crashing & burn

[mikesply9]

:sad4:  Lately, after copying downloads from last month to a flash drive as backup, my game has been crashing during startup when 'replacing wheel bearings' come off the bus.

It is obvious I loaded something my game doesn't like. I took out most of resent files & rars from my download file but I'm still getting an 'application has crashed' message. Help!  :blob6:  I only have Base & Nightlife EP.

Too bad there isn't some mod or app to easily tell which file is the culperit.

[rwills]

Well, Clean Installer will sort items by the date you put them into the Downloads folder. That may help you track the culprit(s) down more efficiently.

BTW, .rar and .zip files serve no function in the Downloads folder other than taking up space. Either delete them or move them to storage elsewhere. Ditto for most .jpg and any .txt files in the Downloads folder - those generally just take up dead space as far as the game loading is concerned.

What is INSIDE the .rar or .zip folders - the .package files and sometimes some other items that you get after unzipping or un-raring the compressed files - are what should be in the Downloads folder.

And if any of the stuff you recently downloaded includes Collection files, those go in the Collections folder (along with the accompanying collection .jpg or .png file, if there is one), not the Downloads folder. Having those in Downloads can crash the game as you described.

[mikesply9]

Well, Clean Installer will sort items by the date you put them into the Downloads folder. That may help you track the culprit(s) down more efficiently.

BTW, .rar and .zip files serve no function in the Downloads folder other than taking up space. Either delete them or move them to storage elsewhere. Ditto for most .jpg and any .txt files in the Downloads folder - those generally just take up dead space as far as the game loading is concerned.

What is INSIDE the .rar or .zip folders - the .package files and sometimes some other items that you get after unzipping or un-raring the compressed files - are what should be in the Downloads folder.

And if any of the stuff you recently downloaded includes Collection files, those go in the Collections folder (along with the accompanying collection .jpg or .png file, if there is one), not the Downloads folder. Having those in Downloads can crash the game as you described.

Thanks for the info, but I found the culprit and removed him from my download folder, it was a collection file, luckily I was able to keep the one package that I downloaded the file for anyway and was able to play with my sims after three days.  Yay!

thanks for your advice to clean out my folder.

[rwills]

So glad to hear it has been resolved.

In the future, should this occur again, Clean Installer can help. Click 'File Type' button and look for files designated Collection. You can the right-click on each of those and use the 'Move To' function to move 'em directly to your Collections folder. Then all that would be left would be to go into Downloads file itself and move any .jpg or .png files that might belong with a Collection file and move them as well (unfortunately Clean Installer can't help with that step).

[mikesply9]

if you are talking about those icon-buttons on top, they are not functioning on clean installer version 1.5.1.4.  :sad4:  The only thing I can get to work is the install & cancel buttons.  

sorry about being such a lameo.  :smt120

[rwills]

Apologies if this seems too elementary.

Always make sure the Clean Installer window is maximized when using it.

If the tabs (Name, MD5, Date & Time, etc.) truly are not functioning, would suggest uninstalling Clean Installer and the re-downloading and installing  a fresh version.

However, it may be that the tabs just appear not to be working, as it does take a bit of time for Clean Installer to re-sort the files when a tab is clicked on.

A good rule of thumb is to not do anything inside Clean Installer until it has completely finished browsing whichever file you have told it to look through and list.

You can tell it is done when the number of files is showing under the folder name at the upper left of CI's top pane  (or when that number changes if you are doing multiple browses in the same session).

An alternate way to make sure CI is done generating the file list is to click in an empty area of the main pane, then hit the End (or Page End) key on your keyboard - when the moving position block in the scrollbar has stopped moving altogether, then CI has finished its listing.

After that, click on whichever tab you need at the moment - it may take anywhere from a couple of seconds to considerably longer for CI to re-sort the file listings.

Just in case, clicking the same tab a second time will reverse the order of the listings.

If it might help for comparison purposes, I have just under 18,000 (not a  typo) files in Downloads and its sub-folders. Having CI scan the entire Downloads folder sometimes takes as much as 15 minutes before it has finished. Then clicking on a tab can take a varying amount of time before CI has re-sorted the list, but usually less than 20 seconds.