God, thank you for this. I’ve been playing TS2 since 2005 and for as long as I can remember the first thing anyone said when you came to the forums with ANY issue: ”Have you tried reinstalling the game?” NO SUSAN AND I WON’T No but seriously - it is such a waste of time and there is usually a much easier fix. Reinstalling your game should be your last and not first resort!
Right? I don't recall ever needing to reinstall the game to fix a problem. And my neighbourhood that I've been playing since 2006 has its fair share of "corruption" going on.
YES! I always find this response as the most illogical one, bc most of the times if you need to reinstall a whole game it means that your savefile are broken as well, so you will eventually lose them or need to use your last *clean* backup - good luck on finding that particular one! - it's totally illogical.
My problem with crushing stopped immediately after I removed 95% of 4t2 CC. Now I have zero problems with crushing even after 5h of playing. The worst was my folder with clothes. Now my game looks better without the bulky objects from TS4 and runs with no problems so it is a win for me. I only have 4t2 objects that I really want and I can't find the alternative like carving pumpkin station or some disco stuff. And the biggest mistake that people do is to put in their game everything what they find. They have 20GB of stuff and act surprised when the game is not working.
Funny you say that actually. I downloaded a bunch of CC yesterday (most of it being 4t2), and had massive problems with crashing and Sims going AWOL. Removed the new CC, and I've tried gradually adding small amounts back in, to try and see which files are causing the game to have a nervous breakdown. I didn't know whether it was the CC to begin with, because it was only Strangetown that was affected, and other hoods behaved as normal, despite the fact that I hadn't even used any of the CC yet. I'm also going to nuke that damn chair lol.
I had the same problem. Especially with the clay hairs. Theres really only one creator that I will download 4t2 stuff from now, and I stopped with the clay hairs and found actually do prefer poppet hairs anyways
Literally the best amount of CC is zero. I only play with hood deco for better world inmersion and Always with medium-large view distance and no CC. Back when using clay hairs and 4t2 CC used to cause the catalog loaded every time making the pink soup or the crashing more a thing to happen. Never again, I'm embraced vanilla long ago
Everyone should also clear out their "Logs" folder in the TS2 Documents! It might notaffect gameplay but the memory it uses can sometimes accumulate overtime. It is perfectly safe to empty that folder.
once I learned you can just rename your game folder and it’ll generate a new folder (basically creating a new install), that’s been my go to trouble shoot whenever I have issues
ikr! I did, I had to, well I thought, I spent SO MUCH TIME building food shops, like sims would go and buy food prepared by the best chefs in town lmao and then, they'd get home and the food would only have the option to "resume cooking" I clicked it and they said there was no counter to resume cooking, when there were like 3, tried different things and with no luck, I had to start over... but now I enjoy it more, I went through my downloads folder and cleaned some things and now it's so much better.
There's a neat trick you can use for the cache file: let it generate fresh but quit before you load anything so it's empty (or open it and delete what's in it but be careful not to change the file type) and then set it to read-only so the game can't put anything in it and you don't have to keep deleting it. Not always recommended because cache can be helpful during a game session, but it's an option.
🙂a new video by Marticore 😯it's a troubleshooting guide 😧it's not published on Thursday 🤯not at the top of the hour A very helpful guide I must say. This should be the first result of „sims 2 not working“ prompt. I hope I won’t have to be dependent on your video - I have been crashless for a long time.
Thank God you're posting this cause idk how many people in the sims 2 reddit I've had to inform that it's usually good enough to delete your neighborhoods folder
For me personally the problem was with Graphics Rule Maker. Apparently when I set it for the first time I did something wrong I guess, but my game would suddently crash every 2 hours or so. At some point I tried to reinstall Graphics Rule Maker paying more attention to everything, and since then (almost a year) my game NEVER crashed again, and I play on Windows 11 too. I've even done the craziest things on that game, but no more crashes :)
OMG, thanks, you've opened my eyes on the OneDrive problem. Never faced it before and was unsure what's going on with my game. My PC is refusing to change folder location though...another evening of fixes begins :D Edit: fixed everything, what a relief! Many many thanks to you Marticore!
Thanks! I've been experiencing some issues with the game crashing after playing for a while, and I was considering reinstalling it. This video came just in time. 🤓
Great video, this goes into my Sims 2 playlist! I'm not sure if this falls under the category of broken lot, but awhile back I had a problem with one lot/household that just would not load no matter how many times I tried. It was just perpetually stuck on the loading screen. I considered moving out the family but I really didn't want to lose all their stuff, BUT - what worked for me in the end was to turn on testingcheats in neighbourhood view and then load the lot. An error popup immediately appeared (not sure what it was but something about their dead dog and the car), I deleted it, and everything was back to normal. So I'd recommend trying that first too! (Also, I had issues with two lots where time was going slooooow - NOT lag, just the clock was moving extremely slow while all the animations worked as normal, except that sims would take longer doing certain things. I could not find a solution online for the life of me, but after fixing that other lot I tried to load these two lots with testingcheats as well. It turned out both lots had something lingering from several fires - I'm really not sure just what it was, but it had something to do with fire - and when I deleted those, the weird time problem disappeared and now both lots work as normal.) This got long but well, I had such trouble finding solutions to these problems so I thought I'd share! 😅
I have encountered the broken lot issue where if I load that family it crashes. What I did was open another lot/family, teleport the problematic family and move them in. Then when the problematic lot is no longer occupied, check if you can enter it now then move some stuff around like windows, etc... just do something then save. Go back to the evacuation lot and move the family out via computer. Now that they are in the family bin, try to return them back to the once problematic lot and see if it is okay now. In my case, my sims got their house back, but the first time I did this method, all of their belongings were sold automatically when I moved them in to the evacuation lot. So to prepare for this outcome, I have downloaded a mod that lets you keep the items in a sims home after they move out. And when the second this incident occurred, I already have the mod and when I let my sim back to their lot, most items are still there except for the aspiration rewards, career rewards, novels, paintings, and university photos. I don't if this works for most players, but for me, so far so good.
