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I had the urdge to build a community lot. So I did. However when building, I forgot the green sign, though I have the cash registers and ticket booths and such.

I made a family, had him call and baught the lot. Cool, I even hired people. Even cooler. However, I haven't even showed up to work it! I can't get there! I don't have a car, so I take the taxi. It's loading....loading....loading....and still loading....  For some reason I can't get it to load completely. So in the freeze, I shut down, start over. I even tried going into build for the community lot, can't. Says he has be there. Ugh...So I load him at home, (says hes 'go somewhere' taxi icon in the corner, hes not home yet) he arrives as if hes just getting back. (grr he never went....blah) So I try to get him to go there AGAIN...then the same problem.

The only good thing is it has at least saved on its own up to the taxi ride. So Im always on my way home.  

I did the hack conflict detection scan, I have a few probs with behav, nothing that will freeze the game for this(18 and over stuff).

WHAT DO I DO!?

How do I bypass to go into the commuinity lot? (to add/delete things)

If I sell the lot, will it lose all it's stuff? Even the building itself?

thanks for your time and pondering the issue
squeezy

I built a community lot as an OFB store. For some odd reason the lot would never load. I tried it with two different families and the problem would not resolve itself. My only thought is that the new lot had somehow been corrupted in the build process. I don't know but I finally sold the business and demolished that lot.

You problem sounds just like mine. Have you tried having the family buy a different lot to see if the problem is consistent? I would bet that the lot in question is simply a loss and others will play for you.

Also, have you all the correct patches for the game? Ironically, using the taxi should not cause the problem that an owned car might in an unpatched game. I still think the lot is corrupt.

Try another lot and let us know.

BTW, I could always enter the lot, if left unsold,  and tweak it. I just could not get it to load.

ARG!

It worked though...which is great for future lots. However the one I can't play is the largest lot, and super cool. Granted it's large, but my puter can handle it plus some. Im surprised and wish I knew how to get it to work...

My only other issue with the now working lot, is that it freezes. Have to do reset on puter just to get it to shut down and restart. As long as this game takes to load, it's a pain in the tuckus.

So what is it? A bug in the game?
If you sell it, does the building become empty?

If anyone checks this post, please let me know if you have this issue, helped someone or whatever. Any info at this point could help.

thanks

If you sell it it will be available to sell again and still have what you placed in it.

I don't think the size of the lot really matters that much. You might check to see if your video drivers are up to date or at least the ones recommended by (Blech) Maxis.

I don't think it is a game bug. My game really doesn't freeze like it did in TS1. It does occasionally stammer and falter but it always recovers quickly.

Why does your game take so long to load???? Are you a D/L junkie like most of us??? Bad!

My game used to take upwards of 35 to 40 minutes to get from the start up screen to lot entry. I could shower, have breakfast get and sort the mail...OY!

I did a clean sweep and reduced my total D/Ls from just over 20,000 to under 5000 now. My game is up and running in less than 5 minutes now.

LOL Yeah download junkie...about 6+ gigs....heehee
Glad the lot will keep the stuff. whew...

However when playing the new one, doing great thus far, but twice Ive gotton "Protection Error" on my start bar with the ofb icon and freezes the game/computer/eveything. It's to late for me to see if the save I made 'in store' will save me there or at home with my business rank/money/stars still intact.

WHAT IS PROTECTION ERROR!

Ill get back tomorrow to let ya know if I sell, then buy back if the lot becomes usable.

toodles, thanks again jinyc you have been a big help.

A General Protection Error is - in short - a crash.  On Windows 98, it usually means the operating system is about to erupt in flames.  On Windows XP, the results are generally less fatal (but not necessarily more desireable since nobody wants their game to crash!).

If your game is having crashes then I am afraid you might have a hack conflict or corrupted object or skin in your neighborhood. It is now Simmer Caveat time! I had unspeakable problems with a neighborhood I had been playing for well over a year. It is now in the Simsville Library of Congress as a history of and most unfortunate lost Neighborhood.

I had unexplainable game crashes and finally had to start over. Nothing would help.

Oh, well, I lie a bit, pruning my down loads and studying my hacks (learning how to manipulate them so as to avoid the evil "General Protection Error") helped a great deal to stabilize my eventual game play in my 3rd incarnation of said neighborhood (if stabilize may be used to reference TS2).

It's time for you to consider D/Lers Anonymous!

Yup, got XP.

I ran the hack utility. Says zero conflicts....mmmm, how about corruption...know where a tool is to tell me if what files I have are corrupt?

However, I am on a downloaded neighborhood....mmm But the neighborhood is doing fine though...Several families almost elders....

jinyc, I did the sale, cleaned the lot up a bit, then baught it back, still can't go to it. Dozer to the rescue!

It's the same problem I had. I could enter the unsold lot and do what I wanted but if a Sim bought it it would not load. It is just an annoying, unexplained snafu. All of my other lots function properly. Yup, it is definitely "dozer" time!

