There's also a file that shows up called accessory.cache.  Delete both often.  If you use Body Shop (as opposed to CAS in game) you'll sometmes see a third file ending in .cigen which you can also delete.  I suppose it couldn't hurt to delete your thumbnail files (should be five of them in your thumbnails directory).  In fact now that you are half uninstalled, I'd recommend it.  Your catalog thumbnails still have AL stuff in them and you don't have it on the machine anymore. More than a few times I've thought a download was corrupt only to finally remember those pesky .cache files and delete them, fixing the problem.  You may not have needed to uninstall.  

I've never tried uninstalling only one EP/SP from game and putting it back on.  I would think that it would be fine if it's your last item installed but I always just go full uninstall and reinstall to be safe since the game is buggy as hell.

I'd bet money you have suckyrom.  See the stickied thread in the top of this subforum.

Out of idle curiosity, did you delete your .cache files in your My Docs/Ea Games/SIms 2 folder after you removed your CC and before you uninstalled? 


Did you only try uninstalling AL or did you uninstall everything?

Were you using a nocd crack or a mini image so as to avoid suckyrom?

I'm only a baby nerd but those are the first things that came to mind.

Can I donate/buy a shirt in a couple of weeks?  I want one of the shirts badly but I has no moniez still the 15th.

Thanks Pandaah.  The testing one finally worked as advertised once I remembered to delete those pesky temp files the game dumps in the My Docs Sims folder.  I'll grab the other and rename it to be on the safe side.  Now I just have to track down which hack was causing forced alien pregnancies to jump bug on me (from my attempted research my money is on my multi PT hack).  Man I hate comping back to this game after an extended absence.  

EDIT

So I was right in that it was the multi PT hack causing me problems (due to stupidity on my part, wrong hack for the PTs I had).  But in the process of testing I discovered a conflict with the "testing" hack that someone else might run into.  I re-downloaded my multi PTs and got that working but as long as the mult PT hack package is in the downloads folder the forced abduction fix seems to be borked.  I can force alien pregnancies again but not the abductions.  I didn't think to force an error log at the time.  If someone wants it I'll do it tomorrow or something.

2nd EDIT:

Changing load order to fix another problem entirely fixed this.  As long as this hack loads before the multi-PT hack, forced abductions are peachy again. 

There are two versions of this in the AL directory; one in testing  dated June 2008 and one in the regular hacks folder dated Feb. 2007.  Are they the same?  I've tried both but noticed no difference.  I just reinstalled (adding 2 EPs and 3 SPs to the mix) and am having a hell of a time fixing that forced abduction (and forced alien pregnancy) jump bug.  Most information I've found directs people to this hack.

Are you postive of that?  My OS is on my C Drive, my programs installed on my D drive and my data files (including my documents) is on my E drive.  Very long story as to why I have such a screwy setup, but in any case, my game, lots and neighborhoods load just fine.

I suck at neighborhood building because my machine is getting more than a bit dated and the load times kill me (and also I lack imagination).  So I always make one "mall lot" for my sole community lot; has a little bit of everything in terms of stores (no grocery) and things to do.  That way I only have to go to one place.  Due to reinstall issues, I haven't had a chance to play with the options opened in any EP past Uni, yet. 

Well before my reinstall nightmare (can't get a manual install in safe mode to work...grrr) I was using Uni everything of Pescado's (non-DC, haven't gone poking there since I added the EP) save the "no regen" hacks.  I have default replacements for names, skins and faces.  Between that and clean templates in spanky fresh hoods, regenerating townies and NPCs were just fine by me.  I think I also hadn't bothered with anti-redundancy hack yet but I was starting to see the signs that I might want to. 

I'm in the process of trying to reinstall so that I can install all the EPs but, again, nightmare, so no go as of yet.  In the event that I pull it off before breaking every disk that's too old to return, my plan was to go grab BV everything (from all hacks and maybe some DC stuff).  In reality I think I just have many new shiny coasters.