I think I heard somewhere that this crash/error happens when you saved the lot while your sim was on the phone with someone and/or saving the lot when there are NPC like maids, repairman, gardener, etc... are around. Even saving during a party, date, or headmaster visit! So I try to avoid saving when those are around.
@@inseinxen I've heard it is safe to save when service NPC's are on the lot (maid, gardener, etc.). But this glitch happened to me recently and I did save when the gardener was on the lot. All sims were home, none were on the phone. Coincidence? Idk, it feels like a matter of probability: we never know when a lot is going to stop working xD
@@Metzli I think it can happen when the npc like the maid gets to move in with other households. If they were still a maid in a certain lot that we saved while they were working, there might be a chance something in that house resets or whatever that can MAYBE cause to crash. Same with sims on the other line on the phone. All theories for now though lol
When Sims are on the phone, technically the Sim on the other line is on the lot, just invisible - that's how the game handles talking interactions through the phone. But it's not dangerous, the "don't save while on the phone" thing was debunked a thousand years ago. Also I've moved in service NPCs so many times that I don't think them being in someone else's house at that moment is a problem. They'll just disappear from that lot because they're not in the NPC bin anymore.
@@inseinxenNope that's not how it works: it can throw an error for the NPC car on the road - which you can either delete with testingcheats on or let the game reset by itself - but it shouldn't cause a crash everytime. The error is also stored in the logs folder in case something goes wrong in the process
15:08 Happened to me recently, and has happened in the past too. You don't have to stop playing that family just because their lot doesn't load. The 1st time a loading lot made my game crash, I fixed it by removing the family that was living there to the family bin and reinstalling them on another lot. The family was ok and playable as usual on the new house, and the glitched lot wouldn't load on build mode solely either so I just deleted it. I find it's always unexpecting when this happens, specially for me when I know the perfect conditions to save a lot: all sims are on the lot, no one's on the phone, etc. etc. But this bug happened again recently. I was playing with a family during the day, then I closed the game and re-opened it later in the day, and suddenly their lot would crash the game mid load. I don't know what happened, I didn't install any mod that would create that "soft reset", I did went into SimPE but it was to fix something with another family, not that one. I could fix this one the same way I fixed the other so many years ago but I didn't want to get rid of the house because I liked it a lot. I built it and I didn't want to have the work to rebuild it again from scratch, it was a huge mansion ffs! xD I tried the classic copy-paste-the-house trick in the game document files but the copied version wouldn't load either. Weird, since I've done it in the past and it worked. So I searched for that house from an older save! I'm an experienced simmer, I always have like 3 different backups just in case my current one explodes, but my previous one is also bad, so I can never have too many backups. That's what saved that family: I moved them to the bin then to the copy of their house and voilá: the lot loaded and all their stuff was there :D I'd say you only have to stop playing a family forever IF when you move it, the new untouched house also doesn't load. It means the problem is IN the family and not the lot. Never happened to me though.
I'm going nuts for real with this problem. My main game load screen is around 35 minutes. It's too much time (that I don't have much) with every round of loading. I tried with a copy on my last 2 backups and the broken lot doesn't load trying with build mode. I'll try moving the whole family to the copy of the house but I won't have that much hope. I just don't want to lose paintings , last deco added or career rewards tough I know the rewards can be restored.
It's the fourth family (so far yet , it could be more in the future ) that happens to be a broken lot. The other 3 just moved them to different houses 😒 not that much a solution, they worked hard for gaining the money to buy those houses. Moving them to other lots was out of my gameplay stories. 😞 My fear is that every lot gets broken in any moment, I'm not at ease anymore playing just thinking that anytime I will lose a house.
I also have the same issues with RPC. It's not worth it and I was so excited for better quality lot imposters cause my neighborhood is densely populated. I wasn't aware of RPCLib, so thank you. You forgot to mention Delphy's Download Organiser, just saying 😊
Btw, if you're tired of deleting the Groups Cache folder, you don't have to! All you have to do is open it up in Notepad, delete everything in there, and then right click it, open "Properties", and set it to READ ONLY. (Idk what a lot of what those things I just said are called in Polish, but if you it like that, the cache file will always stay empty because the game can't do anything to it. It won't crash your game, either)
The only fail I detected in my Sims is this, when the Sim becomes a superhero, in the Police career, he eventually disappears. The solution I found is to quit the job before that happens😅
Ugh I hate OneDrive. What intrusive garbage. I literally tried everything and my documents folder is still My Name/OneDrive/Documents!!! I haven't noticed anything super weird but Florence Delarosa just overwrote my lot in Riverblossom Hills, and one of my sims straight up just got their 3d data snatched
I had to completely get rid of the whole user profile on my pc to get rid of the one drive thingy, and then I just refuse to connect my Microsoft account to my pc user profile it was such a pain
If you email Microsoft, they will give you step by step instructions for getting rid of OneDrive on your PC! That’s what I had to do because it was messing with my TS4 files.
