Disappearing Neighbourhoods

[simsample]

This thread is to be used to post system details in cases where the neighbourhoods have vanished.

Lately there have been an inordinate number of cases where users are loading the game only to find that their neighbourhoods have gone. In an attempt to link these cases and to find a solution, I am requesting that anyone who has encountered this problem should post their details here.
Specifically, I would request the following:
Operating system (Win 98/ Win XP Home/ Win XP Pro/ Mac OS10.4 etc- I am particularly interested in whether it is Pro or Home for XP users)
Computer specs (for example, 3.0 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia MX440- this should be enough info for the purposes of this thread).
Games (list your Sims 2 version- CD/DVD and your Expansion Packs, and also whether you are patched- I also want to know which patches you have, for example base game patch, Uni patch, NL second patch etc)
Details of Neighbourhood loss For example, "I lost Veronaville and a custom neighbourhood, but Pleasantview and strangetown were okay." Details of which neighbourhood you last played or which you play a lot would be good. It would also be great to know if you have removed your Downloads recently for any reason, and also if you have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood (for example, a bank hack which allows money transfer, or a time synchronisation hack).
Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? They should be as follows- N001 to N003= Pleasantview, Strangetown, Veronaville. N004 onward= custom neighbourhods. Can you see the folder, and in it the neighbourhood files? There should also be files for the relevant subneighbourhoods- Campus, Downtown and suburb if you created them, and there should also be a folder containing character files.
Sim PE Investigation: If you have SimPE can you still view the 'disappeared' neighbourhood in SimPE? Can you see anything obviously corrupted or unusual about it (try comparing it to other neighbourhoods).
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Please give brief details of any system or game changes you made just before you noticed the missing neighbourhoods. For example, "I performed Windows Updates and installed some hacks using File Maid. I also defragmented the hard drive." If you installed custom content prior to the problem, I do not need to know which items/ hacks you installed, but rather the type- so I would be interested to know if you installed a lighting mod, or some clothes, or an SC4 terrain, and also how you installed them (Clean Installer, manually unzipped, QXpress etc).
Any other relevant information: Whatever occurs to you which may be relevant, I'm sure you will be able to make a connection that I haven't!

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

I would also be interested to hear from anyone with a similar problem, for example if you have had whole lots disappear from your neighbourhood, or entire families disappear as though they were never there. Please keep discussion to a minimum so that it is easy for me to make sense of the data, but please do offer suggestions if you have them!
Thankyou.

[kittyboy]

it all started when i wanted to move my family into a nicer home. i put everthing they had in their inventory and saved the game. I went to the move a family (in to family bin) and it worked. so then i moved them in to a lot (i was going to build the house) but the lot was to big. so i saved the game (because i levald the lot) and i eraced the lot where i was going to pout the house and put down another lot in its place. then i freaked out case i couldn't find my family but i rememberd they where in the ocupid houses/lots so i tryed to put down the lot they where in (i was going to move the faimly in to the sims bin) but the lot wouldn't load so i had to turn off my computer from the back. I rebooted sims 2 and it loaded fine. Then i went to pleasetview and tryed looking for my family. i tryed looking in the ocupied houses/lots but the icon wasn't lit up , so i looked in the family bin (nothing) i tryed looking in all my ocupied homes (nothing again). i looked in the faimlys parents homes (there children where in the family tree but they where not in their (who they know lists). i tryed looking in the lot i had put them in, i tryed looking in hte house i took them out of orignaly, but nothing. i even tryed looking in the other nighborhoods. Where the heck did they go! They just can't vanish. can they?

i havn't tryed using sims PE yet. i have microsoft xp.

[simsample]

Thanks, do you have XP home or XP Pro?

[kittyboy]

xp home i think

[HugeLunatic]

I too have dissappearing hoods. I am using OSX 10.4, a Mac.

It started when I deleted groups.cache. When I started the game all the hoods turned into just the mesh/frame, no pics. So I removed my downloads and restarted. All was well. I ended up adding one folder at a time and restarting the game after everyone. Thought all was well. Although I still haven't got simstones folder in yet.

I made some lots, packaged. Tried to install one of my own lots after using clean installer. (I install using woohoo, the newest version straight from the programmer, release date july22) This lot I made has cc that I have had for many months, all used many times. I installed this in several neighborhoods, but not strangetown, which is also gone.

I have very few hacks, the newest being christianlov_permanentsmartmilk. And that was added over a week ago.

I am going to try removing the preferences, otherwise I will reinstall the game.

EDIT* I have reinstalled and all hoods are working, however I can't get bodyshop to work with any custom content. And all the custom content worked previously. I've removed the cigen and plist. Still no luck.

[BSG]

This *seems* similar to the problem I'm experiencing. I've lost not only all custom neighborhoods, I seem to have lost everything -- all downloads, all saved games, all saved game progress. When I open the game now, all neighborhoods are as if never played -- including expansion packs.

Loss details. I first noticed something was wrong because I had GunMod's Camera Hack, and I had been playing a lot in Pleasantview that I needed it for (don't think there was anything unusual about lot.) I think I opened the game to play, something wasn't right, so I quit, re-opened the game & made sure I enabled cc (it hadn't been before, I'd removed the disk; oddly enough a few random files were/are still listed), and though I could see where the lot should've been, it wasn't there. No new lots at all were there. All lots are brand new now. (Checked catalogs & haven't lost ALL cc, but I see only a handful of old downloads).

Computer details. 2.2 Ghz, Windows XP Pro, ATI Radeon Xpress. The Sims 2 DVD special edition, all expansion packs including FFS, and (I'm pretty sure) no patches.

Neighborhood File. Only original neighborhood files are here, all custom and subneighorhoods are gone.

Changes to system. Downloaded a couple things, a lot I think & maybe a recolor using GetRight. Installed with CleanInstaller, and manually extracted, respectively (I think). Installed updates for Acrobat, requiring several reboots (seemed odd). Also uninstalled AOL dialup & replaced with Verizon wireless.

I don't know much about computers, but I assumed it was connected to uninstalling AOL, because playing Sims was the last thing I was doing before I did that, and because it didn't seem right after that. Don't know why saved non-custom stuff was lost too. :(

****UPDATE: I noticed while searching for files on my computer, that it seemed I was seeing a lot of my old downloads flying by through the search. I'd only thought to search for specific files I'd lost, so I searched for files that said "sims" anywhere in them, and I've turned up over a thousand so far, so I've got a lot to look through ... but so far I see lots of my "missing" downloads, and they're listed as being in the correct Downloads folder, but I have to actually move them there from the search list to see them. Then it turns up as duplicate files. And still no saved game progress. No idea what happened. :faceslap:

[Canoodle]

I found this today at the sims2 forum:

I have urged the poster to register here and give the details.

Quote:This happened to me this past week, boy was I upset when it was gone. Good thing all it was that i went to start/ea games/sims 2/neighborhoods/ and there should be a characters folder, Lot's folder and thumbnails and storytelling a a few others that says NOO1-Downtown001 and few others like that, but the other day when mine wouldn't start it was because my Character and Lots folder and the N001 was in my storytelling folder so my neighborhood wouldn't show up till I put them back in the right place. start/ea games/sims 2/neighborhoods How this happened I will never know, lol. Maybe you will get lucky like me.

I hope this post is on topic. I'm as curious as anyone, as this seems to crop up so often.

