Thank you so much. Everything worked fine after I tweaked a few things in hardware. But I've had to rebuild enough hoods by now that I get nervous.

The problem appears fixed (see below). However, I need to know if a BFBVFS is impending. Oh, and if someone can tell me for certain what caused the problem so I'll know if it happens again, I'd be grateful. (I hope it's okay to include the image.)

I run Windows XP Pro with 4GB RAM, all my drivers are up to date. I'm playing with 2 Nvidia GeForce 8800GT cards. I have everything up through M&G and all the patches. DirectX is UTD.

This occurred in a very old hood that hadn't been played for three years. I recently compressed my DL folder. The problem included CC clothing and Maxis clothing (though not all of either type). It repeated in other hoods (the clothing catalog, not the paper doll people). I swapped out all folders and removed the Downloads entirely, but the clothing catalog still showed the red outfits. Finally, I checked in CAS. The outfits were red, but when I clicked on them, they were fine. I deleted the old thumbnails and let them regenerate. I also double-checked my graphics cards and discovered the SLI had been turned off. I put that back on. Everything has been fine since.

Ah, oops. Sorry. I should have searched first. 

I play with clean templates. I use the standard make townies cheat for regular townies and make my downtownies in CAS and then turn them into downtownies. That last bit's time-consuming even though I accept whichever face template CAS throws at me. I still name them and run a randomizer for aspiration, zodiac and turn ons and offs.

Is it possible to turn at least these downtownies into permanent downtownies (like the ones I deleted) so that they show up for all hoods? When I get bored with those, I could make new ones. This sure would beat making new downtownies every single time I make a new neighborhood. I don't trust the game to generate them on its own (I still wind up with doubles even without using the boolprop item).

It's driving me nuts that he's white. I thought he might be a very pale yellow (for lightning) but he's not. He's white. I hate mysteries! 

I'm only guessing that lightning killed him since I didn't see it. How dare he die when I couldn't point and laugh?

Thank you! I thought I'd missed a new death type or something. It probably was lightning (unless the dormie the ghost is furious with murdered him while I wasn't looking ).

My YA left the dorm for a jaunt on campus and then downtown. When he returned, there was a tombstone by the mailbox. I was gone long enough that I couldn't remember if it had been raining as he pulled away. Still, I chalked the death up to (probably) a lightning strike.

I didn't recognize the name on the tombstone and thought the victim must have been a visitor since my dorm appeared full. Last night, the ghost finally haunted. He drifted upstairs, cheered a bed, was furious at another dormie and scared a few peeps. He also hangs out near the mini fridge upstairs but doesn't raid it.

My only problem? The ghost is white. I watched him for quite some time. He obviously is not an elder. Is his color some stupid glitch because he's a YA dormie? Any ideas on what killed him if it wasn't lightning?

I'm more curious than anything else. In all my years of play, that's the first time I've had a ghost and not been able to pinpoint what killed it.

Well, duh. Why didn't I think of that? I really must have broken myself of the money-cheating habit! (It worked, by the way.) I was too focused on finding a way to make the stuck object remover work on a community lot. 

I've been working on a new community lot.  Being a lazy sort, I plopped down any decorations/items that looked usable so I wouldn't have to keep flipping through screens looking for them. Unfortunately, I didn't discover until halfway through the building process that one of these objects (a 3 story high facade) can't be selected.

I did a search here and found a few pointers, most of which I'd already tried (saving and entering the lot again, moveobjects on, etc.). I even tried zooming out to see if I could grab the facade with no results. I couldn't undo because I'd saved several times before I realized I had a problem. I tried going up and down floors. I tried the stair remover and wall remover and any other deleter that acted differently that I could think of. I can use the stuck object remover and when a sim visits the community lot, and the object disappears. However, it's right back where it was once anyone leaves it.

I'm afraid this lot will cause me problems later if I can't get rid of this object.

I have just under 4 gig in CC (including hacks, defaults and lots). It's a ton, but I know I have less than what I did before (not as much hair, eyes, skins, furniture and walls/floors/terrains). About once every two weeks, I might have had to delete my groups. cache, not every day. That's why I wondered if BV changed some stuff in that regard.

I'll remove about half of that and see how we do. I wanted to wait and see what I liked in game and didn't before weeding stuff out.

Thanks, everyone!

I reinstalled the game after losing everything to a system crash almost a year ago. I have arred versions of BV and H&M. The rest are regular. No FT or AL.

I know that periodically the groups cache file increases in size and must be deleted for your game to start. I'm fine with that. It's the first thing I check.

However, since this new install, my groups cache hovers around 900-1000kb all the time. I pretty much have to automatically delete it to boot the game. This doesn't seem normal to me. I did hunt up CC I remembered having from before, but I'm 99% sure I have less of it now than I did in the past.

Is this something BV started maybe? Or just dumb luck? Should I check polys (I don't really understand those) on the CC?

I'm running XP SP3 with Nvidia Gforce 8800 GT, 4mb RAM and a ton of internal memory. Pretty much a new machine with a new motherboard.

I want to catch any problem now (if there is a problem) so thought I'd ask the people in the know. Thanks.

P.S. I would happily make a donation to this site and the other one. You guys saved me from having to pay for some of my old CC twice.

