Help! Sims 2 keeps EATING my stuff!

[JesseMichaels]

Hey, guys. I would REALLY appreciate some help.

My game goes wonky sometimes, as Sims 2 does. I'm sure you can empathize. Sometimes we're working on fixing things so much, we wish we could just toss the whole game... but we love it so much, we keep on trying no matter how much it hurts!

So, a few days ago, I downloaded some new stuff - quite a bit of it, but did a bit at a time to make sure my game worked. Worked fine... until I downloaded some new skins. Some crashed my game so I got rid of them. But the last dl I did, I noticed that when I went back in, one of my families got eaten up. No longer on the lot. The lot was the same as I left it - after I did some work to it - but no family. Then other things started happening. My lots were missing. Not just the dl ones, but ALL of them - even the base game lots. Then my neighboorhood photos in the menu went missing, leaving a green tiled photo. I left and went back in and Pleasantview neighboorhood disappeared. Every family, every lot. Left again and came back in, Pleasantview was there, but then the Riverblossom Hills was gone. I took out all the skintones but still some families are missing. I took out Skintones, same thing. I EVEN deleted my Sims 2 and let them regenerate. Then I slowly added each thing I took out. Still having issues with a FEW missing families! I can't imagine a download being the cause for SIMS to be eaten, let alone, entire families!

Can anyone help me? Or at least tell me if you've had families or Sims disappearing so I have something to go off on?

I'd really appreciate it, cuz now I'm afraid to even play the game, worrying if everything I've done is gonna disappear.

[Theraven]

First of all - are you on a PC or Mac? I think this has been an issue with Macs under certain circumstances, in which case I'd have to go look up some topics on MTS.

Either way, how much harddrive space do you have left on your PC/Mac? You should have at least 10 GB free to be safe from sudden deletions. If the game doesn't have enough space to save the game, it can start randomly delete and/or not save things. Some is used as VRAM, some is for the storing process, and some is just for making sure all the processes work, because the computer uses the main harddrive for other things than storage.

As for CC, make sure you haven't put the files too deep into your Downloads folder. a max of 3 subfolders deep, avoid anything but simple letters Aa-Zz, 0-9 and underscore _
Anything else adds extra thinking power to the files and folder path. The entire file path should not be more than 255 characters long (but much shorter if there are any special characters or spaces), or else the game cuts them off and won't show them ingame.

Also make sure your antivirus program isn't eating up sim files and spewing them out in the quarantine bin. Apparently the Windows 10 antivirus is very hungry for Sims programs these days (it's been reacting to some TS4 programs and various other things).

And of course, make sure you have a backup at hand before these things happen. Preferably a different place than the computer so it's safe from any issues that happens on the computer.

[JesseMichaels]

I'm on a Mac. And that doesn't surprise me that these issues are common with it. I've had many issues, especially after upgrading to the horrible Catalina and hesitating on upgrading to Big Sur because of how the last OS screwed up my apps. As it stands now, I've had to redownload and then just start my entire game over. Which it has taken, of course, months, and sometimes years of game play, to build. So, needless to say, it is VERY frustrating to have to start over. 

I have 1 TB on here. I have tons of space. Over 700 GB. So, I know it's not a problem with storage. My memory is 16 GB, and I have 2GB Graphics. And I used to have much more downloads on here before Catalina and it held up just fine so I'm pretty sure it's not that.

Good tip on the downloads folder. Other than Warlokk, who mentioned his CC can be three or more folders in, I typically try not to do that, but again, good tip. I'll keep that in mind for the future, and double check my dl's.

Weird that a anti-virus would do that. I do believe, though, that currently, it's out of date. But... again... good tip for the future. How would I check that in the future? Just check the quarantine bin of my anti-virus?

Good idea about the backup other than the computer.

I think it might be something wrong with my neighborhoods themselves. I haven't even added back my Downloads folder after uninstalling / reinstalling. I added back my Lot Catalog and Neighborhoods and the green grid screen is back. So, I'm going to try Lot Catalog or Neighborhoods and find the actual culprit. I'm really hoping I can fix this. Not sure if my Sims and families are gone forever or if I can try and get them back.

You've been a great help with some good tips, but, I don't think any of these are an issue for me. But, if you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

[Theraven]

If you've recently reinstalled and shifted folders around, have you remembered to enable CC again?

The whole moving things around can be a bit iffy if you don't do it properly. Personally, I'm more of a "the entire TS2" folder than "just the NH and LotCatalog folders" because there's the Config folder with all the ingame settings, Camera folder with potential camera hacks, and various other folders you may at some point have edited the contents of with/without knowing. Not all are important, but some can be very annoying to forget.

Anyhow, here's the Mac collection of help topics at MTS - there's several on missing CC and similar issues to yours, maybe some of it can be of help.

Could possibly be related to this issue:
- https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=604898 (Sims disappearing from custom neighborhood)
- https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=613494 (same issue)

[JesseMichaels]

Hey, thanks, Theraven. I'll check it out those related issues.

I did, btw, add Neighborhoods slowly back into the Sims 2 Folder and now, my suspicion is that there is something that corrupted Pleasantview. That's what it comes down to. Once I added all the custom neighborhoods I had back, other than Pleasantview, it seemed to work fine. Seems I'm just going to have to start over in that neighborhood and it's aligned terrains, like Downtown. Also, I noticed all the CC is working, and after another suggestion of adding the special CEP for 64 bit, that solved another issue I was having. But I still have families which were swallowed up. Their lots are exactly the same as I left them (which actually is more important to me), but it's still pretty frustrating. I even went the files to try to find them but I'm at a loss. So, I guess c'est la Vie.

[Theraven]

If I understand it correctly, there's some sort of "open file limit" on Macs, and it can affect both CC and saved files in addition to other files you have open - but you can do things to fix it, at least to some degree, and the limit can be increased (it's explained a lot better than I can in the two topics I linked, espiecially in lordtyger9 and muridae's posts)

[JesseMichaels]

Thanks again. I'll make sure I check it out.