"House of Fallen Trees" crashes my game

[AllenABQ]

I hadn't even looked at it until today.  I tried to open it Build Mode, the whole game crashed.  Then tried to moving a CAS sim into it.  Crashed my game again.

Pity because it's such a neat-looking house from the outside.  Any suggestions on how I might salvage it?

Allen

[gynarchy]

Does it crash in every neighborhood or just one? You could try entering another neighborhood's downtown and putting the house into the bin and try replacing the one causing you trouble. If that doesn't work, I'm sure someone would be willing to try and send you a clean copy from his/her game.

[AllenABQ]

Didn't think of that.  I'll give it a shot!

[gynarchy]

You might want to get rid of the tombstones on the lot before transferring it to another neighborhood, but to be honest I have no idea what effect transporting tombstones between neighborhoods has. I had all kinds of issues entering and packaging Gothier Green Lawns, presumably because of the tombstones on it. Even in a freshly deleteallcharactered neighborhood and after removing the tombstones I still errored in the packaging process and my friends did too when they tried to send a copy of their lot to me. I ended up recreating the lot as best I could because I really liked it.

[AllenABQ]

Dang!  The house appears corrupted in all my neigborhoods.

I wonder if I have something in my Downloads folder that's causing problems with something in the house?  I'd hate to have to find out what since I have so many downloads.

I've only had trouble with one other lot in my game.  After I upgraded to NL, the Goth House crashed the game whenever I tried to load it.  Fortunately the solution was to simply move the Goths out and then back in again.  Problem fixed.  But I was thinking the reason why it probably worked is it wiped out all the objects in the house and thus could have removed the error.  Of course I had to completely redecorate when I moved them back in.   

I'm wondering if there isn't a similar problem with an object in the Fallen Leaves house.  Only now I don't have a way to empty it because there isn't a family living in it.  And it won't let me move one in.

[RainbowTigress]

Try turning on boolprop testingcheatsenabled true and loading the lot.  See if you get an error message when trying to load it.  You might be able to delete whatever the object is if you get an error message, but see what the message says and make a note of the error log generated.

[AllenABQ]

Try turning on boolprop testingcheatsenabled true and loading the lot.  See if you get an error message when trying to load it.  You might be able to delete whatever the object is if you get an error message, but see what the message says and make a note of the error log generated.

Well I checked my error logs first and found three objects that were causing conflicts with objects in the game system folders. They were:

k8-atlantamedievalmirror-041905.package
vssofamod.package
SolfalCountryWindowDiagonal.package

And when I restarted the game I enabled boolprop.

And lo and behold, the house loaded just fine!   

I'm guessing it was removing those three packages? Because if the error had still been there all boolprop would have done was throw a message, correct?

[Motoki]

I know everyone points the finger at hacks first, but it's quite possible that custom objects can cause crashes and problems. Also, the object or objects in question don't even have to be in use in that particular lot either. I had a problem a while back where one of my larger lots would always crash on me and after A LOT of trial and error (I didn't think to use testingcheatsenabled and check the debug logs) I found the problem to be a custom sofa mesh I had in my downloads. That mesh turned out to be crazy high in the polygon count at over 50k. I'm not sure if that was what caused the problems or just something with the package file or the way it was made, but I didn't even have that sofa on the lot that was crashing.

Needless to say, I yanked it out and have been a lot more selective about custom objects since then. :p

[themaltesebippy]

Oh man I was gonna be mad.  I just took this house for my custom hood and spent a long time fixing it up.  No problems so far but I am still making my hood and only have 2 test characters to make sure houses work.

[gynarchy]

Wow, was I barking up the wrong tree!  I'm glad you got it resolved! The testingcheats always occur to me after I've done something stupid, like saved after the problem happened or bulldozed the lot.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Just shows, really, that it's a good idea to run a new EP without your Downloads folder, then move everything back in slowly.  As long as you run a new neighbourhood and don't put your old ones back until you're sure everything is working ok, you won't lose anything from your original game.

[gynarchy]

Is moving a lot with tombstones on it between neighborhoods safe or are the ghosts' character files added to each neighborhood (and does that matter)? I tried numerous times to package Gothier Green Lawns and now this house to peek at what gets moved with the lot file but they error every time. Should the tombstones be removed before shuffling between neighborhoods or am I just being paranoid/stupid?

[Sagana]

Nothing constructive, but I'm glad to hear you got it working. I love that house It's well laid out for a Maxis house and fun to decorate, although all my sims always want to sleep in the coffins and I'm not trekking anyone all the way down those stairs. The ghosts are interesting, there when a knowledge sim needs them and they've never come in the house at all - they stay out in the yard and make noise, which I also like. Nobody gets scared by accident. I dropped in 8 adult sims (some of them couples), played awhile, moved a few out and a few have had kids so there's still 8 (one made permaplat elder) and so far <knock wood> it's run beautifully, even on my poor machine with the bad graphics card. I would think the ghost's memories would be a problem, just as for living sims, when moving neighborhoods but I dunno.

[Motoki]

I'd get rid of the tombstones if you are moving that house to another neighborhood, otherwise it will add those character files. You can always kill some ugly townies once you move it to get new tombstones lol

[LynnMar]

I have never seen "the house of the fallen trees"   in my game, is it downtown?   

I apologize for being so dumb, I admit I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer.   

[Motoki]

It's in the Maxis default downtown neighborhood, yes.

