More Awesome Than You!

Last night I attempted to install the Seasons patch v.2. I tried three different times but installation kept stopping when it reached the objects folder.

I thought, fine, I'll just go ahead and play and try installing the patch another time. Boot up the game, everything seems to be running just fine, splines reticulating and all that jazz. Suddenly the screen goes black and *poof* the game is gone. Start it up again, same exact thing.

So, anyway of fixing this or am I faced with uninstalling and reinstalling the whole thing? I have all EPs, FFS and GLS.

Thanks for any help!

I know this seems like a simplisticly basic question, and I don't want to insult your intelligence, but did you remember to disable your antivirus, firewall, etc? These can cause problems with installing new patches.

Yes, I did. I'm actually not quite so concerned with getting the game patched at this point, more just getting the stupid thing to run. :(

You need to complete the patching process.

Replace objects.package with a fresh copy from the CD.

If you don't mind, I have a few dumb questions on the objects.package topic.  I have mine set to read-only, do I still need to replace it every so often?  When I do replace it, all I have to do is copy and paste from the objects.package in the CD into the appropriate EP folder and delete the old one, correct?  Is there anything else I need to know about when replacing it is a good idea?  Also, should I delete objects.package from previous EP folders so that I don't have like, 15 of them (they are all set to read-only already) or would that make my computer 'splode?
I know that these are really basic questions, but after TONS of searching on the site I couldn't find very much info on this topic. As a side thought, the answers to these questions might find a good home in the FAQ...
Sorry for thread hijacking.

If the patch is stopping on that file, it needs to be replaced. It's that simple.

Unfortunately even read-only files can become corrupted, although it's still less likely than if you don't set them as read-only.

Replace the file, patch, and then make it read-only again. es, you just pull it off the CD... just make sure you get it from the right CD, you know? If it's a Seasons objects.package that's corrupted, you obviously wouldn't want to replace it with one from Nightlife or something. By the way, some of these files are found inside of a ompressed archive called compressed.zip.

No, you can't delete any other files from the Program Files directory. The game uses all of them.

As for other times you might need to replace it... you'd get some sort of glitches, like missing/glitchy meshes or the game acting in some weird way that can't be attributed to hacks or corruption in the My Documents directory. Missing meshes are sometimes the result of corrupted Sims00#.package files, as well.

If you have set the objects.package to read-only you need to unmark it before installing the patch, then mark it again afterwards.
The patch needs to change that file when installing.  Once you've done that, and have a working game, marking objects.package read-only will protect it from getting corrupted in the future.

Thanks Sara, I will try that tonight when I get home from work and see what happens.

Got this from the SimWatch Yahoo group -

The following was posted by MaxoidSam at the official site
(http://tinyurl.com/yqdddg):

________________________________________

A number of you are having trouble installing the latest
patch, often being prompted to reinstall Seasons after the
install fails.

If you are being told to reinstall, the likely cause is that
you have modified (either knowingly or unknowingly) two
files that the patch is looking for specific versions of to
install correctly.

One of these file is the Graphics Rules.sgr file that is
located in C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2
Seasons\TSData\Res\Config\Graphics Rules.sgr. You may have
modified this if you wanted to change your resolution
settings from the game default, or for other reasons.

The second, but less likely, file that may have changed is
the objects.package file, which is located at C:\Program
Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2
Seasons\TSData\Res\Objects\objects.package. This file is
often modified by hacks or mods or custom content that
players install. Not all CC will touch this file, but some
does.

A patch essentially overwrites files specific files on a
players hard drive with new versions of those files that
have bug fixes. And it's looking for the versions of those
files to overwrite that it knows in order to pick the right
files to copy over...the files that shipped with the
original Seasons game. If those files are modified from that
version, the install will fail because it does not know what
to patch.

SO...

The easiest (but most time consuming) way to restore those
files is to uninstall Seasons and then reinstall it.
Whenever you uninstall or reinstall a game, make a backup
copy of your The Sims 2 folder in your My Documents\EA GAMES
directory. Otherwise you'll lose all your saved games and
your custom content!

The quicker, more advanced way is to pull those 2 files from
your Seasons game discs and copy them manually to your hard
drive.

To find the original objects.package file:

1) Put Seasons Disc 1 in your CD/DVD drive while holding the
SHIFT key (to keep the game from auto-running).
2) Explore the CD using Windows Explorer
3) Open the file "compressed.zip" (requires a compression
program like WinZip to open).
4) Unzip the file "objects.file" to your hard drive.
5) Copy this file into C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2
Seasons\TSData\Res\Objects\ folder on your machine, unless
you chose a different directory to install your game when
you first installed it.

To find the original Graphics Rules.sgr file:

1) Put Seasons Disc 2 in your CD drive while holding the
SHIFT key (to keep the game from auto-running).
2) Explore the CD using Windows Explorer
3) Open the file "compressed.zip" (requires a compression
program like WinZip to open).
4) There are two Graphics Rules.sgr files in there with
identical names. If you use WinZip you can see the paths
that these 2 files are from. Grab the one that references
the TSData\Res\Config directory.
5 Unzip this file to your hard drive.
6) Copy this file into C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2
Seasons\TSData\Res\Config folder on your machine, unless you
chose a different directory to install your game when you
first installed it.

Once these two files are replaced, THEN install the patch.

NOTE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE DVD VERSION: Both files are
located in the compressed.zip file. Ignore the Disc 1 and
Disc 2 instructions.

The incorrect "H&M Stuff causing patch troubles" has likely
started by the prompt that tells you that the game is
installing the Seasons patch during the H&M install process.
This is because H&M shipped after the first Seasons patch
was completed.

BUT note that this is the FIRST Seasons patch. Yesterday's
patch was not included with H&M, so if you want that you
have to download that patch separately from our patch site.

Hopefully this clears things up and gets you patched and
ready to play! Let us know if not.

-sam