[psycho_katie]

Operating system (Win 98/ Win XP Home/ Win XP Pro/ Mac OS10.4 etc- Mac OS 10.4.7

Computer specs (for example, 3.0 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia MX440- 700MHz processor, 768MB SDRAM, GeForce2 MX

Games (list your Sims 2 version- CD/DVD and your Expansion Packs, and also whether you are patched- Original, University, Nightlife. No patches.

Details of Neighbourhood loss- Only Strangetown. I only played Strangetown.

Neighbourhood File details- Yes, it's all there.

Sim PE Investigation- N/A

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption N/A

Any other relevant information- I get messages saying that I don't have enough space on my harddrive. The first thing that happens is that, while playing, as I use a character and go to click something, their face dissapears. After that, the neighbourhood doesn't load. BUT- I have since cleaned out plenty of space and haven't gotten the "not enough space" message since. Strangetown shows up in the Neighborhood menu, but if I click it it loads to two blocks (in the upper left corner) then freezes. Unless I played another neighborhood before it, in which case it SAYS that it's loading Strangetown, but it's actually loading the last neighborhood I played.


Edit

Removed downloads- Nope.
Hacks- Nope.

You said you think it was a save game problem? I'm pretty sure mine had something to do with the low harddrive space. But it's still a problem and I haven't gotten the neighborhood to work since (I didn't delete it, as I had hope that sometime there would be a solution found here. I really liked my families there!) I see nothing abnormal about the game files, and I'll try loading that neighborhood again later today again. If anything changes, I'll be sure to post.

[simaniaddict]

I chose La fiesta Tech in strangetown, and suddenly, strangetown is gone, and in its place in the neighborhood panel, u can see the college. but when u click on the college, the game crashes

[julianarosalia]

simaniaddict, please post the rest of the information in Post#1 that Simsample has requested.

[Never Leave Home]

What happened with me is, I guess I closed my computer too fast, so all my Pleasantview (Which i had been playing the night before.) lots where gone, and only houses that where not downloads, and were not occupied remained. Then I unistalled OFB, and all my neighbors where gone. I checked the EA Games/Sims2 folder and it was empty.
Now, I'm reinstalling of them, and I only have one neighborhood, whitch doesn't even work.

[julianarosalia]

Never Leave Home, would please post the rest of the imformation that Simsample asks for in Post#1?

[ab11bc49]

Operating system: Win XP Pro
Computer specs: AMD 1.1GHz, 512GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 XT
Games: Sims 2 version 1.0.0.932 built 2004-08-17-1847, by codebuilder on CMBUILD23
Details of Neighborhood loss: I turned on sims2 to find custom neighborhood no longer on neighborhood menu. This is the only neighborhood I play. No mods.
Neighbourhood File details: The custom neighborhood N005 files are all there. The N005_Neighborhood.package file was very small (1KB). All the subfolders look intact and up-to-date.
Sim PE Investigation: Looking at the .package file with SimPE displayed a neighborhood database file with no resources, etc.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing changed on the system before the problem appeared.
Any other relevant information: Frequently my computer will get powered off by other members of my family while sim2 is still running. I believe that this happened in this case and that the .package file was corrupted during an update. When sims2 was started it detected the corruption and reloaded the .package file. Many programs may be damaged by powering down, but since sims2 is updating the .package file fairly regularly it is probably more at risk of corruption then most. I sent an explanation and a copy of the small .package file to EA support and received just suggestion of starting over.

I started with a brand new custom neighborhood and I think that I can use Sim PE to update it but I do not know quite where to start. Since most of the other information like lots and sims, and such, still exist I would appreciate a suggestion on getting the existing resources reloaded into the neighborhood.

Thanks.

[simsample]

That's interesting- I'd wondered if neighbourhood loss was related to savegame corruption- sounds like it could be, if you suspect that the PC could have been powered down incorrectly.

[The Sim Vlad]

Well I recently had an issue, in fact its been an annoying problem having to constantly backup my Neighborhood. It happened just now when I was trying to capture video, and then after I was finished, i had kept boolprop testingcheatsenabled, and then shortly after I exit the lot to go into the neighborhood, it crashes. And then when I restart the game, the neighborhood is gone. This problem is quite annoying, I'm not sure if boolProp had anything to do with it, but I'm speculating that it probably has something to do with it, and now none of my backups are working. The neighborhood is not showing up in the game, and the files are ok, because when I check the file with SimPE everything seems alright, but the neighborhood is just not showing up in the selection screen.

Operating system- Windows XP Professional
Computer specs 3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6600
Games- The Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open For Business, Family Fun Stuff
Family Fun Stuff Patch Installed

Details of Neighbourhood Loss - Explained Above

All Files In N005 are there.

Sim PE Investigation: When I check SimPE, Everything Is There, But The Neighborhood Does Not Show Up on the Screen. When I would loose a neighborhood, and the file would get corrupted, it would show a bunch of question marks and etc. But in this case, everything appears normal.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I haven't changed anything in my computer, as I had been having this problem since the installation of Open For Business. The problem always existed for me, however it wasn't as bad as it was today with 5 backup neighborhoods either getting corrupted and now not showing at all even though the backups have been restored.

Any other relevant information: boolprop testingCheatsenabled true may be the issue with the crashing and disappearing neighborhoods because I noticed that whenever I had it enabled it would dissappear, after I quit and return.

The only way of combating it is by restoring the backups.

-Vlad

[julianarosalia]

The Sim Vlad, could you please also post your OS and system specs?

[The Sim Vlad]

The Sim Vlad, could you please also post your OS and system specs?

I did, they are right under the first paragraph. :)

-Vlad

[simsample]

Hi everybody, thankyou for your information so far on this- can I ask you all another big favour? In light of some new information it would also be great to know if you have removed your Downloads recently for any reason, and also if you have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood (for example, a bank hack which allows money transfer, or a time synchronisation hack).
I have amended my original post to include this information- if any of you could amend your posts to say whether this applies to you, it would be great. Thankyou!

[Nick]

This may not be of any help, but I lost all my neighborhoods shortly after installing Nightlife.(which goes back to when it was first released. )
(removed Download folder when I installed the new expansion)
No time or money hacks.
I had (and still have) Lizzloves' "No Jealousy at all " hack affecting the whole neighborhood.
I had University as well.

It may all be a coincidence, but here's my story.
Immediately after installing Nightlife and replacing the download folder, everything seemed normal except I noticed that my "Lady In Red" picture was perminantly replaced with a downloaded recolor. I started experimenting with the diferent Lady recolors and saw something was acting screwy. The Lady in Red would appear and disappear in the catalog and she nolonger existed for Lot use.
I shut down the game and when I restarted it I no longer had any Neighborhoods. I told the artist and she told me that she will fix it. (She knew something was wrong for it to replace the original.) I didn't redownload the corrected recolor....lol
I simply reinstalled nightlife and deleted her picture from the download folder before starting the game.
It only happened that one time.

Windows XP home edition
Pentium 4 3 ghz
8oomhz
Memory 2 GB
Ati 9800 Pro video card

[Will Galen]

Hi everybody, thankyou for your information so far on this- can I ask you all another big favour? In light of some new information it would also be great to know if you have removed your Downloads recently for any reason, and also if you have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood (for example, a bank hack which allows money transfer, or a time synchronisation hack).
I have amended my original post to include this information- if any of you could amend your posts to say whether this applies to you, it would be great. Thankyou!

