How do you pick out items that cause your game to crash?

[SangsBleus]

This has happened a couple of times, but it hasn't really bothered me until now. I'm decorating a house and in the miscellaneous section I can only go five or so pages before the game crashes. I know it's an object in the miscellaneous category that's doing it, but I have no idea which item it is. So if there is a way, how can you pick out and delete the item that's causing my game to crash?

All help is appreciated!


Toshiba Satellite M305-S4848
4GB 800MHz SDRAM
250GB HDD
Sims 2
University
Nightlife
Open For Business
FreeTime
Seasons
Apartment Life
Stuff Pack: Celebration Stuff!

[Theraven]

You can try the half'n'half method. Part your Downloads folder in two, run the game with one half in. Does it crash? If not, then the bug probably is in the other half. If it crashes, then the bug is probably in the half you tested (but test both halves to be sure).
Move the "clean" files to a temporary folder.
Part the buggy half in two again, and test. Do this until you find the bugged files


One other thing:
How many downloads do you have, and do you by any chance run Windows Vista 32 bit?

I had a random crash problem once, which I thought was a bugged item, but in reality it was a memory overload, which caused the game to crash if it used more than 2GB memory (I too have 4 GB RAM on my computer, so I didn't understand why it acted like this). Vista 32 bit has that memory limit. 64 bit doesn't really have it - other than when playing Sims2, since the game files aren't updated to take this into consideration. I found a link to a small fix that solves this problem, if this really is your problem. Though I don't really recommend messing around in the game files if you know next to nothing about such things.

I did have over 10 GB of downloads, plus all EPs and SPs, which does use a lot of memory...

[rwills]

Here's the wiki page on finding problem custom content:

http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content

Personally, although it is very time-consuming, I lean towards the tried-and-true 50% method, as mentioned above and also at the link.

Just remember, if at all possible, to not Save your game while testing with content temporarily removed -- just Quit without Saving.

Oragnizing your Downloads folder into sub-folders can help speed up the search somewhat, as can segregating the newest items you've put into Downloads (you can always move them to a diffferent appropriate sub-folder after determining that none of them are causing problems).

As far as checking for hack/mod conflicts, there is the HCDU (Hack Conflict Detection Utility), here (click Sims 2-- Programs):

http://www.simwardrobe.com

Note that the HCDU (a) doesn't necessarily recognize 100% of hacks as hacks and (b) will show a list of potential conflicts, but cannot determine which if any of those potential conflicts are benign and which are malignant (no program can do that).

Some tips:

If you've recently installed a new EP or SP, some items which previously caused no problems may no longer be compatible, and need to be either updated or scrapped.

If the game freezes or crashes while loading, the problem may not necessarily be custom content. There are other tricks to do to (usually) solve that type of freesing/crashing.

Collection files (and any image files which accompany them) in the Downloads folder can cause crashing -- those files belong in the Collections folder, not the Downloads folder. Running Clean Installer and sorting the files by Type can quickly find any Collection files which may have ended up in Downloads. Clean Installer can be gotten here:

http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/

Highly recommended to always use Clean Installer for installing Sims2Pack files rather than the installer which comes with the game. Also recommended to update to the most recent Clean Installer in case you should happen to have an older version already installed.

Generally speaking, the only types of files which belong in the Downloads folder are .package files. Any .jpg, .png, .bmp, .gif, .zip, .rar, .doc, .html or .txt files don't belong there, are ignored by the game, and are just uselessly bloating the folder and needlessly taking up space. You can either move those other types of files to someplace else on your computer if you want to store them, or else delete them.

[SangsBleus]

You can try the half'n'half method. Part your Downloads folder in two, run the game with one half in. Does it crash? If not, then the bug probably is in the other half. If it crashes, then the bug is probably in the half you tested (but test both halves to be sure).
Move the "clean" files to a temporary folder.
Part the buggy half in two again, and test. Do this until you find the bugged files


One other thing:
How many downloads do you have, and do you by any chance run Windows Vista 32 bit?

I had a random crash problem once, which I thought was a bugged item, but in reality it was a memory overload, which caused the game to crash if it used more than 2GB memory (I too have 4 GB RAM on my computer, so I didn't understand why it acted like this). Vista 32 bit has that memory limit. 64 bit doesn't really have it - other than when playing Sims2, since the game files aren't updated to take this into consideration. I found a link to a small fix that solves this problem, if this really is your problem. Though I don't really recommend messing around in the game files if you know next to nothing about such things.

