Yeah. I'm a little miffed at the moment. Granted, it's partly my fault. I have so much CC currently installed that it takes me about 25-28 minutes to go from inserting the CD to finally entering a household. However, only a handful of this CC is classified as "Hack"; the rest of it is mostly new objects, object recolors, clothes, hair, makeup, and such. Now the problems I am experiencing I cannot seem to trace to any particular CC, so I decided to come here - my favorite site with the most kind and helpful people *big grin* - and am hoping that someone, anyone might have experienced some or all of my problems and can point me in the direction of salvation (and hair restoration).

Specs: 3 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon X600.
EPs: Sims 2 Deluxe (Sims 2 + Night Life), University, Open For Business.

Yes, I know I didn't have to list it as Deluxe, but I sometimes wonder if buying the Deluxe versus buying Sims 2 and Night Life separately might have been a mistake. Anyhoo, on to the problems.

And a warning: I am a bit verbose in the description of my problems below, but I wanted to make sure I gave as much information as possible since more is usually better when it comes to data used for troubleshooting. That and I just tend to be exceedingly verbose; okay, so I just talk a lot. Forgive me, and thanks in advance for freely devoting the extra time to read it.

Problem #1: I don't know which expansion added it, but I noticed that I now have a "Hang Out" option when talking to Sims. So I tried it. Both Sims sat down wherever they were, started their talk animations and generated thought bubbles, and then... I'm staring at my desktop. It's a cool desktop, but strangely enough, I really don't like seeing it when I'm supposed to be playing the Sims 2. Oh yeah, and I did get the "application has crashed" box.

This hasn't happened just once; it's happened three times, on consecutive attempts. The second time happened because I had just happened to save my game after queuing the "Hang Out" command that caused the first crash, and when I loaded back up and got back to the household (almost 30 minutes later...), they started hanging out and it crashed again. I thought I was permanently... well, you-know-what. Fortunately... 30 minutes later... I managed to cancel out the command and they stopped hanging out before a crash occurred.

But I hadn't learned my lesson... "maybe the stove won't be hot this time," I thought to myself. The third time occurred much later after I had removed some content that I suspected was causing some other errors. I figured, "Hey, I removed a bunch of stuff; maybe I can hang out now. Besides, maybe it was just that one person I was talking to, or maybe it was the lot. Or something. Maybe." Maybe I figured wrong. Crashed, again. So now I refuse to hang out until someone can convince me that the problem can be fixed (I'm dreading another half hour load just to have another crash to test a 'theory'). Oh, and by the way, I noticed that NPC Sims can autonomously hang out with one another without a problem. Happens all the time in college. It's only when a playable Sim tries to do it that the problem occurs.


Problem #2: Another instant-crash scenario. Anytime I encounter an event that completely drains a motive, I get a crash (specifically, I suspect my problem is related to the Energy motive). For example, if I attempt to don a Thinking Cap when my aspiration is too low, it can fry my Sim's noggin (as expected). Now normally the Sims would lose a skill point, the Energy would drop to 0, and the Sims would pass out. In my game, after the little helmet short circuits and my Sim smells burning brain matter, the game crashes. It doesn't actually get to the pass out animation.

I didn't realize the Energy connection until more recently, when one of my Sims went to work with very low energy. When he came home and got out of the car, his energy motive was completely drained. Now normally you expect the cutesy lullaby music and the Sim passes out. Not in my game. Oh, no. I get to see my desktop, again. It's a special edition. I think it's extra-strength motivation to never let my Sims run out of Energy. I should note that again the game never actually gets to the part of processing the pass out animation; the crash occurs just before that. Coincidence, or culprit?

Those are the only two types of events where I've encountered motive-related game crashes, and since they are both Energy-related, I thus suspected the problem was Energy-related. Genius, I know. The only mod I can think of that I have related to the Energy motive is the hack by [Black_Spirit] at MTS2 that stops the ridiculous energy loss that occurs when using the Dazzle interaction with customers. However, in all cases where I've experienced this crash, it was never on a business lot (not even a home business).


Problem #3: This is certainly mod-related, and I have a list of suspects, but I figured I'd post the problem anyway with the hope that someone knows what I'm talking about (because I sure don't). After raiding InSim and MTS2 and a few other smaller sites, I felt I was finally ready to stop the ridiculous downloading and actually play the game for a change. Mind you, that means I was starting a new game with over 5000 downloads with virtually no testing of the game between the first and last download. Now I did install only one hundred at a time and loaded through to the neighborhood selection screen just to weed out the files that were causing crashes or freezes during the loading process, of which there were few (and I suspect those were mostly related to the Pets bodyshop bug).

Anyway, I created my first family, moved them to a nice new [Maxis] house (no custom content), and watched as they appreciated what I had done for them... by standing around doing absolutely nothing at all. Nada. Zip. The house had toilets, beds, couches, chairs, a desk, computer, pinball machine, treadmill, sinks, showers, counters, an oven, refrigerator, trash compactor, dishwasher, lots of windows, a dresser, ample lighting... and they didn't give a rat's patootie. In fact, they also didn't care that, after a couple of hours, their bladders were ready to explode, their stomachs were going to revolt, or that standing around was actually quite uncomfortable.

"Um, don't you guys want to check out that nice §1000 couch I bought for you? Or that top-o'-the-line computer? That ultra-comfy super-cushy toilet? The unremarkable green sink I slapped in the kitchen since you were almost broke?"

Actually, I need to be a little more explicit. It wasn't really *everybody* that was standing around doing nothing. Nope. Just the ones that mattered, the ones that were supposed to be keeping the house in order, the kids fed, the bills paid... yep, it was the adults that would've stood there 'til they died from multiple complications. And yes, free will was on. I always leave it on. In this case, I even turned it off and back on. But still nothing. They were brain-dead. Maybe a new feature? Zombies? A lobotomization aspiration? On the other hand, the three kids were actually enjoying their vegetables... err, parents.

[EDIT: Oops! I hit the ENTER key on accident right here, so if you only saw this much, I wasn't actually done yet. You ain't that lucky. I got more talking to do.]

Anyway, I removed some custom careers and a... *embarrassed*... woohoo-anywhere mod. The custom career mods allowed Sims to have the Unemployed or Business Owner careers, and I discovered a few custom foods that were listed as careers, but I only removed the ones that were showing up as red in the Sims2Pack Clean Installer (presumably meaning that only those were hacks). When I reloaded the game, everything was back to normal. The adults were moving on their own and working to restore their own motives. Now it should be noted that I never actually got any of them a job at this point, not even the custom ones. I really would like to use the Business Owner/Unemployed careers, but since I don't know which of the half dozen or so mods I removed was causing the problem, I don't want to reactivate any of them just yet. I'm hoping somebody else can either confirm my suspicions or help me identify the real culprit.

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Okay, at the moment, that's all I can think of. Aren't you glad? I know there were a few other questions, but they have presently escaped me. I'll post them later when I can think of them (or my game crashes again). Again, I thank anyone in advance that can sit through all of this nonsense and still have the presence of mind to provide some suggestions or insight.