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I can't believe... my game crashes again, after 4 seconds. I start loading, skip the intro and after 4 seconds, it crashes.
I deleted all the stuff that I put in my DL folder today, and removed 50 MB other stuff. I deleted the groups.cache file.

Does anyone have an idea why my game doesn't work? argh...

Could it be because of a virus? I have the newest Avast, should I make a virus scan?
And I noticed something:
Usually I don't grab the sims DVD from the computer, I just leave it in. But today I got the DVD out of the computer, and before I wanted to start the game, I put it back. But then, it looked like that the graphic settings were lost in the game. The loading screen and the mouse were bigger than before, I think... I don't know if this could be a problem or not. Could we talk about something, that the game "forgot" the graphic settings, when I grabbed the DVD out of the computer? Is this possible?

Thanks for any help!

That graphic trouble never happens for me, so it shouldn't.

Do a virus scan (in fact, do it regularly, at least once a week, and have it running in the background especially when surfing the net).

First tip: delete the accessory.cache, contentregistry and cigen.package, too. This often tends to help, as these files tend to go corrupted, too.

Next: do you have a lot of downloads? If you climb up towards 5-10 GB or more, and your computer can't handle it, then it's about time to do something about it.

Graphics trouble: Shouldn't reset itself, unless you've done some changes yourself. If the game or the graphics card needs more memory it can have a say in the graphics. Try to set them back to what you had (if you do get ingame).

Could also be some troubles with your DVD. Check for scratches and such.

Thank you, Theraven!
I'll surely do a virus scan.

I deleted groups.cache and accessory.cache, but not the conterstregistry and the cigen. I didn't know they can cause problems. I'll delete them too.
Yes, I have a lot of downloads, 14,5 gigs, but I always had like this but never had problems like this before. And I have 159 GB free space.
Ok, so I checked the DVD but no scratches. If I could get into the game, I'd check the graphics settings, but I still can't get into. :(
Thank you for the help!

Memory/RAM, then?
But if you never had any problems...
If you're running other programs in addition to Sims, then try to shut those down.

You tried to take out all your downloads? (Just put them in a folder on your desktop, and include everything from your Savedsims folder too). Could be something in there causing troubles.

If I put the whole DL folder to the desktop.. will I be able to put the whole back? I mean, before I had troubles with putting downloads in, because the game slowed down if I put more than 500 MB one time. I had to start the game, then exit. Put 500 MB again. Load the game, and so on... What do you think, will I be able to put the whole back one time?

I usually make a new folder, move everything out, and leave the original folder in place. Some people have had troubles with the actual folder being corrupted, and had to delete it and make a new one. But try to move everything out of it first, and then run the game.

OK I'll try it now! Thank you.

Theraven asked you how much RAM you had. When posting a tech help question, it's good to provide as much info about your computer as possible. Can you please tell us how much RAM you have, what video card you have, what OS your using, etc?

Sorry, here are the infos:

- Windows XP
- 160 GB free space on the driver
- Video card: ASUS AH3650



I moved my downloads - the game still crashed without them. I made a virus scan, it found 4 infected files, but not on that driver, where I have TS2 installed.
Next? What should I do now?

I have the files from the Logs folder if that helps here:
http://www.box.net/shared/yc99zo3osk

THANK YOU!

Also, have you tried running the game completely vanilla? Not just removed the Downloads folder. Did you do these steps:

1. Renamed your current game. No need to get fancy ... Sims2aaaa would be fine, unless you have another folder with that name. BTW, backing up before you try anything is always a good idea, as I'm sure you know. I've even backed up the entire old game in My Documents to a disk. Granted, your current game isn't behaving. But just in case you do something that really borks things up, you have a Plan B. You can almost NEVER back up enough!

2. Try running the game without ANY custom ANYTHING .... no custom neighborhoods, houses, camera hacks, terrains, etc. Not all "downloads" are in your Downloads folder. It will generate a new game. Don't panic. Unless you save anything, no harm should come to you. And you DO have your whole-game backup, ready to go.

