I just want to make sure here re the OP ... did you backup your game first (always, always back up), cut your Downloads folder out of the current game, and paste it to your desktop? Then start the game without the DL folder?

Did you see if the Sims did the same jump bug action without the DL, then get out of the game without saving? (Do NOT save!)

I get jump bugs constantly, and if I can't find an immediate culprit, that's a main way I can find out what's wrong. In many cases, by the way, it turns out that I had two conflicting items that, while they work fine separately, do NOT play nicely together.

An easy option might be that a "bed" action got stuck. I had a whole bunch of problems like that lately. I simply deleted the beds and put in new ones. You can try to do that before doing the 50/50 download chore, but don't save. For some reason, I find that beds I put in my inventory can be a pain if I put them in a room again. However, I do not believe this is that common a problem, and have found that as the below article indicates, most of my jump bugs are due to conflicting content that is going to keep conflicting unless I take action.

If taking out your downloads/replacing your beds don't work, you have other options. Be very careful using them, and back up your game.

For more info:

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content

Thank all of you for your help! My new Strangetown and Downtown seem Ok for now ... my daughter is in charge of making a university, and we'll add the shopping district if and when we feel like it. There is so much more space to add Sims now!

I stuck one of my packaged Sims in there, and he's doing just fine. His backpack turned blue, but that's not of much concern to me. Flashing accessories are normal in my game, as they are in many.

The only thing that puzzles me is than when I look at his name in the Sim PE Sims descriptions, he and a bunch of other Sims have their names grayed out. Some names, however, are normal. I can access his data easily enough, and he looks fine in-game, but am not quite sure why so there are so many gray names! I'll swing by Sim PE and try to see what's up with that later.

Again, thanks!

EDIT ... can't see anything about that in the forums, nor on Google. And I see that other neighborhoods have ALL-gray names. I suppose if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Also, I see that various backgrounds are in blue and gray, and there are some Unknowns with red backgrounds (the Mister Potato head ones.) Most people don't seem particularly concerned about Mr. Potato Head (it seems to be a very common occurrence), but if there are regular Sims with red backgrounds, that's bad, it seems. Blue are deceased, and gray are normal. Red are unlinked, and if you have a non-potato-head unlinked Sim, uh-boy. My packaged clone has a nice gray background.

My packaged Sim has NO memories of anyone right now, other than the Mystery Sim and the ones he just met, so I'm presuming I did my job well enough with the packaged Sims. Thanks again!

I thought so. The extraction method seemed waaay too simple. I found myself looking at the instructions and feeling my spidey-sense tingle.

So here is what I did, and what I hope I'm going to be doing right soon:


After finding that Google could be a sadistic friend (for some reason, I kept getting listings for EMPTY neighborhoods, not fixed ones), I saw this page:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html

I downloaded the files for the cleaned and fixed Strangetown. Oddly, the only thing in that file is the characters folder, plus one other file. I take it that I'm supposed to replace the neighborhood as always, but substitute the fixed folder and file for the ones that came in the base version of the game. Seems easy enough.

Also, I cloned those extracted Sims, adding a small difference or two to each one to make SURE I'm using the right ones. (I hope that's what Raven meant by "remaking! )If one of the new Sims doesn't have a backpack, for instance, I'm using the wrong one. I removed the extracted ones out of the Saved Sims (the "user_name" Sims), and put them in their own special folder; one that has nothing to do with the game. The new ones are on my desktop, ready to go.

I'm waiting to see if my daughter wants any Sims or lots packaged ... we play the same game. Once she's made her decision, I will extract/package her stuff, leaving hacked items out of the lots for now, if she wants to save any lots. I delete the file in My Documents, go to My Computer, find that vanilla file and copy it, replace the Characters folder and that one file with the fixed files, put the copy of the base N002 file in my game.

Once the thing hopefully cranks up, I'll use the batbox and make sure that there are utterly no older memories involved with the lots or the new clones, and later check Sim PE and verify this. This SHOULDN'T be a problem with the characters because I'm using clones of my saved characters, not the originals, as Raven indicated. And I hope the batbox will take care of any possible memories involving lots ... I read that rarely, this can happen.

Am I on the right track? I hope?







.

A similar situation happened to me two or three years ago. I had actually downloaded the nasty thing a couple of days before, but for some reason, something triggered it days later, and things just went crazy. It took both my husband and I ten hours to fix that mess (shudders). I recall reading that sometimes, yes, there are "sleeper" nasties that rear their ugly heads when you least expect it. Not fun.

I use AVAST!, MBAM, Spywareblaster and Spybot, and use NoScript, Adware and Adblock when in Furryfox. When in Chrome, there is a Chrome Adblock-like download I use, but my policy is to be very, very careful what sites I visit while using Chrome. Actually, I try to be careful in Firefox, too. . I use the Windows firewall.

