The guy who built my computer said that's what it's called (an artifact).  My cursor flickers and has a squarish thing behind it wherever you move it.  It looks like it's trying to copy bits of the desktop or something.  It only happens when you launch a game.  I only have two games at the moment:  Sims 2 and WoW.  It doesn't happen anywhere else, like on websites or desktop.  Only in games. 

I entered a house in Sims and as I moved around the lot I noticed a circle around my cursor outside the house.  It was night time and there was snow on the ground.  There was a dark circle, like a shadow, around the cursor wherever I moved.  The cursor was flickering.

It's the strangest thing.  I've not stayed in the game for any extended period of time yet so not sure if it would actually go bonkers although the sound did stutter a bit upon loading, which it hadn't done previously.  I'm going to try and remove the dreaded file and get the crack first and see if that kills it.  And I'm still curious about my question.  I honestly want to know what this file does to people's computers.

If all else fails, I'll go ahead and do the wipe/restore.  I've just been through so much over the past few weeks since getting my upgrades done I'm exhausted and would like to actually play a game on my computer.  Novel concept as it may be.

I have SecuROM.  I am going to be getting rid of it.  It's just coming down to a choice of going through the lengthy instructions here or a restore of my system and starting over.  But I have a question.  After reading through this entire thread, and some other information about this file, I'm curious what exactly has been happening to everyone as a result of this file - exactly, I mean, what are your personal experiences from having this file invade your computer?  From what I've read it supposedly keeps games from starting, or makes them crash.  Have any of you lost data or had any kind of damage?  I don't want it, I think it's very wrong for them to force it on us, but I really don't even understand what it does, to be honest, I mean the bad things it can do, not what THEY want it to do.

The only problems I've had so far, since installing the game on my newly upgraded machine, were the errors I shared in my other thread that I've had closed down (missing game files - per JM).  I've since spent a day re-installing, and now I'm getting an artifact on my cursor when I enter the game, along with a flickering mouse cursor.  It also started happening in another online game I play.  From what I can tell, it's not interfering with game play, it's just annoying as hell.

I had the computer looked over by the guy who built it for me.  He reinstalled the motherboard and video card drivers and was unable to determine what is causing the anomaly - it still lives.  Do you all think it's SecuROM?  If not, any suggestions?

Sorry Jelenedra.  I'll change my avi later.

JM or whoever, go ahead and kill this thread.  I tried to but it wouldn't let me.  I forgot some of you are fortunate enough to be allowed to view these sites at work.  I'm not so lucky.  I can't even check personal email at work.

My apologies - I put up that Olivia avi so long ago I actually forgot about her.

Ahhh gotcha.  Thanks Emma.  I've never, in all the years I've played this game, ever had to get errors or logs.  This is completely new to me.  Never had to use this cheat once.  So it was the first time.  Having turned it on, I wasn't sure how to... well, turn it on!  And so I forced it on my simmie after typing it in from the neighborhood and entering the lot.  And the first one was - the first one.  The rest of them popped up on their own.

I apologize for not having included the list of expansions and mods and hacks, et al.  As I stated in my post, I was looking mostly for a general idea of what the error(s) meant more than anything.

But I'm still going to do what JM said and just reinstall the whole mess.  It's been a long week of tweaking things and updating all my hacks anyway from here.  I just got back to playing so it's probably for the best anyway.

Thanks again.

It pains me because I hate asking for help when I can look for it or research it.

And you are absolutely correct on my incorrect usage of the word 'piece.'  It was perhaps a subconscious thought of wanting to give EAxis a piece of my mind.  Or maybe it was a Freudian slip or even exhaustion... take your pick.


To JM:  You are yelling at me because???

I take it you mean I am not to use the boolprop unless you yourself ask me to?  Sorry, you have confused me.  And I will take your suggestion and reinstall.  Was figuring that was probably the best solution anyway.  I just wondered if anyone was able to determine the cause.  If you've never seen the error then I'll just go ahead and start over.

Thanks for the reply... although ... my eyes! =p

I have an Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT and my current drivers:  nv4_disp.dll - 6.14.0011.7516.  I got that error ONCE.  I rebooted my machine and haven't seen it since.  This happened while playing Sims 2 shortly after all the installing and logging in and out of the game after bringing my newly rebuilt rig home.  The guy who upgraded it for me inverted the back fan to be sure there was extra air blowing on the card and so far so good.  I don't have any program to test the temp or anything but I haven't had any errors, save that one time, so it seems to be doing OK.

