GUID question

[Kitte]

I know very little about modding, cloning, recolors, etc. (as you can probably tell).  I assumed there should never be duplicate GUIDs.  When I run SimPE Scan Folders to check GUID, I see several that are duplicates.  Most of these seem to be a recolor with the same GUID as the base.  Is this expected or should I delete the recolor?

[J. M. Pescado]

Recolors reference a GUID, they don't USE a GUID, so this is normal.

[Inge]

No, it is never correct to see two objects with the same GUID - the only exception being if you know you have downloaded a hack that clearly says it is a replacement for a Maxis object, to make it work differently.   Then it does need the same GUID as the one it is replacing, or it won't replace it.

Recolours should not contain the OBJD part of the package, therefore they do not have their own GUIDs.   If something that calls itself a recolour has an OBJD and a GUID, it's been made wrong and you should delete it and tell the creator.   In the early days, a lot of people were making recolouring mistakes, and have corrected them now.  Go back to where you got the faulty recolour from and see if you can get a fixed version.

If it's an actual whole object with the same GUID as either the original object or a completely different one, and you didn't download it intending it to replace another object (which would stop you using the original object) then that too is an error and it needs deleting and seeing if there is a fixed version.

I think when Pescado said it was ok in a recolour, he may have been thinking of where you put the GUID of the object into a MMAT part of a package, and it tells the recolour what object it's meant to be a recolour for.   But your duplicate GUID scanner should not pick up references to GUIDs in that part of the file.   If you are getting told about duplicates, then that would be in the parts where they can cause problems.

[Kitte]

Thanks, most were from recolors I downloaded early on and rarely use, so I just deleted them.  The only duplicate GUID I left in is the objects.pkg (the UNI one)...is that supposed to be a duplicate?  It was also the only one that didn't show the duplicate in the next line when sorting by GUID.

[Inge]

Well I don't know what tool you're using to scan for duplicates so I can't answer based on your description of what you observed.  But were both reports of that duplicate both found in the file called "objects.package"?  Or was one instance of that GUID in a download?   What was the object or file called?

[Kitte]

I'm using SimPE and the Scan Folders function with GUID Scanner recursive selected.  It gives the first found path as the UNI directory file: c:\program files\ea games\the sims 2 university\tsdata\res\objects\objects.package.

Type is object and it does have a numbered file name: ee01cc2ff0dafac3c86fad0448906987_001

I guess I'll try a search for that file name and see what I can find.

[Inge]

Ok I know about the one in objects.package because you told me that before, but what is the other one with the same GUID?  If it found a duplicate GUID, presumably it told you which file had the duplicate in it?

[Kitte]

No, it's the only one that didn't show the duplicate file.  I thought it might be the objects.package from TS2 (not UNI), because of the way you explained it.  If the UNI objects.package is supposed to replace the TS2 one, then maybe they are supposed to have the same GUID.

[Inge]

You mean it said "this is a duplicate" and then didn't say where its twin was?  That's a flaw in the tool then, and perhaps it would be a good idea to tell whoever wrote the tool.

But in any case if that's the only one left, I don't suppose it's going to have a great impact on your game, so there may be nothing to worry about any more.   All the same, the software author would like to know if the thing's only doing half its job.

[Kitte]

That's correct and I'll post something to SimPE.  Thanks for your interest and help.