I just bought the stuff pack the Glamour Life and installed it. I had a camera hack installed so that I could see the whole neighborhood, but GL overrode the hack and it reverted back to normal view. When I installed the hack again all my neighborhoods disappeared.

To fix the problem I deleted the camera folder and the game reinstalled a new folder.

As for my download folder I remove it all the time. Actually what I do is switch download folders along with the neighborhood folders.

Why do I do that? I had a bunch of neighborhoods and a lot of problems so I decided to start fresh and go with just one basic neighborhood. The problem was I wanted to keep a lot of content from the old neighborhoods. I found out long ago that if you package a lot of lots at one time they don't all show up, so I'm moving back and forth between my download and neighborhood folders. It's slower, but it works and I don't lose lots and familys this way.

[simsample]

Thanks Will- could you also include the details I requested in the first post, if possible?

[Will Galen]

I thought I signed up to get an email for this thread?????

Anyway I got my neighborhood view back. What was happening was everytime I changed the 'neighborhoodCamera' the game changed it back.

I was putting a new 'NeighborhoodCamera' file in my game. Finally I just changed the game file by cutting and pasting instead of replacing it and it worked.

To answer your questions, I have}

Windows XP home edition
AMD 2800/333 ATHLON XP
2.07 GHz
Memory 1 GB
ATI A-I-W 9800 Pro 128M 8X

My Sims 2 is the DVD version. I have all the games and patchs with the exceptions of The Sims 2 Holiday party pack, and The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff.

[amy_su88]

Operating system: Windows XP Home
Computer specs: 2.4 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia Geforce 4
Games: Sims 2 CD and All expansions except the holiday pack. I think my last patch may have been Nightlife...I'm not sure.
Neighborhood loss: I lost STrangetown. Everything else was fine.

I haven't removed all of my downloads but I was cleaning out some things, clothes, makeup, etc. I also recently installed the new CEP version along with the newest light mod that came along with that. Those were installed with the windows installer. I also unzipped some SC4 terrains recently. I haven't added or removed any other hacks within the time this happened.

EDIT: I removed the SC4 terrains and nothing changed. I tried reinstalling the CEP with the radiance 2.1 instead of 2.2 and nothing changed so then I tried reinstalling the CEP while restoring the original Maxis lighting. Still nothing changed. I'm guessing that the CEP update is the problem but I can't be sure as I don't know where to find old versions to replace the new one with.

[moonshimmer]

I've also lost all my lots...

Operating system: XP Pro

Computer specs: 3.06 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440

Games: Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for business, family fun.
All packs except glamour life. All patches from EAgames too.

Details of Neighbourhood loss: Everyone dissappeared. I had Veronaville and three other custom neighbourhoods. I recently reinstalled my game since I had a big problem with graphical glitches when I installed Glamour Life. So I reinstalled everything except Glamour life. I backed up my downloads and neighbourhood folders. So the downloads and neighbourhood folders has been moved around. I do have a lot of hacks (mostly clothes though, but a couple of other, like Inteenimater) but no new ones. I've had those hacks a long time and it has never conflicted with the game before.

Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? : Yes! I can see them all.

Sim PE Investigation: If you have SimPE can you still view the 'disappeared' neighbourhood in SimPE? Yes!

Can you see anything obviously corrupted or unusual about it (try comparing it to other neighbourhoods): No, I've tried to find something unusual but I can't find anything.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing else than the reinstalling of the game..

Any other relevant information: Not that I can think of.

[cybergrrl]

I had a very similar problem! Sorry if my information are not detailed enough but it happened about 4 weeks ago and i don't remember everything. I gave up my families and made new ones and just now discovered this thread here...

Operating system: Mac OS10.4.7
Computer specs: 1.25 Ghz PowerPC G4 256 MB DDR SDRAM
Games: basic game, no expansions, no patch

Details of Neighbourhood loss: I wanted to start a completely new custom neighbourhood and thus played around with some downloaded neighbourhoods. I do not remember all the neighbourhoods i installed then, about 6 or 7. I also remember i created a neighbourhood in my game: The SimStones thing... But did not do anything with it and then made a new one (i don't remember which template i used, but it was also a downloaded neighbourhood. There i put some houses and maybe even one or two sims already. Then i decided i want to move all my favourite families to this new neighbourhood. So i went to my basic neighbourhood - that was one i created myself but not downloaded (i used a template from in the game). There i moved the families to the bin. Then i went to my new neighbourhood. But when i tried to move them in there, the game crashed. After restarting the computer and the game, the particular family i had tried to move in when the crash happened, was gone. i couldn't find them anywhere! Thus, i lost my two favourite families :(
My game just wouldnt work anymore (neither did bodyshop) Then I found out that i just had to install the mac patch - after that my game worked fine again. i guess the problem was that there were too many files in my download folder. Anyway: families remained gone...

Details of which neighbourhood you last played or which you play a lot would be good: Besides the neighbourhoods i already talked about, the only one i played much is Strangetown.

I cannot tell anymore if i removed parts of my downloads before that happened; sorry. I also cannot tell for sure which hacks i used then, but i think they were:
censor thing against the blur
the happily unemployed career
the InTeenimater
LizzLove's SwingerBed and Gender Preference Kit
the MultiPainting
Maybe not all of them but certainly not more :)

i'm sorry i cannot give you information about the neighbourhood folder, since i do not remember... Hope these information help anyway - and if i can get my families back somehow (what sounds highly unlikely to me ;) that would be ... GREAT! *g*

[amy_su88]

I'm just wondering if anyone has had any luck in actually fixing this problem? (besides that one post that doesn't seem to apply to any of us).

[tlynnjpeg]

Operating system Windows XP Home
Computer specs 2.39 Ghz processor, 512 MB RAM, some crappy integrated video card with not enough VRAM...I might be able to figure out what kind if you need it
Games Sims 2 DVD, patched; Uni, patched
Details of Neighbourhood loss I had no neighbourhoods. I had just created a new user account, to do some playing with a completely cc-free game...first time into it, I had no neighbourhoods to choose from. There was one box that had an image of what looked like a terrain mesh, but the three normal neighbourhoods weren't there. I didn't try going into the mesh one, I was a little afraid to try. I did create a custom neighbourhood, and decided to worry about it later.
Neighbourhood File details There are two neighbourhood files. I assume one is that funky mesh one, and the other is my custom neighbourhood. The tutorial "neighbourhood" is also there.
Sim PE Investigation I haven't checked in that profile yet. I'll come back and update.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption? The only thing I had done was create that new user profile.
Any other relevant information I haven't tried playing again yet, or in my normal profile. I'll update after I try those.

I really hope there's some solution to this. One of the reasons I wanted a clean game was to play some of the Maxis families that I've messed around with too much in my normal game. I've also used another profile for the game before, and it worked fine then, so I don't think that has anything to do with it. I also don't know if this is just completely different from everyone else that's posted. Either way, I hope it gets resolved. I don't want to have to reinstall, if I can help it.

[simsample]

I'm just wondering if anyone has had any luck in actually fixing this problem? (besides that one post that doesn't seem to apply to any of us).

That's what we are trying to find out from this thread- a common link so that we can figure out how to prevent/ solve this. Could you all try an experiment- cut and paste the neighbourhood manager file to the desktop from My Documents\ EA Games\ The Sims2\ neighbourhoods. This should force the game to regenerate this file. I'm wondering if it will make any difference?

