groups.cache

[Tigerlilley]

Hi everyone
I know that if you delete the groups.cache file it regenerates.

But thats all i know about it.  Why is it a good idea to delete this file?  Where can this file be found?

Thanks

[lingeringviolet]

It's located in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 and all I know about it is sometimes it gets corrupted (due to a lot of cc?) and needs to be regenerated. (I know this much only because I have a ton of cc so I have to delete it often. hehe) Sorry, that's as much as I know, hope it helped a little. I'm sure the more Awesome masses here can shed more light on it for you.


(Also, hi everyone! First post from a reasonably long-time lurker. *waves and offers candy*)

[TaWanda]

That deserves a great big Hello! (W & Ws by any chance?) 

  Tigerlilley, why don't you try a search and see what you turn up? I think deleting the groups cache has been known to fix all kinds of random problems. You should turn up a lot of posts about it.

[Tigerlilley]

i did search, most the posts the contain the words "groups.cache" are the one that say "I deleted groups.cache." which doesn't really tell me what they did it for...

edit: done another search...it seems that there are a bunch of reasons, everything from fixing hack problems, to something to do with objects.  Random.

[lingeringviolet]

That deserves a great big Hello! (W & Ws by any chance?) 

Hi TaWanda

I've got a bit of everything! *opens trenchcoat and points* I got your Skittles, your Reese's Pieces and Starbursts. And over here *point point* I've got sour gummi worms for half price man!

[TaWanda]

OMG! ITSA FLASHER!
Want some candy little girly? C'mere, I've got something for you...
Ya, I'll take one of those, and one of those, and definitely one of those gummy things.

[lingeringviolet]

But a flasher with candy!

 

[BlueSoup]

tigerlilley, it seems to contain game data that can become corrupt.  Over time, it gets bigger, and the bigger your Downloads folder, the bigger the file can get.  It's a good idea to delete it every so often (I do it every time I play, for example, because my Downloads folder is ginormous), and it can fix problems from lots crashing to the game hanging up when you're closing down.

[Paperbladder]

I think there's something similar to a groups.cache for Bodyshop, but I don't know what it's called and I don't think it needs to be deleted as often.

Anyway, I think it might be like a MFT or something in which it stores data about the location and data about content.  I think it's also prone to fragmenting itself when you have a lot of CC, which would explain why removing it and forcing the game to create a new one would speed things up.  If the game is corrupted by an object or something and it's removed from the Downloads folder and you're still getting problems with the game it might be that groups.cache is still holding some of the corrupted data.

Of course, I'm just pulling all of this out of my arse since I haven't actually looked at the thing.  Deleting it doesn't hurt anything though.

[Bangelnuts]

Mr.Paper thats the cigen file another file that can be enormous and not necessary but if corrupt is a headache

[jrd]

Groups.cache (and cigen.package) are index files which contain references to all your custom objects & downloads, as well as references to their thumbnails in the relevant thumbnail file. Once created it speeds up opening of the buy or CAS catalogs, as the game doesn't need to reparse every object.

The problem is this file sometimes get corrupted. EAMaxis has made their code a lot better in recent XPs/SPs and it occurs very seldom now compared to the base game, but if it does get corrupted you run into problems.
Deleting it forces the game to reindex from scratch.

[Jelenedra]

Sorta like, in CAS, when you first go through your custom options it takes forever to load them, but once you let the page refresh itself you can go back through them more quickly.

[jrd]

Exactly.

[Tigerlilley]

awesome thankyou everyone :-)

[liegenschonheit]

I have to delete my groups.cache before I load either my game or bodyshop. It's because I have so freaking much CC. It doesn't hurt anything to delete it, it regenerates on its own. It may add a little time to your loading time, but in my case an extra minute or two really doesnt make any difference.

[Assmitten]

Holy shit, how did you geniuses figure that one out? I'm certain that wasn't a suggestion from Maxis. I will have to try this, especially since I got GLS yesterday and it has borked a bunch of my hacks. The kids were running around "what's this?"-ing. MY GOD, just when I managed to forget about "what's this?" Ugh.

Also, Glamour Life appears to have eaten my christaluv (sp) nanny and all-in-one NPC. BOO! How will my insane family sims raise ten children now? 

[Ness]

are you sure you have re-enabled your CC after you installed GLS?

[Assmitten]

Pretty sure...the box came up when I loaded the game and I clicked "enable." Perhaps something went wrong. I should double check. If I have to deal with what's this again then no sims will ever own anything new EVER and it will be an email challenge lot. They will ALL be email lots.

[Ness]

you did remember after clicking enable to exit and reload?

I know it may seem stupidly obvious...  but it's easy to forget...  I did with GLS

[PlaidSquirrel]

I think I had to exit and reload twice after I enabled before everything showed up.

Can you delete cigen? I just wondered cause once i moved it out of the folder and onto my desktop and then loaded the game. Nothing bad happened but it didn't respawn either so I just put it back.

[jsalemi]

Can you delete cigen? I just wondered cause once i moved it out of the folder and onto my desktop and then loaded the game. Nothing bad happened but it didn't respawn either so I just put it back.

That's used by Bodyshop, so if you don't load Bodyshop, it won't regenerate.

[Assmitten]

you did remember after clicking enable to exit and reload?

I know it may seem stupidly obvious...  but it's easy to forget...  I did with GLS

NO. HELLO, ASSMITTEN. DOI.

Thanks, Ness. 

[J. M. Pescado]

i did search, most the posts the contain the words "groups.cache" are the one that say "I deleted groups.cache." which doesn't really tell me what they did it for...

No one really knows why you delete groups.cache. It's just a sort of panacea proposed for everything that goes wrong, sort of like rebooting your computer. When in doubt, kill groups.cache, that's the general attitude.

[DrBeast]

When in doubt, kill groups.cache, that's the general attitude.

Better than killing the computer though... 

[V]

Okay, I think this needs to be on the first page!!    Right after the log in there should be a general announcement, "Delete the groups.cache file and restart your game. If you are still having trouble then you may proceed."

I finally got Pets to run last night but I am afraid that might be only because I took out all but my most awesome hacks and created a new city from scratch and only used Maxi made lots and characters. I am hesitant to try to load any of my old cities because I don't want to sit for an hour hoping that "if I just give it a little more time....maybe it will work." (That was how I spent my day yesterday... once city after another. None of them ever worked.) I really don't want to lose all my sims from the past, though... and I am not looking forward to uninstalling and reinstalling hoping that I get it right this time.... blah blah blah... I have a new Sims 2 EP... blah blah blah

Anyway when I checked my groups.cache file it doesn't seem to be that big... certainly not big enough to be causing trouble. My accessory.cache is pretty huge, though. It is 6,243K as opposed to the miserable 176K in the groups file.

Can I delete the accessory.cache file? It was modified about 35 minutes before my groups.cache file. For any smart alecks that may be itching to reply-- I do know that I can delete the file... but is it a good idea if I want my game to actually work?