Game crashed and now lot wont load properly

[Rascal]

I was playing my Legacy Family when the game crashed (because my husband was trying to run Media Centre off the same computer from the other room - too much for the poor thing!). Now when I try to go back into my Legacy family's lot it will sort of load, but everyone (everysim?) is stuck in a kind of jerky slow motion. I don't mean its just running slow - its completely unplayable. Even the sound comes in little jerks. Is there anyway I can fix this or do I have to start the family again from scratch? Any suggestions gratefully recieved.
     

[Myth]

Have you tried turning off your background tasks and telling your hubby to back off prior to running your game?  The Sims uses a lot of resources and if your computer is trying to split them with another program much less a media one the game is going to lag.

[Rascal]

We don't normally try to run the two programmes at the same time - it was unintentional. 
The problem is now the lot is not working correctly even though Sims2 is the only thing running.  It is only this lot affected and I am assuming it is because I was playing this lot when the game crashed. 
I want to know if the lot is now hopelessly corrupted or if I can fix it. 
I have shut down and restarted the game several times and it has not made any difference.

Normally I would just move the family out and put them in a different house, but this is the fourth generation of my Legacy family and I really don't want to do that.

[witch]

Oh mate! Any recent backups?

I've taken to backing up before I play the game - every time! Been caught out too often with unforseen errors.

[Rascal]

Thanks for the sympathy witch - I last backed up about 2 weeks ago - duh!  I think I'll sulk about it for a day or two then move them out and give up the career rewards and my ghosts.  Hopefully they family themselves are ok.

[Myth]

Sorry, I didn't check back. 

Since it's only the one lot then it most likely that it's the lot itself that has become corrupt. It seems to happen with my Legacy families all the time as well, the longer you play them the buggier they get.  Before you give up completely I have a few move out suggestions. 

If you have Nightlife you can use the inventories of the families to take the most important items that you can't replace like career/aspiration rewards and the tombstones.  (Honestly I do not know if the ghost will travel but it's worth a shot.)  Maybe take their beds with you so they won't freak when you move into someplace new.  (Also take any large items (paintings) that have appreciated so you will not lose the simoleon value and take large $$$ items that have decreased in value like the cars, hottubs etc, as well as things that you can't replace like pictures that were taken with the camera reward object) Heck take as much as your inventory can take. 

If you do not have NL and "lose" your rewards you can use the boolprop testingcheatsenabled true debugger and shift click on the newspaper and get back your career rewards at least.  Just turn it off when you are done by typing the command substituting true with false so you won't have errors popping up all the time on you.

If you really don't want to lose the house you can re-draw it on graph paper and then have that paper as a reference when you rebuild.

Also if you haven't downloaded the patch you may want to go ahead and do that as I think it corrcted the NPC slowdown bug which is what you lot may be suffering from as well.

You probably already know all of those things but thought in case you didn't I'd throw the info your way.

Good luck! I hope it feels a little better knowing that you aren't the only one that it has happened to.

[Rascal]

Thanks for the suggestions Myth.  I'm afraid I'm still in the dark ages and only have the original game.  Mainly because my 10 year old likes to play, and while she can play happy families with the original game I think Uni and definately Nightlife might take her places I don't really want her to go.  I've been reading the posts about Nightlife and am so tempted, but I think I'd better resist.

I'm going to start my Legacy's again on a new lot and see how they go.  I think I might see if they can re-earn their career rewards - they were starting to get a little boring with nothing much to strive for.  The only things I'm still upset about are the ghosts (especially Maura - she always cleaned up if she made someone pee their pants ) and the family portraits.

I once, long ago, knew how to use an existing screenshot for a sim to paint - can anyone refresh my memory?  Then at least they can still have some pictures of the dearly departed.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with renaming the picture file as the screenshot while the game is paused.

[Myth]

I am at work so am limited in my search abilities here.  (Too many windows start looking suspicious.  )  But it sounds like you may have the NPC/Slowdown bug. (a good sign of the bug is NPCs not showing for work and the game slowing to a crawl)  I can't remember if there was ever a true solution fix but I know there were a few work arounds with the Mind Control Mirror and Inge's Teleporter Shrub.  When I get home I'll see what I can dig up.

So give me a few hours and see if I can come up with anything.  (I also can find the link for custom paintings and will attach that as well.)

In regards to Uni and NL, my 10 year old son plays them.  We have two pcs in the same office and I just really monitor what he does and some things are off limits like WooHoo.  He understands what it is but if he wants a child in the family then he is forced to leave while I do the dirty deed.

You could always make a custom neighborhood for your son/daughter and not attach a University or a Downtown to it.  That way you can still get the enjoyment without having to worry about the 13 part of the PG rating.