When we were really stuck back then, techguy.org was a great help. People there gently and calmly walked me through the processes needed to help us get our computer back. Bleepingcomputer.com can help as well. I hope you have it all fixed by now.

My Strangetown is corrupted. While my daughter and I have been trying to avoid the situation, the time has come to reset the neighborhood. We have extracted a few favorite Sims for CAS later. I've followed the MTS2 Wiki to the letter (not that this is hard!), and exported my Sims via Sim PE per the instructions. So far, so good.

I have a rather stupid question, however. My Strangetown had more than 900 Sims. I later installed a few no-regen hacks to cut down on the number of extraneous college students, townies, etc., but did not do so for the first two years.

With the new neighborhood, of course, all our user-made Sims will be gone (except for their template copies, which I HOPE are safely ensconced in the Saved Sims folder). I notice that the files have names like "N002_User 700". But if I have, let's say 500 character files in the new game, including ALL characters such as Grimmie, etc., will that be a problem? Is the game going to get confused if suddenly, there are 200 missing Sims? Or is this simply a file name, and for all the game cares, I could call it "Abraham_Lincoln", and nothing will go awry?

Sorry for the question, but the last time I reset a neighborhood, I didn't particularly care about re-creating my old Sims, and simply nuked 'em all.

I realize that I wasn't clear and was inaccurate... sorry. I was referring to removing the user files, as per these steps:

http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:User_Files-Remove_All_User_Files

http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:User_Files-Test_Without_User_Files

It's not running from the base game; rather, it's forcing the game to re-generate from your current expansion. I apologize for the confusion. This is what I get for trying to post when I have people in the background yelling, "C'MON! We're late!"

The system specs might indeed be quite important. The last time I had persistent black screen problems, my video card was about to go. However, before you take it out to shoot it, you did the usual la-de-da, I would surmise. Updated the drivers, Direct X, etc.?

Did you try starting the game from the base game? Y'know .... renamed your current Sims 2 folder entirely for the moment, tried starting the game completely vanilla from that base game, just to see if ANY Sim game would play on it?

Are you ready to go? Everything backed up just in case?

Now the fun part begins. Remove your Downloads folder. Cut ... paste. Put it somewhere else on your desktop ... just not in the EA Games folder. Run the game. Don't worry ... unless there is something really messed-up with your game, it will run just fine without the folder.

Go into a few households and play for several minutes. I find it's not a good idea to play for just a minute or two. A few minutes is better. In the rare instance that a house or Sim is corrupted, removing the CC might just delay a crash ... not prevent it. At least that has been my experience.

Are your Sims doing just fine? Can you get into the houses, and do your pixel dollies move around with no problem? Then it is almost certain that you have a custom content problem. Get out of the game. Don't save anything.

The most well-known way to go about isolating the problem file is called the 50/50 method. Put the first half of your Downloads back into your game. You can simply make a new folder in the game, label it "Downloads", and copy and paste the first half from the "real" folder on your desktop. I do that.

Go back to your game, enter the houses again, watch your Sims. Still fine? Great! The bad file isn't in there. Take the second half and try the same thing.

If, however, your game is acting up again, the problem is in the first half of your folder. You will now have to remove half of that section temporarily (and I think this shows why backing up your Downloads is a very, very good idea ... it's very easy to delete files by accident!) Try it again. OK? Great. Those files are fine. Not OK. Don't go any further. The problem file is in that first section.

Keep taking sections, testing them, moving on. Never save the game at any point. If you are doing this correctly, you should be able to isolate the problem file or files eventually. Usually, the problem involves a hack or mod, but not always. Don't presume it's a hack or mod right away. Twice, I found that a wall caused problems in my game. That is very rare, but things like that do happen.

A "bad" piece of content, by the way, may not necessarily be "bad" for others. Perhaps the content involved an EP you don't have. Perhaps the creator didn't realize that the content needed Free Time, for instance, or you didn't read the description correctly. (I've done that. ) Perhaps the game had a conflicting item that the creator wasn't aware would cause problems. Give the item a quick "Google", staying away from unfamiliar Sims 2 sites. (Mod: Is it OK to specify certain sites?) Often, others have had the same problem. If you don't find any info about this mod or hack, and want to be nice, you can PM or e-mail the creator and mention the problem, if the creator is available. Be polite. Please be polite.  Give some of your specs (what EPs you have, your basic system requirements, etc.). I find that if you don't act like a jerk, most creators actually want to know if their item is causing problems.



However ...