3. Go into a Sims house you don't care about, and see if the game crashes at this point. And of course, do NOT save anything! If you do, you might very well regret it.

4. Go into CAS, make a Sim, see if the game does something odd there. Once again, no saving anything. X-out of the CAS. You don't want a new Sim!

If nothing crashes, then you might have a gltichy terrain, camera hack, house, etc. in your "good" game. I've had this happen to me. In my case, it was a messed-up house that I downloaded off a site.

Thank you Gazania!
How do you mean renaming the game? The Sims 2 folder to Sims2aa in the EA Games folder, or where? Sorry, that's perhaps a silly question.
Thank you, I'll try these.

Silly me, I wanted to move all the downloaded things, but I only removed the Downloads section... now I'll remove all the things. Thanks for the tip!

Whoa, Nellie! You need to rename the folder in My Documents. Don't move the other stuff ... the stuff in the My Computer area.

My Documents -- EA Games -- Sims 2 . That "Sims 2" folder.

But FIRST, back up your Sims 2 folder in your "good game" and move it somewhere else in your My Documents area. Name it ... anything ... as long as you know what it is. I know this sounds like nagging, but always back up before you start something like this! NEVER try this otherwise. Backing up might take a while. In the meantime, perhaps someone who is more of a "pro" can assist you, too.

RAM is the memory. Usually comes in anything between 512mb and 4GB.
Memory and harddrive space isn't the same ;)

You'll find it where you find the system information.

Sorry, I'm not a too big computer pro... I can do things what I need, but nothing other  :confused:
My computer has 1,50 GB RAM.

Oh, dear. I don't know if theraven will concur, but you might indeed be pushing your game with the Downloads size.

I play one game (I have two different games I play on two different computers) on a 1.5 GB computer, and I was once told to watch the size of my Downloads folder on that one. This game does love to eat lots of RAM.

I believe that trying the game vanilla might answer your question as to whether your game itself is corrupted or not.. But you might also make sure you have enough space on your hard drive for a backup and your renamed folder first. Oh, and when you make a backup, rename that as well. Sims2backup is fine.

Perhaps I should let theraven walk you through the next steps.

I took a look at your error logs and they all have the same exception errror: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION

OK, to put simply, the access violation error comes when the processor is being instructed to access information in an area that doesn't exist, or from an area the current process doesn't have access to. This can happen for a few reasons. The first most people suggest is you don't have enough available memory to run the game but I see that's not the problem. In all the exception logs I see out of 1536 mb available you have between 992 and roughly 1000 mb free.

One of the things I hate about this error is it's so ambiguous and can apply to so many things (not enough RAM, bad RAM, bad drivers, bad cards). I'm thinking though, because you stated your graphic settings have been "lost" is it's a video issue. First thing I would try is updating your drivers. Also it wouldn't hurt to use some compressed air to blow out the dust from around your cpu fan and heatsink. Extra dust in your computer can cause the whole system to overheat, which can make things go all hiccupy.

In general, are you having any other graphic related issues with your computer?

Oh and it definitely wouldn't hurt to do a spyware scan, if you haven't already.

As gazania has mentioned, it could also be a matter of too many Downloads. I would do as suggested there and try running your game without your Downloads and see if that helps too. 

Hm, starting the game vanilla means that totally empty, without any downloaded stuff?  :confused: :rolleyes:
If I can get into the game again, I'll surely delete lots of files, I already wanted to do this, just never found the time (and the mood).


*Caffeinated.joy: thank you for the help! I had graphic problems last year, from january till june, because I got a new graphics card in june, it's ASUS AH3650 and it worked perfectly till now.

