Vanishing neighbourhoods?!

[DesmeiTheWench]

I'm sorry, I only seem to come here when things go tits-up. 

I have Sims 2 base game, Uni, NL, and I had issues with OFB, which had been behaving pretty well up till last week, when I noticed that Pleasantview and Strangetown were missing from the neighbourhood view. Gosh, said I, that's a rotter. I've removed the Sims 2 folder and re-started OFB. That worked really well...until I shut down the game. When I restarted, PV and ST were gone again. Re-did the folder thing. Worked again. Played nicely, then shut the game down. Went to start it up again yesterday morning, and PV was gone but ST had stuck around.

Oh, I have a non-Intel Mac Mini. What the hell is going on? No new hacks, either. Did notice a jump in one of my Uni Sims. He wouldn't shower no matter how stinky he got. Are the two issues related?

[jolrei]

Check your files using whatever Macs have to see the folder structure - are the files for the neighbourhoods still there?  If so, try deleting NeighbourhoodManager.package and let it respawn.  Possibly your neighbourhoods will come back.  Also, delete groups.cache and let that respawn as well.

Regarding the sim who won't shower, I would suggest running the game with debug mode on: 
boolprop testingcheatsenabled true

See if you get any error messages/logs. 

If you get a jump bug when he tries to shower, you may have a borked sim or borked lot.  In a similar case in my game, it was solved by moving the sim family to a new lot and bulldozing the old one.  Not sure it's the same problem for you.  What happens to the sim when he tries to get into a hot tub?

[ZephyrZodiac]

The shower and loo jump problem was caused by the attraction markers which came in NL, if I remember correctly, and at the time the only cure was to use SimPE to get rid of them.  Now, however, we have the FFSDebugger, which can clean up attraction markers from your sims, even on a Mac.  I'd suggest trying that and see if it helps. 

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/hacks/

[cwykes]

There's a post in the Podium from somebody whose Riverblossom Hills has gone missing.  Maybe it's the same problem..?  I have had problems with a 'hood not showing recently.  If I had half a brain left I'd remember what I did to fix it, but it was obviously wasn't complicated or I would remember. It was probably just deleting the neighborhoodmanager.package.  If you are getting one or the other, maybe it's ID numbers.  I don't know much about IDNos.

I suspect you know all the basic stuff, but in case something jogs your thoughts in a helpful directions - here's my handy 101 notepad file on "why doesn't this downloaded hood show up in my game".  I've been putting it together with LeChapeau's help.   

1. check you have the EP required - you need OFB for Meadow Lawns
2. download the RAR file
3. open the RAR file and put the N010 folder in Neighborhoods alongside your existing neighborhoods.  Putting the RAR file there won't work, you have to take the folder out of the RAR file.  Don't put N010 inside another N010 folder.  Don't move or copy N010 into a folder with other things in it.  You'll mix up files for two neighbourhoods and the new junky N010 is not going to work right if it loads at all.
4. check the download is complete.  If you right click and choose properties, N010 should be 2,490 files and 166 MB.  If the number of files is too low, the download didn't complete.  If it's too high something else is wrong.
5, check it looks normal - like all the other hoods with files where they should be.  Occasionally the extraction does odd things and you end up with files all over the place or an N010 folder inside another N010 folder.
6. If you re-numbered any files, check the re-numbering. It has to be N010, number 0, not letter O.  We've all done it sometime!  Check particularly the folder name and the N010_Neighborhood.package filename.  If those are OK, you ought to be able to see the hood on the neighborhood chooser screen.
7. It's possible the 'hood doesn't have a unique IDNo in your game.  Take all the other hoods out and also take out the neighborhoodmanager.package.  If you can now see the hood when you start the game, it's probably got the same ID Number as another hood  If you have SimPE you can go to the IDNo screen and hit make me unique.
8, while you're in SimPE, check what EP SimPE thinks it was made in.  If an OFB hood has acquired a Seasons tag somehow, you'll need Seasons to load it.

[lechapeau]

When you removed the Sims 2 folder and started OfB that let it generate a completely new set of neighborhoods didn't it, so this is definitely a recurring problem and it/they disappear/s each time?
That sounds like either a specification problem or a bad installation; specs if your machine can't handle the amount of information it needs to regarding any changes you made before quitting the game, and I'd check the installation to make sure. They shouldn't keep going, it's up to you of course and I wouldn't usually suggest reinstalls for no good reason but personally I'd want to check something hasn't got messed up in there in this case.
Generally with any game problem if it's still happening in a clean set of My Docs\EA Games folders then you check the install.
I don't know anything useful about Mac's, has it been OK since putting OfB on or did any of these troubles start soon after installing that?
Can you remember anything else happening since this started, like a game change or a computer change of any kind?
You say no new hacks, did you try removing any you have anyway just to rule those out?

The usual reason for a hood disappearing seems to be an incomplete save, where there was a power cut or surge and the computer got shut down and the neighborhood information is incorrectly saved, this will corrupt the neighborhood.package but that can get corrupted anyway without the power problems.

Does which neighborhood disappears connect with which one you entered? As in had you gone into both neighbourhoods the first time and only into PV the second? That tells us if the neighbourhood will go on its own or only when you quit or save from inside of a particular neighbourhood.

I'd think the IDNo's for Pleasantview and Strangetown should be OK, more stable than any for a custom hood but you never know!
They were a freshly generated set of neighbourhoods weren't they, you didn't paste replacements over the old versions? Overwriting a neighborhood can make it disappear completely or you can lose sims or lots, so if you did overwrite then try again but delete the original N001 & N002 first then put the replacements in the Neighborhoods folder.

[purplebunny]

I've heard before of people losing their neighborhoods if the game didn't shut down properly while saving -- it caused the Neighborhood files to corrupt. The N00x folders were still in the right spot, but the game couldn't see them. The only option was to restore from backup. Is this what's happening to you?

Another Mac user on another site I frequent also has the problem where her neighborhoods corrupt every time she switches between hoods in-game as her game crashes while switching hoods. This of course causes the above corrupt neighborhood that won't open problem.

I've never heard of this happening on a PC, actually... maybe this is solely a Mac problem? Or maybe they're just more prone to this type of crash?