There is a bit of note if playing on new computers. Due to how The Sims 2 handles card detection, newer Windows computers can lead to odd issues like black boxes below Sims/Pets, resolution being limited to 800x600 (I don't think I've gotten that), and most commonly the Smooth Edging being greyed out (this is due to The Sims 2 defaulting to its failsafe of 32 MB VRAM). It's believed Graphics Rules Maker can fix this, and things like resolution (normally limited to 1600x1200) and the VRAM can be fixed through editing the appropriate files. I don't know if the 4 GB patch matters if not using mods or CC because I don't think I've heard The Sims 2 crashing due to the 2 GB RAM limit. I know The Sims 3 had issues with crashing with the 2 GB RAM limit especially on Mac back when it was 32-bit since it tended to use more than 2 GB of RAM and was limited to 2 GB. 64-bit Windows was less likely to crash since TS3 was made LDA. Something to note: The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories doesn't have a search feature in Buy Mode. That was added in The Sims 4. If you're on Windows Vista and later, you can also make Symbolic Links to save The Sims 2 data to a different drive. For example, if you wanted the save data to be on a different drive, you would type in Command Prompt (Admin): mklink/j "C:\Users\Rebecca\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2" "D:\Saves\Rebecca\The Sims 2" (Replace *Rebecca* with the name of your account; the other/2nd path you want to move to can be anything). This could also be used to move The Sims 2's install to a different drive without reinstalling although I don't think there would be a reason you'd want to move The Sims 2's installation files.
I meant searching in the folder. Sims 3 doesn't have a search feature in game either, unless you use Lazy Duchess' mod. Also, this is not a "how to play Sims 2 on modern PC" kind of video, there are millions of videos for that. And I think the prompt would take a lot more effort than just moving the Documents 🤔
My game used to crash very reliably after playing for an hour or so... And then I moved on from my crappy stone age laptop and played on my main PC only. 😬😂
I pray to Will Wright every evening that some day someone makes an engine re-implementation for SIms 2 in similar vein to CorsixTH (theme hospital), OpenTTD (trasport tycoon) or OpenRCT2 (Rollercoaster tycoon). I myself am dealing with the classic "purple soup" issue a lot. One moment the game plays fine, the next some sim start T-posing flashing purple. Or worse most of the lot starts flashing. Sometimes restarting the game will fix it. other times I have to completely reboot my computer for the game to become playable again. I have a lot of mods that simply won't work with RPC so I use regular install. Also for some reeason i HAVE to run the game as administrator for it to have any chance to run properly at all.
Today, I got two of my sims pregnant by universal NPCs, and I'm not even remotely worried about my game and needing to reinstall it Okay, I did backup my objects.package, and set it to read-only, but still! I'm almost too eager to break my game...
OneDrive doesn't delete the folder in Documents, but if you haven't selected the "keep always on PC" (or something like that) option in your OneDrive it will upload the folder and you can see it in Documents but the files won't be loaded until you open them. When you select "keep always on PC" this won't happen, it will backup your folder in OneDrive but it will always be downloaded in your PC for the game to access it.
I remember reinstalling a few times cause when I was a teen I would mess with Sim PE a LOT. At one point, all of my game files were completely gone when it " reinstalled ". I tried to ask people on a server about how to fix it and they thought I pirated the game 😭
There's a bug where a specific sim just can't get a job, I have no idea why. I had two Sims like that in two different neighborhoods where wherever I get them a job, any job, the game crashes for some reason. So I had to have them make money in other ways like painting. I don't have any career mods or anything so it's weird but at least it doesn't happen TOO often.
So when I told that person to reinstall their game due to missing files I wasn’t wrong! But yeah, I used to have the chair issue until I started using the Starter Pack
I did too. Do you use the RPC Launcher? If so, make sure that you don't run it in compatibility mode because that will prevent the 4GB patch from sticking to the game! Hope that helps :)
I think one time I accidentally deleted items. I don’t know how I did that, probably by deleting default replacements (which was very stupid but why is there a delete button if I shouldn’t delete it - laughcries in TS2). It was before I set my game files on read only.
I must've done that too! There was one tracksuit that went missing and I think reinstalling the game didn't even help... It was fixed when I got a completely new PC lmao
What's weird is when i first installed Sims 2 UC a few months ago i never even heard of the 4GB patch. It worked perfectly without it for a while but now it doesn't and I'm seeing everyone say you need it or it won't work. My game crashes every time i load into a neighbourhood or in Belladonna Cove's case i can load into it but doing anything after that crashes. I don't know if that will fix it but i might give it a try and pray
Yes, probably! Belladonna is bigger than other neighborhoods. For example, a custom hood of Pelican Town is impossible to open without the 4GB patch because of its size!
Reinstall? I come from a time where you had to gather up all the disks to do it. Hell no. Thankfully I'm one of those lucky bastards who has Sims 2 in her Origin account because of the 2014 I-LOVE-THE-SIMS giveaway, so it would be easier but still no thank you. Btw are you aware of brandinotbroke and her computer science brother's research into pink flashing on tumblr? They seem to go down a new route and it looks promising they are circling in on what causes it. Interestingly, they don't think it is actually a memory issue as everyone seems to have accepted but maybe a bug with the shaders and rendering from what I understand.