I did have over 10 GB of downloads, plus all EPs and SPs, which does use a lot of memory...

I believe I do run on 32 bit, but I'm not entirely sure. And I have around 17055 downloads right now. I moved all of the downloads from the download section in EA games and ran everything again, but I still got the crash. Since it might be what you're talking about, what should I do?

CORRECTION: I run on 64 bit.

[downunder2006]

Follow the advice rwills has given you!! Most of the time this works.

And if that Doesn't Work you may have to do a full Clean Reinstall, as you might have corrupted your game files and possibly your collections folder.

I had the same problem with the crashing in in the miscellaneous section.

I ended up finding a few downloads that didn't work with FT,AL and M&G. 

I removed all my downloads,but still my game crashed in Miscellaneous. In the end I had to do Full clean reinstall and played without CC for a while.

You will find that some content that was compatible with older EP'S won't be with the latest EP'S!!

But the best advice is what rwills has given you

[kaoz666]

Organizing your DL folder will DEFINITELY help you in the future should you experience a crash again. How's that help you? Simple. When you know where everything is, you know what you've added recently. I'll use my last crash as example. About 2 months ago I snagged some stuff off of Sim2Cave during a DL binge. But when I fired up my game, it'd freeze when the loading bar reached more then half, then say "The application has failed and will now terminate" in a dialog box, signaling that something in my DL folder was causing a conflict and crashing my game. Now from the 1st time I experienced that many, many moons ago, I'd organized my folders. So all I had to do was go to the October 2009 folder, and search through all of the stuff I'd recently downloaded. I After only 3 restarts and 20, I found the culprit and got rid of it. Organizing your folders won't stop your game from crashing, but it will help you find the particular file that's causing the crash easier. Again, the initial organization will be a LOOOOOOOOOOONG process. But with organization comes more efficient file archiving, especially is you're someone who uses a ton of CC like I do.

Now, the other potential reason, as was stated by theraven...is your PC's memory. Or more importantly, your paging file. The paging file is the application you PC uses to determine how much memory it'll use to run programs. People make the common mistake of thinking that just because they have 4GB of ram that the PC is using all of it. Not the case. Many people's PC's are still running on the factory default paging file, which is actually the bare MINIMUM amount of memory a PC will use to function. The only way to run heavy duty programs more effectively, such as PC games, or other programs like Photoshop, Reason 4.0, Poser 7 and so on (Those being programs I use personally) is to increase your paging file's size. How do you do that you ask? Funny you should...cuz I typed up a tutorial on the very subject a while back

http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,105572.msg1537393.html#msg1537393

Follow the directions here and you can put your PC's available ram into OVERDRIVE and really pump out the power to run not only massive programs, but a number of them at once. (I've got itunes, TS2:AL, Flock (My web browser of choice) AND AIM running, all on 512MB of ram. If I can get my PC to handle that kind of work load with so little ram, my Tut will have your PC running like a super computer.)

[caffeinated.joy]

I don't organize my downloads as obssessively as some do, but I have a few files that saves me a ton of headaches. Aside from clothes/build objects/genetics and so forth, I have meshes in a seperate subfolder within each of those subfolders. I've had a problem with a bad clothing mesh before and having that subfolder was a big help. I also have all my mods in a separate folder. That way if my game is displaying behavior indicative of a conflict all my mods are easy to find and pull out. Then I have my default replacements in their own subfolder for the same reason, but also because if I find another default replacement I like better, it's easy to find the one I have to pull out (because you can only have one default replacement set of any type ). Lastly, I have anything I've downloaded in the past two or three weeks in another subfolder (with all the appropriate clothing/genetics etc subfolders in it) so I can test it and if something new causes a problem, I only have to pull the "New" folder out and sort through it.

[EKozski]

Thanks to Joy, I do the same thing. I have a folder inside my Downloads called, New Downloads. Everything I download goes into that. If there was a problem, I knew exactly where to go.

Since I got a new computer and all the EP's, I still do that. Old habits die hard.

It saves time and it's a lifesaver.