faceless guy

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you tried reinstalling your latest EP over that neighbourhood?  Just a thought, that if something within the hood is messed up, overwriting it might solve the problem.

[Zeljka]

That was before I'd installed EPs...

The only time I've had the 'matrix' pattern was after deleting recolours, seems that deleting certain countertops will do that to the base that came with it. I just chalk it down to a poorly done rc and delete them both... would probably try a little harder to figure it out if it happened to a Sim though.

[Lythdan]

The only time I had 'matrix' pattern when was I was trying out default replacements and accidently had two alien skins at once...the guy had the normal Maxis tone, but was missing most of his hair, but the middle. It was rather odd 

[ZephyrZodiac]

That was before I'd installed EPs...

The only time I've had the 'matrix' pattern was after deleting recolours, seems that deleting certain countertops will do that to the base that came with it. I just chalk it down to a poorly done rc and delete them both... would probably try a little harder to figure it out if it happened to a Sim though.

Sometimes hard to find which counter base and top go together, though, since there's no separate description for recolours.  And a ceiling light doesn't have two halves - it was just a recolour that for some reason didn't work!  And in-game deletion just doesn't work for me, the objects are back next time I load my game!

[Zeljka]

  And in-game deletion just doesn't work for me, the objects are back next time I load my game!

Wow, would I ever hate that!
In game deletion of recolours is about the only thing I'm pleased with (as far as relative simplicity and speed) I've often longed for the ability to delete the 'CAS recolours' in game with the same ease.

It was actually a set of counters with espresso, cappucino etc... written across the countertops. I liked it, but didn't feel I needed 5 or 6 copies of the same base to go along with the tops. (though I was wrong,  )

I'd downloaded them long before Uni was released though, so they were very early recolours. One of the few sets I'd been able to find back then in a decent colour (not purple, green, pink... just a deep coffee-ish sort of colour)

[ZephyrZodiac]

I haven't a clue why my game won't delete things properly, it's not as if the things are actually being used - it's happened in a new set of game files so there's nothing locking the files up!  And the stupidest thing is that with some bedding files which show blue in the menu are undeletable, and AREN'T THERE!  (I've checked, and they aren't!)  Now, in the set of folders I'm playing now, where I regenerated in order to play a historical theme, I've only put in a few bedding files.  The blue files appeared AGAIN!  I pulled out all the bedding files and stuck them on the desk-top.  Played once without them, then put them back in a few at a time.  This appears to have solved the problem in this game, but in my other game I must have about 100 bedding files, and most of them are in use, and I hate it when every darn bed in the neighbourhood has reverted to the insipid pale blue Maxis default!

[RainbowTigress]

Hehe, I feel your pain.   If you hover your mouse over the recolors, do you see a little yellow popup with the description of the file?  Sometimes you can get a clue about which one it is from that.  You may need to have testingcheats enabled, I'm not sure.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I think you must have to have that on, and I rarely do - it always seems to fubar everything! - as if they are just recolours I get no info at all - funnily enough, I often do with skin files, but never with objects!  It doesn't actually cause any problems with the game, it's just annoying!  Just wish I knew why the game won't permanently delete them, though - I thought maybe it was an installation glitch with NL, but I reinstalled NL and nothing changed, so it wasn't that.  Only other thing I can think of is they've somehow or other got into the Objects.package file before I made it read only (which I did as soon as the patch was installed and before I played the new install) and since I'd taken everything out while I reinstalled, I can't for the life of me see how that could happen!

[RainbowTigress]

And have you tried deleting the groups.cache file?

I don't think there is any way for them to get into your objects file.  If you marked it read-only right after installing the patch, then you should have a fresh objects file with the patch applied to it.  I believe it copies it fresh from your CD, then patches it, but it doesn't make it read-only as Maxiod Tom said it would.  So it must be something else that is caching the files and causing them to be restored on restart.

[Zeljka]

Could the sheets you can't delete just be badly done (old) recolours that overwrite the Maxis which is why you can't delete them in game?

Maybe running the duplicate scan in PE could find a few that are copies? (or perhaps like my cupboards, they were tied into a frame that was deleted?) I know it's a real long shot, but you never know!?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Oh, I delete groups.cache regularly.  No, for some reason, I'm fairly sure these were instances of the same file appearing twice!  Once with the correct colours, once just the blue.  As I said, it happened again with a new set of folders, and I only put in the bedding that seemed to fit with my historical theme (mostly what came with the beds themselves), and checking with Clean Installer or simPE didn't throw up any odd files, duplicates, empty files or anything like that!

I guess the reason I couldn't permanently delete them was because they had somehow duplicated in game, but moving them all out and then back in again just happened to work because this time around the game didn't duplicate them!