Phones not working -- actions dropped since BV

[qvcatullus]

Hey, all. I hadn't played in a long time, then I grabbed the more recent expansions and plugged them all in. I also tried to update my hacks, but maybe I missed something and that's causing my problem.

When my sims attempt to use the phone, the action is just dropped out of the queue. It shows up if the game is paused when I select it, but on unpause it immediately drops out of the queue. In addition to that, my sim that owns several businesses doesn't get the 'check in with businesses' option, but I wonder if that's simply because the expansions have moved that to somewhere else where I can't find it.

I thought that perhaps the problem was that the phonehack was not up to date with BV, but I redownloaded the BV version and it was the same thing I had already put in there. I'm hoping that someone recognizes the problem or has a good idea where to start before I start messing with a binary search to pin down what's going wrong.

[jolrei]

Did you remove old hacks before putting in updates?  Some earlier hacks have been rendered obsolete, so there may be old versions sitting there that conflict.  Remove ALL awesome hacks and reinstall from the BV director's cut (assuming you have BV).

Which EPs are you running, by the way?

[qvcatullus]

I am running all the EP's now -- uni, NL, OFB, Pets, seasons, and BV.

I did attempt to remove the hacks before installing, but I do have a very messy downloads folder, so I'm thinking it's possible that something was missed.

I didn't see a BV director's cut -- latest director's cut I found was for Seasons. I must have been looking in the wrong place. I was mostly just downloading the files I thought I needed from the BV folder.

[KatEnigma]

It sounds to me like the phone hack was still in your downloads folder when you installed. Remove your entire downloads folder, uninstall BV, reinstall, and then try on a throwaway lot. If everything looks okay, put your downloads back, with the new versions of the hacks. You also will want to scan through your folder with clean installer to look for duplicates or outdated hacks.

[qvcatullus]

I think I've narrowed down the problem. I forgot to pull out an old community lot parties hack that apparently doesn't work anymore with BV.

Unfortunately in the meantime I uninstalled BV and am having trouble trying to restore backed-up versions of the neighborhood.

Anyhow, I think that's the issue. Might be useful to know for anyone else having the same problem.

[Invisigoth]

It sounds to me like the phone hack was still in your downloads folder when you installed. Remove your entire downloads folder, uninstall BV, reinstall, and then try on a throwaway lot. If everything looks okay, put your downloads back, with the new versions of the hacks. You also will want to scan through your folder with clean installer to look for duplicates or outdated hacks.

Why would an uninstall/reinstall be necessary for something that is so clearly a hack problem? That just seems like extra work for no real reason.

@qvcatullus: For future reference the best method (in my humble opinion) when installing a new EP is to remove the TS2 folder from my docs entirely (by dragging it to the desktop) or renaming it. I change mine to "Not The Sims 2". A fresh folder gets created, thus when I start a new EP I am always absolutely certain that my game is hack free. I test for awhile using the maxis default hoods before I drag my N00X folders from "Not The Sims 2" into the appropriate area of "The Sims 2" folder. Then I download the newer versions of the hacks and as I do so I delete the old ones from my "Not The Sims 2" downloads folder. This way I can see what I used to have so that I won't forget any hacks that I wanted. I drag all of the CC that doesn't need updates (bodyshop stuff, most objects) right back in so that I don't have to hunt them down again. This time you should do your best to really organize your downloads. I subfolder them by type and then by creator. For example, I have a folder for hacks and inside of that I have a folder for JMPescado, TwoJeffs, Syberspunk etc. I have a folder for clothing and inside of that I have a folder for AllAboutStyle, MTS2 creators (with subfolders for each creator), Nouk etc. This will save your sanity in the long run.
You can find the Bon Voyage director's cut here.

[KatEnigma]

Because he said he'd already removed his hacks, at least to his knowledge.  If you install over hacks, simply removing them doesn't always solve the problem, especially if they are globals. I had this specifically happen with the phone hack. But hey, if you want to try to fix crap like that without uninstalling, knock yourself out. You'll just have to uninstall later, anyway.