[wait_for_me]

Ok I really need help!.. Im getting frustrated since I cant play the sims... here are my details

Operating system- Win XP Home
Computer specs- 2.0 Ghz processor, 512 RAM, Nvidia G-Force FX, 60 GB, 20 gb free
Games- The Sims 2 (No patches, no expansions)
Details of Neighbourhood loss- One day I was playing the sims and I decided to just get out because I was tired, so then I closed the sims 2 game and I turned my computer off, the next day turned it on and when I loaded the sims I realized that "StrangeTown" was gone, I was only able to see Veronaville and Pleasantview" I was freaked out, so I searched for help online and someone told me to copy the files from My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/ Neighborhood to "C:/Program file/Ea Games/ The Sims 2/ Userdata/Neighborhood (I did that, and made a copy of my current My documents files but it didnt worked, I even tried erasing the cache file thing and it didnt worked..)
Neighbourhood File- I can see everything, nothing is missing
Sim PE Investigation:I can open my neighborhood (Strangetown) with it but I cant access the SIm Browser, it appears as blank and if I check the folder all my characters are there though
Any other relevant information: Nothing... just what I described above..I havent used cheats or delete my downloads

I will really appreaciate your help, Im desperate!!!

[wait_for_me]

Im sorry for double-posting but after conducting some experiments I found the source of trouble. I found that in order for the neighborhood to be displayed in the menu the file inside the folder in Neighborhood/N002 called N002_/Neighborhood has to be properly set, the only problem is that I dont know how to fix this file or at least make it available to use (and remplacing it with another one will only cause you to have your sims placed in different houses and some sim family gone..) I dont exactly know how to use Sim PE but I noticed that if you load this file into neighborhood browsing, the sim browser and lot information wont be displayed.. If any of you have any clue can you help me out?

[simsample]

wait_for_me, could you just try this little experiment- go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

[NotarySojac]

Our neighborhoods suddenly were taking much longer than usual to load - no load-screen action for over a half hour as opposed to the usual 20 minutes it takes to load since we added Nightlife - so we Force-Quit. We removed everythng that had been installed since the last successful play and launched again. We got to Strangeville after the "normal" 20 minutes of loading and found the Marie Celeste - all the homes we made were there (some even with a taxi waiting to pick up the residents) but the only Sims were the stock Maxis residents. All the families we made were gone.
We were finally able to find the "add neighbour to family" item in the testingcheatsenabled tool thanks to Calidan's guide, but the members of thefour families we were working on did not show up as available. Oddly, two of the three members of the stock Geek household appeared in the lot loading screen but did not appear as family members once the house came up.

Great - we just went to the neighborhood select screen after exiting the one we were looking at and the three stock neighborhoods just show blank terrain mesh in the previews. Everything is missing in Veronaville - no lots at all, but only the most recent lot is missing from Strangeville.

MacOS 10.4.7
PowerBook G4 1.5GHz 1.5GB RAM 128Mb ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
Sims2 +Univ +NL (did not apply recent patch to make it a universal binary)
No hacks - just custom content. When no neighborhoods would load after waiting well over a half hour each we removed everything that had been added since the last successful play. This is when we had the Marie Celeste syndrome.
SimPE - not Mac-compatible and WooHoo does give us much in the way of diagnostics yet.

Quit Sims2 without saving and relaunched. Neighborhood previews are back, but otherwise the same - Strangeville has lost all our created families but their lots are intact, Veronaville has no lots at all and now the preview of Pleasantville is terrain-mesh only.

Game is often left left running for many days - just paused before laptop is slept at night.

added:
We tried the suggested replacement of the neighbourhoodmanager.package file since it's Modified time was within the past few minutes. That appeared to fix things as the neighborhood previews were back and showed the green diamonds of occupancy. Entering them revealed 2 of the 3 to be lotless again and the previews again went to terrain grid view.

We are about to copy our Downloads folder to a safe palce and do a full reinstall & patch over the existing copy of the game.

[IceQueenElle13]

I have Original CD Version with 4 discs, University EP, and NL EP.
Also, Windows XP Professional.
"Unknown CPU Type
1.79GHz, 640 MB of RAM."


It started on Monday, I was playing and everything was fine. I went into the University part, sending my sims to college, and I put them in a dorm and chose everything for them. I changed a sims appearance, everything was fine. I get on on Tuesday, after saving the game and all, I go back in the dorm I put them in.. and It didn't save correctly.

I did everything, yet again and then I changed another sims appearance. And her face dissapeared! It was a body with hair. Later, it eventually worked right, but it took alot of tries. I then quit for that moment, and made SURE to save it, then clicked quit.

Later that night, I got on, went into the university part, and BAM! My dorm was gone? I clicked on the lot, and it went to load, then turned my screen black for a second, then came up with the university neighborhood. It did this twice and I gave up and quit.

Wednesday [Yesterday], I come home to play, Go to find my custom neighborhood, and its gone.

I checked my My Documents/EAGames/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N006 folder.
EVERYTHING WAS THERE.
And still is.

Today...
I backed that up, and slowly started to add things from the original folder to see if anything happened. I had everything added and it was still all right. I added my N006_Neighborhood.package file, and the whole neighborhood dissapears again.

And that's where I am now.
HeLp?

--Ellery

[love247_jo]

-Operating system: Win XP Pro
-Computer specs :3.02 Ghz processor, 768 MB for RAM
-Games:base,NL,UNI,OFB /patches: base and OFB
-Details of Neighbourhood loss :i had the 3 original neighbourhoods and a custom one,i was playing only in my custom neighbourhood. and its gone...

-I recently removed all the EA folder to reinstall the sims2 and packs. and i did not use any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood.

-Neighbourhood File details: all the details are still in the folder( the lots, the charecters....)

-What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: i don't think anything changed.

Any other relevant information:
My game was crashing alooooot, especially my neighbourhood (from the objects and the hacks i think) but i used to it, and i was reloading the game and play as usual.
Once i was having a real problem to enter my neighbourhood, so when i finally entered, i decided to remove any possible hacked lots and community lots(that usually the game was crashing when i was trying to enter them), so i removed many of them, then i enterd a lot to play a family normally, i was playing then suddenly the game crashed (which is normal with me), when i reloaded the game again i found that my custom neighbourhood was gone...!!

im sorry if my post is long...
but plz help me, i have been playing this neighbourhood for months...plz...

[ojiru]

I lost a lot, rather than the whole hood. Duno if this is the spot for it, but it doesn't hurt anyone to try.

Operating system Win XP Pro S2
Computer specs Athlon 64 3200+: 2.2ghz; 1gb ram; Nvidia GeForce FX 5200
Games Base, Uni, NL, OfB, FFS, and GLS. Not sure about the patches.
Details of Neighbourhood loss Lot vanished on my custom hood's college campus. It was a 3x3 lot, and the building was tall, but not very big. This happened before when the lot gets really big, and with lots of stuff. However it's also happened before when a not so big lot. I noticed that I had a problem with placing a floor tile down; it wouldn't get placed unless I shift clicked. I immidietly saved and exited the game, upon restarting the lot was gone, and instead left is a large blue square.
Neighbourhood File details Everything's in place.
Sim PE Investigation The lot appears in the hood.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption Nothing noticable.