I tried all sorts of stuff to stop my save from crashing, but it just didn't survive through moving to a different PC and there wasn't anything I could do other than moving on lol
There was a time when I got very paranoid and I regret it, seriously I would reinstall the game for anything, even Brandi's son being born with green eyes was already a reason, the only thing I don't understand why this happened is that sometimes the story photos disappeared or simply in new saves the script events no longer happened, is there any anawer?
I think the unborn having green eyes and the scripts not working might both be because you were playing the clean version of Pleasantview. But it's true about mods, some of them reset Sims first you load their lot.
Is an "OneDrive issue" caused by others cloud apps? I definitely sure that some sims got missing after I transfer the Neighbourhood folder to new PC or OS. Most of the time I used Goodle Drive is that the case?
No. OneDrive's problem is that your Documents folder is in it by default so it edits the folders through file sync. If you have that issue after putting backup in, it's probably because something went wrong while copying or you merged the folders by accident.
@@Marticore I still don't fully get most things. Sims 2 works in mysterious ways. I'm not sure that issue caused by folder transferring, I'he just noticed the sim is missing after a few months. But I do know, that I delete neighbourhood folder before put mine in documents. And for the last 4 years without using backups no one missed, so I thought transfering is the problem. Do you already have some videos (yours or not) about disappearing sims?
Thank you! I don't have any videos on disappearing Sims, I guess it can just happen sometimes due to a glitch or after the game crashed during saving...
Dzien dobry! I been following you for ages! I have a problem I hope you can help with! There is some lots that they will load just fine, play just fine and save just fine! But when I exit the lot, and it opens neighborhood view again, the game crashes. It's not every lot, and the lot saves just fine! But it's annoying, any clue. I use reshade and the basic level of mods to keep the game right, and again it's not every lot, just 3 out of all them. Thank you and have a good day!
Well I have the thing that I'm missing neighborhoods even though everything is in my documents folder Anyone knows what's up with that? Files and everything are complete
I once made a very stupid mistake of pasting a downloaded hood after extracting it to a folder... So technically there was an "N003" folder in my game but it had another "N003" inside it... so obviously the game didn't see it
@@GaiaRich it's not about if numbers are different, it's about having "Characters", "Lots" and other folders straight in the hood folder, not N003/N003 and THEN the subfolders.
I'm having the specific lot crashing problem. It happened to 4 of my families.i moved them out to other houses but now last week happened to a new different lot . Am I doomed? Is My neighbourhood done ? 😢😢😢
There's no such thing as "neighborhood done" as long as it still opens. Maybe you're just extremely unlucky or the lots are too big for the game to handle?
@@Marticore yes the neighborhood still loads 🥲🥰, is just that , some lots don't load , the 4gb patch it's installed, have 8gb of ram and no good graphic card. Maybe is too many CC (15gb), and that's it . But it's too tedious change the houses every time , like I can't get attached to any lot anymore 🥲 and loose all the deco I made . Luckily all the Sims are ok.
I downloaded the Sims 2 game from the web and I’ve been playing for 3 years then one day I opened it and it reset everything but my files, downloads, etc are all still there even though the game doesn’t reflect that. What do I do?
@@Marticoreyes, it’s like I’m playing the start of a brand new Sims game (none of my cc is in game) but when I go to my sims 2 files- all my custom content & stuff are still there but my game doesn’t reflect that 😭
If the game doesn't recognize your original Documents folder... then it must've generated a different one somewhere. Maybe you can find "The Sims 2" as a folder somewhere else with the search bar?
I know it's off topic but in the sims 4 I sometimes can't launch the game (maybe?) bc I put a lot of cc since it's the best game to build on. Should I delete the cache or it won't do anything?
Wait, if someone's reinstalling their games because the issues is with the cache files doesn't that mean they're reinstalling almost every time they play lol
Not everyone has the same cache problem as I do now 😆 I remember being surprised my game wouldn't launch because a few years ago that would happen very rarely
Me, as someone who does ANYTHING but reinstall the game, open this video: interesting
Me too. Reinstalling the game really is the absolute LAST resort…
God, thank you for this. I’ve been playing TS2 since 2005 and for as long as I can remember the first thing anyone said when you came to the forums with ANY issue: ”Have you tried reinstalling the game?” NO SUSAN AND I WON’T
No but seriously - it is such a waste of time and there is usually a much easier fix. Reinstalling your game should be your last and not first resort!
Exactly!
Right? I don't recall ever needing to reinstall the game to fix a problem. And my neighbourhood that I've been playing since 2006 has its fair share of "corruption" going on.
YES! I always find this response as the most illogical one, bc most of the times if you need to reinstall a whole game it means that your savefile are broken as well, so you will eventually lose them or need to use your last *clean* backup - good luck on finding that particular one! - it's totally illogical.
My problem with crushing stopped immediately after I removed 95% of 4t2 CC. Now I have zero problems with crushing even after 5h of playing. The worst was my folder with clothes. Now my game looks better without the bulky objects from TS4 and runs with no problems so it is a win for me. I only have 4t2 objects that I really want and I can't find the alternative like carving pumpkin station or some disco stuff. And the biggest mistake that people do is to put in their game everything what they find. They have 20GB of stuff and act surprised when the game is not working.
When I load into huge lots with cc I always think about just getting rid of 90% of the junk I have but then my sims won’t be pretty 🥺
Funny you say that actually. I downloaded a bunch of CC yesterday (most of it being 4t2), and had massive problems with crashing and Sims going AWOL. Removed the new CC, and I've tried gradually adding small amounts back in, to try and see which files are causing the game to have a nervous breakdown. I didn't know whether it was the CC to begin with, because it was only Strangetown that was affected, and other hoods behaved as normal, despite the fact that I hadn't even used any of the CC yet. I'm also going to nuke that damn chair lol.