If you are still having problems, then a few things could be possible. In certain cases, your characters or lot could be glitched. Sometimes, even with your best efforts, it happens. Others might have better advice than I here, but I find that the best thing to do is to move everyone out and see if they do OK on a new lot. If they do fine there, it's the house. Get rid of it if you've created it. If it's a Maxis house with graves or urns, I would probably just keep the house there and not play it anymore.

If it's a glitched Sim, you might want to try to find which one is glitched, if possible. If adults, move certain members out. If a teen, try to move him or her to a university, if you have that EP. Some glitches actually disappear once you age a Sim. Many don't, though. Then it's time to eliminate that Sim. Never, never, never put the Sim in the Sim Bin and delete it. That can cause problems in your game, and these problems might not surface for months ... even years, as in my case with my Pleasantview. Kill your Sim off. Cowplants work nicely, for instance.

If all houses or all Sims have this problem. though, it's not the house or Sim. You have other problems with which more qualified people here can assist you.

Personally, I found that most Sims glitches outside of hardware issues (video cards, for instance) involved content. About 5% of my issues involved a glitched Sim or lot.

Good luck!

I am not as adept in solving Sim problems as others, but I do have some questions:

1. Have you downloaded any hack, mod or item from any site lately? Not just the Store ... any site. I have found that at least 80% of any computer issues I have had concerned a piece of custom content that gave my game a severe case of indigestion. Have you tried to remove your Downloads folder and run the game vanilla? Does the same thing happen?

If it doesn't, that's good news ...and bad news. The good news is that usually, you can find which piece of CC is causing problems with a lot of trial and error, and you can probably stick at Step One of this long post. The bad news is that you have to FIND the little troublemaker ... not easy if you have a large Downloads folder with thousands of files! But many of us have been in your shoes. I have many, many times.

If you've never run the game vanilla like that before, do not forget to back up your Downloads folder, just in case something happens. Actually, backing up your entire game and putting a backup folder outside of your EA Games one is a smart idea. If space is a problem, back up to a CD. Never, ever test without making a backup file first, just in case something happens while you're testing the game.  And never, never save the game when you're trying to test the game in "vanilla" mode, unless you want everything to stay vanilla. Right now, you're just trying to determine if a mod or item is causing a problem. Go into the house, wait several minutes, see if the same thing happens, get out.

2. Is this for all houses in all neighborhoods, one house in one neighborhood, or just one neighborhood? If it just involves one or a few households, did you put any new content in there recently? I had a case of certain households crashing like mad, and could not figure out why. It took me days to figure it out, since I had not added any new content in weeks.  It turned out that I had a particular piece of content in a game didn't cause problems ... unless I put a certain hacked item in the same household. The two did not play nice together.

If it doesn't look like a Custom Content problem:

3. What sort of system do you have running your game? What kind of video card, how long have you had this card, what kind of computer do you have, how much RAM do you have, how much free space ... etc.?

4. How long have you been playing Sims 2? Are you a new player, or have you played for some time? If you have played for several weeks, months, years with no issues, did you do ANYTHING to your computer lately that could in any way be related to this? If all your Sims are acting strange, have you updated your video card drivers?

Someone else more knowledgeable will be able to better assist you, I'm sure. Good luck!

Hmmm ... I've seen some stuff for FMA (pretty much Ed, but I've seen downloads for other characters ... most of these are older downloads, though, and with the wonderful new meshes and techniques that have come out since those early efforts, you could probably make some interesting FMA Sims!), but I haven't seen anything for Kekkaishi. I hope you can show us a picture, and perhaps even provide a download, sometime into the future

Heck yeah, I play Sims 2. I've played it since 2006 (yes ... I'm a bit of a latecomer), and except for blocks of months here or there when my video cards went flaky or when real life simply took over (it does have a nasty habit of doing that), I've been playing it pretty consistently. I have only up to Seasons (I didn't want to deal with Securom, didn't want to even reward EA Games for inserting Securom by buying any EPs after Seasons in the first place, and really don't want to do anything illegal). The amazing creations for this game, even now, continue to make the game fresh for me. There might not be quite as many, and many original creators have indeed retired, and that is sad. But I am fascinated at what newer creators have devised.

Now I admit to sinning just a little. I still don't have the faintest idea whether or not the problems my video card allegedly had with the base Sims 3 game were ever resolved, and I have no desire to pay even $20 to find out. That is still $20 too much for a coaster! But I did want to get a taste of Sims 3, so I bought a console version. Surprisingly, I noticed several of the good and bad aspects people mentioned here about the original PC Sims 3 base game ... the rabbit holes, the pudding faces, the moodlets, the vivid colors (definitely a different palate from Sims 2, but that is not a bad thing), etc.