Then chances are it's the drivers that needs updating ;)

Yes it means running your game without any downloads. You don't have to delete them completely just yet; just move the Downloads folder to your desktop. :)

My Downloads folder is already moved to the Desktop.
And I'll try some other things tomorrow, for today I'm finished, here's evening already and I'm totally dead, so I'll go to bed now and tomorrow I'll try out some other things, thank you for your help, I really appreciate!

Yay, I'm so happy, I loaded my game totally vanilla, and it worked! It loaded for about 2-3 minutes (oh what a dream!) without any stuff in the game.

Thank you so much for the help everyone, you're all amazing!

And what should I do know? Try to put back the CC, or?
THANK YOU!

Little by little, yes :)

Half'n'half usually works. Test one half, then test the other half. Wherever you get problems, you know where to find the bugger. Split that part in half, and test again...

Well, if you have updated your drivers, now we get to see if that fixed the problem. It's entirely possible it could have been a combination of bad drivers/bad content. First thing is to try your game with your downloads in to see if it all runs. If it runs fine, then you're good to go. If you still get a crash, then you have one or more bits of bad cc. Then comes the happy process of weeding out whatever causes your game to crash. This guide (http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content) will help you there. The most effective one is the 50/50 method listed at the bottom, but don't be afraid to try the others first. It can be labour intensive, but it's better than wiping everything out and starting over fresh.

Okay, thank you I'll do this. I'm patient so if I'll have to look through on the DL folder to find the bad file, I'll do that. :)

Yes, you're now at the good news/bad news portion of The Sims 2 saga ... that is, if your computer hardware is behaving itself.

The good news is that you might have one or more pieces of CC in your folder that just isn't playing nicely with the other content in your game ... or was wonky to begin with. This is fixable ... you just have to find it.

The bad news ... you have to find it. And with more than 14 GB on your computer, this may take a while.

Do you have Nightlife? And do you subfolder? When you get a chance, you might want to do that. It makes wading through thousands of downloads much easier.

Good luck!

Gazania: I have Nighlife, I installed all the EPs, and I have some SPs too.

Ok so I used the sims2 file compressorizer, from 14,5 GB it made 8 GB! I seperated all my DLs to 5 folders. I put the first in the game folder, I went through the folder in game, deleted all the stuff that I don't need. And I did this with all of the 5 folders. I deleted more than 600 mb, but... In the folder #3, My grame always crashes when I click on Decorations -> Misc.
After, I put there the whole DL folder, started the game, and it crashed when I clicked any object, it started to load the object, after it crashed.
Why is this?

Maybe the problem could be that I put the whole DL folder in the game. Should I put it there like the folder #1 first, after folder #2, then folder #3 and so on... should I try this?
THANKS!!

I have a little solution that might work in this case-in my downloads folder, I have a file "Before Install downloads" which is where I put brand new unzipped files to check if they're going to crash the game. This has the advantage of isolating those that will crash the game into smaller parts so that you can find them more easily.
Once they pass that test, then they can go into the appropriate folders. I know that with the size of your downloads, it might be a real pain to do this. But besides the half and half way of finding bad CC, I can't think of anything better.
You should remove and check as many folders as possible, to find the culprit. I've done that before, and while it is very tiresome, it is actually the only way sometimes to find the one file (which is it usually is) that is causing your game to crash.

Yes, I did this, I made a new folder every day when I put a cc into the game, and if it was okay, I deleted.
but I think I started doing this too late (some months ago) because I already had the bad file before :(

so you think I should try the 50 / 50 method?

I hope I'm understanding you correctly, because if I am, this might make your life easier, but ...

You say that there might be a problem concerning Folder 3?

Have you tried playing the game with the other four folders and NOT with Folder 3? Once again, don't save until you're sure those folders are not the troublemakers.

It doesn't matter what folder you put in what order when you're testing, as long as you do not save. If Folder 3 is the culprit, then you might just have to do the 50/50 in Folder 3, which is whole lot easier than doing it with all five folders! If it is Folder 3, most likely, something in there is not playing nice with something else in your game. And that might be a great start to finding out what's wrong.

