Holy Simoly! A Bad thing?

[Ichigosan]

My friend just started downloading sims 2 items. I've been doing this for years, and never come across a problem. She is making sure to get all files needed, but something is not working right.

First off, she went to play her game the other day and her sims were frozen in time, like it was on pause, but speed 1 2 3, none of them make the clock go.

Then, she started getting pop ups every 5 minutes or less that would make her game minimize and take over her screen. Her bf, who knows a lot about computers, has run every scan and virus search program he can think of. nothing showed that it was bad. We could find no pattern. The only three kinds that pop up though, are "allergies", "women's health" and "pregnancy" adds o_o.

I saw she was getting some of her cool stuff from a site called Holy Simoly.com. I wanted to check it out. so I go there, and IMMEDIATLY a pop up is blocked by my computer... I didn't dare look at the pop up, for fear that it was the same thing that she has stuck on her computer.

Has anyone else had this problem? How can she fix it now that she has it? Do you have any suggestions for her to find the files she got from that site? (she is somewhat new to downloading sims stuff, so it makes things a little complicated.)

I'm gonna be away ffrom the site for a bit, so if you can just put down comments or suggestions to fix this, I will have her favorite this thread page, so that she can look and take your advice. Help is much appreciated!

[Theraven]

I've not had problems with Holy Simoly (though I've got the pop-up blocking and firewall settings on quite high. It blocks nearly everything, so I actually have to ctrl-click on most links to make them pop up)

It could be that she downloaded something that needs an EP she doesn't have. Look for hacks and mods, but also objects. Errors and frozen sims are usually an indication on this.

And hopefully she knows that it's a very smart thing to have some antivirus programme running when browsing on the internet.

[caffeinated.joy]

Edit for clarification: This post is my suggestion to helping with the freezing problem in the game. For the popup issues, what others have posted is very good advice.

My first suggestion with downloads is to, at the very least, have two subfolders in the Downloads folder. One for any new stuff downloaded within the past two weeks, and one for all hacks or mods installed. This is because any problem is either going to be from something recently downloaded or a mod conflict and it's easier to root through two smaller subfolders to find a culprit than a huge bulky Downloads folder.

Now, my next suggestion is to look at any possible mod conflicts. Go to Paladin's Place and get the Hack Conflict Detection Utility (it's under Sims 2 > Programs. This tool will find packages in your Downloads that have the possibility to conflict. This doesn't mean they necessarily are guaranteed to conflict, but that they have to potential, because they modify the same procedures in the game. It's a good place to start.

Failing that, finding the exact problem is a bit time consuming. It's what is referred to as the 50/50 method. You take your custom content out and split it into two parts. You'll put one half in and test your game, then exit the game and run it again with only the second half of your Downloads folder. Ideally, what will happen is one half will give you trouble but not the other. From here on in it's a process of elimination. Take the problem half, divide into to two parts, and do it again. Gradually you'll find it. If you run into the situation where both halves give you problems, then you have one or more problem files in both halves and have to continue the 50/50 method with both halves.

Time consuming, yes, but easier than testing each piece of custom content one at a time.

[Katie]

When I accidentaly downloaded the AL infant stuff without AL my game did the same thing until I deleted the object from the lot, but then when I unistalled and kept all my downloads and it did what was above.

I wish I had been smart enough to ask around here before uninstaling, then I would be able to actually play sims right now.

[Nonni]

Caffeinated Joy is right. It is sometimes just a matter of trial and error.

I had the exact same problem with time being frozen. Then the game would not shut down even when I tried to use the Windows Task Manager. Finally, I got out of the game and closed it; then I went into my downloads folder and removed all that I had downloaded in the previous 24 hours. That cleared the problem for me.

I lost some cool stuff but when I'm ready to fool with it I will add them back one at a time to see what I can keep and what cc interferes with the game.

Good Luck!

[amc462000]

Run Malwarebytes in safe mode.

[ancienthighway]

Maybe I'm reading the original post wrong, but I've read it a couple times and came up with the same thing each time.

The OPs friend isn't having problems with the error box pop up in game, but ads popping up on her computer.  At least that seems to be the bigger problem to her.

Having run various anti-virus scans.  Malwarebytes sounds like a good idea.  My guess is just in visiting various web sites, some program was downloaded surreptitiously that's popping up these ads.  No TS2 download, CC or mod, can cause it.  Having an AV program running all the time, especially when browsing the web, will help stop those.  My favorite is Avast, but you can ask 20 people and get 20 different recommendations.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to get an ad blocking plug-in that runs with the browser.  Speaking of browser, clear the cookies.  Something there may be kicking the browser to pop open those ads if the browser is running in the background.

[MaryH]

Last year, I got a nasty trojan that had a pop-up in it-it took about 18 hours of debugging my computer to get rid of it, because it is a "stealth" trojan. Looked just like the real thing for advertising a "antivirus" program.

I'd recommend running Avast thoroughly, SpyBot and installing a AV program on top, to run in the background while you're on line. No Script is an excellent way to ward off the pop-ups that come on nearly every website around, and they update it nearly weekly.

Then when you're done, you can get CCleaner and clean out your cookies when you log off.

Those things, and crossing your fingers, will help your friend out.

[Theraven]

I've got the popup blocker on high (which means I have to ctrl+alt or ctrl click to override it). I've not had any pop-up problems at all for a long time. The Ctrl clicking can be annoying sometimes, but I've gotten used to it.

(For internet explorer - go to "tools --> pop-up blocker --> pop-up blocker settings" and turn it on high, or at least medium.)

[Paden]

I really don't think that Holy Simoly is responsible for this but I will see if word can be gotten to Flem and Shtinky that people may need to be reassured that their site is safe. It does sound like you picked up some nasty malware and need to get it dug out of your computer. I run Adblock Plus, so never see any popup crap any more.