[GuyML]

Win XP Pro
Amd Athlon Dual Core 3800 64bit, 1024MB DDR2
I have all the expansions (Uni,NL,OFB,FF,GL,Pets)

I only have Veronaville left in my menu, and the Neighborhoods folder at my docs folder has all three neighborhoods(N001,N002,N003).

It happened when I installed the FF pack, any reason why it happened ?


Thanks :)

[luckster]

The other day, my neighborhood disappeared also. As I was saving my last gameplay, my laptop fell, and I had to restart which resulted in a corrupted saved game. Now that particular NH is gone. I've been trying to find a solution by trial and error and checking forums online. I uninstalled the pets EP and played my last addon which was GL. All 3 NH were there but completely brand new. The only backup I have is after the corruption occured. So I transfered that backup to the brand new folder except for the N001_Neighboorhood DBPF package file. When I loaded the game, I still had all 3 NH but they were still brand new. So I brought over that package file, and that's when my NH disappeared. SO I believe that's the corrupted file. When compared to the other 2 NH, their package file is larger in size where as the corrupted file is only 1k. I just don't know how to fix it. ? The SimPE doesn't work, unless I'm just not using it correctly.

[simsample]

The neighbourhood file is written to each time you save the game (memories, family relationships etc), so if it was corrupted during save and is only 1K in size this means that the information is not there, so SimPE will not be able to recover it.

[amy_su88]

Simsample, I tried what you suggested and it did nothing to fix my game. I didn't notice any changes at all. Hope that information helps.

[christalla]

I lost pleasentview i was so upset i had worked so hard and got it just the way i wanted it.i lost my houses,sims everthing
WHAT HAPPENED:I was surfing the net and still had the sims running but i had done this before and it was ok and i wasnt on the net long because i wanted to go back on my game,anyway i went back to my game and the screen started to flicker and wouldnt let me log off so i had to just shut the computer down but this had happened before and it just didnt safe what i had done that day(WELL NOT THIS TIME)i went to start my game up again and pleasentview was gone,but the werid thing is i still have everything on my computer but cant seem to put them back into my new neighbourhood i made not even a storytellers picture,could anyone help me how to but my houses,sims back into my new neighbourhood please?
i would be so grateful i was writing a story as well and cant finish it without my pictures or sims or houses?

[julianarosalia]

christalla, could you please edit your post with the information that Simsample requests in the first post?

[simsample]

Simsample, I tried what you suggested and it did nothing to fix my game. I didn't notice any changes at all. Hope that information helps.

Thanks Amy, this is great information.

[christalla]

Hi Julianarosalia i dont understand what you mean,im new to all this?
Anyway i found my story in strangetown,dont ask me how they got there but its just the sims and my houses i want back now,at least i can now get to finish my story.

[julianarosalia]

christalla if you go to the first page of this thread, Simsample has a list of questions about your computer. If you could try and answer them as best as you are able that would help us try to figure out why your neighborhood/lots/sims have disappeared.

[christalla]

Ok i will do Thankyou again for being so help full.

[Lisa626]

Operating system Windows XP Home Edition Ver 2002 Service Pack 2

Computer specs AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 2.16 Ghz processor, 1.00 GB
of RAM, Nvidia GeForce FX 5500 256mb DDR AGP 8x/4x

Games CD versions of Sims 2, University, Nightlife and OFB - Glamour
Life expansion. Sims 2, UNI, NL and OFB CD patches

Details of Neighbourhood loss Lost custom neighborhood that had been
played for 4-5 months. Pleasantview and Veronaville still show on main menu but have not played them at all - only play with the custom neighborhood.

Last incident I played my game last night and all was fine until I sent a teen sim on a date. I had her ask her date back to her house because that was one of her wants. He walked off of the lot instead of getting into the car - she drove off and the game crashed completely and restarted my computer due to a bad device driver which it has been doing now for some reason. Game has crashed on several occasions with the error message from Microsoft saying that there is a bad device driver but my neighborhood never dissapeared. Loaded my game this morning and my custom hood was gone.

Have not removed any downloads or hacks - have only done some recoloring of clothing in Bodyshop and imported them into game.

All neighborhood files for custom hood are still showing. SimPe shows the picture of my custom hood but nothing else - no sims, townies or NPC files.

My hacks include a few by Squinge and Merola (sp?)

Not sure what is going on but this is the 2nd disappearance for me and starting all over really bites. Playing a computer game should not be this stressful :(

Thanks for any help you can provide


Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference

I tried the above suggestion but nothing happened. I was hoping it would but I still get nothing.

[Kopika]

Operating system: Windows XP Home edition
Computer specs: 2.80 Ghz processor, 1024mb RAM, Raedon 9800 pro
Games: All expansions packs and the two "stuff" packs. Note: Pets was not installed at the time issues first arrived.
Details of Neighbourhood: I played only 1 family in Pleasantview. After crashing at a loading screen several times it removed only Pleasantview. No custom neighborhoods, items, hacks, sims, clothes etc. Absoloutly nothing not included in standard install.
Neighbourhood File details: It appears as though all files are there. Similarly, none of them are '0kb' meaning they haven't actually wiped. All characters/lots/stories etc appear intact.
Sim PE Investigation: Dont have it.
System Changes: No system changes, the only point of interest i can offer is that my computer has been freezing alot lately. Never whilst playing sims, but needless to say it needs a reformat.
Any other relevant information:
A: I have tried replacing, swapping and removing the neighbourhoodsmanager files, as you have directed throughout, all to no avail.
B: The exact series of events before the removal of my neighborhood is as follows - It startied with a crash whilst in the loading screen between home to community lot. After restarting the game i tried again to the same effect. I think i actually tried a third time as well.
Finally next time i entered my families lot, the car they had left in had returned back to the default yellow, and similarly lost its car alarm. And finally, after having crashed in the loading screen for the last time, when i restarted Pleasantview had gone walkabouts.
C: After all of the above had happened, i waited a few days and bought the Pets EP, hoping the install would correct things, to no avail.

And finally thankyou for being willing to sift through thousands of posts for a correlation. :gjob:

[julianarosalia]

Kopika, this faq will walk you through finding your systems specs: http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=112711

[Kopika]

Done.

Also, this topic has been going for about 3 months, what solutions has anyone else had? Or have you all simply found new sims?

Its a shame to know that one day and entire neighborhood can pack up and leave at any time....

[simsample]

Done.

Also, this topic has been going for about 3 months, what solutions has anyone else had? Or have you all simply found new sims?

Its a shame to know that one day and entire neighborhood can pack up and leave at any time....

All of the information so far points to this being a savegame corruption, without a seemingly common cause. So far it seems that the only way to proceed is to scrap the affected hood(s) and start over.

[Max Outrider]

Operating system Windows XP Pro + all security updates
Computer specs AMD Athlon FX60 64bit processor, 2GB RAM, ATI x1900xtx graphics card
Games Sims 2 CD version, University CD, Nightlife CD, Family Fun Stuff CD, Holiday Pack 05 EA Link Download, Open for Business CD, Glamour Life EA Link Download, and Pets DVD.
Details of Neighbourhood loss Playing Pleasantview with only 1 custom family after install of all the above games. Pleasantview lost after system crash with auto restart during save when attempting to quit game. Strangetown and Veronaville still alive and well, neither touched since game install.
The ONLY hack installed at time of crash was InSIMinator OBJ edition. I was closing the game down at the time in order to get more downloads for use in the game.
Neighbourhood File details All files still accounted for in each folder for each neighbourhood.
Sim PE Investigation: Don't have Sim PE, not a fan of it as it is too difficult to navigate.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: The only strange occurance to happen is that after installing the Pets expansion first time around, the game kept crashing and auto restarting my computer either during load of the neighbourhood or straight after the EA logo at the startup. This was only fixed after removing the entirity of The Sims 2 and all expansions and reinstalling them.
Any other relevant information: I'm noticing a lot of people have the same problem, I have an idea of my own to try and will let you know how I get on. This is the first time this problem has happened to me and I think it relevant to say that it has only happened after the install of Pets. Before that the game worked perfectly.