If I'm mistaken, yes ... you can put in Folder 1 ... test for several minutes ... don't save ... put in Folder 2 ... test ... don't save, etc. But if you want to work backwards or try another folder first, I found that I didn't have any problems when I did that.

P. S. I too have folders that I mark as "testing", such as "Testhair", "TestObjects", "TestMods", etc. It does make it easier to pinpoint the culprits before I move them over to the proper folders.

Yes, maybe there's the problem is folder #3. I just can't understand something. Before this whole crash thing, I had exactly the same files, like now. And I had no crashes in the misc. section. But now I do...
but thanks for the tip, it would be  lot easier like this.

And I noticed that I have another crash in folder #5, in the sculptures section, near the end. So I have these 2 crashes.
Tomorrow I'll try to put only folder 1, 2 and 4. And will see :)
*hunting for a bad file*

You can have a corrupted file in your game sitting stealthily in your game with no ill effects and then 'poof', run your game and it decides to make your game have seizure. Also, a file that was fine one day can become corrupt the next time you run your game. It's the volatile nature of data.

At this point, the best thing to do is use the 50/50 method in the files you have issues with.

try checking yor graphic driver if nothing wrong... you have to dwnload the crack

ok so I put there all my downloads without folder #3. it was PERFECT!
then I seperated folder 3 into 2 other folders, 50 % in part 1 and the other half in part 2 folder. I loaded my game with part 1, it crashed. after I loaded it with part 2, and it crashed too.
so both part of the folder crashed my game.

how to continue, what do you think?
I'm trying to find the bad file.

Sounds like you have more than one bad file.

It's happened to me before. I had three bad files. You'll have to keep seperating them into halves until you find them. At least it won't take you so long.....

Yes, I'm doing this right now.
Thanks Ed :)

I think I found one of the bad files.
Part 2 folder of the folder 3 (thuh.. a bit complicated) doesn't crashes anymore in the deco - misc section :)

When I put only folder 3 in the downloads folder, it runs perfectly.
I tried loading my game with ALL the CC, and it crashed. Any ideas?  :confused:

Didn't you say you had a crash in Folder 5? What happened with that?

You might also have what I call a "sleeper conflict". I just had a crash situation like that. I hadn't downloaded ANYTHING in the last few months except a few clothes. I hadn't played the game for a few months, either.

It turned out in my case that I had two conflicting files that independently worked fine, but if I put them both on the same lot, they crashed. Now I was lucky. I thought long and hard about what I did recently, and realized that I had put the two modded objects together in one household for the first time ever. I simply deactivated the old one using the Clean Installer, and there were no more crashes. As soon as I actually have time, I'll check all my lots in all my neighborhoods and make sure that the older modded object is gone off all lots (it should disappear completely, but I need to make sure, using several lots to check); this time, deactivating the new modded object. I will probably then delete the older object for good.

Downloads can be a tricky thing. :(

Something conflicts with something else. Or you just have too much CC in at once... The game has to generate thumbnails for everything, and sometimes if you've got a lot of downloads it's too much to handle for the memory, and you get a memory crash.
One way to figure out if that's the problem, is to put in the folders one by one, click and place every object, and use all items in CAS, so that the game generates thumbnails for them. If it still crashes, then it's not the thumbnails.

My own XP laptop (512mb of memory) spent ages (about 1-1.5 hours) loading if I had more than 9GB of downloads. It didn't crash so much, but computers tend to be different...

Did you try to check all the hacks/mods together, by the way? Could be some are not compatible with each other, or not compatible with your EP/SPs.

Yes, I loaded my game only with folder 5, and it was fine.
I'm loading it now with folder 1, 2 and 3. I have to play with the folders to see which are the bad ones.

