Random desktop crashes

[ZephyrZodiac]

The groups.cache thing is distinctly odd!  I just checked my current game one, and it's dated today's date!  So obviously something is not right with your game!  But why not just move your game folder to the desktop and uninstall/reinstall your latest EP?  That's a lot quicker than a complete reinstall and may well sort out the problem.

Another thing crosses my mind, is, which order did you install the EPs - in release order or did you install NL and then Uni?  I remember with Sims1 if you did things in the wrong order you often had to reinstall the latest by release date afterwards.

[vilia]

I installed them in release order and as I said earlier was able to play with no problems for a couple of weeks.  Something mysterious happened yesterday that it didn't like but I've no idea what. Ah, sims, can't live with them, can't live without them 

Unfortunately I didn't see your latest message earlier as I went to bed & then I got up really early and re-installed everything without checking MATY first - silly me.  I will however try the latest EP trick if it happens again - and knowing my luck it probably will. 

sends a big smile and box of chockies ZephyrZodiac's way

[ZephyrZodiac]

  

[bluecatvon]

just an update. even with deleting groups.cache, i still get the crashes at times, thought they have become less frequent. it doens't bother me much, so everythings a-ok here

[ZephyrZodiac]

Maybe it happens after you've been playing a while and used up too much RAM?  I usually close my game when it starts to get choppy, or at least save and exit the lot and move to a smaller one.  And I check my stats in TaskManager too.  sometimes I find the CPU is working overtime, and staying out of the game for a while calms it down.

[greeneyedsims]

My game would not necessarily "crash" to the desktop, but "fall" to the desktop...if that makes sense.  The screen would all of sudden, at random times(during loading, during the neighborhood screen, etc.)  just "minimize" to my desktop.  When I would click to bring the game screen back up...the game would come back with no problem, then do it's regular thing for a quick 3 seconds, then all of a sudden it would "minimize" to desktop again.  I would have to scramble to quit out of the game before it did it again.

I defragged my computer and that seemed to have solved the problem.  My hardrive was badly fragmented.  So, this might be what's going on with some of your computers. 

--green

[angelyne]

Well since this thread came back to life, I should mention that I have solved my problem as well.  I had installed quite a few houses in my neighbhoorhood for flavor purposes.  I had a downtown with Erwin's appartement buidlings, I had a slum area with some of Cyclonesue's houses.

Finally I made the connection that my problems started soon after I started populating my neighbourhood with houses.  So I moved  to the house bin a whole bunch of different houses I had installed and lo and behold my problems stopped.

I don't see the relationship, but then it's all part of your neighbourhood file, so maybe something wasn't right in one of those houses.  Weird though.

I was also using a no CD method, (running Virtual Daemon manager witha mini image).  I went back to using the CD to be sure that wasn't the problem.  Well after a while with no problems, I went back to using Daemon Tools because the sound of my cd drives whirring up to speed every time I boot or start the game drives me NUTS.  Everything has stayed stable so the problem is firmly pointed in the direction of one of my ex-house

[ZephyrZodiac]

Did you check in SimPE to see if you'd gained a lot of unlinked character files?

[bluecatvon]

i hope i'm not performing necromancy..i fear JM

i've closed all unneccesary programs, processes and such. i restart my computer everytime i want to play the game. as for unlinked character files, simPE is annoyingly lagging on my computer. in fact, even mozilla firefox is..i have 1400MB something of RAM, 256 or at least 128MB of graphic memory, but the problem persists. yes, i agree i need to defrag my hard drive very much. maybe that'll help haha.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I would say yes, clean up your hard drive in every way you can, run Chkdsk, run Defrag, check for spyware, clear all your caches and do everything to make your RAM yours again!  Then try running simPE again.