More Awesome Than You!

I completely uninstalled and reinstalled last night. The houses I put into the Lot Catalog folder show up and look fine in the thumbnail, but won't load in game when placed on a lot. Far more unsettling, something is overwriting the GUIDs on most of the original Maxi artwork. This can't be good. They are unselectable--they just don't appear in the catalog when clicked on--although all the works based on each painting show up fine. I'm also seeing some color errors (the dread blue) that weren't there a few days ago. Clean Installer and the hack detector don't show anything untoward. Help? Any way to avert disaster this time?

*raises hand and jumps up and down*
Did you reinstall (not just copy and paste) your CEP (color enabler) file? I forgot to do that, and left a fantasticly (sp?) embarrasing thread about recolors eating objects.

Brilliant! Raises the de rigeur pint of Guinness and buys a round for ElfPuddle. That does indeed appear to be the problem with the vanishing originals.

Now, any idea how I can reclaim my houses?

Thanks so much!

can you just put houses in the lotcatalog without installing them first?  Maybe they aren't properly in the game if you just do that.? 

And what is in lotcatalog anyway apart from lots? - I have loads of 1kb character files in mine.  Is this another thing that needs cleaning up periodically?

How would I do that? They are already in the Lot Catalog. They show up just fine (apparently) when I browse through it in game. Clean Installer doesn't flag any problems. They are in package format. They are selectable. However, when I take one out and try to place it on a lot, the game freezes and eventually crashes.

All I can think of is this:

*warning..I may not be right...double check with someone more awesome than I*

If you did indeed save your lots from the BFBVFS that was your game, might those lots be bringing their bugginess to this game?
If so, then don't use them!

I think cwykes means putting them straight in the D:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\LotCatalog folder without double clicking to package file. I just put my houses straight in there and they show up fine-but they are 'my' houses I have made myself, just on a different version of Sims 2 I have on my pc. You have to rename the filename of the house to correspond with the next available number.

Actually, it's working fine now (knock wood). It might have been related to the CEP problem, it might have been that the first two I tried were indeed corrupted, leading me to prematurely conclude that the entire folder was broken.

Anyway, at this point I'm happily restoring my neighborhoods. Thanks, everyone, for all the help and moral support.