Resolved: Argh.

[Britpoptarts]

The Sims must be the world's most aggravating--and most addictive--game. Why else, when it acts up, do we not snap the CDs in two and swear off it forever? :-P

I've been getting application crashes (most annoying ones happen when my Sims are downtown, where I can't save new purchases /relationships) which I suspect are due to memory running out. It can hog up to 3/4 of a gig, but that seems to be the upper limit. Some lots show the used memory dropping back under a half gig, some don't. Ugh. I keep Task Manager open in the corner and have a "save now" autospammer added, but there's really nothing I can do but watch it go up and up until the game balks. Sucky. Any tips?

The biggest gripes lately are the non-working GoBo lights and disco ball (lots that have them spam up an error message, lots that don't have them spam an error once they are purchased). I was able to use these even on residential lots earlier.

I'm also getting an error related to the Athletics career (default), though none of my Sims are on that job track. Maybe some students or (down)townies have it.

Lastly, I get a Sim "user" / character error for #205. Investigation revealed it was a professor. I only played one student lot and only met one prof., and this isn't the guy. What has happened?

Two screenshots of these errors are attached. Family shown is new, entering a new, empty Maxis lot for the first time.

Another minor nuisance is that an "all-in-one" lot alarm that prevents burglaries and fires needs resetting each time I enter a lot it is in. It does apparently work, though, as two of my less intelligent Sims tried to set their eyebrows on fire in the kitchen (again).

I do have hacks, but downloaded all updates and ditched unsupported / outdated ones after going through checklists posted at MATY and here and elsewhere by the mod and hack creators.

As for the usual suspects, I don't have and never had inTEENimater and downloaded only the Pets version of InSIMenator. Got all EPs and SPs at the same time (except Family Fun, which I still don't have). Got all EA patches, and, frankly, most of my issues appeared AFTER installing their patches.

I was originally running the game with all the highest settings (reflections on, lot distance maxxed, etc.), and had a live Internet session going as well, so my graphics card is capable of handling it, it's just reverting to less extreme settings now by default and I'm running nothing extraneous at all.

So what the hey is going on?

I need wisdom.

Another quick question or two: if a Sim is buying clothes and the outfit shows in the catalogue but not on the mannequin, that means that the texture didn't download correctly, right? Or is the mesh damaged? Ditto for hair / accessories...if the Maxis default hair is shown, or the default bald mannequin head (and it's not a below-the-neck accessory), which part failed to be
loaded into Downloads properly? Texture or mesh?

I suspect that the clothing issue is a bad mesh and the hair / accessory issues are bad textures, but I'm not sure.

*attached image removed*

[Squinge]

It looks like you have a career hack installed that is causing that error message.

[Britpoptarts]

Ah ha! You are smart! :worship:  And your mods and hacks are among those I made sure not to lose. Updated them right away.

There were, past tense, indeed some Career hacks I didn't want or download. I suspect they came with EA Exchange lots. But I zapped those a week ago. I also uninstalled / reinstalled the games after that, BUT I didn't touch my registry. Too chicken.

Note to self: never, ever, EVER download any more user-made content from Exchange. UGH. I had forgotten that Golden Rule which was established during Sims (original) play. Normally I wouldn't have, but I am usually on dial-up and had access to a T-1 foe a few hours and gave in to temptation. Stupid! Weh.

Anyway, I removed the associated packages with Sims2Pack Clean Installer. Or tried to, anyway. There must be more masquerading as something else. How do I sniff them out or get the game to move on and stop spamming me?

Also: how on Earth did this affect the disco / GoBo lights? Bizarre. The Career(s) I never used, didn't download intentionally, and didn't want has/have somehow virally infected the fancy dance floor lights! Groo. *irritated*

How do I fix it?

Any enlightenment about the clothing / hair weirdness I mentioned?

[Britpoptarts]

P.S. I used Clean Installer to track down Career objects, and found some disguised as Food (leaving those in hasn't caused issues) and some in my Downloads/Hacks folder (not redlined, but stuck in there because the objects were cheats or modifications anyway) and those also are still okay in my game. Only stuff that had a job name or description and the Career tag were set OFF, and the annoying message went away. Thank you again.