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

Tried and did not work. Absolutely no difference what-so-ever.

[simsample]

Max Outrider, if your computer restarted this usually indicates hardware fault- perhaps overheating. What most likely happened in your case was that the crash corrupted the neighbourhood files.

[TcHeRn0bYl]

First, sorry if my english isn't good because I'm French.


Operating system Windows XP Home

Games Nightlife - University - Open for Business

Details of Neighbourhood loss I lost Strangetown after I try to create a new Neighborhood with the Strangetown's "characters" file, but Pleasantview and Veronaville are okay.

Sim PE Investigation I can see and modify Strangetown in SimPE.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption Nothing, I think.


Thanks for reply(s) :)

[RedKatt]

Operating system: Win Xp Home
HomeComputer specs: Amd Athlon 64 processor 3800+, 2.41GHz, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
Games: Sims 2 CD, Sims 2 University CD, Sims 2 Nightlife CD, Nightlife Patch
Details of Neighbourhood loss: My custom neighbourhood is the only one I ever touch, N004, now my problem seems to differ from other peoples, I am perfectly able to play the original neighbourhoods but my custom neighbourhood has vanished completely ingame and this actually occurred while I was playing it, I am also unable to create -any- new custom neighbourhoods, the option for this is greyed out.

Two things happened before I lost my neighbourhood and ability to create custom neighbourhoods, firstly I had just added some new custom stuff all clothes/hair, secondly the space on my C drive where the sims saved games are was running low on space.

I was in game (after having put my new downloads in the game) playing a character in my custom neighbourhood, he was taking a taxi to downtown when downtown loaded it loaded in build mode, I clicked on the icon to return me to my custom neighbourhood, it loaded the splash screen with the neighbourhoods name but it returned to downtown everytime, puzzled I returned to the main menu only to find my custom neighbourhood had completely vanished.

I since backed up my neighbourhood that was saved on my C drive (the actual game is installed in another drive) and reinstalled everything, I moved my custom neighbourhood back into my newly installed folders and had exactly the same problem, no custom neighbourhood, absolutely no ability to create a custom neighbourhood.

As you can guess I'm pretty damn annoyed, not only can I not touch the neighbourhood I play I can't even create a new one to start from scratch from. If I ran out of space on drive C while in play I can understand corrupting my save file, however what I can't get my head around is the choice of making a new custom neighbourhood being greyed out.

I have never installed any hacks, and I removed all custom content before I reinstalled and have not put it back.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Update: I thought you might find this interesting. I found a backup of this neighbourhood albeit slightly old. Once I moved that into my saved games folder I found that I was able to play it. However because it was old I wondered if there was any way to drag the character files into the character folder of the backup game, I also copied my saved crashed game lots over my old backup lots, I booted up the game, I saw the neighbourhood with added lots and I loaded a house, in this house I found people who had been at the university neighbourhood now back in their original homes acting like the age they were of the old backup game but in their young adult skins with the same hair/makeup I had left them with in my crashed game. I decided to copy the downtown/university packages of my saved crashed game over my backup game ones, when I came to load the game again my neighbourhood had once more disapeared. So it seems for me the fault is in one of the university/downtown packages.

Final Update: I replaced the backup game university package files with the crashed games one, the neighbourhood still loaded, however it was still loading the backup neighbourhoods houses. I copied the crashed game neighbourhood.packagae file over the backup one, booted up the game, no more neighbourhood, I can ony assume then that my neighbourhood.package was corrupt, I doubt theres anything I can do but admit defeat and play from my backup. I assume it corrupted when it tried to save and ran out of space on drive C. My only advice is backup your game regularily and don't let your stupid brother partition your hardrive with a mere 10GB drive C partition :p

[love247_jo]

simsample, you say its a savegame corruption, i was not saving when the game crashed and neighbourhood disappeared, i was having a party and playing normally. what was the wrong thing i did? maybe i did not save the game after i deleted some lots (i can't remember if i saved it or not before it crashed) maybe it did not save that i deleted them, so a corruption happened!!

does uninstalling and reinstalling the game do anything to solve the problem?

[Kopika]

"he was taking a taxi to downtown when downtown loaded it loaded in build mode"

Ah yes, somthing i had forgotten was that the same thing happened to me. After taking a taxi downtown, i entered the lot in build mode. I had the ability to move and replace items even though the lot wasn't owned by my sim, but any money used came out of my sim's bank.

Similarly, i couldn't use sim mode again, as it was grey'ed out, meaning my sim had left the house without saving, and i had no option but to return to the neighborhood.

That only happened after a few crashes. It appears these seem to be starting all the problems.

[simsample]

simsample, you say its a savegame corruption, i was not saving when the game crashed and neighbourhood disappeared, i was having a party and playing normally. what was the wrong thing i did? maybe i did not save the game after i deleted some lots (i can't remember if i saved it or not before it crashed) maybe it did not save that i deleted them, so a corruption happened!!

does uninstalling and reinstalling the game do anything to solve the problem?

When the game is in use the savegame files are being read. It is possible that when the game crashed the corruption occurred- the game does not necessarily need to be writing at the time of crash for a corruption to occur. The sims isn't like other games where the savegame is a single file; in fact there are many files that get altered when saving. The neighbourhood files (which contain memories, so when your sim meets Mort Goth then Mort's memory is altered too), neighbourhood decorations, the lot details, sub-neighbourhood details etc. There are a lot of files that the game needs to read just to be able to have a party! Each of the sims invited has motives, memories, relationships that are being maintained.

[Chaynne]

My problem is I have two custom neighbourhoods, but only one appears when I load the game.

Operating system: Win XP Pro

Computer specs: AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 2.19 Ghz processor, 1 Gb RAM, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

Games: Sims 2 PC, University, Nightlight, Open for Business, Family Fun Stuff

Details of Neighbourhood loss I lost a custom neighbourhood. I deleted the the neighbourhoods that came with the game about six months ago. The custom hood that was lost is the one I've been playing most recently. I haven't removed the downloads folder recently, either.

Hacks: Lizzlove's Waterbed of Love, "Swinger's Bed" global hack, Swinger's Hot Tub, No Privacy mod, Modest teens and hottubs fix, no-jealousy-at-all behaviour package, Inteenimater, Merola's Multipainting and Mind Control Mirror, Carrigon's College Helping hand (not sure if that is the correct name) and Large Abduction Crystal, DJS Sims Bob the Reward Gnome, Automatic NPC Scheduler Aspiration Reward and Home Shopping PC

Neighbourhood File details The 'hood file shows up in Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods, with all the relevant files

Sim PE Investigation: The 'hood shows up in Sim PE, but with the file path Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods/etc, etc instead of the file name. when I doubleclick on the file to open it, Sim PE gives me an error message, and can't open the 'hood. My other hood appears as normal in SimPE.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I deleted about three other custom 'hoods (using the in-game deletion), left one and created a new one. I also created a custom university 'hood, something i've never done before. I then played the new 'hood and then shut down the machine. this morning when I started up the game only the I created yesterday is showing up.

