game not loading

[oniongirl999]

I had an issue this weekend and I was wondering if someone could clarify something for me.
I had downloaded some new content last week (a lot of new content actually but only furniture, clothes and hair) and after I placed it in the downloads folder my game wouldn't load.
I'm wondering if there is a limit to the size of the dowload folder.
I realize that any limit, if it exists, would relate directly to the cpu stats but my computer's a healthy size and speed with 2gb of ram so I've never had much problem with loading the game.  Some lots I've over decorated are slow loading and in game, but this weekend I'd start the game and after 40 minutes (no game play, it never got that far) it would just quit loading without any kind of error message.  I checked all the error logs and found nothing unusual (I've been getting sound instance errors for ages).  So, I went through and pain stakingly removed cc that I haven't used in ages reducing the dl folder from 12gb to 9gb.  I tested things many different ways, hack conflict detection, removed dups using the DDO and even restored to an old back up through SimPE which didn't change a thing.
I loaded the game once without the downloads folder and it ran beautifully (still got the "could not find sound instance errors" so I think that's EP related).  None of the cc I had downloaded during the week contained hacks of any kind.  Now that my dl folder has been trimmed the game loads but I fear I will have to give up my download addiction cold turkey.:snorting:  Can anyone tell me if they've experienced a similar problem and if they found a different solution?
I apologize in advance if I have once again posted this thread in the wrong place but general help seemed the right choice.

[ancienthighway]

First try deleting the groups.cache, accessories.cache if you have one of those, and cigen.package.  Those would be located in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\.  Although it the thumbnails won't stop loading, you may want to delete the contents of the Thumbnails folder to so those will update.  If the game loads, it will take a while to put the indexes and create thumbnails for 9GB of data, so be patient.

If that doesn't work, you downloaded a mesh that isn't compatible with your game configuration.  Most likely it requires an EP you don't have.  Use Windows Explorer to search for 'mesh', sort the results by date, pull the ones you downloaded recently out and check out the game.  If it works, one or more of those you pulled are the problem.  Then it's just try and try again until you find the mesh(es) you can't use.

[oniongirl999]

Thank you for your feedback.
I always delete the groups cache before I run the game otherwise it won't even attempt to run.  I used to delete the accessories cache when the game wouldn't start but realised deleting groups was enough.  I might be wrong but when I delete the accessory cache it seems to me that CAS takes 5 times longer to open.  Anyway, when the problem happened I deleted the accessory cache as well and restarted the game, no change.  I've never deleted the cigen before.  I've seen it but don't know what it relates to.

As for a mesh that requires an EP I don't have, I have all EPs and SPs.  The only thing I don't have is Life Stories but from what I read about it, it's a stand alone game.
But since you mention meshes, is it possible that a number of meshes with high polys could cause this?  Keep in mind, I never even got to the main menu before the game just quit so it's not a video card thing.  I did dl some furniture sets that week which were listed on their home site as having higher than usual poly counts.  I figured I'd try it out in game and see if it slowed down game play.  I am running the game now with those objects still in the downloads but I had to go through that massive purging of the downloads folder in order to get it to run again.  Back to the mesh suggestion, it can't be an incompatible mesh.  When purging I removed old stuff I hadn't used in a while.  The only thing new that I took out for now was an Irish Pub set from ATS, but Sandy's stuff is always compatible with my game.  I'm gonna try putting that back in the downloads and see if the problem happens again.

[caffeinated.joy]

Try pulling out the entire downloads file and try loading your game. If it loads fine, then it's something in your downloads folder causing the problem. There's no easy way to track down the guilty party, sadly.

[LauSim]

I wonder if this happened to you after installing the new Season patch. I ask because I had the same problem just after that: I double-clicked on the game icon, but nothing happened.

It appeared the very first screen (the one showing game title "The Sims 2 Seasons"), but then the game didn't show anymore, although it appeared among Task Manager processes (with Seasons .exe file and ~e5.0001 process), but not under "applications".

First I tried removing Downloads folder, but it was useless. Then I tried removing EA Games folder completely, and the game started.

I restored the old EA Games folder, the one I had removed before, without Downloads, and deleting groups.cache and accessories.cache files. Then the games started normally. Even after reputting Downloads folder.

Everything seemed to work right, but after a couple of game restarts, at the next one, I always get an odd blank Windows error message window. And the only way to get rid of it and starting up the game, it's deleting groups.cache and accessories.cache files again.

I can't even know if it's something I downloaded lately, because my Downloads folder it's entirely new (I remade it completely, and got rid of the old one). So everything was downloaded "lately".

But I don't think the problem it's in the Downloads folder. The very first problem (the game not loading at all, even without getting an error message) happened when I had just installed Seasons patch and just put the "new" Downloads folder. So that was the first time I started the game with the "new" Downloads folder. And even after I removed it, the game did not start.

Problems like that occurred often in these late days to sims users (check out other sims forum). So I'm wondering if the new Seasons patch is someway involved in this.