More Awesome Than You!

My son wanted to make a Christmas neighborhood, so we started by downloading a ton of Christmas objects, from the official site and a lot of other places, and a terrain paint made by a very well known TSR artist.  We built a house, decorated it, and snowified the lot with the terrain paint.

Didn't I read JUST THE OTHER DAY HERE that terrain paints tend to FUBAR the game? ::) 

I've been extraordinarily lucky with the Sims until now, because I'm so cautious that I don't usually install anything the least bit dubious, but my luck has apparently run out.  I can't get into any lots that I've ever played before--only lots that are  brand new or that I haven't visited, like some of the existing Maxis families. The game just hangs in trying to open the lot, until I have to force a reboot.  I did disable the terrain paint (along with all of the other objects I'd downloaded, just to be safe) but no love.

Is there anything I can do short of a reinstall at this point?

Thanks. :'(

Is there anything I can do short of uninstalling and reinstalling? 

Hmm...sorry to hear about your troubles.  However, all of the terrain paint issues I've come across have only been if you deleted/disabled them after they were placed on a lot, and then only when attempting to package the lot.

Try enabling everything, and check the error logs to see if anything comes up that seems related.

My usual solution is Norton GoBack.  It allows me to go back to previous 'safe' points and saves me having to make back up copies of the EA folder.  I've found it useful in such circumstances.   Do you have a similar product on your pc? 

Is that like system restore, sandilou?

Can't be quite the same, as System Restore doesn't change where your sims game has got to.  (Or, thank goodness) remove all your downloads that you got after the restore point).

Norton GoBack lists loads of times to choose from  - like an hour ago, 4 hours ago, 3 days ago etc.  It always picks a 'safe point'.  There's also the option to launch your pc from the last known successful launch - which in my case is crucial, as my screen driver's slower than windows and needs atleast two launches to find its feet.  I used to think that I had a virus or spyware, so I reinstalled everything from scratch - only to discover that it still did it.  

If my pc gets into a real state, then I use GoBack.  In truth, I've mainly used it when I've added a damaging download to TS2.  Rather than go through the TS2Manager tool or Sims Installer, I've used GoBack instead. It does the work while I make myself a cuppa. Lazy Sim-me.  GoBack is like a timewarp - any game play or downloads added since that safepoint simply disappear - but after GoBack's loaded, it gives you the option to salvage any of those files that were changed during the interim time (between safepoint and crashing).  I never do - because at least one of them must have caused the problem.

Well, I use McAfee, and not Norton, so how would I get that without it costing an arm and a leg?

Norton GoBack I got 'free' with a site licenced Norton AntiVirus.  I also bought Spy Sweeper.  Needless to say, the whole lot was half price within 3 weeks of me buying it (from PC World), but I desperately needed them at the time, as my pc was running like a snail because it was overloaded with spyware.  There were over 100 cookies on my pc when I finally ran Spy Sweeper.  I thought that Spy Sweeper was making it up as it went along - but they were all listed.

I just use the Yahoo Anti-spy now, but I had to upgrade my McAfee and that does the same thing, but Yahoo only takes a minute and I can do it while I'm on-line.  So the Norton thing would only be available if I had Norton Anti-virus running?  Pity.

Thanks for the suggestions--I had actually backed up my game a week ago, which I forgot about, and so was able to restore it from before the point where it got corrupted.  But I would still like to know what I did in order to mess it up so thoroughly.  Next time I'll try to remember the debug function before I wipe it clean.

I've never got any help from the debug function, myself!

Hmmmm...I got Norton anti virus with my laptop. Would I have goback, as well? I think I need that program!

It certainly sounds useful, and if you have downloads that you've paid for that might get lost, you could always burn them to a CD first.

Though it would be annoying if you'd just spent hours sorting out stuff, just to have it all go back to how it was!

I'm thinking you ignored the above warning about "Terrain paints are bad, 'mkay?". That might be it.

Well the annoying thing is, it's a very serious bug and they've allowed it to go on for a long time. When Tom came here after NL came out, it apparently was the first he had heard of it too, but it didn't make it into the patch.  >:(

I am so glad I read this thread  as I had downloaded some terrain paints... thank you for the warnings. NO BFBVS for my game now.

Norton GoBack is a stand alone product in a separate box.  It comes with its own registration code.  I'm not on commission, otherwise I'd plug it more.  It's my safety net. 

Quite a few websites have free snow terrain downloads, but setting snow up seemed too fiddly (read messing with codes that I don't really understand) - so I've left them well alone.  JM's warning simply confirmed my suspicions. 

As I think I said before, when it's something they actually provide the equipment for players to do, along with walls and floors, the least they could do would be to make damn sure it's safe!