It works perfect with folder 1, 2 and 3 in the downloads folder.
I'm trying to put there folder 4, so it will load with 4 folders.
Will see.

here are the news, I put there folder 5 + 1 other folder

folder 5 + folder 1 = OK
folder 5 + folder 2 = OK
folder 5 + folder 3 = OK
folder 5 + folder 4 = OK
folder 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = CRASH

I removed some stuff from folder 5, I'm loading the game without them. From the 600 MB of folder 5, I left there 400 MB, and I removed the rest 200 MB.

You've got a conflict in one or more of those folders.

Try different combinations with those folders. Hopefully that will narrow it down more.

Are there any modded objects in Folder 5? Ones that regulate or encourage certain actions, such as a special sofa or bed? That might be a place to focus. This may NOT be the cause, but you might want to be particularly aware of these objects. They can cause a lot of trouble! In my case, it was a modded bed. It clashed with another modded object in another folder.

So ... 1, 2, 3 and 4 work OK without 5? I hope so ... your job would be easier then. Right now, though this is far from certain, it looks like certain items in Folders 3 and 5 might not be cooperating with each other, which is similar to what happened to me several months back. If folders 1 through 4 work fine without 5, then you would probably have to do the 50/50 with 5. Continue working with 5 with the other four folders in the game until you can narrow down the trouble item in 5.  Note which item it is and remove it to another part of your desktop or My Documents temporarily before deleting it. Then try the game without the item.

You might also want to try Folder 3 again with that one trouble file and narrow down which item was the troublemaker in that one, if you want to know what item in 3 had been giving you heartburn. It might be in that second half of 3. Then you might have to choose whether you want the Folder 5 item or the Folder 3 item, for instance. It doesn't look like you can have both. If the item in 5 wasn't important, I suppose you can skip this step.

Occasionally, you can look at the comments for that trouble item in 5 on the download site. If you go the item from here or Mod The Sims 2, for example,  you might find what happened if you read the comments. That's how I found out about one clashing item. If you're really lucky, the creator might have already known about the conflict and has a brand-new file for you to try. Make sure you have the right expansions/stuff packs for it.

It might not seem like this, but you are narrowing things down. :)

If you have mods/hacks/modded objects in multiple folders, then test these on their own.

Also, did you try the thumbnail thing?

Thank you Gazania and Theraven.


I have some modded objects: they are poseboxes. I deleted all of them (maybe 7 -8) because I don't really need them. I loaded the game with all the CC and without the poseboxes, and it crashed.
And I made some other variations:
folder = f

f1 + f2 + f3 + f4 + 50 % of f5 = CRASH (tried already with the other half of f5)

f2 + f3 + f4 + f5 = OK
so it's fine without folder 1...

then I removed all the bodyshop files (hairs, makeups, clothes...) - I can live about them, I always just decorate houses, don't make sims.  That was 405 MB and 1 175 files. Without them, it CRASHED.

having too much files could not be a problem then, I think.
I'm looking for other modded objects / hacks in my DL folder with download organizer.


@theraven: what is the thumbnail thing? :)

What I said here.

I'm going to suggest something a bit radical:

Start from scratch-by that I mean: rename your EA Games folder to make it not load up in your game(something like "EA Games.bad files"); then make a new folder for EA Games. Start the game. Run it vanilla for a bit. (save your hoods that you want by putting them into another safe place-desktop would be good)
Then: very carefully, and with some planning, put back your CC that you really want, and know that will not crash the game.
After this, the next step is the most time consuming: just for fun, make a file in the downloads folder titled "Before install downloads"(or whatever you want..it serves as a testing point for your CC. (actually, you could make this folder and use it for all your new CC.)
With every single file you think might be causing the crash, (and individually, as well), run the game.
It will probably show up in this effort-and yes, it will be laborious-it will take time. But by doing this, you will have trimmed down your CC and also debugged the game.
You don't have to do this-but it sounds like a very mixed up mess that you have in your game, and it's not going to work very well without something radical such as regenerating the game.