Regarding that old twins food thing; does anyone know what the source of that rumor was?  I swear it was something that came from a  game developer which was why it was given so much credence by the community long after experimentation proved it untrue.  I only have the base game and Uni but I thought I read that some food thing has been or is being added to one of the EPs.  Perhaps the company goon was referring to something that wasn't in the game yet at the point the rumor started?  In any case that one always bugged me because of the non-awesome stupidity it unleashed on the various Sims 2 message boards.

Both of those work too.  My advice is just for the repeat telemarketers (easy to spot with new automated telemarketing weirdness) that you either want to get rid of or accidentally answer the phone for.  Most people with annoying peon jobs are more willing to help out when they think you're one of them (implied by my quota comment).  Depending on the place doing the calling, the phone person may be able to do a little something extra to pull you from calling lists not covered by do-not-call laws.

I had the same problem recently with another program and had to manually delete it.  I just deleted the program and cleaned all of it's entries from my registry (using CCleaner).  Not as clean as dizzy's method but I haven't had any issues as of yet (any time I've done this).  I'm only a baby nerd though so you might want to do some research with potential problems that can be caused by such a procedure before you try it.  Since I lack disks for my OS it was kind of my only option barring an annoying road trip to my step dad's house. 

For whatever it's worth, being nice to the peons is always the way to go.  Bonus; it works on most (intelligent) annoying phone type people as well such as telemarketers and political opinion poll people (both jobs I've been stuck with recently).  Just cut them off, apologize for not being interested, ask them to not to call again and tell them you hope they make their quota.  Won't help you if you get the idiot overly pushy phone types, alas.  And much like waitresses (I did graveyard shifts for years and refuse to use the word server as most customers think it means "servant") who see your food before you do, you really don't want to tick off a person who is likely looking at your address. 

I haven't followed the gamer vs. company drama on this game since just before Uni came out, but I'm not surprised that it's going down the way it is.  Most distributors don't really seem to care about the product they put out anymore, and rely on the fan community to fix (I mean make mods for) the game after it's release - NWN, The Movies, The Sims, etc.  Sigh.  At least there are bigger nerds than I out there, figuring out how to fix all the implied crap.  With rocket launchers.

Thanks Sara, thread bookmarked and I'll try all of that next time.  This time, the repeated (2nd or 3rd) exit from the game did the trick. To which I say, "the hell?"  So I went back to cleaning downloads and caused the problem again.  This is me exiting game and going back in again.  If it doesn't work, I'll try all of your tips (and report back on how it went in case there's other dolts like me out there somewhere).

ETA:  SO far I haven't had to try your tips as exiting and reentering generally works.  Just in case I deleted all my relevant thumbnails and groups.cache for this next round.  I haven't replaced those package files because I don't particularly feel like fighting with my CD drive at the moment (I'm assuming I need to copy them from the disks to the program files folders as opposed to from the program folders to my ea games folder).  It's got a buggy open and close issue. 

Thanks again.

I'm playing Base Game plus Uni (patched, no stuff packs) on an XP machine.  Radeon 9200 series vid card with updated drivers.  I went on a massive download bender and was in game double checking the look of stuff to delete it.  I killed a custom texture on a maxis door and suddenly all of my Maxis doors with white textures are flashing blue.  As in no CC is being affected, just the maxis textures.  Exited game, went back in, still blue and still only default game stuff. 

I've gone looking here, at the official site, the wiki, and modthesims for more info on the flashing blue thing (which I haven't run into in for literally years, and then in a perfectly normal way) and nothing I've found is helping.  I seem to be having weird issues with my search keywords in terms of finding more info.  Anyone have ideas?  A thread here that I didn't see?  I'm playing for the first time in a year or so, so I'm drawing a blank on a lot of tech info for this buggy game and not a lot of folks are covering Uni only these days.

Worst case scenario there's always a reinstall (in safe mode for me because I have one of THOSE disks) but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.