Any other relevant information: In the last couple of days, I've noticed that while in the university lot of my lost hood, the game continues to run while in build and buy mode (ie the sims still move around and do stuff) I've also had total loss of sound and a really weird camera angle that I didn't set.I fixed the camera angle, but the sound seemed to randomly come and go.

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

I tried it, but it didn't make any difference :cry:

Chaynne

[biscuit-the-great]

A similar thing has happened to me before.

here is my story, I played on the neighborhood veronaville which had all my sims in it, After that my friend came around and asked if she could make a family and a house on the pleasantview neighborhood. She made the sims, the house and then moved the sims in, saved it and then came off to let me have a go at playing around with my sims. Then the next day I let my friend go back on the game to carry on with her home, something wasnt right, there was no music and the house that my friend made was for sale, yup it just deleted the family that she had put in there! I checked to see if the same had happened with the other neighbourhoods and the same had happened with strangetown! the only neighborhood not effected was veronaville (which was fine by me since all my families were there, but it isnt fair on my friend is it?) I dont know why it did this but In the end I deleted Pleasantview and strangetown and let my friend build a home in veronaville! Yes everythings fine now apart from I only have one neighborhood, But why did it happen? it should not do this!

Also a few days after this incident the game wasnt playing music and the TV was not working, the screen just had a big red cross through it when my sims turned it on! however when I installed Nightlife it repaired this for me, how nice of it!

But a game is a game and it isnt here to stress us out by automatically deleting some of my friends creations!

My Computer is a Mac OSX version 10.4.8
It currently has 512Mb of memory
the computer specs are: 2.1 GHz PowerPC G5

This is above the minimum requirements i think!

The games I own are Sims base game and Sims nightlife.

[Pussyrat]

Operating system \ Win XP Home
Computer specs -?
Games Sims 2,Pets,University,Open For Business,Glamour Life,Nightlife
Details of Neighbourhood loss- I lost Veronaville,the others are ok.

Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? Pleasant View,and Strangetown are. Downtown,Colleges,Bluewater Village are all there..but no veronaville.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I had downloaded some hair from you,and something appeared about a neighborhood. Not knowing what it was, I pressed yes and lost veronaville.

Any other relevant information: I wasn't playing the game when it happened.

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?Nope
Can you please help me? I was mostly playing Veronaville! :cry:

[victorialebon]

System Details:
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20Ghz,
3.19 Ghz, 1.00GB of RAM
Windows XP Home Edition '02
Alienware Computer

Neighborhood Details

I made a really cool house in Strangetown and then saved the game. The computer then accidentally got turned off without exiting the game. When i restarted the game everything was ok so i finished my house. Then the next day the neighborhood is gone. All of the files are there just like they should be but the game no longer recognizes the game.

[victorialebon]

Um i tried the moving Neighborhood manager thing that was suggested in the previous post. Now the game wont load at all! i get an error message. All is lost! All is lost! :wtf:

[simsample]

The whole game will not load? Or still just the corrupt neighbourhood?

[arcadiawilde]

Operating system: MAC OS 10.3.9
Computer specs: ibook 1.33 ghz, 512 mb RAM, :( G4
Games: Sims 2, Uni, NL, OFB, Pets. No patches as far as I remember, and if I do have any it's for base game or Uni.
Details of Neighbourhood loss: Pleasantview is gone, it was the last neighborhood played.
Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? Yes, all intact.
Sim PE Investigation: n/a.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Installed Pets EP. Opened it with custom content enabled, and opened Plesantview. Created two pets in CAS, merged with current household, and played it. One sim with a custom skin tone lost his face after "change appearance" in the mirror. I then did NOT save the lot, and exited the game. When I came back, Pleasantview was gone.

Tried replacing the neighborhood manager and it didn't do anything.

[koyasha86]

Main problem is all my sim characters and houses are not appearing in my Hood2- Strangetown (and the subneighbourhoods) I play this one the most. They only appear the default sims. (Full details below)

Operating System: WINDOWS XP professional

Computer Specs: 3.01ghz, 1.00gb ram, ATI Radeon 9550

Games: Sims2 CD original, uni, nightlife, pets, open for business. No patches as I'm unaware of.

Details of Hood loss: Recently had to uninstall the Sims2 game, I saved all neighbourhoods (even though I only use Hood2- Strangetown). But when re-installing the Sims2 game and all expansions, and coping all the hoods back into the file they did not show up on the game. Only default sims remained. I lasted played Strangetown (usually also Bluewater Village) a lot.

I did remove ALL downloads and hacks because I had to reinstall Windows XP altogether. But I saved them on my USB drive. I haven’t put downloads back on yet.

Neighbourhood File details: When I click in the folder my backed up files and defualt appear to be there. Seeing as I play Strangetown (hood 2) the most, I noticed my backup files saved are still there and once I played the game with up to 00200.package characters, more .package files started to appear because I started the game and the sub-hoods were creating, making a total of 00513.package. But my Sub-hoods do not contain folders, the files themselves appear as .package (??)

Sim PE Investigation: Don't think so as I had to re-install XP and everything was deleted.

Other option mentioned: :( I have tried, nothing seems to work or show. Also did vis versa (backed up manager.package) that also didn't work. :cry:

[Darth_Angelus]

OS: Windows XP Pro

SPEC: Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, 2gb Ram, NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT

I have The Sims 2 plus the first three expansions (I've yet to acquire Pets).


A few days ago I reinstalled the game, it wasn't loading properly after I had a virus corrupted some of my exe files. Silly me forgot to backup all my saved game files and custom content but I was able to recover most of them so I'm not complaining about that.

However, when I try to put my neighbourhood (N005) back into the game it doesn't show up on the list. I checked the files, they're all there and they shouldn't be corrupted (the recovery software wouldn't let me restore files that were messed up and I was careful not to save anything to the drive so they wouldn't be written over).

I've tried creating a new N005 and then copying my old files over that but it doesn't help. I'm not really sure what else to try.

[Melynna]

Operating system: Windows XP

Computer specs: Intel Pentium 4 Procesor 530, 524MB RAM, 200GB hard disk, NVidia Geforce 7300 GS

Games: The Sims 2, University, Open for business


Details of neighbourhood loss: I followed the tutorials on customization of neighbourhood, I'd never done that, and they recommended downloading a few hacks. When I tried to move the sims from the bin to the houses, and after building the house, saving them, I could not see neither the house nor the sims from the neighbourhood view. The sims were nowhere to be found. I did it all over again, this time I used the teleport thingy (hack) and used it to teleport the sims that had dissapeared, and they DID show up. I saved it again, went back to the neighbourhood and they had dissapeared again.
I had the same problems with ALL the hoods, both the custumized and the Maxis ones.

I tried to erased the no townies hack, but for some reason, the graphics went crazy and messed everything up, so I just uninstalled it alltogether.

Hacks: teleport, the one to change the hour, the one to create just one npc per type, the one to not create any more townies. (Sorry, I'd erased them by now and I don't know the names for each one, I also know I had just a few more but I can't remember).