Heck maybe you could request a hack from JM or TwoJeffs that doesn't allow adult woohoo just like teens aren't allowed in the game.  Maybe a special no woohoo double bed so it doesn't effect the whole game.  Just thinking out loud.

Edit:  Here's a thread about the slowdog bug by Tagrunner2 at the Sims 2 BBS

Another one by Night8server

And here's the tutorial for making custom paintings from snootysims.com

[Regina]

I ran into this problem about a year ago and it meant my Legacy family had to move and lose their ghosts and of course everything else.  I later found a 'collection' for download at MTS2 that will allow you to replace lost career reward objects at no charge.  It also replaces aspiration reward objects, but they do cost $1 per aspiration point.  When I downloaded the collection, it was in the Maxis-made objects.

I might mention here also that unfortunately Nightlife's inventory isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Large objects such as hot tubs, beds, dressers and even the large aspiration reward objects are prone to getting glitched in the move, as are at times custom paintings.  The patch did fix one problem with those and I haven't moved any since to see if the problem was completely cured or not.  I'm still trying to figure out if the ghost I moved traveled well or not.  He haunts sometimes and sometimes doesn't and overall just isn't quite right in his ghostly behavior.

I also think that if you set up a custom neighborhood for your child and just didn't attach a Downtown everything should be peachy.  Nightlife doesn't add as much to the game as it enhances, although to my mind some of those enhancements wouldn't be real suitable for a child (as in sims with high relationships on dates constantly wanting to woohoo in the car and sims of just about any aspiration getting almost stuck in a constant woohoo want loop).

[Rascal]

Thanks Myth - I really really appreciate your help and will check back for the info.  Misty, I have the buyable career rewards and I might do that but at the moment I think I'll let them work for them again.

I did actually try using Inge's Stay Things Shrub to keep everything in the house and then moved the family out and back in - unfortunately it didn't work.  For the first few seconds I thought it had but then everything went screwy again.  So I guess the lot is definately corrupted.

As for my worries about Nightlife, my daughter is allowed to 'Try for Baby' - she knows how babies are made.  Its just that she plays the game as if its a big dollshouse.  Everyone is friends.  All her sims are nice and are family, knowledge or fortune.  All her couples get married before they woohoo and they are all absolutely faithful.  No romances sims allowed.  (All her choices by the way.)  So I think she would be really upset if all her happy mummies and daddies suddenly wanted to woohoo with the neighbours - and like I said - I don't really want her to be exploring that side of life yet either. (Let her keep those rose-tinted glasses for a couple more years at least!)  So anyway - the point of this ramble is, if I didn't attach a downtown to her custom neighbourhood, would her sims still want to sleep around?

[Myth]

As long as she stays away from the Pleasure and Romance Sims and doesn't try for Dream Dates she should be fine.  I've never had a the woohoo want come up on on a family type Sim except when they were on a date or were doing some extreme flirting.

[Rascal]

Oh thankyou thankyou!  That does sound like my problem.  I'll give it a go and report back.  Thanks for the custom painting link too.  You are truely awsome!   



Update:  Myth you were right - I followed Tagrunner2's method and found 23 repairmen on the lot.  I had called the repairman just before the game crashed so maybe that corrupted the portal, and when I went back in the game must have just kept generating more and more repairmen.  Apparently I wont be able to use a repairman again on this lot (no big deal) and I'll have to remember to check regularly in case he returns - but I keep my ghosts!     Thanks so much for your help!

[Myth]

Just saw your update and am glad that you found out for sure and will not lose your lot with the work around.  The only time I got the slowdown bug was when I had called the repairman as well, so once bitten twice shy.  I now tend to stay away from them and have my Sims do all the repairs themselves, although it was funny when the repairman would get electrocuted by my trash compactor and miss that. 

I stick to one NPC at a time.  Nanny's when there are kids (Nanny's tend to clean if you do not offer them fun distractions) and the Maid once the Nanny is no longer needed.

TwoJeffs has a banning hack that will ban specified NPC or townies from the lot.  I do not remember if you have to click on the NPC to ban them or if you can just set it for a general NPC but it's worth a look in his section, especially if it saves you the trouble of bumping the invisible NPCs all of the time.  Also CrammyBoy at MS2 has a portal fix for the cars that may repair the portal.

I've not tried either one of those hacks to fix the problem as I abandoned my lot but since they are related fixes I figured they were worth a mention.

Here's TwoJeffs NPC Zapper the way I read it is that you can ban any NPC without having to select the offending Sim.  You may want to ask him specifically if he thinks it would be applicable in your case.