hi it's Sophie again. i never resolved the issue with my CAS screen turning black except that uninstalling & re-installing the game fixed the problem. since i've done this, i've been anxious to get down to business & play my game. i bought the darn thing over 2 weeks ago, laff!

but here is the problem: if i try to insert any game mods or custom content of any kind other than hair, clothes, accessories, make-up, beards, stubble, costume make-up... AT ALL, my game will fail to load. the problem goes a way if i remove the custom content and or mods.

what this means is that i cannot download ANY OBJECT, recoloured or otherwise and put it in my game. i cannot put in any game mods like say the insimenator, pescado, twojeffs, simlogical, djsims, monique, xanthon, carrigon, etc. Got a lazy anim fix, a kicky bag fix, a no-autonomous modification, a new counter top, a chair re-colour, etc? forget it, i cannot put it in my game or it will fail to load. have a nifty 4 key door, a mind control mirror, a wash your hands mod, perhaps new curtains? forget it, i can't put it in my game or it will fail to load.

do you make hair, clothes or some other cosmetic game creation like glasses, lipstick or wings? that's cool, i can use that, game loads fine.


i would like to restate that what i have is a TS2 Deluxe DVD & Uni. (that would be Base + Nightlife + University). i would also like to restate that my installation is pure as the driven snow & not installed on top of an old installation of any kind.

i have pre-downloaded everything i want and created sub-folders for things based either on what they are or location. my sub-folder structure is something like PESCADO, TWOJEFFS, OBJECT MOD, GLOBAL MOD, BEDROOM, LIVING ROOM, HOBBY, CHILD, STUDY, KITCHEN, BATH, BUILD MODE, DECOR, WALLS, FLOORS, POSTERS, etc.

i forgot, i can put in floors, rugs, walls & posters (pictures). the game loads fins with those things. anything else, no.

now here is the curve ball. i prefer to run two pc's, one to surf the net on, one to work & play games on. i had the game initially on one machine, but since it was biting the dust everytime i inserted a custom content sub-folder.
after i got sick & tired of this nonsense, i thought perhaps EA just didn't like that particular machine, so i took the install discs & put them on my internet machine thinking this would solve the problem. it did not.

now before you ask a zillion q's regarding my machines, keep in mind that i build computers for a living & i know that my boxes are well above the recommended specs. they have plenty of memory, disc space, processor power & graphics power. my machines are not the problem, and the problem is replicated on each machine in any configuration. this is a product problem, not a hardware problem.

once more: if i take the offending sub-folders out, the problem goes away. but then so does my enthusiasm to play. i will not play TS2 raw in an unmodified maxis only format because it is ugly, boring & annoying. when i had just my vanilla game, i never had problems with custom content, now it seems the game is prohibiting custom content period.

this is not old custom content. i have spent two weeks searching my fav content creators websites for the newest things only that are labeled as compatible with what i have purchased. now i am stuck with about 102 megs of game mods & 990 megs of custom content that makes my game refuse to finish loading.

do i have error logs? yes. even when i take this content out & the game loads fine, i still have error logs. the errors are always laced with lots of lines about duplicate audio resources. in other words, the error logs read the same with or without. i suspect that the duplicate audio resource nonsense the game is complaining about has everything to do with poor maxis coding regarding my Deluxe DVD & the Uni install since the base + ep1 + ep2 probably created this anomaly. does it have anything to do with my problem? no idea. that's why i am here.

another thing... due to these problems i have not actually played the game. i have no characters, no lots that i've played, etc. so it is pointless to consider that area. i am in a testing phase where i am systematically putting content into the game & taking it out. i am not playing it & i won't until until this problem is resolved.

i guess that's it. it's a huge problem & i cannot feel good about the money i've spent unless this is fully & satisfactorily worked out. so any and all help is appreciated. i trust the people in this community, i have been a member a long time & i value their expertise, time & effort. thank you.

A few things:
-I'm not sure when support for subfoldering was introduced. Either NL or OfB, I think, but this may be relevant.
-Do both your machines run dual core processors? I don't see how it could be linked to cc, but |TS2 doesn't like dual core. Try setting the affinity to one only.

Other than that, I'm afraid I don't have a clue what could be going on.. you've regenerated groups.cache and all those usual suspects?

sub-foldering has been supported from the base game up. starting with Nightlife however, sub-foldering of clothing, hair, glasses & make-up was introduced, so my folder schema is not an issue. and the machines in my shop that i am using are single core since i am aware that TS2 doesn't like the dual core set, so that is not the issue either. for grits & giggles, i thought i'd mix & match. one is an amd, nvidia chipset with nvidia card, the other an intel, via chipset with ati card. each box has 2 gigs of memory, 512 graphics memory & one terabyte of disc space to use, so hardware is a non-issue.

as far as the groups.cache goes, i get rid of it everytime so that a new one will be recreated. currently, all i have loaded in the game are custom hair, clothing, dna stuff, walls, floors & posters, all sub-foldered. as the problem gets worked out, i'll try reintroducing other things. currently the game loads fine since i've pulled the other content. but i want to include the other content & that is the prob since i will not play the game unless i can customize it. so far, searching the BBS at EA is turning up no results. most of the talk over there is about securom. but i may start a thread there to see if they have a tech that can analyze a game generated log. i'd rather not since they are almost always not helpful, at least that is my experience. i think of mts2 as much more reliable site.

thanks for the ideas tho, because that is important stuff to consider.