My issues with game are not due to my video card drivers, unfortunately.

Now that I've read this I'll be sure and keep an eye on things.  Hope you both find solutions for your issue!

Also if the thing you're looking for is an actual mod or hack for the game and not an object you can find to delete in game, you can open up Sims2Pack Clean Installer and click on Downloads folder (upper right) - all modification files to game are in red, sort through those and you should be able to spot it.

Much as it pains me to even enter a thread here, I've finally given up my week long searching, reading, experimenting and general hair pulling.

I'll try and keep this concise.  What I'm looking for is someone who can make sense of this garble that is an error log.  Well, I have quite a few, actually, but I'll just attach the first two (why are they so long?). 

The short of it is, I upgraded my PC, made the fatal error of getting all the latest EPs and basically I'd just like to play (and understand what the HELL is going on here).  I'm not crashing to desktop.  I've experienced no BFBVFS.  And so far I've only begun playing in Uni with a couple sims and some generated NPC dormies.

My problem is that if I add another task to my sim's queue (assuming I have them doing something, or they have engaged in something), then I stomp the first one, both tasks poof. 

And everyone's gone mad.  They all walk around the dorm I built doing that "you're crazy" animation, like someone's dancing.  But... no one's dancing, well, except in the living room, in one small room downstairs.  It's actually pretty funny... in a sort of disturbing way.  And I have to admit the nouniprotect hack is definitely hilarious - I have several students passed out all over the place *snort* ... I digress...

Some of the other errors had to do with "missing effect names" or "headline errors."

The first one (attached) was upon first entering the lot.  The next one when I canceled her playing chess after achieving a logic skill point.

I don't expect to "fix" my game, per se, I'd just like to understand what the hell's going on.  At least that would give me some piece of mind at least.

Thanks in advance to the more technically inclined.

Ahhh OK, thanks!... and no, don't gots them.

I did just go through my hacks.  There was one there from jaxad for noNPCrevert or somesuch.  I think that's the culprit.  Off to test my game...

*crosses fingers*

*SIGH*

Oh dear, hack removing... joy.

Well, the only 'major' hack I have is ACR.  And I REFUSE to remove that.  It's just too fun.  Most of my hacks are from here.  I may have a couple Squinge's and a few others, but their mostly awesome.

Off to pull them out 

Oh, who/what is DMA?

Umm... huh??

Define "weird hacks" for me.  As I said in my original post, I ran the hack checker.  Nothing is conflicting.  And I don't have any hacks that affect NPCs or their attire.

I have all EPs except FF pack and Glamour addons.  This started I THINK with Pets, but seems it actually may have been since OFB.  But I can't for the life of me figure out why these two NPC groups have started wearing maid costumes.  I have checked for any hack conflicts and everything else seems to be OK.  Any suggestions on this?  I really don't want to try and learn SimPE just to change this, but if that's going to be my only fix...

Also, I have done an extensive search for this on many sites and couldn't find anything about this anywhere.  If I am in the wrong place, you have permission to thrash me, or at least point me in the right direction.

Thanks all 

I don't pretend to know how to bin and change hair colors.  I'm just your average downloader/player... but why not only download only the colors you want?  On Peggy's site, for instance, you can grab all colors at once, or you can get the mesh and then just download the shades you want.  You may think it's more time consuming, but then again, the time you're spending recoloring and binning has to be much longer.

And what is PMBD?  Please enlighten me as I love downloading hair myself.  Thanks 

Getting a 404 for that link, Karen.  Thanks for posting though, maybe they're just down temporarily.

Ah I see, thanks for telling me that.  Guess that means I need to delete half my downloads then 

Also, update... I launched Body Shop from the Start > Programs > EA Games > The Sims 2 Open For Business and it works perfectly.  Stupid Pets version is just... blank.

I think I'll take my chances with my weird numbered named files.  I've been playing forever with it all without incident.  I regularly check for dupes in Clean Installer and hack checker, etc.  Just glad I got BS workin.  Thanks again guys.

