Phone problem

[SoulnoS]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but I thought it was worth a shot. I'm doing this on the behalf of my sister whom loves the sims 2 so bear with me please. She often uses a cheat called "boolprop testing cheat enabled" Before she installed seasons she had a problem with her sims phone. They couldn't place calls, would pick up the phone and dial then just hang it up. She believes the cheat did it and was happy to find out that after installing seasons, the problem had went away. She used the cheat a couple of times and no problem, but eventually it occured again and she could no longer place calls. She has never installed a hack or mod, so i'm not sure if you all have encountered this. Any help in fixing this would be appreciated.

[Marhis]

The culprit should be some hack accidentally installed with a lot. Often, if a lot is not properly packaged by the creator, installs also global hacks the creator use, and you'll never know until something strange happens.

That cheat code (which put the game in debug mode), not only is not related for sure, but on the contrary, it may help a lot to track down errors and conflicts, as in case of stealth-installed hacks.

[Lorelei]

Do a Google search for Sims2Pack Clean Installer and Sims2HCDU (Hack Conflict Detection Utility) and download and run them.

The first one, S2PCI for short, will highlight hacks in red and allow you to disable them by right clicking. Duplicate files, which mostly take up space but can also cause issues in-game, will be in pink. (I have no idea if you can get red and pink simultaneously!)

Widen the window once it has gone through all the files. There's a column with alphanumeric code in it. Sort by this column. Look for pink highlights. Look at the file names and remove the one with the less comprehensible name (usually a string of letters and numbers). One may have a normal name, which will make it easier to find & ID in the future. If they all have stupid alphanumeric names, just pick whichever, they are duplicated files. It also is the better way to install custom content. When installing Sims2Packs, if you have the Maxis installer, right click on the pack and choose Open With instead and you can see hidden custom content in lots and Sims character packs.

The S2HCDU will highlight custom content hacks that are fighting with each other, but will not inform you if the hacks conflict with Maxis default code, as many hacks deliberately override Maxis code to reduce coded-in game annoyances.

If a hack piggybacked into her game this way, you'll be able to find it and quarantine or disable or remove it. To quarantine, chose right click, move to, New, type in a new Folder name.

Get her in the habit of putting new downloads in a quarantine folder, that way if the game splats, you will be able to find the offending file more easily.

If she has hacks and wants them, put those in a separate Downloads folder as well. This will help when installing the next Stuff Pack or Expansion Pack, as it is recommended to remove your custom content (Downloads folder, Neighborhoods, Music, etc.--) and especially your hacks before install. Hacks change game code and SPs and EPs often do the same thing and then fight with hacks in the Downloads folder. If the hacks are separated beforehand, this makes updating much less stressful.

If it takes forever to load, she may have Too Much Stuff. The only cure for that is to ditch some of it. You can use SimWardrobe's Sims2Categorizer to identify stuff.