Have you tried sorting through the content with the 50% Method to see if it's just a few or possibly even just one object/hack that's borking your game?

oh yes, i have been painstakingly trying each file, one by one as i can in the root as well as a subfolder. so far none of them work. it's a real pain because i also have to ditch the groups.cache file, then fire up the game without anything, then close it (so it will make a new groups.cache file.... if i don't, it won't recreate the file since that file is created AFTER a successful load, not during a load). so that means to test ONE file, i have to start the game twice, delete a file, look at some logs that i really can't decipher, then create a folder to house the failed files on the desktop. rinse, lather repeat.

for a while, i had a successful load of about 20 one kilobyte fix files that included toddler potty fixes, young adult lazy anim fix, visitor snacking fix, teasing fix, turn off tv, etc. then i put in these ---->

apologizefix.package
Go Steady Critical Fix.package
Baby Wants Fix.package
Atavera-CustomInstrumentHack.package
ownablecarpoolcommlotfix.package
Students Move Away From the Portal.package
marhis-chinesefood_onlycounters.package


one at a time and they were most definitely problem files. no idea why. cleanpack & HDCU saw no conflicts. each time one of these broke the game, i had to take it out to a fail folder, get rid of groups.cache & put the others off to the side outside of the game so i could restart the game so it could recreate groups.cache. if i did not, it would not accept the previously passes files, they would fail also. then i'd put them back in, restart the game again, it would load fine, so i'd exit the game, grab another file and pass/fail it.

i just got SSS IIII CCCC KKKK of it. i have better things to do than muck around with this obnoxious behavior of this game. i killed an entire evening just to test a tiny, minute, microscopic fraction of around 1 gigabyte of desired cc.

so i called EA. their phone lines were also generating errors (that is what the recording would say before it hung up on me) then i went to the BBS. it had me create yet ANOTHER account for a totally separate support site. after jumping through hoops over there, i wrote down my problem & submitted an exception dump file (which was unique because in all the load failures the game always terminated before such a dump or log could be created), and included a maxian texture log, a machine config log, an audio error log & an app error log. the game generates these same logs every time regardless of whether it is pure or with cc, which supports two things: the Deluxe DVD has an anomaly and it isn't pretty, and that anomaly is present on a new installation or a modified one. it makes no difference. they are always there. the same errors... a maxian palm tree texture that is not present and has to substituted, and well over a 20 dozen duplicate maxian audio resources. this has nothing to do with cc. they are there with or without cc. they may cause the cc to fail on a load, but that is odd because i just added 2.38 gigs of hair and clothing & the game loads fine with them. i added 3 custom lots that use no cc (just default stuff), and the game loads fine. i added 4 new terrain sc4 files 7 the game loads fine. i added about 40 new posters, 200 floor files & 200 wall files & the game loads fine.

i go to add a one kilobyte noautonomousespresso package & BAM, the game barfs. add 500 more megs of clothing & hair, game is good. add one 129 kilobyte chair & KERBLOOEY, the game is yakking up all over me.

it's a waste of a $100.

so now i have my incident number to 'keep for my records' and about, i dunno... probably about 3 weeks racked up in wasted time.

i don't want to play an unmodified game anymore than i want to eat an unmodified hamburger. i wanted it seasoned to my taste, not somebody elses.

A couple more ideas.. bear with me :
Is this cc backed up from when you had the game previously, and if so, did you have more EPs then? It could be a case of loads of EP required stuff (except obvious stuff like uni fixes).
The problem files you found - they all crashed the game on their own? Or in combination with xyz?

thanks for the ideas, i'll take any and all, laff!!
nope, i am using all new cc. nothing is more than about 2-3 weeks old, and it is content intended for the discs i purchased.
and before i bought this Deluxe DVD & uni, i only played the original game, no ep's or add ons.
and yep, they all crashed the game on their own. one at a time. near as i can figure by the error logs the game generates with or without custom content, the game is shipped messed up because the same errors are listed regardless of what i insert into the game (a lot of duplicate audio resources & a few bad palm tree textures).

those logs generated those reports before i put one thing into the game at all, but the game loaded tho. then i put in hair. it loads. then i put in clothes. it loads. then i put in floors, walls, makeup, accessories & rugs. it loads. then i put in furniture. it crashed. so i took that out. it loaded. so i put in decor. it crashed, so i took it out & it loaded. then i tried putting in electronics, hobbies, etc. it crashed, so i took it out, then it loaded. last thing i tried are the actual game modifications, what some people call fixes & or hacks. i tried these one at a time. all 120 megs. one at a time. 99% of them caused a load crash. those that did not did later when coupled with a file that did, and continued to do so until i took that file out also then deleted the groups.cache file, then reloaded the game without any cc. in all instances, my error logs read the same. with or without custom content. so as i a result, i have not played the game, created sims, opened lots, saved anything. all i am doing is two things: putting stuff in & loading, then taking it out & loading. i do also go to CAS to make sure the hair, clothes, etc. shows up, and it does.

last night after i posted this, i tried something. i thought that since the original game demanded all hair, clothes & whatnot be in the root DL folder, that perhaps i should just go ahead and put it there, though i have been told that it does not matter where they are put, root or sub. still, i put them in the root. then i grabbed about 10 files to test, one by one. crash. then i just took out the hair, clothes, all the other stuff & just had a naked game plus the 10 files i was testing, each one by one, each in the root DL folder.

KABOOM. load failure.

so i am stumped.

tech support at EA is unresponsive. but thanks for your ideas, you're a peach :D