Hi,
How are you today?

Well I did something stupid: I deleted a default replacement from within the game (a DR of the Handheld Console Game that comes with the UNI ep). I think the game data related to that DR got deleted too.
Does anyone know how bad this is, corruption-wise?

The Wants related to the Handheld Console Game act wonky now, but it's the only thing I noticed.
Will the problem stay limited to this? Will everything else in my game stay fine? If I never use the Handheld Console Game again, can I just ignore the problem?

If I don't make anything related to the Handheld Console Game, am I still good to upload/share stuff over here, or do I need a clean reinstall of my game now?

Thanks.

A default replacement is technically a downloaded item...while the original object just gets overwritten, if you will.
How can you delete a DR the wrong way? I would not know.
I would like to know excatly what you did, then I might be able to help you.

If you have a backup you should just use your backup, if you have no backup you could try installing your default replacement download again.

If you've deleted an ingame object, and the original object seems to be deleted, I'm afraid you either have to reinstall the game, or figure out which "objects" files are corrupted and replace them.

It is recommended that you write-protect the object files, so this can't happen (tutorial somewhere in the help section, I think)

Deleting entire objects from ingame is a bad idea in general. Defaults are tricky, and these files should be kept in a separate folder, so you can easier find them if you want to delete them.

The hand held game came with UNI and was edited in Freetime so I would replace both of those object.package files from the disc, or use the "repair" option in UC and it should fix it. Fingers crossed.

Hi all, and thank you for chiming in.
In response to one of the questions asked, what I did was trying to clean up content from my Electronics, I had too much stuff I never use, including a default replacement for the Handheld Console Game. It looked like a custom mesh, had the asterisk* and on the moment I didn't remember this was a Default Replacement and deleted it like I would have deleted a custom mesh, with the delete button in the game. Afterwards, my sim teens' wants related to the Handheld Console Game started being empty. The want would show up, but it wouldn't have the normal image of that want (it normally shows the Handheld Console Game on the Want icon), I would just have a blank green icon, and whenever I would click this particular Want to try to read what it said, my game crashed. Nothing else misbehaved, just that, hence my question.

I don't think Default Replacements are just a download, the way they are made links them to your game files. The reason they override in-game content so well is that the game doesn't make the difference between the Default Replacement and its own data. Someone here suggested to put the Default Replacements in a separate folder and it is a good idea - to delete your Default Replacements off-game is perfectly harmless, but deleting them via the in-game delete button - like I did - makes the game delete its own related game files too.

People suggested I should try copying the object files from my original game disks - UNI and Freetime, thanks for that information. I think it is a good idea and sounds like it could solve my problem - I will try that, and come back here to give feedback on how it went.

Do you know what it means to copy the object.package files? I've mentioned it as though you're familiar with the process but perhaps that isn't the case. Do shout if you need any assistance. Any messing around in the game files themselves can cause bigger issues, and it would be a shame to have to reinstall.

Thank you for that info..I've never deleted anything from INside the game, and never even thought that doing this, would also delete the original related game files, since it is a DR. Thinking of it now, it sure make sense!

Some mesh-replacing object DRs are made in a way that causes the game to catalog them as custom meshes, and give them the CC "star" in the catalog. While selecting the Maxis object itself wouldn't activate the delete button, selecting the replacement does.

Yes! This is why I thanked billielith for the info

Hi,
Nope, I have to admit my total ignorance of this process. I was planning to ask around, and/or seek online information, prior to opening my game for that kind of surgery. Thanks for offering your help, I gladly accept that, and if you have time to explain how you would do it, I will follow.

And reinstalling would be a shame indeed. Part of my EPs are "Ultimate Collection", and a hell to just get to work properly under Windows 8. It's really just the damn Handheld Console Game thingy, lol. So much trouble just for one item I nearly never use! lol.

One thing to try to avoid the cc star and accidental deletion: Could try putting the DR package in the TSData/Res/Catalog/Bins subfolder of your latest EP/SP. I know it works for other types of files that shouldn't be deleted in game, so it could work for this one too. The file can still be deleted if you decide you don't want it any more just by going to the folder and deleting it.

I didn't know that was possible. I will have to try that with my other DR's.

It is possible the default replacement was in two parts and deleting from within the game left a part behind.
The objects.package contains the character files of key NPCs like Grimreaper, Mrs Crumblebottom etc. which are real sims. If your game detects any change to those sims then it will attempt to save the objects.package just as it does to every other sim's character file when saving. It quite likely that overrides in your downloads folder could get caught up when saving and do permanent damage to the objects.package. It is only the objects.package from your highest EP/SP that the game uses and it should be set to read only which does prevent the game from saving/corrupting it. For the UC I don't know if setting it to read only could prevent it from getting repaired or updated by origin though.

I'm not 100% certain that it'll work, just that it's something to try and it *might* work. I know BoilingOil had a mod (BO - residential shopping) that he warned about because of the cc star. I suggested that he try putting it in the bins folder and it worked. Besides that, there are downloads here and elsewhere where you're advised to put a file in the bins folder - like HL's rug mod. (I actually have quite a few files in my bins folder.) So it's worth a try to put a DR file in there to see if it works.

Since you have the UC, you might be able to run that repair thing to fix it.

The only things I occasionally delete ingame are mailbox/trashcan recolors (I find them extremely annoying, and they're often difficult to locate), and on very few occasions things I'm 100% sure aren't defaults or original items with *s. Mostly, I'll delete from the Downloads folder, because it's a lot safer.

Adding my own find to this, DF will also work in your The Sims 2 folder (in your Documents), so out of your Downloads folder. Which probably keep them out of sight as well, and not easy to delete IN game.

I keep walls, floors and terrains terrain paints out of my downloads folder, they're in their own folder in The Sims 2 folder. They still show in game just fine, have the cc star and can still be deleted. Unless you mean The Sims 2 folder on the hard drive? (Which I don't think is the case but you never know. )

According to Bloom at Insim (a long time ago), you should also be able to add a "Defaults" folder with default replacements in the "The Sims 2" folder, outside of the Downloads folder. I've never tried, though. So if you really want to remove/delete/move out CC, put it far away from the "The Sims 2" folder.

No no, I meant Documents, even though I wrote Ducuments...I corrected it. Oh..so they can still be deleted..sorry then. The DR I had in there, were not objects, so i would not have known if they show or not in the catalogue

Hi again,

Thanks to all for stopping by and participating to the discussion!

My game seems fixed now!
Here's what I did:

I searched for "objects.package" in the search engine here which access the Wiki, and I found this tiptorial about corrupted Objects.package files on MTS' Game Help Forum.

I gave myself a lot of trouble extracting the portions of files that I needed, manually, in SimPE. This fixed my problem but took me most of the day.

Then I decided to try to simply copy the Objects.package from the EPs affected by this - Apt Life since this is the disk I use to run the game, Uni and Freetime since both of those EPs affect the Handheld Console Game. This works too and is a lot easier.