I had the same problem. Especially with the clay hairs. Theres really only one creator that I will download 4t2 stuff from now, and I stopped with the clay hairs and found actually do prefer poppet hairs anyways
Literally the best amount of CC is zero. I only play with hood deco for better world inmersion and Always with medium-large view distance and no CC. Back when using clay hairs and 4t2 CC used to cause the catalog loaded every time making the pink soup or the crashing more a thing to happen. Never again, I'm embraced vanilla long ago
Everyone should also clear out their "Logs" folder in the TS2 Documents! It might notaffect gameplay but the memory it uses can sometimes accumulate overtime. It is perfectly safe to empty that folder.
Thanks!
That's good to know. I wasn't sure. I thought it should be safe but hearing it from someone else finally makes me bold enough to do it.
once I learned you can just rename your game folder and it’ll generate a new folder (basically creating a new install), that’s been my go to trouble shoot whenever I have issues
Fantastic!
I did that to test customer content and mods, that wait if there’s a mesh missing I don’t have to dig through a massive downloads folder
Reinstalling? It took me like 2 days to figure out to install it and you guys are here reinstalling it?
ikr! I did, I had to, well I thought, I spent SO MUCH TIME building food shops, like sims would go and buy food prepared by the best chefs in town lmao and then, they'd get home and the food would only have the option to "resume cooking" I clicked it and they said there was no counter to resume cooking, when there were like 3, tried different things and with no luck, I had to start over... but now I enjoy it more, I went through my downloads folder and cleaned some things and now it's so much better.
LMAO this was my exact reaction! Like whoooo is out here reinstalling this game?!
wait how did u install Im about to kms ToT
@@Kream_Komi You need the disks or you'll find the instructions on the Sims 2 reddit.
@@Kream_Komi best and easiest way is the sims 2 starterpack
There's a neat trick you can use for the cache file: let it generate fresh but quit before you load anything so it's empty (or open it and delete what's in it but be careful not to change the file type) and then set it to read-only so the game can't put anything in it and you don't have to keep deleting it. Not always recommended because cache can be helpful during a game session, but it's an option.
🙂a new video by Marticore
😯it's a troubleshooting guide
😧it's not published on Thursday
🤯not at the top of the hour
A very helpful guide I must say. This should be the first result of „sims 2 not working“ prompt. I hope I won’t have to be dependent on your video - I have been crashless for a long time.
Thank God you're posting this cause idk how many people in the sims 2 reddit I've had to inform that it's usually good enough to delete your neighborhoods folder
For me personally the problem was with Graphics Rule Maker. Apparently when I set it for the first time I did something wrong I guess, but my game would suddently crash every 2 hours or so. At some point I tried to reinstall Graphics Rule Maker paying more attention to everything, and since then (almost a year) my game NEVER crashed again, and I play on Windows 11 too. I've even done the craziest things on that game, but no more crashes :)
OMG, thanks, you've opened my eyes on the OneDrive problem. Never faced it before and was unsure what's going on with my game. My PC is refusing to change folder location though...another evening of fixes begins :D
Edit: fixed everything, what a relief! Many many thanks to you Marticore!
This helped me a lot. I have a family that crached after a few seconds when loading the lot. I was scared to move them.
Thanks! I've been experiencing some issues with the game crashing after playing for a while, and I was considering reinstalling it. This video came just in time. 🤓
i pray that chair never gives me issues because i use it as a computer chair in literally every house
Great video, this goes into my Sims 2 playlist!
I'm not sure if this falls under the category of broken lot, but awhile back I had a problem with one lot/household that just would not load no matter how many times I tried. It was just perpetually stuck on the loading screen. I considered moving out the family but I really didn't want to lose all their stuff, BUT - what worked for me in the end was to turn on testingcheats in neighbourhood view and then load the lot. An error popup immediately appeared (not sure what it was but something about their dead dog and the car), I deleted it, and everything was back to normal. So I'd recommend trying that first too!
(Also, I had issues with two lots where time was going slooooow - NOT lag, just the clock was moving extremely slow while all the animations worked as normal, except that sims would take longer doing certain things. I could not find a solution online for the life of me, but after fixing that other lot I tried to load these two lots with testingcheats as well. It turned out both lots had something lingering from several fires - I'm really not sure just what it was, but it had something to do with fire - and when I deleted those, the weird time problem disappeared and now both lots work as normal.)
This got long but well, I had such trouble finding solutions to these problems so I thought I'd share! 😅
thank you! i have my game from old games download & i think i know what the issue is. time to fix ikea stuff!
I have encountered the broken lot issue where if I load that family it crashes. What I did was open another lot/family, teleport the problematic family and move them in. Then when the problematic lot is no longer occupied, check if you can enter it now then move some stuff around like windows, etc... just do something then save.
Go back to the evacuation lot and move the family out via computer. Now that they are in the family bin, try to return them back to the once problematic lot and see if it is okay now. In my case, my sims got their house back, but the first time I did this method, all of their belongings were sold automatically when I moved them in to the evacuation lot. So to prepare for this outcome, I have downloaded a mod that lets you keep the items in a sims home after they move out. And when the second this incident occurred, I already have the mod and when I let my sim back to their lot, most items are still there except for the aspiration rewards, career rewards, novels, paintings, and university photos. I don't if this works for most players, but for me, so far so good.