How exactly do terrain paints turn the game into a BFBVFS? Or rather, how does this BFBVFS manifest?

Once you have a terrain on any lot, that terrain is forever in your game, and if you remove/disable it, it can crash your game when you try to load the lot (I haven't experienced this myself) or if you try to package the lot to a file or the exchange it will crash the game.  This will happen even if you reinstate the terrain file before attempting to package it.

In other words, any nice house you've made using custom terrain shouldn't be moved  or bulldozed even if you move the family out.

No, you can bulldoze the lot, you just can't remove the terrain paints if they're on any other lot.

You mean, basically that you would need to bulldoze every one of your houses with terrain paints, and then you could remove the blasted things from your Downloads folder for good?

Basically.  Not only the ones with terrains paints, but even the ones that used to have terrain paints.

Which is ok for one's own creations - I mean, you'd probably remember if you'd used them, but how would you know with a downloaded house?  I mean, the housebuilder could have been playing around for ages with them, then decided they didn't like them!

Hmm...I'm not so sure as to the accuracy of this, as I once moved all my CC out of downloads in order to test a bug, and when I loaded up a lot with terrain paints, all I had were merely flashing blue where the terrain had been. No crashing... at least so far....so I dunno...

Like I said, I never had a problem with actually loading a lot (only packaging it), so try to package the lot you remember seeing the flashing blue and see if it crashes.  I've heard of other people who seemed to have a problem with it though.


This is why if I simply *have* to have a lot that has terrains, I deselect the terrain paints in Clean Installer before installing the lot.  I just paint over the flashing blue later, and this seems to be OK for me.

I tend to think the problem is when you try to install a lot without using the Clean Installer, when every darn terrain paint in your folder comes along for the ride!

I have never had an issue with the terrain paints.  Then again I download only ones I know I will use so I don't have to worry about deleting them from the game. 

I have lots of useless Terrain Paints.
If you click on the Terrain Paint catalogue *at all* during building then the first paint from your catalogue plus each one you click to check, even if it's not actually used, plus the one you eventually use will package with your lot.
It's a bit hit and miss, but sometimes I can go into a lot and change things in build mode then find it crashes while attempting to play.
Sometimes it just crashes anyway as soon as it's clicked on...
I've not had a paint affect other lots though or anything else in my game unless I deleted a paint (before knowing this) and other lots that had used the paint would then crash, so it seems very strange that other parts of your game messed up :-\
I don't download lots now that I can either see from the picture have used paints, or when installing if I see them listed in CI then the lot gets deleted.
The general advice is don't ever try to delete the paint, painting over it with something else will keep it usable for the future.
Some say they can still package them, but I've had trouble doing that (it crashes the game) and I've also had trouble moving the lot either in the same neighborhood or to another one, as it crashes on entry.
 

just wonder if PC specs determine whether the game crashes or struggles through to give you blue flashing stuff..

So it comes down to this:
Terrain Paints are BAD and will cause your game to explode in a (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/avatars/bfbvfs.jpg)

Just to clarify things--I used, but did not delete or disable, the terrain paint.  That's when the game wouldn't load the houses  (not only the houses I'd used the terrain paint on, but any other house that I'd previously played).

I didn't disable the terrain paint until later, in a futile attempt to get the game working again.

Then it might not be the terrain paint in your case.  If you truly are anxious to find out, you can always backup your game and then gradually reinstall the content you suspected corrupted your houses in an effort to pinpoint the culprit.

No one ever said that TS2 isn't buggy, otherwise Pescado would be out of business :)

I have a technique I use to make sure I don't end up with a lot of crapola in my download folder because of houses.

For each house, I install I create one folder into which I extract the content of the package. Then I use clean installer to "strip" the house of all of its content and create a new package that contains nothing but the lot.  I then install that new package.  If I decide I don't like the content, then I just delete the folder.  If I don't like the house either, then I bulldoze it.  All trace of the house is now gone.

That's a great idea about the houses--you seem right on my risk-averse wavelength, angelyne. :)

 Just out of curiosity, is it possible that a d/l that works in one game won't work in another (assuming that the necessary x-packs and CEP, etc., are installed in each case, and that there are no hacks installed)?  Or could there be a combo of d/l's that corrupt a neighborhood? Wondering because I did do the test of taking out downloads and slowly reinserting them, but couldn't find the problem.  Also because no one else seems to have complained about any of these particular downloads.

I don't think it's my specs because everything was working great until that point.

This is the first I'm reading about the terrain paint issue, and I'm really glad I saw this as I had no idea of the problems.

My plan now is to use no further terrain paints - EVER- when I build a house.

As for the houses I already have in my game that have terrain paints on them:  there is one I built myself, and there are a few others that I downloaded that I know have terrain paints.

