Have no idea what's going on with this one but might as well go through the story as to I got to this problem.

I sent one of my teen sims, Wilmer, to University in a dorm by himself.  He didn't even last a sim year before dying by refusing to walk away from a burning tree.  I guess he thought his name was Moses.  Grim reaper came and the dorm was left with his tombstone on the dorm lot.

Many play sessions later, I try to move in 2 new sims onto the same lot.  They both mourned at the grave for a sim they never knew, disappeared from the spot and never showed on the lot again.  That in itself would completely bother me because I could just teleport them from wherever they were however more problems came up.  In the queue, the first box was lit green, stating that the sim was coming out of the taxi.  The game kept queuing that my sim had to grow up.  The UI at the bottom of the screen never showed.  The game was stuck at 3x speed.  The keyboard shortcuts to change speed and enter the build/buy mode didn't work.  I'm getting messages from the game telling me my sims missed a day of school or that the bus is coming to pick them up in an hour.  I had to alt-tab out of my game and go through the task manager to shut down my game.

I'm not worried about the sims themselves since I didn't get to save anything anyways.  So, does this sound like a borked lot?

I assumed from my situation that it was a portal problem.  I still haven't figured it out but it was on a shrunken lot and it's the only one that has ever given me a problem.  My temporary solution, no one live in the apartment building.

I was moving a family from one apartment to another apartment building.  Sent a couple of them off lot and brought them back and was then notified that some sims were coming to welcome the family into the neighbourhood.  I ignored it and continued giving my sim a makeover.  The sim I was controlling decided to go down and play mahjong with his father when I noticed 2 of my playable sims from a different family, who happened to be the exact same sim, Meadow Buckingham.  She had just finished introducing herself to herself.  Great!  Evidence that my neighbourhood is about to go through BFBVFS.  And then I notice 1 Meadow Buckingham (different from the 2 who have just introduced themselves) playing chess, another letting herself into the apartment building, another about to sit and play mahjong and 2 more introducing themselves at the curb.  I count 7, however sim blender counted 9.  I can easily get out of the house without saving anything and cross my fingers that it was a one time glitch.  However I've gotten duplicates before but never 9 of the same sim.  I'm sure Meadow's fiance will be happy with 10 in the bed but I'm not.  

What is a safe way to get rid of the offending extras (and I am willing to kill every single one of them off to do it too) and hopefully save the rest of my neighbourhood from becoming a BFBVFS?

EDIT:  Went back into the game, trying to see if any of the Meadows had any memory of interacting with each other.  Selected one, Friends panels and memories showed nothing of her meeting another Meadow Buckingham.  I decided to check out another Meadow Buckingham and my game seriously slowed to a crawl.  Only time I remember this happening was with the invisible NPC from basegame problems.  I went back down to the first floor and found the Army of Meadow Buckingham.  Suffice it to say, I exited without saving and I'm about to go double check in SimPE if there are any duplicate sims in this neighbourhood.

I have a sim named Jake who's the Mayor of one of my towns.  When it's time for a new mayor to be selected.  I would like the 1 community lot that Jake owns and the vacation home to be given over to the new mayor.  Is there a way to do this without actually selling the lot for simoleons?  What are the different methods that can transfer ownership of a lot?

I made sure I had checked for the floor dividers and made sure they were gone when I started changing the lot over.  I'll double check and try to get the rent recalculated.

I just changed a residential lot into a 4 unit apartment.  The first 3 units are fine however, the 4th one on top floor is only going for $125 while the other 3 are around $1200.  Thinking my sim just got a wonderful bonus, since he could still use everything in the apartment, I continued my game, until he rolled wants for basic things like a toilet, tub and fridge which are all provided in the apartment.  I tried to place another toilet just to see if the want would roll away.  I couldn't place anything in the unit.

Quick description of the unit itself:
-Loft style
-techinically, it's on 2 floors but the bottom floor just goes to the stairs that lead up to the loft
pic #1, pic #2

I want to know if this unit can be used properly as an apartment or does the game have an issue with stages and stairs in apartments.

Trust me when I say I've followed the directions to the tee and it has worked fine for my old computer but it's not working for this one.  I've accepted that and moved on.  I'll try the link you provided

So here's the problem.  Clean templates don't seem to work for my computer and I still can't figure out why.  However, I wanted to start a clean neighbourhood, delete the sims in the sim bin and find a way to clean out all the messy bits via whatever method is available.

I need direction as to how to do that.  I've heard a deleteallcharacters is not good to use but I don't know how to clean up the mess it leaves behind.  Is it even possible to do so?

Sending links to tutorials regarding this would also be helpful as well.

Just as a quick clarification (while praying someone will still be reading this thread), by packaging the lot, do you mean you put it in the lot bin or does it have to be packaged externally?

I have a sub hood that I used to use more often and a main hood where most of my gameplay is.  On the subhood, is an owned community lot that is a masoleum with 3 urns on it.  I wanted to move this masoleum to the main hood.  I'm not worried about the ownership but I am worried about the urns and the ghosts associated with the lot.  Will they still function the same if put in the lot bin or will I looks the platinum status and perhaps the ghosts of the urns?  If I place the urns in the owner's inventory instead, how would that work or would it corrupt something?

I'm running Vista and I'm doing this with a fresh Sims 2 folder in my DL folder every time.  No hacks, no cc, just what the game provides on it's own.

Redid all of my neighbourhoods, following the instructions (create a back-up, replace or delete the files in the characters folder, replace the neighbourhood package).

Issues:
- Pleasantview is completely missing
- Doubles of all of the binned families
- Sim State University and La Fiesta Tech have no buildings, just lot outlines with plumbobs floating above the occupied lots from Sim State

I used the links provided by Sleepycat.  Am I missing something basic?