I know this thread has basically died, but I am having the same issue.  But only in Body Shop.  I can see clothing, but no mannequin shows up.  I can't see any of my sims in Build Sims either.  There's lots of empty little green rectangles and nothing when you click on them.  I have no problems in CAS and game is fine.  I just got Pets and thinking maybe this is an issue and I should use older version of Body Shop?  I periodically delete my CAS thumbnails as well and just did this before even trying Body Shop. 

I really REALLY don't want to do what poor theisz did, I'd rather shove hot bamboo under each fingernail.

P.S.  JM?  Could you be more specific about what you mean by files without names?  I mean, if I look in my Downloads folder (and subs) umm, they all have names, some numeric, some alpha, some both.  I'm feeling the Alzheimer's here.

hahahaha wow... what a strange time I'm having lately.  It's not just that one house.

This is a new neighborhood by the way.  I just made another couple, moved them into another cute little starter house (THANKS PLASTICBOX!) and man... the oddities I encountered tonight.  Pretty funny stuff though.

Still having "plumbing lag" which is just bizarre.  But I'm also experiencing jumping.  My sims will interact then suddenly be about 2 feet from where they were.  They complain of blocked pathing when there is nothing blocking them.  My wife sim suddenly got her face stuck in some contorted expression (LOL remember when your mom said if you keep doing that your face would get stuck that way? ROFL)  hehe I'm having fun with my simanomolies...

These two happen to be Fortune sims.  I have been trying for 3 sim days to get them the job they want (I want them both to be doctors) and try as I might (paper and computer) the medical field just doesn't seem to come up.  I COULD use Insiminator but I'm trying to let them find it the regular way.

In the meantime they gave me such a belly laugh.  I have never seen the "panhandle" action before.  I almost fell off my chair LMAO.

Ah well... I'm going to start taking out my hacks.  They have all been good till now.  Apparently one or more of them have decided not to play nice with the others anymore.  I'm sure that's it as I always use Clean Installer on any downloads and am pretty picky about what I put in my game.  But it's been an experience.

Hopefully taking out some of them will fix my plumbing as well, although I have no clue what could be conflicting with those items as the hacks I have have nothing to do with plumbing or any actions related to them *shrug*

Wow, thanks for all the responses. 

BlueSoup and KLGFCG, thanks a lot for "edumacatin" me there, really appreciated.

To the rest:

This is happening in a house (which is rather small actually) with 2 sims in it.  At first I contributed it to too many sims as I started noticing it after the "some neighbors have come to welcome you" thing.  But when it was just the two of them again, it continued.

I have two bathrooms.  One is just a toilet.  The other has a toilet, a sink and two showers.  Yes they are custom content but haven't lagged in other houses that I can remember.  I have sold several items, replacing them just to see what happens.  Seems to be plumbing in general.  It's not a game killer, just odd.  Although I have to admit watching them woohoo in the hottub in slow mo is a little strange.

I'm running:

Processor:  AMD Athlon 64, 3200+, 2.2 G
Memory:  1024 MB
Video:  Radeon 9800 PRO, 128 MB

I doubt it's my system.

I have recently gone through a big clean out of files and hacks as I was getting the "jump" bug.  I'm hoping I found the culprit.  We shall see.

Thanks for all your help.  Hopefully I'll sort this out, it's more of a slight annoyance than anything else, game runs excellent otherwise.

OK, I've searched my fingers to nubs ... Google, here, MTS2, you name it.  I just have 2 things nagging me.

1.  How in the hell do you use the eye dropper tool?  I can't find a single place that explains using it WHILE IN GAME.  I want to recolor an object that I was told you could recolor with that tool in the game and I have no clue how to do this.  e.g., I placed a bed, clicked the eye dropper, clicked the bed, and voila!  I got another bed!  woohoo!!  umm where did the color options go?

2.  For some reason now when my sims use any plumbing (showers, toilets, tubs, hot tub) my game lags like I'm running a 486 on dial up.  Soon as they're done, fast as lightning.  Very very odd.

Slam away!

As if I wasn't already wiping tears from LMAO at this thread to begin with, you had to put THAT image in my head ROFL!!!

That is too good.  If they make it, I'll be first in line!!!

*walks off cackling*