I dont have OFB But i know this is a pain but try Rebuilding it! Sorry but i can really help any other way :)

-Madz xx

squeezybal, its not a medievil lot is it?
or uses Brastex medievil fairground, and you have familyFunPack?

i had a similar problem with that...i had to load up the lot and take out the wheeled produce bins, for some reason FFP wont let me load a lot with that produce bin on it...:(

also, somehting to look for....what tipped me off that this item was not useable what that, befor i got ffp, i could place the produce bins fine, they snapped to grid and were placeable without having moveObjects on cheat working.
however, once FFP was installed, the wheeled bins were only placeable when the move cheat was turned on.
now if an item has to be placed with move on, it probalby isnt the culprit, but if you suddenly have to have the cheat active to place a normal item down, try taking that item off the lot.
i know its a pain, but better to pick up and move a LOT of items to find the badboy, than to have to remake the lot or just whipe it :) :(

I think I know what your problem is... I had downloaded some great community lot items from SimsConnection for nightlife before OFB came out.  They included a bakery set with items that were cloned from video racks, dress racks, and other items that were things you could buy from with a fun quotient.  

Soon after, when trying to go to the lot, the taxi with the blue screen would load, but never really finish loading.  I would have to restart the game.  I couldnt figure out what it was.

Then I was building a community lot while a Sim was on the lot to try and figure out what the hell I had downloaded that was such a problem.  It ended up being the items from the set I had downloaded for Nightlife that had not been updated. They included a freezer cloned from a grocery freezer, a bakery rack cloned from one of those upstanding community lot fridges, and other similar items.  If I put the offending item on the lot, and went into play mode, everything would pause.  Time stood still.  I would switch to build mode, delete the offending item, and switch back to play mode.  Poof, time ran on.

Check your downloads that are going onto your community lot and make sure they are OFB compatible.  You would think a freezer would be compatible from NL to OFB, but it isnt, because now there is new code that allows you to price it cheap, expensive, etc.  I know it was these items keeping everything from loading from my experiences building with the active sim on the lot.

In terms of fixing it, I had to use insimenator to teleport the active sim into another family, make her a family member, and sell the lot.

Hope this helps!

I have the same bakery as well as the chocolate D/Ls from Sims Connection and have never had this problem be caused by any of them. I have the same in J'Adore bakery and it has always loaded just fine. I also built a bakery using SC items and it worked too. I have the SC winery and no problem there as well so I think there is more here than meets the eye.

The lot I built that would not load and subsequently bulldozed was a fabulous clothing store.

Thanks for all the possibilities, however I have some bakery things and work fine on a different lot, even the chocolate thing. The freezer things as well.

I thought it could be confusion with the walk pattern(store spacing-so they dont conflict). That's not the problem...Im assuming a bug withing the game. I have tried many things, even having someone else buy it, even empty with nothing there but the green sign and a register(maxis register) and same thing, cant get in. Cant even be/get in build mode if a sim owns it. argh...

At this point, having made other lots and such, Im not really missing that lot  anymore. If dozing opens it up to be playable again, then goodie. :)

If anyone else has this issue go ahead and post. Im keeping my fingers crossed that someone out there knows how to remedy this without having to demolish hard spent time working on an awsome lot.

Oops, forgot to mention, I do not have FFP...waiting for the patch to fix all the bugs before I get it! heehee

Nothing 'midievil' either...

Just an update,

SC updated their winery and bakery for OFB and I've been ok ever since.  Who knows?

*shrug*

Maxis have just released two new patch, I have just download them today, one is for OFB and the other is FFP, so head to the maxis site, this patch is for problems similar to this one, hope this helps

Cheers Marn39

I know this is an old thread, but I can't find anything else.
a month or more ago my game was working fine. I left it for a bit, went on holiday, came back and after a couple of weeks I thought I'd do some game playing. But when I get onto a residential lot with one sim and a house with not to much in it, the 'Protection Error' pops up on my taskbar. My sims never have time to do anything, so I don't think there is anything I downloaded that could cause it. It happened on another res lot too.
The game doesn't shutdown unless you right click the error bar and choose close.
There are 0 hack conflicts.
Could anyone give me more detail on what it is?

It is something that you downloaded.  I've seen this error frequently in trying to use CC made with the Pets EP installed on the creator's computer.  If you can pull out the last items you put on your computer, your game should start again.  Then it's just a matter of adding a few of those items at a time and trying the game.  Eventually you'll find the problem.

Thankyou. I'll try that. Now I just have to remember the date I last played it.

The usual culprits for Pets-related crashes on non-pets installs of the game are:

• Trees
• Shrubs
• Sofas
• Chairs
• Beds
• Any pet item (pet bed, pet toy, etc.)
• Diagonal roofs
• Rotated floor tiles

In some instances a "stray" is on the lot during export to Sims2Pack and this can cause endless woe for any non-Pets player even if every precaution is taken to make the lot non-Pets friendly. Don't ask me how a stray ends up on a lot that has never been played, but I have seen the pet character files in a few of the lots I have downloaded.

Custom content in the following categories can cause a crash to desktop (CTD) or even a general protection fault (GPF) if the creator has not taken careful measures to make there CC base-game compatible (even clones of base game items):

• Trees
• Shrubs
• Sofas
• Chairs
• Beds

Many mods/hacks have to be made in two versions pre-Pets and for-Pets, depending on the nature of the hack/mod there may need to be a different version for each EP.

Well, it wasn't anything in my downloads file. It was the custom movies in my movies/broadcast file. All fixed now. Actually my game is running alot better then it did before it started crashing. Spooky.