[Brynne]

Nothing constructive, but I'm glad to hear you got it working. I love that house It's well laid out for a Maxis house and fun to decorate, although all my sims always want to sleep in the coffins and I'm not trekking anyone all the way down those stairs. The ghosts are interesting, there when a knowledge sim needs them and they've never come in the house at all - they stay out in the yard and make noise, which I also like. Nobody gets scared by accident. I dropped in 8 adult sims (some of them couples), played awhile, moved a few out and a few have had kids so there's still 8 (one made permaplat elder) and so far <knock wood> it's run beautifully, even on my poor machine with the bad graphics card. I would think the ghost's memories would be a problem, just as for living sims, when moving neighborhoods but I dunno.

I love this house, too. It's perfect if you play with an overstuffed lot, like I do. I converted the basement into a really nice living area for my extra sims. I got rid of the coffins, though. Not ready to delve into that aspect of the game, yet. The only thing I wish I could do to that basement is add a bathroom. I had one down there, but it was useless because the sims would try to shoo the sleeping sims out of the basement, even though the bathroom was walled in as best as I could do it. They always ended up peeing on the floor.

[Sagana]

Doesn't it take your sims forever to go up and down all the stairs? For a vampire, they can at least fly and it seems faster (not sure if it is really, but it seems it and for awhile I thought maybe they'd be protected from the daylight way down there, even not in a coffin, but they aren't) but for a sim I need to leave for work or whatever, that's waaayy too deep - I like to keep them doing something until the very last second possible and then run

[Brynne]

No, they're all active sims, so they run. Takes longer than flying, though.

[Nihale]

I was going to suggest meditation, but then, running is free. (That probably made no sense, but I know what I mean)

When I moved (an empty version of) The House of Fallen Trees to Pleasantview (which has since been burninated - or something) the basement was half underwater. Is this normal?

[Sagana]

Ah - well maybe I was worrying unnecessarily - I'll have to try with the running. How much time do you leave them before the car pool? Or meditation and teleport would actually probably be better - I always forget that

No water in the basement in my game. Better call BeeDry At the very bottom of the very "haunted atmosphere" stairs are 2 coffins and 2 brazier lights (I think, at least). It's rather cool to pretend you're walking the stairs and turn and turn and turn until you find the coffins... very Indiana Jones-ish or something.

[AllenABQ]

Is moving a lot with tombstones on it between neighborhoods safe or are the ghosts' character files added to each neighborhood (and does that matter)? I tried numerous times to package Gothier Green Lawns and now this house to peek at what gets moved with the lot file but they error every time. Should the tombstones be removed before shuffling between neighborhoods or am I just being paranoid/stupid?

I'm not sure, but I guess its fine so far.  One of the first things I did when I got Nightlife was move Gothier Green Lawns out of downtown and into Pleasantview proper. I didn't even think about possible effects on the tombstones.  I can report, however, that this move did not result in duplicating the Tricou character files as I still have only one for each family member listed in SimPe.

What I'm not sure about is what would have happened if I'd copied GGL several times into the neighborhood.  I simply moved the lot and then deleted the permanent copy left in the Housing Bin.

[nectere]

elevators are the best solution. 1 tile and you are done. (uses teleport functions I think, havent really looked at the package) Of course I make my elevators 4 tiles square and decorate like an elevator complete with double doors. Its nice because you can have several elevators on a lot and everyone can get where they need to go, and no time wasted.

[Tgdrysix]

This house will not load in my game either.  Cause as soon as I read this post I went to check....and sure enough it crashed.  I disabled my custom content and tried again and it did actually load....unfortuantly when I went back and enabled my cc it crashed again....Please bare with me and if you need to send me to retardo land do so preferably after you guys offer some advice on how to find out what custom content is actually causing the issue without me having to disable everything one thing at a time and adding it back in then testing it to see if it is causing the crash.....so far none of my other lots in downtown have given me any trouble....knock on wood....not that I've been to every place yet....but I've been redoing the houses to get them ready for sims to move into and it just irks me that I have one that I can't use for some reason....what is it about this particular house that has an issue with the stuff in my game while the rest do not? I'll probably won't actually use this house very much....was thinking mostly for my knowlegde sims....but I would still like that option.   So any suggestions would be great and sincerely appreciated.....Tgdry6

The only hack I have is the nightlife version of insimenator...other than that it's clothing,makeup, hair....etc....none have given me problems with other places...thanks agian.

[AllenABQ]

This house will not load in my game either.  Cause as soon as I read this post I went to check....and sure enough it crashed.  I disabled my custom content and tried again and it did actually load....unfortuantly when I went back and enabled my cc it crashed again....Please bare with me and if you need to send me to retardo land do so preferably after you guys offer some advice on how to find out what custom content is actually causing the issue without me having to disable everything one thing at a time and adding it back in then testing it to see if it is causing the crash.....so far none of my other lots in downtown have given me any trouble....knock on wood....not that I've been to every place yet....but I've been redoing the houses to get them ready for sims to move into and it just irks me that I have one that I can't use for some reason....what is it about this particular house that has an issue with the stuff in my game while the rest do not? I'll probably won't actually use this house very much....was thinking mostly for my knowlegde sims....but I would still like that option.   So any suggestions would be great and sincerely appreciated.....Tgdry6

The only hack I have is the nightlife version of insimenator...other than that it's clothing,makeup, hair....etc....none have given me problems with other places...thanks agian.

Tgdry6,

Here's what I did. 

Immediately after your game crashes, go to your saved game log folders. Usually its something like... C:\My Documents\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Logs

Open the file in the log folder called AppErrors.Log

Scan through the list.  If its the same problem I encountered you'll see a number of error messages specifying the name and location of a custom object(s) that is causing an error/conflict with another game object.

Find the actual custom object files in your Downloads folder and either disable or delete them.

Restart the game and try to enter the house.  When I'd done this, it loaded up just fine.