What exactly is in groups.cache, and why does it break so often?

[Serahs]

I have to delete groups.cache almost every time I start the game, and it doesn't bother me too much, but I am awfully curious as to what's inside that file and why it doesn't behave nicely.

[J. M. Pescado]

Have to, or do you just delete it because you feel like it, and perhaps falsely attribute everything that goes wrong to it? Because I'll let you in on a secret: I never do that.

[Serahs]

If I don't delete it, the game dithers about starting for a few minutes before vanishing from Task Manager. Sometimes I get a blank error message. Occasionally it actually loads, but it's easier to just assume it won't.

The problem's persisted after a reinstall and a restart from a vanilla The Sims 2 folder, so presumably it doesn't like my computer or my CC or something? I'm not Awesome enough to know exactly what's going on, only how to fix it.

[Tarlia]

I have this problem too, along with a whole bunch of other people, but usually only after my amount of CC gets over a certain point. I just assume that Groups.cache contains some sort of references to the CC (among other things, I presume), and starts having problems when it becomes too much.

[Serahs]

That would certainly explain why Pescado doesn't have this problem. And why I do...

/nudges eight gig Downloads folder under the bed and out of sight.

[J. M. Pescado]

You should not be using 8 GBs of CC. The game can only use 2 GBs of RAMz, so 8 GBs of CC plus the amount already in the game will overload the game and cause it to go boom.