Riverview Woes

[CLmeow]

I did several searches, found other posts with information on what to do and followed it all.  Let me explain what is happening.
I upgraded my boyfriend's game, to WA and HELS, and he had been playing in Riverview.  When he went to play, he found no schools, and several other rabbitholes gone.  He called me to fix this.  I looked it up here, and followed the reccomendations (spelled wrong?) of moving the Riverview.world file, re-downloading it, and even downloaded it from the Sims 3 site extracted it and recompressed it, and put it in again.  Still, no schools or other buildings.  I started a new Riverview game, checked it out, same thing.  When I tried to put them in manually, the files were not even there.  I have tried everything I could to get this to work.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Oh, and I used s3pe to put the files extracted with Delphy's tool together, and it still did not work.  The stupid launcher is not working (of course).

Edit:  I went in, moved his family out to the bin, deleted the town, deleted the Cache files, downloaded it yet again! and then I re-installed it again, started up the game and looked, same problem.  I'm stumped!

[Simsample]

Don't recompress it; just download afresh from the store and install via launcher. Leave the DCCache files and World files where the launcher puts them, that should work.

[Slymenstra]

You had said your launcher didn't work, not sure how to help you without it.  If you can use the launcher this is what I did to get it to work.

They way I had to get my Riverview to work was to DL a fresh copy from Sims 3.  I cleared my 4 cache files in Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3.  I also made sure there was nothing inside DCCache folder. (If you have things installed here just move them to a safe place for a moment.)  I then installed Riverview.  The installer creates a file called dcdb0.ebc.  This file contains the items needed for Riverview (rabbitholes etc.)  I have to keep that file in DCCache in order to get Riverview to work properly.

I do not compress or decrapify anything to do with Riverview.  I created a back up of this dcdb0.ebc file and move it out whenever I need to use the launcher.

My Riverview works and everything is labeled properly.  I am patched with WA and HELS.

Backup any of his saved games just in case.

ETA: My resource.cfg files looks like this

Priority 500
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*.package
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*.package
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*/*.package
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*/*/*.package
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*/*/*/*.package
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*.dbc
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*.dbc
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*/*.dbc
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*/*/*.dbc
PackedFile Mods/Packages/*/*/*/*/*.dbc
PackedFile ../../../Users/YOURNAMEHERE/DOCUME~1/ELECTR~1/THESIM~1/DCCache/*.dbc
PackedFile ../../../Users/YOURNAMEHERE/DOCUME~1/ELECTR~1/THESIM~1/DCCache/*.ebc

I have no idea if any of that is unneeded but my stuff works.

[CLmeow]

Thank you so much!  I will try this when I go to his house tomorrow and see if it works, and either way will post here to let you know what happened.

[morriganrant]

You tried the directions here?
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,17707.0.html

This is the method I used to have a working Riverview.

[CLmeow]

Yes, those are the directions I followed that did not work.  I did as directed here and it has worked!  Thank you all for your input.

[jonas]

I fear I may have lost my main family.

After trying the above methods, I was, in fact, able to create a new game that shows Riverview in all its shining glory.  However, when I try to load up my main save, the majority of homes remain blue. This makes me blue because it's been a month since I've been able to play.  I'd be fully willing to relocate my family to Sunset Valley if there's a way and simply delete that save.  Anyone know how?  I can't access them in-game. 

Ironically, when this all began, I was about to let the Dad of the family be killed off by the Curse.  In a way, he has escaped my sordid plans for him! I hate starting over.

[morriganrant]

I fear I may have lost my main family.

After trying the above methods, I was, in fact, able to create a new game that shows Riverview in all its shining glory.  However, when I try to load up my main save, the majority of homes remain blue. This makes me blue because it's been a month since I've been able to play.  I'd be fully willing to relocate my family to Sunset Valley if there's a way and simply delete that save.  Anyone know how?  I can't access them in-game. 

Ironically, when this all began, I was about to let the Dad of the family be killed off by the Curse.  In a way, he has escaped my sordid plans for him! I hate starting over.

Are they blue as in BLUE squares or blue as in they seem to have sunk into the land and the lots are underneath? Some people seem to have confused these two separate issues before. There are threads around here on both.

[Slymenstra]

I am going to get slapped for helping but so much information is buried all over several different sites. 

You may have had bad CC.  Read this to see if it resembles what you saw: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,17241.0.html

This tool helps you locate and fix bad CC files:
http://linna.modthesims.info/download.php?t=387006

If your problem was caused by this then the saved game is broken and you can not do anything with it or the people in it.

I don't know how many times I have had to restart my neighborhood due to the millions of bugs associated with this game and then throw in bugged CC.

[CLmeow]

What I did to save my boyfriend's game was to take the family he was playing and save them to the bin.  I then deleted his save game and took out Riverview, then downloaded it fresh from the sims 3 site, and loaded it again.  You may need to do that too, to save your family.  Of course, you then have to reforge new relationships and all that jazz.  But at least you will still have your family and not have to totally start over.

[jonas]

@morriganrant:  Strangely there are 2 or 3 small homes not affected by the blue square blues.  *EDIT* Upon re-loading, when I first go into the game, the lots DO appear sunken.  They are blue and at first, I can access my family sims and select them, but I cannot make them do anything but change clothes.  When I go into edit town mode, I lose all ability to select them or their house again.  Hope?

@Slymenstra: I do think I have a small CC problem with duplicated CC found in both of my .dbc files.  I believe this occurred by foolishly downloading a home/sim.  Something we used to be able to do without too much worry.

@CLmeow: Please tell me how to save this family to the bin because I can't seem to select them even though they are the current family in the saved game! Maybe I missed something.  I will load and try this because I'm certain this neighborhood/save is a wash.

[morriganrant]

Blue lots, that are just blue squares, are usually caused by bad cc. These CC files were created by cloning certain objects, and the game just didn't take kindly to them after some patch or another. I believe that there is no help for these lots if the game is saved with them like that, but you can keep it from happening again by removing the cc (dbc or package) and recollecting the fixed files.

The sunken lot issue, is a different issue caused by shoddy Riverview install. When you open the hood, the terrain my look oddly blurred and the lots appear to be light blue. Closer inspection reveals that where the lots should be are actually holes in the terrain, and the actual lots are below the terrain. This one is easily fixed