Bon Voyage inconsistently refusing to load!

[Gwill]

I've already whined about this in the chat, but I'm going to whine again here to see if anyone has any ideas.  I've tried searching the forums for similar cases, but not come up with anything useful.

Bon Voyage just won't load.
I am playing a perfectly legal, pre-ordered, Amazon bought, DVD edition game.  All EPs and crap packs installed; no problems up until now.  Daemon Tools is installed on the computer, but not running, neither is any other "shady" software.

This is what happens; I start the game (currently bypassing the launcher, but the same crap happened when I was using it); I can hear the DVD drive start to churn, doing it's stuff; frisking me to see if I'm a thief, then after a few seconds it stops and nothing more happens.
I open the task manager and see that Sims2EP6.exe is running, hogging a fair amount of memory, but no CPU resources.  I have to end the process manually and try again.

The thing is, and it's a fucking annoying thing, that in about one time out of ten the game actually starts!  Not consistently; sometimes it will run twice in a row with no problems, sometimes it will start the fifteenth time.  I've dried shutting down all unneeded processes: same shit.
I've tried cloaking software, even though I have nothing to hide; no luck.
I've done all the old tricks of deleting groups.cashe and trying to load the game without downloads.  In fact, if I do remove the Sims 2 folder from my documents, the game will generate the logs folder, but nothing else.

The computer in question is currently not connected to Intertubes, although that will be remedied in about 4 days and 15 hours (and counting).

Gwilly people do not like computer behaving inconsistent!

[dizzy]

Have you tried windowed mode?

To run The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack in windowed mode, first create a shortcut to the game by right-clicking on sims2ep6.exe and selecting "Create Shortcut." Then, right-click the shortcut and select properties. At the end of the "target" line, add a space and the text "-w" (without quotes). Click OK, and then launch the game by double-clicking on the shortcut.

[PlayBoyRobbie]

I had a simliair issue for me and it was my cd/dvd laser dieing and I had to get them bastards at geek squad to install a new cd/dvd drive and it worked the cd would spin then stop then spin again and stop.

[Gwill]

I always play in windowed mode.

It's not a DVD-drive issue.  If it was, I'd get an error message of CD not found.  I can open the DVD just fine, explore the content, and I had no problem installing the game.

[SilentDream]

I have yet to obtain Bon Voyage but this happened to me with Seasons, it would load just whenever it felt like. But when instructed to load, it would spina nd do it stuff... take up memory... and not DO anything. Or take... you know a good 20 minutes before it would decide to load (and with 30 minute loading times due to cc, it just wasn't worth it then) The only thing I could do to make it run consistently was to use a cd image.

[B]

Have you tried running the game in compatibility mode?

[LFox]

I get the EXACT same problem.  1 out of every 10 times it loads.  Lately it seems to go almost every time though without problems.  I've had this bug ever since the sims came out.  I too also run the game in window mode so i can do other stuff while i play cause lets face it sometimes speeding through days or nights on triple speed is boring.  Have you tried playing in full screen?  Does it make any difference to your chance to load it?  The only thing i can tell you to get around the bug is find out your normal load time when you do get in as in icon to game game load screen.  Mines about 10-15 seconds if i don't see a game screen by then i know i can crash it and reload it.

[Solowren]

I'm getting the same thing since installing BV. I haven't found a way to make it work consistently as of yet.

[cassblonde]

I've been having load issues as well...which I never had before so it irks me. Not as badly as you though Gwill. Mine will fail to load every one in a while...a few times a week I week I guess. I've gotten "no disk" once. All the other times have been launcher-click play- black screen and locks the whole computer up and I have to reboot.

The computer is only a few months old and way over specs so I know it has to be something with the darn game.

I would also love feedback on this.

Cass

[Ness]

Same problem here.  Pretty much identical situation to Gwill apart from it being a CD version.

Gets really frustrating having to keep opening task manager and kill the process and try again over and over and over...

