Very good advice from EKozski , best to be safe. Also, it's been awhile so I'm not sure, but you may have to enable custom content again with each expansion.

I was afraid of that when you mentioned that you had deleted a sim. It's nothing I've ever messed with , but I believe the only safe way to delete them is through SimPe and you need to erase memories and lots of other things from the sim you are deleting and all those that they have ever met. Otherwise , according to Pescado, the neighborhood goes boom. It's much easier and safer to just "off" them in some fashion. I use a no jealousy hack unless married or engaged to avoid the angry dater syndrome you initially described. I'm building a new hood and plunking lots of Criquette's awesome neighborhhood deco, from which I need a break. So I'll go poke around at MATY for a bit and if I find anything pertinent, I'll update this post with a link. Good luck!

Might help...http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,17432.0.html... snag the lot debugger and instructions while you are there, good luck!

I just tested something after reading your post. I have another hood (separate The Sims 2 folder) that doesn't have the custom tv station installed. I just followed the same path that you used C>  Users> your name>My documents>EA games> The Sims 2> Movies>Broadcast>Commercials (also Sports , just to test channels). I put 6 avi. files in each commercials and sports. I saw my videos on the sports station and also saw them on the Sims Broadcasting Network , so both the commercial destination and the sports one worked.

Before I messed with those, I noticed that the commercials and sports and other folders are empty , so I don't know where the game stores/reads that from. It's possible that , if you just put one commercial in there, that the game just hadn't gotten around to playing it yet. That's why I put six avi's in each sports and commercials, faster test. I don't know that it would matter but I have all EP's and play on M and G off the Fun with Pets pack.

I didn't check all the specs on my vids , but I know one that played fine and occupied the full screen, had a frame rate of 29 and a frame width and height of 320 x 240. Just right click on the vid , hit properties then details to see that info. Ask away if you need more help and good luck!

I've been able to use custom  .avi files in game. I downloaded a custom tv station , which had one package that went in the standard downloads folder and one that went into the config folder.  The file that goes into config was supposed to replace the broadcast file in there. I have expansions ,which added tv stations , that came out since the custom tv station that I downloaded , so I just renamed the file that goes into config as broadcast 2, no problems. I've put avi. files into most of the networks, not just the custom one ,  and also into  the commercials. I've read that they are supposed to be a 15 frame rate and 128x128 , but your question piqued my curiosity so I checked the details, under properties on a few of my flicks. The rates varied from 14-22 and dimensions were all over the place. Didn't see a single 128x128 , most were much larger. Maybe 10% of my video clips don't occupy the full screen. They take up about 70% of the area of it in a rectangular shape, but still watchable.

There are a bunch of free programs to convert almost any video type to .avi. There is also a cool program , also free, that lets you dl youtube videos, which you can then convert. So lots of video options are out there. One more thing, I'm not positive, however there seems to be a time limit on the videos. I think that no matter there length they will only show for about a minute and a half to maybe two minutes max.

Sorry for the rather convoluted and incomplete explanation, but if you have any more questions that I can possibly help with , ask away or send a pm. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten help with my game/questions from fellow simmers. Gotta pay it forward if I can!

Also a bunch here...http://simplelife.chagasi.com/... many in sets of twelve , some appear in costume makeup as well.

Please let us know if you are able to get your game running , and what you did to fix it. I usually manage to mess mine up  , so any future troubleshooting help/advice is always appreciated. Best of luck!

Sorry to hear you haven't had any luck with your problem. Here is a link to a neighborhood corruption detector by the very awesome Mootilda...http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=431238  I'm not real clear on your current status, can you enter any houses successfully? Or does it crash in all of them? Or is it random? If it's just one lot, can you move the inhabitants to the sim bin and bulldoze the lot, that may solve it. Also, as you downloaded houses did you keep the cc from each separate? Very handy to do so, in case of future problems. I have a folder in my dl's called stuff from lots, and within that I have folders called 250 Mulberry Lane or Joe's bar and grill for example. Much easier to locate and jettison potential problems that way. Best of luck!

For your sake I hope not, but I think you answered your own question... " I did not have a problem until I deleted a guy walking by my home". Burn them, starve them, drown them, leave a battlefield quantity of sim corpses if you want, but don't delete them. If it was a playable that you deleted, just go to their  place and they should be there, and your probably okay. If a non playable, not as good. Go to Maty and poke around on the boards , maybe you will find something pertinent. Best of luck!

The paintings are available , if one is over 18 years of age and registered , at ISA. Go to Warlokk's Dungeon, look for a post called " Skintone changer by Christianlov-Bodyshape compatible", go to page 6, there is a link ( actually two) to download the 4 painting set. I searched at his blog, which has lots of awesome stuff, much of which I'd not seen previously, but no luck with the paintings. Blog is here...http://blog.daum.net/christianlov/5923841

Edit: Scruff, the paintings do not contain the skintones, you must have those already in place in your dl's. The paintings do allow you to change to those skintones only if you have them as separate items. You don't need to get them all, just pick and choose the ones you may wish to use.

I've searched that site(the forum), from top to bottom. It's very difficult to find anything there due to the ongoing spam attacks. I used to have almost everything from the old Frannysims.com site. I lost all of that with a "blue screen of death" comp crash about 20 months ago. I would guess that maybe 30-40%  of the main site meshes and about 20% of the textures exist at the forum.. Franny's stuff was always free , however her TOU required a link to the site (the old one) for the meshes. Therefore , those that aren't at the forum ,  are exceedingly difficult to track down.

There are many , as Theraven said , here is a link for more info http://www.legacychallenge.com/

There is an article at MATY on this...http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,290.0.html. The post is dated , but I think the gist of it remains true. Basically , to not bork your neighborhood, you will need to do quite a few things in SimPe and make sure you have the "right" Skip Broke. Their are two versions of him , one is unlinked , the other has no character data. You want the unlinked one.

There is a an ornamental one here...http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=11868.0

Search this forum http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/board,93.0.html for Star Trek. A creator named jasonduskey has made many cool objects. I'd also try other keywords for more stuff. There are quite a few things available at MTS for that genre also.

Thanks for the info , Jenna. I guess I'd better go dl what I need from ISA before it vanishes into the netherworld too.