I was sent on a space mission to retrieve three llama artifacts. Really makes me wonder about Will Wright.

I'm running up through Seasons, but not BV or FT. I created a completely clean neighborhood (using the templates found on this site), including a clean downtown.

I know that you can't automatically make downtownies using the tree because it's borked. I'd read that downtownies will eventually appear, only they haven't. I finally got tired of seeing my townies and CAS sims (including the Uni ones) filling in the holes in downtown, so I used the tree and made the downtownies one at a time. Yes, it gave me dupes, but I selected the "kill" option and never thought about it.

I know, I know. I should have created them in CAS and just made them downtownies. I was lazy.

Lo and behold, the next time I was in SimPe I discovered copies of my "killed" NPC attempts (i.e., I should--and do--only have one copy of each archetype).

Is it safe to delete the extras? If so, how should I go about it so I don't destroy my game? I haven't seen any dupes wandering around.

Oh, here's a <a href="http://i30.tinypic.com/efh0yf.jpg">screen cap</a>.

I wound up selling the stupid thing. I'd already passed along perks, so it's not like I lost those.

It was the weirdest thing. The game allowed the brother to visit the business and raid it of all its contents (stuck in his backpack to use on a new business) but wouldn't let him open it at all. At least I know it's no a problem with the ticket machine.

Thanks.

I have all EPs up to and including Seasons. The 'Business Runs You' hack is installed, but not set up on this lot.

My sim's sister transferred lot ownership of a ticket venue to him. The business shows as an owned business when he chooses to travel to a community lot. Upon arrival, the ticket machine had the "under construction" sign on it. I clicked on it to start charging customers and got this message: "Sorry, you must have started a business on this lot to use the Electrono-Ticket-Machine." It goes on to advise me to purchase the lot via phone under the real estate option.

That's when I checked his inventory. No deed. I called his sister over and selected her. She doesn't have the deed either (remember, the lot said it was owned on the travel to community lot menu). I checked all the relatives--including the mother (original owner) just in case I goofed for the deed, but couldn't find it. I ordered a deed, thinking that would solve the problem. Still will not let me start charging customers.

I deleted and purchased a new ticket taker a couple times, but had the same error. The only thing I can think of is that the business was transferred twice: first from the mother to the daughter and then from the daughter to her brother. Oh, and this was a business created by me, not one that came with the game.

I searched and couldn't find this problem (or maybe I'm blind). Help?

Me, too. I hope that's what she did.

Anyway, does anyone know if there's a fix for this problem (the sims not moving one)?

Sorry to resurrect this a bit. I'm nonawesome and not very computer savvy.  A friend is having problems on another forum and I knew this was the place to go. She recently installed Pets. That's when this started to happen:

"Well what happens is when I go to an OFB lot, or any community lot, my game plays good for a while and than the sims just stop moving. They don't freeze completly, because they will sway back in forth, cross their arms, but the game won't leave you give them any commands. So I deleted all my custom content... sob, sob, and started out with a clean download folder. It seems to have helped but I lost a lot of the custom hair the simselfs have, a lot of bald people in my neighborhood right now."

I told her not to delete her CC, just move it. *sighs* Did anyone ever figure out the cause?

You can buy the collars there and (I think) the actual animals.In fact, as far as I can tell you cannot buy a collar without going to the store. Grrrrr.

I thought they had the height of gall to expect my sim to restock their fishtanks, though!

I downloaded the latest version of these (I think they were updated on the 21st). Also downloaded and installed with them the latest phone hack. I no longer have the call friends/family option on regular phones. The regular interactions are there. On the cell phone my only option is call friends, but my sim jumps out of that when I select it.

I'm not sure if the cell phone is related to the above hacks, though. I gave it to my sim via the Insiminator (gasp!) before pets came out. I haven't had a chance to go to a commercial lot and buy one. I uninstalled the Insiminator when I installed Pets since they don't have an updated version.

The rest of my hacks are all from MATY. I deleted any that have been updated and reinstalled the new versions. I even tried selling the wall phone and buying a new one (old version, not the new phone that came with Pets) to see if that helped the problem. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Ewwwwwwwww! I had a dog roll in a puddle but not drink it.

And why doesn't the dog eat that delectable kitty roca from the kitty box? You know he wants to.

Did I read that right? The couple goes and watches the dogs fornicate? 

I always wait a few days to a week before I install a new EP. That way I can install any bug fixes that have come out and watch out for the bugs that haven't been fixed yet. Sometimes it's nice to be a dummy who relies on the smart folks here.

Weaver, thanks for that information! Don't know why, but it never occurred to me to look in the lot.

I decided I was making things harder for myself and took snapshots of the portraits today. I'll have my elder repaint them. That's what permaplat elders are for anyway, right?

I've heard about the new painting feature with Pets. It's about time they provide us with an easier way to do this.

Do I understand you correctly, Pescado? The paintings can be packaged up on an uninhabited lot and will move with it but not transfer the memories from the old hood?

But what's to prevent the furnishings from disappearing when I move out the existing family? I hardly ever package lots.

Maybe I can snapshot them and then use the custom painting wizard plug-in thingummy and make new paintings. *G* Gah! I bet I've spent more time trying to figure out a way to get around this than I would by just making a sim repaint them!

EDIT: Typo!