Why do some sims work and others don't?

[skullorchard]

I'm very new to the world of the Sims2 and all their variations. I have enjoyed very much, exploring through all the facets of the game especially, the multitude of hacks, mods and gadgets that some very creative people have produced. My thanks to you all. I do however have a problem. That is; I've downloaded and installed a large number of celeb sims. Most of them work quite well except for two. This wouldn't really bother me but for the fact that Sophia Loren and Bettie Page are two of my favourite celebs. Unfortunately, no matter what I do, they don't appear in my Sim Bin. I've installed them direct from their folders and failing that, I've also used the Clean Installer. Same result. On the advice of other members, I have also deleted them from the game, deleted the cache files from the download folder and also deleted the thumbnails files. Still to no avail. I now have several sims in the Sim Bin that look like the celebs they represent, but I have several that I don't even recognize. To add insult to injury, when I click on some thumbnails in the Sim Bin, a totally different sim appears. The sims in question are: Ms Simbodies, Sophia Loren and Betty Page by Neen (rock chick). Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank-you

[rwills]

One of the things that pops up in the game is that, from time to time, the wrong thumbnail images show up in CAS and/or the catalog. That sounds like what is happening in your case (it is nothing you did - it just happens).
You can refresh (and correct) such incorrect thumbnails individually by using Control-right click on the thumbnail image. (Doing so on a correctly shown thumbnail will have no apparent affect - the refresh will continue to show the correct image still.)

You may discover that your 'missing' Sims are there in CAS, but that just the thumbnail image showing in CAS was incorrect.

I don't recall if that method also works in Bodyshop. But since Bodyshop accesses the same thumbnails as does the game, if you fix them in CAS they should appear correctly thereafter in Bodyshop.

Personally, I've even occasionally had thumbnail images of males show up in the female section in CAS (and vice-versa). Using the refresh thumbnail image trick always corrects the wrong image.

[Theraven]

Could also be that you forgot to download some hair/clothing meshes. Not all the sims includes these (there are usually links to the meshes you need in the thread where you found the sim).

Also, some people package sims with maxis hair/clothes, but forget to say anything, or don't put up a picture of how the sim looks like in CAS.