Is it safe to continue playing these houses?  I'll make a note not to package them and offer them for download (only the one is mine to offer in any event)...but I can play them without a problem, correct?

I want to make sure I understand correctly:  I can play them or bulldoze them.  I just can't package them.

And I assume that in future, I should not download any house that I suspect might have a terrain paint on the lot, right?

Thanks alot!

PKTrek - yes, play the lot.  Don't package it.  :)

^  Thanks! :)

Just as an aside, I have a couple of houses that I downloaded (actually, traded in a BBS hood on another board) that just will not install on my computer.  I install the family using the Maxis installer, but even then, the house will install but the family just doesn't.  These are 'clean' houses - families that have not been played and all Maxis content except for maybe some walls & floors and some clothing.

Could it be that these houses have terrain paint, and that is what caused the errors to occur when I try to install?  They don't crash my game so it doesn't sound like a related problem, but I'm baffled as to why this is happening and am investigating all possibilities.

And if you ever decide to do a complete reinstall and ditch your present hoods, just don't include the custom terrain paints in your new Downloads folder.

I don't download them with paint on anymore at all, and it has put me off using them because of the trouble I had before I knew about it all.
I still can't work out why the OP has had this problem with the other lots...one terrain paint *shouldn't* cause bother on lots it wasn't used on.
But yes I agree they are *Bad*! ;)
PKTrekGirl you ought to be able to use what you have if it's already in your game, but now you're aware of it so if anything goes wrong you'd know what it might be.
Also I forgot earlier, if you do build to upload, then if you have paints in your download folder then they are packaged even if you *don't* click on them, the first in the catalogue goes with the lot.
Building in a clean folder or taking them out (if you have them organised) will work.
Edit:
Putting families in can cause problems, though I thought that was through the Clean Installer which sometimes requires a few tries at it to get it to work...I'm not sure about the Maxis installer as I've not tried.
I've never had problems installing lots with paint...just playing them if the paint went missing along the way.
It sounds more a problem with the family than the paint.

Not sure....if you still have them, try installing them using the MTS2 Clean Installer, and see if the family is listed.  I've never used the Maxis Content Manager, so I don't know how it's listed on that.  But the family should be listed separately on the CI, and if it's still selected, it should show up.  I've never experienced a terrain issue causing that.

Yep.


Yeah, I have a vanilla install of my game that I build houses in if I want to offer them for download.  The only downloads I have in the vanilla game are some walls & floors.

I'm gonna keep doing it that way - especially now!



Yeah, I usually use the Clean Package Installer to install everything, so I can see what I'm getting.  I used that first for these houses.  I got the houses but not the families, so someone told me to use the Maxis installer because the families come over using that.  So I used the Maxis installer.  Still no luck.

It sounds like this is an unrelated problem though...so I'll just keep trying, I guess.  Or not install those houses.

Someone sent me a house with people in it..It wasn't for my own game as I don't put people in..
I put it in a clean account to look at the house and it took about four tries to get the people to appear, so it ought to work eventually if you keep trying.

Before you install any such house, though, check it out for clones of the friends and acquainstances the inmates might have had before they were packaged!  Otherwise you could end up with a hundred unlinked character files!

^Yep.  I am not installing ANY house where there are sims that have been played.  I am very insistant that any sims I install cannot even have met the paperboy!  For exactly that reason.

I also insist that they do not have any memories except the standard "starter" memories of marrying thier spouse before gameplay started, etc

I had this problem back when Uni came out, where the lot I was trying to load would just hang.  The music would play and the little hourglass would go around and around, but nothing would ever happen.  After I'd done the Dance of a Thousand Installs to try and figure out where the problem was, but my lots would still not load, I looked for advice on the forums, and this is what I was told:

Once you're at the neighborhood screen and before you try to load a house, go into debug mode (boolprop testingcheatsenabled true... as I'm sure you know).  Then try to load the house.  When the game reaches the problem, instead of going into an infinite loop, it will pop up a dialog box telling you what the problem is and giving you some options on what to do about it.  Take note of what it says the problem is (in my case it was a custom career I didn't even know I had, even in spite of having been through my downloads folder with a fine-toothed comb!) and hit reset.  Hopefully then your lot will load properly.

Anyway, that's what worked for me.  Can't guarantee that it will work for you, but I suppose it can't hurt to give it a whirl.

I had exactly the same roblem when I first installed Uni, and I believe it was either a custom career or downloaded (unintentionally) hacks that caused it.  After I sorted through my Downloads folder with SimPE and found all the offenders, the game worked fine.

Thanks, taichikitten, that's exactly what I should have done and didn't remember until too late.

*sings*

"Regrets, I've had a few..."