Hi, I need some help.
A couple of months ago I uninstalled my retail collection and replaced it with the ultimate collection. I then collected around 20gb of custom content with the intent to maybe make some machinimas and play the game etc.
I got bad performance and crashing so I updated my drivers and decided to uninstall the ultimate collection because I had heard it's more unstable, unsupported and works bad with mods.
I backed up my documents sims 2 folder and once I had reinstalled all the retail games, I replace the mods folder, lots folder etc with the backed up version.
I deleted the cache, set all my game settings how I like them and I was ready. I opened up the game and of course it took about 30 minutes to get past the loading screen.
This came as no surprise as I know when you have double digits of cc in sims 2 it seriously slows the startup.
I loaded into belladona cove (I had loaded the secret neighbourhoods for it or whatever earlier) and went into CAS and made a lovely lady.
Then, I put this chick into a blank lot and it threw me the error "this application has terminated" or something along those lines.
I then proceeded to try the whole thing again and got the same error.
So what I want to know is, is this a case of conflicts? Is it bad CC? I don't have 'too much' cc because there are others who have even more cc than me and they have no problems.. What am I doing wrong? Oh and also, how can I cut down on the startup time without deleting cc because surely there's a way of compressing them or caching them or something?
Thanks for you time :*

What happened when you tried the 50/50 method?

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We really do need to know what steps you've tried to solve your problem. There's no way anyone here can tell you if it's bad cc that's causing the crashing OR which cc it might be.

Oh, just so you know- the problem could very well be too much cc. How much cc your game can handle varies from computer to computer. There are people who just have a gb or 2 and can't put anymore than that in. There are people who can have a lot more than that and their game works fine - I've got roughly 8gb and have no problems and could add a lot more (I've had close to 16gb in the past). Then there are people who have an outrageous amount that would cause most computers to run away in fear and their game is fine. It all depends.
Once you stop the crashing, there ARE ways to cut down on the load time. You can compress the files, you can delete files from the folders (there is a thread at MATY that explains which). You can rename files - say you have a bunch of [creatorsname]-shirtrecolor-red type of packages, you can rename those to creatorsname-shirtrecolor-red (taking out the []) and it may/may not help. (I renamed everything in my downloads folder and it did help with the load time. Others say it helped them too while others say it didn't make a difference. So your mileage may vary.) You can put walls/floors/terrain paints in the main folder- they don't have to be in the downloads folder. That may help, too. BUT, all that said- there's no need to worry about the load time until you get the crashing problem solved.

Yes I the problem went away as I had less content so I didn't know what to delete. Also, I was able to load into a lot with most of my content but when I went into buy mode and then a category then it would crash (with the application has terminated error like before).

@mustluvcatz thanks for the links and advice, what your saying sounds right. It's weird though because I've had obscene collections in the past which I would then delete and start again and this time it's just screwing me over.

I'm going to try again with the 50/50 method later, it's already taken a lot of my day already loading up the game.

There's your starting point right there, then. If your game crashes when you go into (for example) the Beds section, then you know you have a bad bed. Do the 50/50 method starting with the beds (or whichever category is causing the crash), and you'll probably find your culprit quickly.

Right, so I've narrowed it down to the hobbies section, how do I go about singling out the an item?
Is there any tool of some sorts?

Unless you put all your hobby type downloads into one single folder..50/50 method for everything that is not in your..hair folder, clothe folder etc.

Pull out half the cc items that are in the hobby section. See if it crashes. If it does, then you know it's in the half you left in. Take out another half and try again. If it doesn't crash, then you know it's in the half you took out. Take out the things you know are good, put in the things you know are bad, and try again. It's just the good old 50/50 method, but on those items only.

You can shorten things a bit more by noticing where exactly in the hobbies section the crash happens. Does it crash in the section where the bookshelves are? Start with your bookshelves. Does it crash in the area where the games are? Start with your games. Does it crash when you try to go to the second page of items? Anything on the first page is probably fine, so start with other items instead.

Downloads folder not very organized? Now is a really awesome opportunity to get it organized, and to keep it that way going forward. (This is not meant to be a criticism at all! More of a "seize the day" type thing than a "you should have done this already" type thing. I'm just not sure that it comes across that way in text. )

Good luck!

Did you enable CC on the load screen. (I just reinstalled and guess what I forgot? Crashing when entering lots).

The best tool is an organized download folder. As esme said if it's something in the hobby section crashing your lots and you have all Hobby related items in one folder it's far easier to test each item. Of course even when you're reasonably organized things can still be put places and make you scratch your head later going, what was I thinking? it's especially easy when things come in sets and you forget that a certain thing is in some other folder. That would just be the kind of thing to happen to a bad file. I had such a time finding a default body shape that broke my pregnant sims, no idea how I got it, but I had no other choice but to do the 50/50 and it turned out it was a lovely string of letters and numbers and one of the last files to be pulled in the 50/50... Tedious, but it works.

When that has happened to me in the past I simply do a full "search" on everything in the downloads folder, then take those search results and have the computer sort them by file size. Alot of times its just one or two huge file size high poly custom content items that I can bear to live without ...I simply decide which huge files to delete and delete them. You can also use this method of search/organize by file type to make sure your downloads folder doesn't have anything it shouldn't...Using Clean Installer you can do this to (best for searching for misplaced "collection" files in downloads folder. hope this helps

Okay, so I left this for ages and I came back to it today. Sorry for bumping the topic but the problem is worse than I thought.
It's not only the hobbies section that crashes my game. It's all the sections. In build/buy, when I click a section my game crashes so has anybody every had this sort of problem? Is it caused by an object re-categoriser or something different?
Thanks in advance.

Do you understand the 50/50 search? I don't think you are using it fully. That is your tool to finding bad cc. last time I had lots crash it turned out to be a kitchen bench. Half your download folder and test each half. If you have just one bad file it will crash when you place it back into the game, by splitting your download folder you should be able to identify which half is good and which half is crashing. This then narrows your search from 20Gigs to 10Gigs. Put the side you know causes no issues aside. preferably into a folder on your desktop labeled "All Good" or something like that. You then take the bad half and halve that, so now you are trying 5GIgs and 5 Gigs. Again hopefully one of those 5 Gigs will run smoothly while the other 5 Gigs will crash. Take the smooth side and place it inside that "All Good" folder. Take your bad 5 GIgs and split it again, now you are testing 2.5Gigs and 2,5 Gigs and hopefully by now your load time is really fast. That is what you do until you are down to two single files. The 50/50 method will find a bad cc file if you do it fully. The times it doesn't work is when you have a mod conflict and a crash only happens when the two mods are together. But just a bad file is easily found. tedious yes, complicated, no.