair, clothing, and object meshes, you can separate you meshes and reduce the number you have to deal with in the binary search.  There may be many so don't stop after finding one problematic mesh and think you're finished.

[scarletlady]

Wow, thank you so much for such an explanation!

Pity i've only just seen it now, because using the DDO, I organised all my files into folders, took out four of the folders I thought the main problem was in and voila! No problem. So it's in one of those folders, so here's to spending another night going through to find the exact problem x]

Thank you though