More Awesome Than You!

It gives no logs.  It shows up for about three seconds on the Task Manager processes list, and then it vanishes without a trace.  It doesn't get into any visual screens for the game itself, at all, not even the annoying intro.  Half an hour ago, I was able to run it just fine, and I have not made any changes to my system or the registry files or anything, and now, suddenly, it simply will not run.

I have all eps and expansion packs, and am using the M&G no-cd crack from Reloaded, and like I said, it was running fine half an hour ago.  I've been going through my downloads, trying to find what is conflicting with Inge's winding stairs, so I've been doing a lot of re-starting of the game.

This is the second time that my game has spontaneously developed this problem.  Several weeks ago, it started doing (or NOT doing) the very same thing, just quitting bare seconds into running the process.  I tried re-installing it all, several times, but there were problems every time.  I eventually had to manually uninstall everything Sims 2-related, right down to manually cleaning the registry file for any mention of the thing, and then re-install, which I did only a few days ago.  Now it's acting up AGAIN.

Does anyone have any ideas of why the process would quit on starting?  

-edited to add:  I deleted groups.cache, and it ran again, but I don't know if that was the issue or not, so I'd still appreciate any ideas anyone might have.  Thank you!

As you mentioned that you would appreciate any comments from anyone...

I would first wonder about Securom. You didn't mention in your post if you were Securom-free, only that you are currently using a no-crack CD.

You did mention deleting the cache file and getting back in again, but you didn't mention if you had logged out and back in again with a fresh restart on your computer while looking for the annoyance/problem. So I might wonder if all the entering and exiting of the game might have been an issue.

I normally delete the cache and restart when things go buggy. If that doesn't work, I remove the whole downloads folder and see what happens. If I still have problems after playing with downloads, I even totally remove the sims2 folder and let another one be created. I am not awesome at solving computer problems. 

That's what I would have suggested. Don't ask me why, but when the game just doesn't start, just delete the *.cache files. Always did it for me!  ::)

So far as I am aware, I am SecureRom-free.  I rebuilt the system from a completely blank hard drive a couple of months ago, and have never since then started the game without the No-CD crack in place.  I have not installed other games, either, so there has been no source for SecureRom to be installed or activated on my system.

As for rebooting, yes, I had rebooted completely a few times, before thinking of deleting the groups.cache, and the reboots (full power-off/power-on reboot) had not helped.

As I said, I appreciate the ideas and thoughts.  :-)  Thank you very much!  If (when?!) it happens again, I will remember the groups.cache and see if that *is* the culprit.  :-D

Have you tried taking out your Downloads folder and testing?  Bad CC objects or bad meshes have been known to cause game load problems in the past.

I've had this problem persistently since AL/MG. It seems to occur after installing certain CC and especially lots which contain CC. Deleting groups.cache does seem to fix it.

Had NO idea that deleting groups.cache would fix anything.  I tried it myself with reinstalling M&G today, it would run for a few seconds and then stop.  I deleted it and it worked!  Thanks to all!

I'm glad I asked for help, then, since others have also had this problem.  Thank you, everyone, for your comments!