Major Game problems.

[blaquerayne]

I keep trying to play my Sims game it it keeps crashing.  I took out all the recent downloads, and all the hacks and it still kept crashing. I went to ModTheSims and did the 50/50 rule, got rid of everything i think was causing the crash put the files back together and it still crashed. And on top of that Bodyshop doesn't work anymore.  I'm beginning to think it's the last expansion pack I installed (Seasons) cause I had no problems with this game until I installed it.

At this point, i'm thinking about removing it, but I want to know is there anything I might have missed.

Thank you.

[Theraven]

Depends a bit on when it crashes.

At startup? When you're on a heavy lot? When you're browsing clothes or hair? In CAS? When there is weather (like snow on the ground)? Or just random?

Bodyshop often gets a hiccup and refuses to start if you don't regularly delete the cache files (accessory.cache, cigen.package, groups.cache, and contentregistry). These files could also cause crashes, especially after installing a new EP.
You'll find all of them in the "The Sims 2" folder, the same place you find the Downloads folder.

[blaquerayne]

Sometimes the crashes were random but most of the time it happened when I went shopping for clothing or using the shop at home rack.

[Theraven]

Seasons came with a new cathegory in clothing, so there could be some problems there. Most likely the cache files are messing up, you have some clothing files messing up, or you've got some sort of clothing hack not updated for Seasons.

[blaquerayne]

I got the clothing hack when I got seasons, they said it was unsupported and so I used it with caution. When the game start crashing, I removed it.

I got rid of all those files but Bodyshop still hasn't worked.

[HappyThoughts]

Another thing to note is after every launch of bodyshop and the sims2 itself, new cigen, accessory, and groups.package files are created in your sims2 folder.  Which means you must remove them EACH time you want to launch any of the two games. 

Also large collections of clothes and hair can crash your game and bodyshop a dozen times before it finally creates thumbnails for each new item you've placed in your downloads folder.  I have 14gigs of custom content 7 of that is just hair, so trust me when I say, crashing is normal.

Save and save often, I'm talking about after they eat, after they get out of bed, get home from work, anything.  I sure hope this helps you. 

[Theraven]

Thumbnail crashes... forgot about those...
Each time you add clothing or other bodyshop items, the game has to generate new thumbs. Once thumbs have been generated for each item, you don't need to worry too much about those, as they will usually work.

But yeah, delete the cache files each time you go ingame. I've got to do so myself, as both Bodyshop and the game usually refuses to start if not.

CC plays a big role in crashes, and not only the borky stuff.

The more CC you have (and the less memory/RAM), the more likely it is your game crashes from memory (especially with Vista, maybe with Win7). I think XP needs at least 512 MB of RAM, Vista needs at least 1 Gb of RAM, the game needs at least 1-2 (and might crash if it uses over 2GB if you have Vista). There are other factors, too.

I've got about 30 GB of downloads on my stationary computer (4 GB RAM). My game usually runs fine, maybe a bit laggy on big lots or if there's snow. The computer is built to handle 3D modelling and rendering, so crashes are usually memory crashes because of Vista (game crashes when using more than 3 GB). 4 GB is a bit too little for my use, though, so I might up it to 8 GB whenever I've got someone to do the tecchie bit for me...

My laptop (512 mb RAM), on the other hand, had serious troubles running the game with more than 9 GB, and startup varied from 30 min to 2 hours, while the game was laggy as h***... I could eat dinner, clean the house and maybe read a few chapters in a book before the "buy clothes" menu popped up, or before a lot had loaded.

[blaquerayne]

Thank you very much.

Memory may be the problem, which is why i'm trying to get rid of some things now. But Bodyshop still isn't working.

I have one question, the latest expansion pack I have is Seasons, but the game runs with the pets disc, is that normal? It is the fun with pets as opposed to the regular pets so does that affect it?

