Mysterious Data loss from Downloads

[RabidAngel]

Hi all,
Something really strange happened to me recently....
Many of my current downloads that were in use have disappeared.     I went into my game to find that many of my sims were missing hair and makeup.  So, I thought perhaps there might have been corruption in the sim data files, and went to go and hopefully remake the sims with the "change appearance" option in the mirror and found that a ton of files had gone missing.  Many hairstyles and other things are completely gone.  I went and redownloaded a few files that I knew where to find, and did a search throughout my entire computer for their exact file names, wondering if these files were somehow moved, but found nothing...It's strange because some files, which I had recolors of were still in tact, but it seems like the target files that were deleted were files that were currently in use on certain sims..
I am completely and utterly baffled as to what could have happened.  I rarely, if ever, dabble in simpe but do use sims2pack installer.  The latest thing I did that was out of the ordinary was opened up the new sims2 download organizer program put out by Maxis, but have no way of knowing whether or not this was when the files went missing. I did not alter any files with this program as I just opened it up to look at what all the hype was about and then closed it once i found that sims2pack clean installer was a better app for what I wanted.
Has anyone ever had files go missing before?  Can anyone take a guess as to what may have caused this strange occurence? It's the strangest thing to me...All of my saved sims files are intact...and many of my other downloads are fine, but there are a lot of missing files.  I have checked to see if somehow they were put in subfolders within my downloads folder and found nothing. And as I mentioned before, I searched for a few specific files across my entire computer, and found that these files are completely gone.
I have also done a couple of different virus scans and have had no odd or infected files come up...
Very strange, indeed....
I'd just like to know if anyone has had the same experience or can offer any semblance of an explanation.
Many thanks!
-RabidAngel

[gali]

I don't know what is the cause, but it happens to me too from time to time.

I already learned from it, and always keep on my desktop the last saved Downloads folder, and I copy/paste it again. All the hair/objects/fashion appear again.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I do the same, except it's on my second HD.  I also keep a copy of every file I download "just in case".

It's never actually happened to me though, and I wonder whether you have a vast number of downloads, although I can't see why that would actually cause the files themselves to disappear!

[cyperangel]

Perhaps the carportal thief has expanded his hunting grounds?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Whoever, or whatever, it is, it's still wierd!

[Ancient Sim]

This has happened to me once or twice, too.  Another weird thing in my game is that one of the ghosts in the Spectre lot, namely Lyla Grunt, is bald and has totally different clothes to the ones she is supposed to have.  What is weird about this is that she is Maxis-made and I haven't altered her at all.  That really puzzles me.

[ZephyrZodiac]

One of my sims appeared passing a house, and she was for some unknown reason minus her Maxis hair!  Luckily, she was ok when I got back to her home, and she's been ok ever since.

[KellyQ]

Funny you should mention this. I was playing last night and noticed one of the hairstyles I had downloaded at least a month ago, is gone. I went to change the appearance on one of my toddlers and the specific hairstyle I was looking for was no longer there. I haven't touched my downloads or altered them in any way but it's vanished.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you checked to see if it still exists in your Downloads or Saved Sims folder?

[KellyQ]

Not yet, it was late and I had to get to bed so I could drag myself into work this morning....darn work interfering with my game! At least I can I sit here and peruse this board all day long.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Sounds like work is pretty boring!

[Sandilou]

RabidAngel, this is probably the most obvious question in the world, but do you have just ONE EA/Sims2 folder?  I have more than one (Desktop and MyDocuments) as well as a couple unemptied in my Wastebin.  Sometimes, when I'm doing 2 things or more at once, I download to the wrong folder.  Downloading to the wrong EA/Sims2 folder can mean me thinking that I have lost whole neighbourhoods or lost downloads.  Check your back up Sims2 folder for your downloads. 

Previously, I also discovered a second EA folder inside my Sims2 folder, with a whole new set of data in there.  Sometimes the game does this when you move characters across neighbourhoods.  That can also cause things to go missing in your game.  Your downloads have to be somewhere on your pc.  Keep hunting, you'll find them.

[KellyQ]

Sounds like work is pretty boring!

I'm an "office manager" (glorified secretary) for a small construction company. The most challenging part of my job is finding ways not to flip out from boredom. If this computer could run TS2 I would install it in a nano-second. I'm glad that I have something as entertaining as this website to keep me occupied.
Sorry to have highjacked this thread. We return you to your regularly scheduled topic.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Just goes to show, JM is probably right in saying moving characters across hoods is a bad idea!

[RabidAngel]

Wow, I had no idea that so many other people had this problem...
Luckily, about a month ago, I made a backup copy of my downloads folder, so I took the advice on this thread and dropped my old downloads in again....
 Sandilou,
I have only one instance of an ea games folder, and i don't have any other accounts on my system....I wish it were that simple!
This is the strangest thing, and it's the first time it's ever happened to me...
Now that I'm mulling it over, I'm remembering that my bodyshop had a sort of freeze when I tried to shut it down prior to losing those files...I left it hanging for at least 20 minutes while I did other things, because sometimes it just takes a while to shut itself down....Still, I can't be sure if that is when all of this happened, but it's certainly something that may have caused the problem...It seemed like a sort of crash, and I ended up having to end the task manually through the task manager.

From now on, I'll certainly be backing up my downloads regularly, but it'd still be great if anyone knew what might be the cause of such a problem. 
Has anyone else had the bodyshop shutdown freeze to find that their downloads were partially deleted?
I'm groping for ideas now, LOL....I'm just really really glad I had made a backup, though some of the downloads are most likely newer than a month old, the bulk of them are back and in tact....
Thanks for all of the advice and comments...I'd love to hear any other ideas.

-RabidAngel

[gali]

I don't use the body shop at all, and the vanishing files occurs from time to time.

But I download a lot of stuff from TSR, including meshes, and get the following warning:
"Be advised that 3D meshes should be installed at your own risk as they are still considered beta objects."

May be this is the cause.

[ZephyrZodiac]

So far (touches wooden head) it hasn't happened to me and I've plenty of new meshes in my downloads.  Maybe it's a memory problem - playing when your RAM is very low - or something like that?

[gali]

Lol, I have 2 Giga Ram - is it enough? And this week I am going to put a new video card, the newest X800, and I have 40 Giga hard disk memory, and 800 MHz processor... - all that for only one game (I deleted all the rest) - TS2 + Uni. My free space is more than 50% of the drive C.

I am sure that lack of memory is not the cause - in my game....

[ZephyrZodiac]

Obviously not!  In that case, I have no more ideas on the subject, it has me beat!

[dusty]

This just happened to me with a new skirt mesh I downloaded.  The sim wearing it appeared in something else.  I used JM's clothing tool to see if I could buy it back - it's picture was there showing that it was still in the wardrobe, but when I clicked it only the model's head would show.  Same thing with plan outfit.  I haven't downloaded anything new in between the last time it showed up fine and this happening.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you tried removing the skirt file, running your game, and then replacing the file?  If it still does the same thing, there may be something wrong with the file itself, and I'd ditch it!