I think I heard somewhere that this crash/error happens when you saved the lot while your sim was on the phone with someone and/or saving the lot when there are NPC like maids, repairman, gardener, etc... are around. Even saving during a party, date, or headmaster visit! So I try to avoid saving when those are around.
@@inseinxen I've heard it is safe to save when service NPC's are on the lot (maid, gardener, etc.). But this glitch happened to me recently and I did save when the gardener was on the lot. All sims were home, none were on the phone. Coincidence? Idk, it feels like a matter of probability: we never know when a lot is going to stop working xD
@@Metzli I think it can happen when the npc like the maid gets to move in with other households. If they were still a maid in a certain lot that we saved while they were working, there might be a chance something in that house resets or whatever that can MAYBE cause to crash. Same with sims on the other line on the phone. All theories for now though lol
When Sims are on the phone, technically the Sim on the other line is on the lot, just invisible - that's how the game handles talking interactions through the phone. But it's not dangerous, the "don't save while on the phone" thing was debunked a thousand years ago. Also I've moved in service NPCs so many times that I don't think them being in someone else's house at that moment is a problem. They'll just disappear from that lot because they're not in the NPC bin anymore.
@@inseinxenNope that's not how it works: it can throw an error for the NPC car on the road - which you can either delete with testingcheats on or let the game reset by itself - but it shouldn't cause a crash everytime. The error is also stored in the logs folder in case something goes wrong in the process
15:08 Happened to me recently, and has happened in the past too. You don't have to stop playing that family just because their lot doesn't load.
The 1st time a loading lot made my game crash, I fixed it by removing the family that was living there to the family bin and reinstalling them on another lot. The family was ok and playable as usual on the new house, and the glitched lot wouldn't load on build mode solely either so I just deleted it.
I find it's always unexpecting when this happens, specially for me when I know the perfect conditions to save a lot: all sims are on the lot, no one's on the phone, etc. etc. But this bug happened again recently. I was playing with a family during the day, then I closed the game and re-opened it later in the day, and suddenly their lot would crash the game mid load. I don't know what happened, I didn't install any mod that would create that "soft reset", I did went into SimPE but it was to fix something with another family, not that one.
I could fix this one the same way I fixed the other so many years ago but I didn't want to get rid of the house because I liked it a lot. I built it and I didn't want to have the work to rebuild it again from scratch, it was a huge mansion ffs! xD
I tried the classic copy-paste-the-house trick in the game document files but the copied version wouldn't load either. Weird, since I've done it in the past and it worked. So I searched for that house from an older save! I'm an experienced simmer, I always have like 3 different backups just in case my current one explodes, but my previous one is also bad, so I can never have too many backups. That's what saved that family: I moved them to the bin then to the copy of their house and voilá: the lot loaded and all their stuff was there :D
I'd say you only have to stop playing a family forever IF when you move it, the new untouched house also doesn't load. It means the problem is IN the family and not the lot. Never happened to me though.
I'm going nuts for real with this problem. My main game load screen is around 35 minutes. It's too much time (that I don't have much) with every round of loading. I tried with a copy on my last 2 backups and the broken lot doesn't load trying with build mode. I'll try moving the whole family to the copy of the house but I won't have that much hope. I just don't want to lose paintings , last deco added or career rewards tough I know the rewards can be restored.
It's the fourth family (so far yet , it could be more in the future ) that happens to be a broken lot. The other 3 just moved them to different houses 😒 not that much a solution, they worked hard for gaining the money to buy those houses. Moving them to other lots was out of my gameplay stories. 😞
My fear is that every lot gets broken in any moment, I'm not at ease anymore playing just thinking that anytime I will lose a house.
Thank for the tutorial. I always enjoy watching you play the Sims and learning about it with you!
I also have the same issues with RPC. It's not worth it and I was so excited for better quality lot imposters cause my neighborhood is densely populated. I wasn't aware of RPCLib, so thank you. You forgot to mention Delphy's Download Organiser, just saying 😊
I honestly thought Delphy was only for Sims 3 😅
Btw, if you're tired of deleting the Groups Cache folder, you don't have to! All you have to do is open it up in Notepad, delete everything in there, and then right click it, open "Properties", and set it to READ ONLY. (Idk what a lot of what those things I just said are called in Polish, but if you it like that, the cache file will always stay empty because the game can't do anything to it. It won't crash your game, either)
Luckily I avoid pretty much all these issues by playing the game exclusively on my system from 2011.
I'm pretty sure cache files can still build up on an old system and prevent the game from launching
@@Marticore I've also been using the RPC Launcher for the last year or so, and I guess before that I just got lucky.
Thank you this helped now I will be playing Nowe Pobrzeże
The only fail I detected in my Sims is this, when the Sim becomes a superhero, in the Police career, he eventually disappears.
The solution I found is to quit the job before that happens😅
No, the solution is taking a car ride!
Ugh I hate OneDrive. What intrusive garbage. I literally tried everything and my documents folder is still My Name/OneDrive/Documents!!! I haven't noticed anything super weird but Florence Delarosa just overwrote my lot in Riverblossom Hills, and one of my sims straight up just got their 3d data snatched
I had to completely get rid of the whole user profile on my pc to get rid of the one drive thingy, and then I just refuse to connect my Microsoft account to my pc user profile it was such a pain
If you email Microsoft, they will give you step by step instructions for getting rid of OneDrive on your PC! That’s what I had to do because it was messing with my TS4 files.