[Engram]

Since Pets and especially Fun With Pets is a later EP than Seasons, it is perfectly normal for it to be running from the Pets disk. Seasons is not the latest pack you have. You simply bought it last. Purchasing and installation order has nothing to do with which disk is used to run the game. Release order is the important factor and Pets is actually your latest EP.

Do you extract a lot of sims or make lots of Bodyshop recolours or lots of sims? Try clearing out your SavedSims folder and see if that helps your Bodyshop loading. If you have too many extracted sims or new sims or Bodyshop recolours in SavedSims that can cause crashes, too.

[blaquerayne]

I thought Seasons came after pets, okay.

I just started recoloring clothes and I haven't made any new Sims.  If I clear out my SavedSims file, would that get rid of my recolors?

[Engram]

Yes, it will remove the recolours from the game if you clear out the SavedSims folder. Just put them somewhere safe. You don't have to trash them.

Take all the files out of SavedSims. And remove your Downloads folder somewhere safe, too. Then delete all the cache files and cigen.package. For good measure, also delete the Thumbnails folder so all the thumbs have to be generated by the game again. Try firing up Bodyshop. Then try the game and see if you still get the crashes when trying do do anything to do with clothes, which appears to have been your major problem and the main way to force a crash.

It's possible one of your Bodyshop recolours has become corrupted and is causing the crash, which is why using wardrobes, CAS and Bodyshop leads to crashes. If taking out all CC, including the stuff made by you, fixes it, you will need to do the 50/50 again. Start with the files that were in SavedSims, but this time start putting them into Downloads. It is best to use SavedSims as temporary storage and move stuff to Downloads as soon as you know that something is working in-game. Despite what some people say, sim files do not have to go into SavedSims and work just as well in Downloads. You just need to make sure that the sim was cloned first so you don't end up putting pure extracted sims in there.

[caffeinated.joy]

I need to make one correction. Pets is before Seasons. The order of the EPs are as follows:

Sims 2 (Sept 2004)
University (March 2005)
Nightlife (Sept 2005)
Open for Business (March 2006)
Pets (Oct 2006)
Seasons (March 2007)
Bon Voyage (Sept 2007)
FreeTime (Feb 2008)
Apartment Life (Aug 2008)

Using that list and comparing it to the EPs you have will tell you what the lastest EP you own is. That is the disk you need to run the game from. If it's Seasons and you're running it from Pets, this is probably why your game is crashing.

[Engram]

You're right, it WAS released before Pets. My eyes failed when I looked at the boxes sitting on the shelf next to me. Some of those combo packs want the player to use their disk instead of the older EP disk, though, which could be why the OP's game insistes on running from the FWP disk?

Here's an idea - try running the Seasons Bodyshop and see if that works?

[XPTL297]

Did you refresh Body Shop? You know, every EP comes with an update version of Body Shop. You have to launch the version that came with the EP or it won't work. It is impossible to run a very custom content rich game if you: Have less than 2GB RAM, have a very old version of Windows (XP is already dinossaur!). You cannot have more than 3GB RAM if you run a 32Bits system. No matter which version of Windows you have and no matter how many RAM you stop up your computer with, 32Bits versions will use only 3GB. To use more than this you need 64Bits versions where you can feed your computer with 8GB. A 32Bits systems runs TS2 perfectly with 3GB RAM. I have 1.5GB custom content (highly compressed and probably equivalent to 20GB). Never had a sole crash since I installed Windows 7. Follow the advice to delete the 2 or 3 files that are created by the Game or Body Shop (the cache files), they serve for nothing to you and are recreated everytime you launch the game. The other critical element is your graphic card. TS3 has implemented a test to your graphic card I suppose. If possible (don't have a clue) use this test to see what is your computer capabilities. When I installed Windows 7 it run a test on my computer and gave me a lot of information on what could work or not to what!

[HappyThoughts]

Wait what XPTL297??  You can compress your downloads folder?  What did you use to compress it, I assumed compressing them would stop them from being read by the game.  Sorry to ask this in your thread BlaqueRayne but if this works this could benefit both of us (more room is always a good thing ).