More Awesome Than You!

I meant to delete the cache.package on my game....instead I accidently deleted the cigen.package :o. What is it, what does it do and have a serioulsy messed up my game? It didn't regenerate after I played but the cache.package was inordinately large after I had played.

Uh oh. The cigen.package is essentially all the thumbnails the game generates for your content. So if you deleted it, the game will have to regenerate every single thumbnail, which is BAD news when you've got thousands of CC files. I made the mistake of deleting the file a while ago. Took forever to scroll 5 pages in CAS. It's not an irreparable issue, but it sure is a major pain in the ass depending on the no. of CC files you have.

That file is for Body Shop, I don't see why you are so worried.

Don't know what OS you're running, but did you check to see if you could restore the deleted file? 

It's not just for bodyshop. It affects ingame thumbnails as well.

Do I look worried? ??? hehehe. My question basically was what is the cigen.package and I thought someone here might be able to tell me and if I should expect to see a BFBVFS anytime soon.

Deleting the cigen.package is totally fine.  It will regen next time you run BodyShop.  I've deleted it several times and I didn't ever have a problem.  Shouldn't have a BFBVFS just from that, no worries.

Okay, thanks very much BlueSoup. :D

Can't be.

If you delete the file and then never run Bodyshop, the file will never get generated. You won't have one at all.

All the thumbnails used by the game are stored in the Thumbnails folder, and if you constantly add/delete cusom content, they can become messed up, leading to things like male sim heads appearing in the female sims bin and gigantic toddler heads in the clothing sections. In these cases deleting these files and letting the game regenerate them is a good idea. Yes, it will be slow the next time you run the game, but it's just that one time.

Yes, it is definitely just for bodyshop. The actual thumbnails for the game is (not surprisingly) in the 'Thumbnails' folder in your My Documents/The Sims folder :) I currently do not have a cigen.package file because I haven't run bodyshop on this install of the game.

I ran bodyshop last night and sure enough, the cigen.package was regenerated. Thanks for the information that everyone gave me. ;D

I remembered that the last time I deleted the cigen file, my ingame thumbnails were shot to hell along with it. Considering that I had thousands of makeup, clothing, hair, etc., etc., it took me ages for my game to recover. I honestly don't remember ever fiddling w/ the thumbnails folder, b/c if a file is labeled "thumbnails", I don't think I'd be stupid enough to delete the thing. Could be just coincidence or faulty memory, but either way, better to be safe than sorry.

Why are we deleting cache.package, and where is it located? I found a file called groups.cache near the one you deleted by accident... will deleting this mystery file somehow make the game faster?

Deleting groups.cache sometimes fixes problems due to hacks and stuff with the game not booting.  Additionally if you haven't done it for a while, it might make your game run faster.  I really haven't noticed anything different when deleting the file myself.

There's no real reason to delete thumbnail files unless you have a problem with them, which tends to happen quite a bit at least in my game.  You can safely delete 'some' files in the Program Files folder when you have some expansions.  For example, deleting splash.package in the FFP will revert the starting music back to the previous splash.package which is what the music was in your last expansion.