Ideas would be helpful!

[Gamblor]

Use cracks and you won't have to use your CD or DVD rom drive again.

[Annan]

Use cracks and you won't have to use your CD or DVD rom drive again.

It does it for me too, I'm running a no-CD'd version.

[ZiggyDoodle]

The computer is only a few months old and way over specs so I know it has to be something with the darn game.

I have all EPs, don't run the game in windowed mode, have no Daemon Tools or cracks, and have no loading issues, so I don't think it is the game.  My load time is two minutes, nine seconds and my rig is four years old.

There has to be some common denominator.    But what?

ETA XP SP2; my account is the administrator.

[prattle]

Have you tried playing in Windows 95/98 compatibility mode?
There's no reason why I should have to do this on my Windows XP computer, but someone else suggested trying it somewhere and it fixed my problems with Bon Voyage failing to load. 

[witch]

Is it the operating system? XP Home as opposed to XP Professional? Is everyone running as admin? I had to wrap some script around the shortcuts for my son and his g/f to log them on as admin to play the game from an image, MS does some odd things with rights and privileges.

[Ness]

XP pro. SP2, not sure on admin status.

[J. M. Pescado]

All of this is directly attributable to the Evil That Is SecuROM. More Awesome Than You does not condone the purchase of SecuROM spyware-infested games.

[Sleepycat]

I had this problem before BV, forget when it started doing it but every so often it would just decide it didn't want to load after all 

oddly enough I have not had the problem since installing BV



XP pro, with SP2 probably

[maxon]

I had a similar problem a couple of EPs back - I had to uninstall Daemon Tools before it would run without problems.  Now I set up games with a no-CD crack if I can be bothered.  I take good care of my disks though and don't usually have problems.

[Madame Mim]

I suppose this is a stupid question (because I'm good at them) but have the people experiencing sometimes load tried deleting the groups.cache from their My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 folder. A fubared one of these can cause this sometimes (leading to never) loading problem.

[dizzy]

Well, I've *never* had this problem, but I always use a no-cd crack or image. The idea of using my DVDR as a dongle-loader is like a slap in the face. Give me a USB dongle and I'd be okay with that.

[Inge]

My BV loads about 1 time in 4 currently.   I have taken to watching it in the task manager.  It goes to 110,000K and then drops to either 43,000 something or 44,000 something.  If it drops to 43,000something it's not going to finish loading.

[Invisigoth]

My experiences might throw a bit of a wrench into figuring this whole thing out. I've never had this problem. I play on a dell laptop, 512 MB RAM, 2.6 ghz intel celeron, intel extreme onboard graphics card (not T&L capable, obviously), 64 MB video RAM, XP home with SP2. It wasn't even a terribly good computer when I got it in 2003. Until Seasons I always played from the CD, but then my CD/DVD drive decided to go insane so I switched to using an image. With Seasons I used the image + YASU. With BV I have to use an image + YASU + a noCDcrack. It always has loaded on the first try. My boyfriend plays on a desktop with similar specs, I'll have to ask him if he's had loading problems when he gets home. But then again, he has random crashes, bizarre graphical errors, and a boatload of other issues because he does VBTs quite often, so his experiences may not be helpful.

[KatEnigma]

I was having loading problems with Seasons- the whole 1 out of 3 or 4 thing, where I'd have to bring up task manager to watch it/cancel it out and try again.

Now, all of a sudden, it's just loading sllloowwwwlllyyy. Well, it started after it ate my Riverblossoms neighborhood, so the game is obviously borked anyway. I'm just waiting until I'm done being lazy for the reinstall. 

[Gwill]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I went with the cracked exe + cloaked image approach and the game now runs perfectly every time, and loading time is back in the range it was before BV.

To EAxis I just want to say: If I have to go to shady sites and download cracks anyway, risking trojans and other crap, why should I bother paying for the game in the first place?
Trust me; it won't happen again.