Game Crashing, Sims 2 Exception Log attached

[nikita]

I can't load any lots in my custom neighborhood.  It's not really a custom neighborhood but I've removed all the Sims that used to live in it and populated it with my own Sims.

I just installed Pets, all went fine.  I loaded Pleasantview and played around with the Pleasants.  Then I closed out and put in my own neighborhood and tried to load a lot and it crashed.  I've run the neighborhood through CPI and there are no irregularities.  I don't know what it is.  I've used a backup neighborhood to see if the same thing happened and it did.

Worst off, there's no error log.  Well there is one but the .txt file is empty and the other file is a .mdmp file, whatever that is.

So I pretty much cannot play my game unless I'm going to start completely from scratch which would suck ass and make me very mad.

edited: I uninstalled and reinstalled and the same thing happened but this time there was an error log (attached).

[J. M. Pescado]

Sims exception logs are of no use, they are hardcode problems that cannot be fixed.

[V]

That is the same problem that I have had since I installed Glamour Life. I routinely package new lots or new families created in CAS after they have moved onto their new lots since I have no idea of any other way of saving CAS sim families.

After I installed Glamour Life I installed some of my old lots and they did not work and they shut down my city. After trying many different things I finally just uninstalled Glamour Life and then reinstalled it... but before I let the game launch the first time I went in and moved all my backed-up neighborhoods into the ea games\sims 2\neighborhoods folder (folder names are paraphrased here - and I followed the standard "moving files" protocol, etc). That solved my problem and the packaged lots that I had placed in my game worked fine at that point. It did not solve the problem of not being able to install packaged lots, though. For some reason they did not seem to be updated.

So I still have a problem. Maybe someone awesome could help me. I have not yet launched Pets after installing it because I don't want to have to uninstall and reinstall as soon as I want to use some of my packaged lots. So I moved all my packaged lots from all over my computer and have put them in the ea games\sims 2\packagedlots folder. Do I need to "install" them all before I start my game? or will they work simply by dint of being in that file? I mean are they auto updated along with my neighborhood files? And if I install them, should I first move them to a different folder from "packagedlots"? I seem to remember someone saying that.

I have been all over the internet since yesterday looking for the answer to this question. I don't remember having a problem like this way back when I installed OFB. But that was a while ago, so I may have forgotten.

Thanks for any help you can pass along. I am obviously confused, but I hope I explained myself well enough.

[cwykes]

I just installed Pets, all went fine.  I loaded Pleasantview and played around with the Pleasants.  Then I closed out and put in my own neighborhood and tried to load a lot and it crashed.  I've run the neighborhood through CPI and there are no irregularities.  I don't know what it is.  I've used a backup neighborhood to see if the same thing happened and it did.

After OFB there was a long techie thread about the correct way to add EPs and patches etc.  A lot of it was over my head as I'm no techie, but I came out of it with this understanding:-
When you install an EP, you need to leave your hoods in place so the EP install can "fix" them if it wants to.  Back them up of course, but leave them in place.  If you have backups you have nothing to lose by doing that and everything to gain.  I'm not clear if that's what you did in the uninstall/re-install.  If not, uninstall again, make sure they are in place, re-install and try again.  If that doesn't work, that really sucks!

After I installed Glamour Life I installed some of my old lots and they did not work and they shut down my city. ..... I don't remember having a problem like this way back when I installed OFB. But that was a while ago, so I may have forgotten.

If they were made with old EPs and won't load in your current game, I think you are basically stuffed though I hope somebody awesome knows otherwise.  I can't answer the question about package lots though I want to know the answer too!   

However, I had two packaged lots from base game that wouldn't install after I added OFB.  I forget if they crashed or what, but I managed to salvage them because it turned out to be a custom content issue not a game problem.  Here's how in case you want to see if it's a CC issue...  I opened the lotpackage with cleaninstaller and tried to save it with another name, leaving out old hacks or whatever.  This kept failing.  I worked out from the message where CI had got to in the list of content.  Then I opened CI again, unchecked the offending bit of CC from the package and tried to save again.  After about 4-5 go's (incompetence), I'd identified 2 bits of CC that CI didn't like any more.  When I saved the lotpackage without those offending items and things like old hacks, it installed in the game fine.

