I have done a look on the custom content FAQ but I can't seem to find anything about how to unistall lots, and I want to take out one of them from my catalog, how do I do this?

Click on it to highlight it. A little dustbin will appear on the right. Click the dustbin, and the lot is gone from the lots and houses bin. To get rid of it altogether, you will have to find it in your Downloads folder, and delete it.

Assuming, of course, that you put it in your Downloads folder for some bizarre reason.

I was, of course, assuming that. Since I've been a regular here, I've downloaded a new terrain, a score of new houses, and one new sim - Sherlock Holmes. A whole story has grown up around him. That is why my Downloads/Lots folder is so full, and so is my head. Some people have no Downloads folder at all. Weird idea!

But lots never go into the Downloads folder (they go into Teleport and then into LotCatalog). Neither do terrains (they go into SC4Terrains). Why clog your Downloads folder with unnecessary junk?

Oops! I always put them in Downloads/Lots. So long as I remember to click and install them, they always show up. As for clogging my Downloads folder - what? How is that?

Hmm ... I've just looked at my Teleports folder, and there are 58 files in there. Er ... should I do something?

Your game is probably slower starting than it should be, because the game looks at all of the files in your Downloads folder, even the useless ones. It makes sense to move those lots out of Downloads. May I suggest Documents\EA Games\Lots as an alternative location? Folders which are not inside of Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 should be ignored by the game.

Your Teleport folder should only contain temporary files. Each time that you run the game, it should fix up the lots and sims from the Teleport folder and place them into the LotCatalog folder. This occurs even if the lots are not compatible with your game. This means that the Teleport folder will normally be empty.

If you still have things in the Teleport folder after running the game, then there is probably a problem. Do all of the files in that folder have file extensions of Sims2Tmp or Sims2Import? If not, the game probably has no idea what to do with the files. You might want to figure out what they are and move or remove them.

Having excess files in your Teleports folder is also likely to slow down your game. The game will examine all of the files in that folder when you open your Lot Bin in the game, so excess files will slow that process.

It certainly is slow to start. I've got used to setting it going and then going off to do something else while it loads. I've taken your advice, and moved my Lots folder out of Downloads and into Documents\EA Games\Lots. I've not yet restarted the game, to see whether that improves matters.

The files in the Teleport folder all have the file extension of Sims2Tmp. The names are all like this:
ffdbef4faf0733bd563166d09396cdf6_0005.Sims2Tmp

Is there any way of finding out what all that represents?

Most of the information about lots and sims is stored in the Sims2Tmp file. Let me do some research to try to figure out whether there's anything that you can do with Sims2Tmp files without the corresponding Sims2Import.

[Update:]

If you rename a Sims2Tmp file to have a file extension of .package, then you can open the file using SimPE or browse the folder which contains the file using the Clean Installer. Either one should help you to identify the file.

I'm not sure that you can do anything with files identified as a family or sim, but a lot package can be salvaged. Just move the file to your LotCatalog folder and rename it to follow the naming conventions for that folder. The next time that you run the game, the lot will appear in your lot bin.

Last edited by Mootilda : 16th Apr 2012 at 09:38 PM.

The thought of inspecting those files 58 times in SimPE made my heart sink. I tried the experiment of moving all the Sims2Tmp files out of my Teleport folder into a new one on my desktop, and loaded the game. It by-passed the launch screen, and seemed to take longer to load, though I did not time it. I was not aware that any lots were missing from my Lots and Houses Bin. Perhaps I'd better put the 58 back where they came from, and set about identifying each one. Heigh ho!

Thanks for your research. I'll let you know how I get on.

The excess files in the Teleport folder will not show up in your Lots and Houses Bin, because they are incomplete. There should be no problem with removing and / or deleting them.

However, you asked me whether they could be identified. They can, using SimPE or the Clean Installer.

I deleted the Teleport folder, and then my game loaded in six minutes, quicker than usual. I notice I now have a new Teleport folder, quite empty, so that problem seems to be solved. It might have been my blunder of loading lots into my Downloads folder that caused the original Teleport folder to fill up with fragments. Thanks for the guidance.

Glad if I could help.