More Awesome Than You!

Has anyone else had problems with their entire neighbourhood disappearing?
I installed BV yesterday and played quite a bit of time in a test neighbourhood.  I saved many times, went to many different lots, and generally had a grand old time playing.
But today the entire neighbourhood is gone.

So what'd I do wrong?

Either BV has BFBVFS'ed your neighborhood, which has happened several times in testing so far, or your neighborhoodpackagemanagerthingy is corrupt, and you need to nuke it and let the game regenerate it.

Is that possible when I specifically created this neighbourhood post-install?

It's happened three times now, whenever I create a custom neighbourhood.

ETA:

Okay, I've located and deleted the neighbourhoodpackagemanagerwhatsit, and created a new neighbourhood. I exited and entered the program, and once again, the neighbourhood's missing.

ETA2:

Deleted the whole Sims2 folder and let it regenerate. (thus giving back the default hoods)
Created a custom neighbourhood.  Switched 'hoods and went to Veronaville.  Moved some houses around.  Went back to the custom hood. Still there.  Went back to Veronaville. Changes still there.
Closed the program and reloaded.
Veronaville changes still there, but once again, the custom 'hood has vanished.

It sounds like your game is not able to write information to the disc when saving.  Thus, so long as you stay in the game (and information is cached) you are fine, but after exiting and reloading, the hoods disappear. 

Try running CHkDsk and see if it shows any disk integrity issues.  To run chkdsk:

• Click "Start" and select "Run"
• Type "cmd" (no quotes) in the dialog box, and hit "Enter"
• At the prompt type "chkdsk C:/r" (without quotes, and only using C:/ if it is the volume on which your game is installed) and hit "Enter"
• You'll get a message that your computer needs to restart to run ChkDsk.  Hit Y to confirm this, and then restart your system

Doing the above will rule out a disk integrity issue as the source of your problem.

Also, make sure to check that you don't have the Sims 2 directory or its subs marked as 'Read-Only' in your My Documents.

Well, it was.  Unfortunately, when I tell it to uncheck, it rechecks while I'm not looking.  Much like a teenager. 

ETA:
B: did the chkdsk and came up empty-handed.

I give up for now.  I haven't played a maxis hood in a long time, so since it'll let me save there, guess I'll try doing that for a while.

It looks like your neighborhood is a BFBVFS, then. Reload it from backup and try again.

Perhaps I've made myself unclear: There is no neighbourhood.  These are brand-new custom neighbourhoods that aren't saving.  When I reload the program, there is no evidence of there ever being custom 'hoods.  I can't reload from back-up because I haven't gotten to play them for longer than one session.

Is your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 folder still trying to make itself Read Only?  This would be a likely cause for your issues. 

As to Pescado's message, he probably should have said that your game is turning into a BFBVFS and needs to be reinstalled.  Ideally, this can be avoided if we figure out why the custom hoods refuse to save properly.

Yes, the folder's still stubbornly trying to keep itself read only.  I've tried it a number of times and also tried making the subfolders (manually) unclicked, but to no avail.

Of course, I'd prefer not to have to reinstall the entire friggin' program.  If it turns out I have to do that, I'll just delete it for awhile. I'm due to rotate soon anyway, so it won't be worth the effort if I can't play it for six months.

It sounds like you're having a permissions issue.  Try the following:

• Right click your My Documents folder, and choose Properties
• Click the Security tab at the top and check for your user name
• If it's listed with anything less than "Full Control", modify it so that you have full access
• If it's not listed at all, use the Add button to give your user account full control of the folder
• Apply any changes you made, and then check your Sims 2 directory to make sure the Permissions carried through
• While in your Sims 2 directory, uncheck the "Read Only" box, and apply the change to all subfolders and files

Let me know if this helps.  In the meantime, I'll try to think up other possible reasons for the power struggle you are experiencing.