[nikita]

My problem is a lot more severe than that.  I uninstalled Pets and put a backup of my neighborhood in the game and the same thing happened.  I just played the game a few days ago before installing Pets with no problems at all.  So now even with OfB, my lots still crash. 

[cwykes]

That sounds to me like a techie problem and I'm not that awesome.  I tend to analyse from first principles and my ignorance can lead to flawed reasoning. So Caveat Emptor!!!!    Here goes... What kind of problem could it be?   data corruption in your game files....  a PC/hardware/registry/ type problem....  game settings...... corruption in your Sims program files....  can't think of anything else. 

Are any of your hoods OK?  is it just one?   Suppose you take out your hoods and generate new defaults.   Can you play those lots ok?  Those answers should tell you if the problem is data corruption in your own game files to my mind...    If you can't even play vanilla maxis hoods then, it's some other kind of problem.  You could uninstall and re-install everything.....

You probably thought all this through already, but you have my totally sympathy!

[nikita]

I only play the one hood which has all of my custom characters.  I just started another one from scratch and everything is fine which makes me thing that somehow my wonderful Veronaville got buggered and is dead.   My only last hope is that this a problem that can be fixed by the patch as other people are having the same issues.  

I rue the day I ever clicked on the "Proceed to checkout" button on Amazon.com. 

[Kralore]

Hopefully this doesn't sound too confusing.  I had the same problem when nightlife came out.  I had several custom lots that wouldn't load.  I was able to find the problem.   The first thing we are told when installing a new exp. is to backup and remove the custom content in our game.  This was actually what caused the problem.  The lots that wouldn't load, had the insiminator lab object and the ffsdebugger object physically sitting on the lot. (ffsdebugger turned out to be the one causing the problem).   I had removed the package files for these two from my downloads because they were incompatible with night life. As soon as I put back the ffsdebugger package file into my downloads,  the lot loaded up.  I'm guessing what happened was, the lot had a reference to the ffsdebugger object, but didn't find the code to use it, so the lot froze up during loading.  I loaded up the lot, deleted any hack objects from the lot (insim, ffs etc)  saved the lot,  removed the packages from download folder, and reloaded the lot fine.

[J. M. Pescado]

The Lot Debugger never becomes incompatible with expansion packs, unless something really freaky happens, because it is an invoke-only object.

[Kralore]

The Lot Debugger never becomes incompatible with expansion packs, unless something really freaky happens, because it is an invoke-only object.

What would cause the behaviour I saw?   I know for a fact it was the debugger.  With the debugger object on the lot, and debugger package not in downloads, the lot wouldn't load, but with the package in the downloads, lot would load, as well with debugger object deleted/sold from the lot, the lot would then load.   Just curious.

[J. M. Pescado]

Beats me. GUID stompage, maybe. I accidentally caused something like this when I stomped one of my privately used GUIDs.

[Kralore]

It's something nikita can check into though.  Might fix the problem.  Myself, I always make a point now of removing stuff like that from my lots before I add a new expansion.  And it's very possible it wasn't the debugger, it was quite some time ago, but I am sure it was a game hacking object that was the problem.  I had quite a few at that time.

[nikita]

 

I love you, Kralore!!  I put my hacks back in the game and the lot loaded without problem!  I'm going to test all of them to make sure but it looks like that was the problem.  I'm going to set up a shrine in your honor, thanks so much! 

Now, I just have to figure out which hack it was...

[Kralore]

I love you, Kralore!!  I put my hacks back in the game and the lot loaded without problem!  I'm going to test all of them to make sure but it looks like that was the problem.  I'm going to set up a shrine in your honor, thanks so much! 

Now, I just have to figure out which hack it was...

  Your very welcome....Hopefully it won't take you too long to find the problem hack.

What I did was take about 5-10 of the hacks/mods, put them back in, see if the lot loaded. If it does, take them out, put them in a temporary folder, and take 5-10 more,  at some point you will end up with the lot not loading, and you know it's one of the 5-10 hacks that are there.  Let me know if/when you find the culprit.   

[J. M. Pescado]

5-10 is very slow. Binary search remains your friend:

1. Take out half.
2. If your game does not explode, then take out half of what you put in.
3. If it does explode, put in half of the other half. Repeat from 2.

Even if you had a thousand hacks, you'd be able to pin it down in 10 starts.