Sims 3 is not without its charm. It's a nice game. I play it sometimes. It's not quite the horrible game I thought it was. But while playing it, I still keep wondering what could have been if the creators took this game further. If they had given it a more time and tested more thoroughly, I think this game might have blown Sims 2 right out of the water. Those who caution not to think of Sims 3 as an expansion upon Sims 2 are right. It isn't.  And for every hour I play Sims 3, I play ten hours of Sims 2.

I think what Sims 3 has done is to actually split the Sims community into three groups; devoted Sims 3 players, devoted Sims 2 players, and those who really like both games. Well, four groups, perhaps ... there still is a group devoted to Sims 1, though they seem rather small now. (I play that too, sometimes, and can see the charm with that as well. ) Perhaps EA expected all of us to rush over and fight each other to get the new Sims shiny, abandoning Sims 1 and 2. I'm not getting the impression that actually happened. I would still really, really like to see the Sims 2 sales figures compared with Sims 3. I think that would tell the story best.

Sims 4 might, indeed, be the one that will put Sims 2 to shame, and make people think, "Sims 3? What's that?" But who knows if there will be a Sims 4 for a long time?

This thread has some suggestions:

http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,106572.msg1553115.html#msg1553115

This is something I've always been a bit shy to ask, even after five years of playing Sims 2, but ...

Let's say you visit a Korean site, and like what you see. You go to download it, only, since the uploader speaks Korean as a native language, there are Korean characters in the download. They come out as plus signs, etc. in your zip file.

My game doesn't recognize all the characters, and of course, the download doesn't come out. It doesn't crash the game or anything ... I just don't get anything.

Is there any way to work around this, or should I simply be content with all the non-special-charactered downloads out there? Just wondering. Thanks for not smirking ... TOO much.

P. S. I should add that quite a few of my files have special characters, but they pose no problem. With some attempts, however, I get the notation concerning the characters and the file won't show up in the game. Those downloads are what puzzle me.

P.P.S. (Since bumping this thread to post this might be considered a no-no) .... Theraven, your advice worked perfectly! Thank you!

Good job researching on your own. Sorry ... I did forget there were other no-spawn hacks because I didn't download them. And yes, you're right. Deleting any Sim from a Sim Bin, or simply from your files, can be a problem. Just kill 'em. That part can be kind of fun, actually. There are many ways to kill these pixel dollies.

Yes, in my case, I did have to reset because I made the problem so much worse by deleting several Sims from the Sim Bin back in the beginning. I was able to keep my Downloads and favorite unoccupied lots because of backups, though. It appears that your problem  was not caused by the same factors, and I'm glad they weren't for you! Good to see your lady is back.

Your example emphasizes that very important piece of advice that so many of us here post .... keep constant backups. You never know when something is going to seriously mess up. You were a wise player. I know I learned the hard way once. (Winces at the memory.)

And glad to see you're back in business again!

I'm surprised that no one has responded to this yet. I had the missing Sims problem, though I had the $Subject issue, and it was probably due to both overpopulation and/or deleting from the Sim Bin back before I knew better to do this. (Deleting Sims from the Sim Bin is bad ... very bad ... don't do it.) In my case, everything worked great until my population exceeded 900 Sims, including NPCs, townies, dormies, etc. Then things went very wrong. I had to reset my neighborhood. When I looked in Sim PE, those missing Sims were gone, replaced by another Sim entirely. At that point, there was nothing more I could do.

I read that somewhere, if the character file was still intact in Sim PE, you might have a chance of getting your old Sim back, but from what you're describing, this might not be the case with you. If you still find her, though, perhaps someone else here can help you figure out how to get her or others back. Making backups was very wise, indeed. You can try renaming your current file to something else ... and reinstall again, using the backup, to see if you can get your old Sims back. But it's been over three weeks, and if you're playing your current game, you might not want to do this now, anyway. Or if you reset, this is a moot point.

I'm sorry to read that you have ... or had, since you might have reset or reinstalled by now ... the disappearing Sims problem. If you did indeed have to reset, you might want to swing by MATY and download at least one of the non-redundancy hacks. It is simply amazing how many characters EA puts in your game before you even move in your first family! Installing at least one of these (I installed all three ... the NPC, townie AND dormie hacks) might help you keep those EA Simmie "bunny wabbits" from reproducing every time you turn around. But no, it will not get rid of your current townies, NPCs, etc ... only future ones.

As for where to go, you can start here, and find your most recent EP (NL):

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8.0.html

If you take a look in the directory, you will see that there is an anti-redundancy hack for NL. For no spawning dormies, try the nodormieregen.package file, and for the townies, notownieregen.package. You do not have to install all three. Some people like lots of new townies or dormies. But do remember (tries to sound authoritative) ... use the version that applies to your current EP.