Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (
More info?)
If you do find out that you need to reinstall, most sites have redone their
stuff so that it is ep compatible now. Except me, lol, but some of my first
stuff has been redone too.
"Taemon" <Taemon@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
news:3dks69F6rn8doU1@individual.net...
> Maxon wrote:
>
>> Hi Taemon,
>>
>> Well, the answer to your question is I don't know. BUT here are two
>> points to consider,
>>
>> 1. You say that you updated the 'things that could be updated'.
>> Unfortunately, this plug in for SimPE, AFAIK anyway, doesn't
>> discriminate between object recolours and skins (you shouldn't need
>> to update new object meshes either - just the recolours).
>
> Ah.
>
>> If you went through your Downloads folder and it has mixed skins,
>> objects,
>> recolours and hacks in there and you just selected them in large
>> blocks to update according to whether they were University-ready or
>> not without checking carefully you were selecting object recolours
>> only (there's usually loads to update and the skin files will tell
>> you they are not compatible with University just like the objects)
>> you may well have updated skins without meaning to.
>
> I might.
>
>> I've come across
>> several people who have done this (are you reading this Granny?) and
>> buggered up their game big time. However, that might not even be
>> important - it may be just a corrupted object, sim or lot file.
>
> Not likely - after the last time I played I just download a few walls. I
> also did the PE-thing and that sounds to me quite more crash-savy.
>
>> 2. The way the game is designed has many hidden and unexpected
>> features. One of the things it does is update sim and lot files at
>> points you might not expect it - like when the game is loading.
>
> Oh.
>
>> That is, as well as reading the files, it can also write. It has a sort
>> of house-cleaning objective. One of the things it has is an automatic
>> file-removal protocol. If you delete something in game (e.g. a skin
>> or floor), the programme will delete all instances of that skin or
>> floor in your game (so in other lots as well as the one you are
>> visiting). If you delete material from outside the game, this can
>> cause problems because the house-cleaning routines can't take place
>> (this doesn't seem to affect walls and floors).
>
> I'll keep that in mind, but I hardly ever delete files from outside the
> game. I did it once, when Clean Installer indicated a double name or some
> such (the pink bar). That is ages ago.
>
>> So when you load up
>> a lot with that deleted skin, it can cause corruption. If it's only
>> one object or skin we are talking about (and something else seems to
>> happen with the skins but that's another story), the game can usually
>> cope on the fly, so to speak. The game designers did this, I think,
>> in response to the problems people had with the first game. If you
>> remember in Sims 1, lots of problems were caused by objects having
>> the same GUIDs (which would make the game crash) or that were
>> corrupted.
>
> I vaguely seem to remember some such.
>
>> As far as I can tell, the game designers have sought to
>> avoid some of those problems by giving the game this house-cleaning
>> aspect, though the repeat-number thing has only been partially
>> addressed. Anyway, as the game loads, it will check for problems and
>> try to deal with them. If you've corrupted a whole pile of files by
>> updating them, the likelihood is the game is trying to sort out the
>> mess by cleaning out instances of the files in game, writing over lot
>> and sim files here there and everywhere, then failing to cope and
>> then crashing. I am speculating here - I'm not saying this is the
>> case - but that's what I suspect is happening. When you try to load
>> again, you have a new set of lot and sim files which got corrupted by
>> the crash and the game won't load. Ergo - it doesn't matter whether
>> you take Downloads out or not.
>
> This sounds very probable.
>
>> I'm sorry to say, the only thing that seems to work in this situation
>> is a complete reinstall - unless someone else has experience in
>> finding another route. I didn't have this problem myself so can't
>> help you there.
>
> Meaning throwing away my sims AND my downloads? That's harsh, but I won't
> lose sleep over it. I'm going to enjoy getting new downloads
And I
> _was_ getting a bit bored... But I'm sorry to lose those family trees. I
> don't like raising children and I was finally getting something in the way
> of generations. Oh well. I kinda like clean slates.
>
>> Sorry that's not more encouraging.
>
> You have been extremely helpful and you also took the time to write all
> this. I'm very grateful. I will make a nice new sim and call it Maxon
> Do you prefer male or female?
>
> One more question. What do I do when I download new stuff and it isn't
> EP-compatible? Any way to do this in a safe way? Oh, I now remember - PE
> said something about "corrupted compression" or something - don't quite
> remember. Now it says "OK" about every file. I don't know if that means
> anything to you.
>
> You and Bluegenie2 have both been very helpful. Thank you.
>
> T.
>
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