I did go through all of the stealth hoods from Pets to AL, in addition to going through Base-NL.

I went to the link on the "List of Empty and Cleaned-Up Templates" and it only links to the empty neighborhood.packages.  Are there any link for the cleaned out ones instead?

I don't know where I'm going wrong with these templates but they are driving me nuts.

I believe I followed the instruction regarding cleaned out templates (Base-AL+stuffpacks).  I was going for no Maxis characters but the ones already in residence.  No sims in the family bins.  I currently have Universities and Downtown that have no lots but the green or blue outlined ones.  Sims can move in but no one can be moved out and the lot can't actually be entered.  I have also have had to problem where all of the sims in the bins are duplicated (yeah me and my duplicated sims) when there aren't supposed to be any sims there in the first place.

Going through my Program Files, all of the character files are empty, the lots are still there and the neighborhood.package has been replaced.  I don't know if there's some hidden folder where all of these Critturs and Ramaswami's are hiding out but I want them gone.

Completely emptied with no files
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\P001\Characters
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\D001\Characters

All of the lots are present
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\D001\Lots

I have tried starting a new Sims 2 folder under my documents but all of the sims are there...in the bin, almost waving at me.

Any help or suggestions...anything?

I had to get home to double check but I do have the notownie regen hacks, however just inc ase, I downloaded the one from Sept 2 2008 and hope this fixes the problem for my other neighbourhoods (in case they decide they want to nuts).

There are no apartments in this neighbourhood, just one house, 2 empty community lots, and 4 community lots that actually have something built on them.  I have the other neighbourhood I play way more often with quite a few apartments and still no duplicate AL townies.  Never mind, I will try the hack out before I comment further.

The neighbourhood's not really new but I have been playing only 1 household for 3 generations and there are no other playables in this neighbourhood.  I had noticed 1 sim being seen twice in game about a week ago.  I hadn't played the neighbourhood again until yesterday, only to find that majority if not all of the AL townies are duplicated in game and according to SimPE as well.  All other various townies and NPC are fine (with the exception of 4 human statues and 4 break dancers...unless that is considered normal by game).

This issue is not spread in my other neighbourhoods, mainly one much larger and with many more playables.  I'm assuming therefore it is not an issue with the templates then.  However since I had used empty templates though, the corrupted neighbourhood is N002, could that be one of the reasons why the neighbourhood is spawing duplicates of all AL townies?

I already used the neighbourhood, and it's decorated almost perfectly for what I had in mind.  The sims are moving to the base hood anyways.  I wanted other sims to be able to purchase vacation homes there instead.  I'll just scrap the subhood and create a vacation hood with same terrain and call it the same thing...problem solved I guess.

I have a business subhood in game and would like to change it to a vacation destination instead.  Is there anyway to do this or would I just have to create the vacation destination from scratch instead?

Only problem with that is that I don't have any mods regarding aging from either Inge or Two Jeffs in my game or any aging mod that I can find by anyone else.

I finally just started to realize what's crashing my game.  For quite some time, my game would crash at the same time everytime I play my Legacy household.  They're only at Gen 3 so in my opinion, the lot shouldn't be too bad just yet.

When my sim Wyatt would come home from work, brought a friend home, the game would crash, by 10:30 PM on the Friday.  I tried again in debug mode and no error message would pop up regarding the issue but the game still crashed.  I deleted the group.cache file, went back into my game.  He came home from work, brought a different friend home and then aged into an elder.  It wasn't until then that I realized what the problem is.  My game has never (except once) asked me if I wanted to age a neighbour/townie when my sim ages.  The one time it did ask, I picked a random sim and the game crashed.

Just in case, I attached the last error log that I got from it.

I lost the booklet that came with my Teen Style Stuff.  Who cares about the booklet?  I do because it had my serial code on there and I would like to install it on my computer.  Does anyone know where on the CD itself, this information (serial code) can be found so I can install it?

I had used empty shrunken lots that were provided by MaryLou.  I didn't build anything on there that went to the edge of the lot, or at least not in this neighbouhood.

As for the original issue, or continuation of my problem with my fliipping game  ...

My body shop is currently being VERY picky as to clothes I put in the downloads folder.  I've already discovered it hates an outfit from Adele, all of the underwear I downloaded from Adele and pants from Aikea.  It will open, load part way and then disappear as if I never tried to open it in the first plac, leaving those error files in my Sims 2 folder, at like 40 at a time.  I haven't tried to open up my game yet.  I haven't even started on objects or hacks. 

Mootilda: Before I had FT, I used the Lot Adjuster (available somewhere on MTS2), after FT. it wouldn't work properly for me anymore so I just use MaryLou's shrunken lots available on MTS2

Pescade: By completely removing my DL, Bodyshop started to work again.  I replaced my defaults and it still works.  I'll have to do more testing though to see if everything is going back to normal.

Considering there's no CC except for clothes and default skintones and face templates, is there anything that can be done to fix the game or is it a complete re-install?

I have just recently tried moving all the sims that i had on any kind of shrunken lot and tried to place them on the Maxis porvided 2x2 lots...crashed the game again.  Is it even possible to save this neighbourhood anymore?

EDITED TO ADD:

I started a whole new game, with no hacks, just a few pieces of clothing and default replacements for skins and such.  Got into the game fine.  Tried to get into a random house in Riverblossom, and the game crashed.  Bodyshop also will not open, it will just leave me a bunch of thingies in my Sims 2 folder.

So I'm going under the assumption that some important background file may have gotten deleted and since I don't know what it is, and I'll have to reinstall everything.  However, I don't currently have on of my expansion packs.  Would I be able to keep my folder that is already on my C:\ drive and just put it back in after the reinstall and still have all the info from that expansion pack?