OMG WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN MONTHS AND MONTHS AGO *cries in broken Pleasantview*
I'm open to DMs! 😭 What happened to your Pleasantview?
Thank you for sharing this. You always enlighten us in a good way.
There is a bit of note if playing on new computers. Due to how The Sims 2 handles card detection, newer Windows computers can lead to odd issues like black boxes below Sims/Pets, resolution being limited to 800x600 (I don't think I've gotten that), and most commonly the Smooth Edging being greyed out (this is due to The Sims 2 defaulting to its failsafe of 32 MB VRAM). It's believed Graphics Rules Maker can fix this, and things like resolution (normally limited to 1600x1200) and the VRAM can be fixed through editing the appropriate files.
I don't know if the 4 GB patch matters if not using mods or CC because I don't think I've heard The Sims 2 crashing due to the 2 GB RAM limit. I know The Sims 3 had issues with crashing with the 2 GB RAM limit especially on Mac back when it was 32-bit since it tended to use more than 2 GB of RAM and was limited to 2 GB. 64-bit Windows was less likely to crash since TS3 was made LDA.
Something to note: The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories doesn't have a search feature in Buy Mode. That was added in The Sims 4.
If you're on Windows Vista and later, you can also make Symbolic Links to save The Sims 2 data to a different drive. For example, if you wanted the save data to be on a different drive, you would type in Command Prompt (Admin):
mklink/j "C:\Users\Rebecca\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2" "D:\Saves\Rebecca\The Sims 2" (Replace *Rebecca* with the name of your account; the other/2nd path you want to move to can be anything).
This could also be used to move The Sims 2's install to a different drive without reinstalling although I don't think there would be a reason you'd want to move The Sims 2's installation files.
I meant searching in the folder. Sims 3 doesn't have a search feature in game either, unless you use Lazy Duchess' mod.
Also, this is not a "how to play Sims 2 on modern PC" kind of video, there are millions of videos for that.
And I think the prompt would take a lot more effort than just moving the Documents 🤔
My game used to crash very reliably after playing for an hour or so... And then I moved on from my crappy stone age laptop and played on my main PC only. 😬😂
Thank you for this videeoo!! I needed it so badly
I pray to Will Wright every evening that some day someone makes an engine re-implementation for SIms 2 in similar vein to CorsixTH (theme hospital), OpenTTD (trasport tycoon) or OpenRCT2 (Rollercoaster tycoon). I myself am dealing with the classic "purple soup" issue a lot. One moment the game plays fine, the next some sim start T-posing flashing purple. Or worse most of the lot starts flashing. Sometimes restarting the game will fix it. other times I have to completely reboot my computer for the game to become playable again. I have a lot of mods that simply won't work with RPC so I use regular install. Also for some reeason i HAVE to run the game as administrator for it to have any chance to run properly at all.
Have you tried raising texture memory in Graphics Rules? Wait, which mods don't work with RPC?
Today, I got two of my sims pregnant by universal NPCs, and I'm not even remotely worried about my game and needing to reinstall it
Okay, I did backup my objects.package, and set it to read-only, but still! I'm almost too eager to break my game...
OneDrive doesn't delete the folder in Documents, but if you haven't selected the "keep always on PC" (or something like that) option in your OneDrive it will upload the folder and you can see it in Documents but the files won't be loaded until you open them. When you select "keep always on PC" this won't happen, it will backup your folder in OneDrive but it will always be downloaded in your PC for the game to access it.
But while backing up, it syncs the files, so it can still break the backup
I remember reinstalling a few times cause when I was a teen I would mess with Sim PE a LOT.
At one point, all of my game files were completely gone when it " reinstalled ". I tried to ask people on a server about how to fix it and they thought I pirated the game 😭
There's a bug where a specific sim just can't get a job, I have no idea why. I had two Sims like that in two different neighborhoods where wherever I get them a job, any job, the game crashes for some reason. So I had to have them make money in other ways like painting. I don't have any career mods or anything so it's weird but at least it doesn't happen TOO often.
Are they wearing separates? Try giving them different shirts.
So when I told that person to reinstall their game due to missing files I wasn’t wrong! But yeah, I used to have the chair issue until I started using the Starter Pack
the sims 2 works fine for me i play it on my windows 7 pc
I moved on from Win7 only about 2 years ago! Works fine on my Win11 too though.
I've had issues with the 4GB patch not actually applying 😅 I have no idea why. I definitely have to clean out my CC folder.
I did too. Do you use the RPC Launcher? If so, make sure that you don't run it in compatibility mode because that will prevent the 4GB patch from sticking to the game! Hope that helps :)
@@natalieeforsyth thank you I'll definitely try this!
i thought this was about having a toxic relationship with The Sims, felt attacked for a moment
I think one time I accidentally deleted items. I don’t know how I did that, probably by deleting default replacements (which was very stupid but why is there a delete button if I shouldn’t delete it - laughcries in TS2). It was before I set my game files on read only.
I must've done that too! There was one tracksuit that went missing and I think reinstalling the game didn't even help... It was fixed when I got a completely new PC lmao
I'm here!!!
What's weird is when i first installed Sims 2 UC a few months ago i never even heard of the 4GB patch. It worked perfectly without it for a while but now it doesn't and I'm seeing everyone say you need it or it won't work.
My game crashes every time i load into a neighbourhood or in Belladonna Cove's case i can load into it but doing anything after that crashes. I don't know if that will fix it but i might give it a try and pray
Yes, probably! Belladonna is bigger than other neighborhoods. For example, a custom hood of Pelican Town is impossible to open without the 4GB patch because of its size!
Great video! Thanks!
Reinstall? I come from a time where you had to gather up all the disks to do it. Hell no. Thankfully I'm one of those lucky bastards who has Sims 2 in her Origin account because of the 2014 I-LOVE-THE-SIMS giveaway, so it would be easier but still no thank you.
Btw are you aware of brandinotbroke and her computer science brother's research into pink flashing on tumblr? They seem to go down a new route and it looks promising they are circling in on what causes it. Interestingly, they don't think it is actually a memory issue as everyone seems to have accepted but maybe a bug with the shaders and rendering from what I understand.
Thx for the tutorial!
I tried all sorts of stuff to stop my save from crashing, but it just didn't survive through moving to a different PC and there wasn't anything I could do other than moving on lol
There was a time when I got very paranoid and I regret it, seriously I would reinstall the game for anything, even Brandi's son being born with green eyes was already a reason, the only thing I don't understand why this happened is that sometimes the story photos disappeared or simply in new saves the script events no longer happened, is there any anawer?
Some mods make scripted events not play at all.
I think the unborn having green eyes and the scripts not working might both be because you were playing the clean version of Pleasantview. But it's true about mods, some of them reset Sims first you load their lot.
People have the 4GB patch? I've never done it I should probably get to it.
Is an "OneDrive issue" caused by others cloud apps? I definitely sure that some sims got missing after I transfer the Neighbourhood folder to new PC or OS. Most of the time I used Goodle Drive is that the case?
No. OneDrive's problem is that your Documents folder is in it by default so it edits the folders through file sync.
If you have that issue after putting backup in, it's probably because something went wrong while copying or you merged the folders by accident.
@@Marticore I still don't fully get most things. Sims 2 works in mysterious ways. I'm not sure that issue caused by folder transferring, I'he just noticed the sim is missing after a few months. But I do know, that I delete neighbourhood folder before put mine in documents. And for the last 4 years without using backups no one missed, so I thought transfering is the problem. Do you already have some videos (yours or not) about disappearing sims?
@@Marticore And thank you very much for what you doing. Really important work, glad you did it!
Thank you!
I don't have any videos on disappearing Sims, I guess it can just happen sometimes due to a glitch or after the game crashed during saving...
Dzien dobry! I been following you for ages!
I have a problem I hope you can help with!
There is some lots that they will load just fine, play just fine and save just fine! But when I exit the lot, and it opens neighborhood view again, the game crashes.
It's not every lot, and the lot saves just fine! But it's annoying, any clue.
I use reshade and the basic level of mods to keep the game right, and again it's not every lot, just 3 out of all them.
Thank you and have a good day!
I have to reinstall it becouse I bought a new PC, but I'm dreading what I know will be a several hour long process.
Yep, been there 🙏🏻 But once you do it, it stays until you reinstall again!
Well I have the thing that I'm missing neighborhoods even though everything is in my documents folder
Anyone knows what's up with that? Files and everything are complete
I once made a very stupid mistake of pasting a downloaded hood after extracting it to a folder... So technically there was an "N003" folder in my game but it had another "N003" inside it... so obviously the game didn't see it
@@Marticore they all have different names (number)
@@GaiaRich it's not about if numbers are different, it's about having "Characters", "Lots" and other folders straight in the hood folder, not N003/N003 and THEN the subfolders.
I'm having the specific lot crashing problem. It happened to 4 of my families.i moved them out to other houses but now last week happened to a new different lot . Am I doomed? Is My neighbourhood done ? 😢😢😢
There's no such thing as "neighborhood done" as long as it still opens. Maybe you're just extremely unlucky or the lots are too big for the game to handle?
@@Marticore yes the neighborhood still loads 🥲🥰, is just that , some lots don't load , the 4gb patch it's installed, have 8gb of ram and no good graphic card. Maybe is too many CC (15gb), and that's it . But it's too tedious change the houses every time , like I can't get attached to any lot anymore 🥲 and loose all the deco I made . Luckily all the Sims are ok.
I downloaded the Sims 2 game from the web and I’ve been playing for 3 years then one day I opened it and it reset everything but my files, downloads, etc are all still there even though the game doesn’t reflect that. What do I do?
You mean the neighborhoods got reset?
@@Marticoreyes, it’s like I’m playing the start of a brand new Sims game (none of my cc is in game) but when I go to my sims 2 files- all my custom content & stuff are still there but my game doesn’t reflect that 😭
If the game doesn't recognize your original Documents folder... then it must've generated a different one somewhere. Maybe you can find "The Sims 2" as a folder somewhere else with the search bar?
@@Marticore okay, I will try that- thank you for responding!
I know it's off topic but in the sims 4 I sometimes can't launch the game (maybe?) bc I put a lot of cc since it's the best game to build on. Should I delete the cache or it won't do anything?
Definitely! It clogs up the most when installing new CC!
Wait, if someone's reinstalling their games because the issues is with the cache files doesn't that mean they're reinstalling almost every time they play lol
Not everyone has the same cache problem as I do now 😆 I remember being surprised my game wouldn't launch because a few years ago that would happen very rarely
Does the "what caused this" program work if the game crashes and creates an error log?
Worth checking!
Early gang 🎉
HECKIN ONEDRIVE
heckin bad boy 1/10
I block onedrive cuz i FUCKING hate it
I have been badly interrupted