SimPe investigation: the neighbourhoods were there, but they didn't have any folder inside them (I only know about the custimized ones...I don't know about the maxis ones) just the (whatevername).package

What changed on your system before the corruption: I had erased the dna, sims, and relationships using the SimPe. I had also used the 'deleteallcharachters' cheat in the customized 'hood. I never touched the Maxis 'hoods.

Any other relevant information: After installing "Open for business", I had problems trying to start windows. Although I don't think both issues are related :P

[windgirl]

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2666 Mhz 768MB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X
All games, no stuff packs.

I lost most of my downloads just prior to installing Pets as I accidentally dragged them to backup, instead of copying, then deleted the backup...

I retrived most of my missing custom content by re-downloading everything from all the websites, and deleted everything not working with clean installer.

Hacks - pretty much everything going, except C.lovs, because I'd had problems with those and deleted them. Never had any other conflicts caused by havks before though - been lucky. Never had any serious glitches either.

Each time I got a new EP I deleted neighbourhood 1 and then pasted in the old one I had as a backup. It always worked fine. The other neighbourhoods I always deleted to save space, so I just had my version of N001.

This time a lot of my folders vanished - saved sims, projects etc. My version of N001 totally reverted back to the classic Maxis version, although it now had pets running around. Then my backup couldn't be found...

I gave up on it all, and started using Strangetown. Then today I found my backup, and deleted N001 (which I hadn't touched anyway) and plonked my version back in. All the sims and custom stuff is there, but they have no memories, no jobs, no personality/DNA points,no family relationships - even no marriages among my old sims. They do have interests and likes/dislikes, although they have been re-set at ramdom. The link to the shopping district was also severed, although links to uni and downtown remained. I don't have simPE and don't know what to do. I was wondering if the neighbourhood manager file is responsible? There was a new one made becuase I started using Strangetown, and I did not put the old one in to replace it. I tried putting it in the N001 folder after it I realised there were problems, but to no avail.

[Sims&Slayer666]

Operating system: Win XP Pro

Computer specs: 1200 MHz Processor, 510MB RAM, RADEON 9200 SE.

Games: Base & University, Asia-Pacifica Edition, University patch

Details of Neighbourhood loss: I’ve never actually played Strangetown or Pleasantville but I play Veronaville but every neighborhood except for the University disappeared together.

Downloads: 3592 organized files that were never dramatically moved recently. With avatera’s Custom Instrument Hack.

Neighbourhood File details: Yep everything is %100

Sim PE Investigation: I’ve never used SimPE up until now so I’m unfamiliar with it but I do use Sims2Pack Clean Installer.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I defragment and optimize my computer daily aswell as virus scans. I’ve been burning music off my computer onto DVD so I guess a lot of files have been moved but didn’t involve The Sims 2 folders.

Any other relevant information: Well I didn’t do anything significant before the error occurred but I was lucky I had a backup to restore and things have been fine since.

haha my post is #69 :rofl: lol ok I'll grow up

[cecim]

Hello everyone,

I had to give my two cents after reading that the same problem I have been having with the Sims2 has been happening to other people.

I will answer the information as follows:

Operating System: Mac OS 10.4.8

Computer Specs: 1.5 GHz Powerbook G4 768 MB SDRAM

Games: All Expansion Packs, including Pets.

Details of Neighborhood Loss: Here's where it gets sticky. I experienced small problems on the OFB EP with the names of the neighborhhoods disappearing. But, I typed those in and played the game. However, when I added on Pets, my legacy neighborhood would not load. It was a custom made neighborhood (N004). I did not play Strangetown or the other Maxis neighborhoods.

I did a clean install of the base game and expansion packs. Unfortunately, when the game (with Pets) began to run again, I lost the families in both my Nightlife and base game neighborhoods. The Sims that were created in OFB were also gone as well as their businesses.

I called Aspyr and discussed this with their tech. She told me that there was file corruption. She also told me that the only thing I could do is to reinstall everything, eliminate the plist files connected to the Sims 2 and get rid of all files associated with the game in my computer. After backing up everything, I got rid of all the files.

(I also asked if they were going to make a patch for Pets, she told me that wasn't likely at the moment).

I reinstalled the game. However, all the Sims in the neighborhood still did not show up. However, the lots stayed the same without their perspective families.

I then decided to start afresh with a new neighborhood. After establishing the families and building on the lots, things at first seemed fine. And then, when I accessed CAS to create another family, the game crashed (there had been about ten families in the core neighborhood with none in any other sub-neighborhood). I restarted the game and all the families had disappeared again.

Frustrated, I threw out the new neighborhood and started again. However, this time, the name of the new neighborhood disappeared.

Neighborhood File: All of my custom neighborhood files remained same. Nothing was lost. Everything stayed the same, including the snapshots and the storyline. The Sims, however, will not show up.

SimPE: N/A

What Changed in my system: The only mod I had was the SimCutie espresso machine . However, I have tons of hair, skintones and clothes downloads. I thought at first it might be the level of downloads (I have about 5,000), but the game worked time and time again with the downloads in question.

Neighborhood Manager File Test: I followed the instructions to the letter and nothing different occurred. My lots (after several quits and spans in playing) and families continued to disappear.

The only thing I hope is that there is a patch or some workaround that will help solve this problem. I agree with an earlier poster that it shouldn't be stressful to play a game. However, the Pets expansion pack has caused me a lot of grief. I told this to the techs at Aspyr and they told me that I should reinstall and that would take care of everything. It didn't. :(

Thank you for opening this thread. I am grateful. I was racking my brains before what I could have done wrong to cause this to happen. And now that other people are experiencing the same problem, I am not alone. I feel comforted.

Take care,

Ceci

[cecim]

Hello once again,

I have tried some new things in my search to understand this problem with the disappearing Sims and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, I found out more negative news than positive.

1)I upped the file limit to 40000 for my maximum files. When I tried the Sims2 Pets, it still displayed the wireframe neighborhoods and loss of Sims. So, on my end the lack of file space isn't the problem.

2)Because of the lack of solution with the file limit, I tend to think that it has to do with the corruption of files. However, I wonder (if someone can answer this) what causes the file corruption. All of my downloads have worked faithfully and wonderfully until I installed Pets.

3)I wonder if the rumors about Pets being very buggy are true. I have read several different accounts about how the code within the game is buggy and reacts with custom content in both Body Shop and the game. To tell you the truth, I haven't had any problems with Body Shop since I did a clean install of my game and expansion packs. However, I have had tremendous bad luck with the latest expansion pack again and again.

Could anyone elaborate on the situation regarding Pets being buggy for both Macs and PC's?

4)I tend to think that a patch is needed from Maxis (and Aspyr) to address this problem, if the "buggy-ness" of the game is true. Is there any way to convince anyone with the company to listen?

I just wanted to convey some thoughts I have had with the developments regarding my missing Sims and neighborhoods. I still have not played over a week now since I've added Pets. I don't want to blame the latest expansion pack, because I have heard that others have played it perfectly with or without downloads. But, I would like to know if others had played the game perfectly up until Pets.

And also, if there are those who are playing Pets perfectly now how are they able to do so without any problems.

Just my two cents.

Thank you once again for listening and having this thread.

Ceci

[cecim]

Firstly, I am very sorry for posting once again. It is just that I am concerned about this problem and that I am just about out of solutions to make my game work.

With that being said, I have a small update on the testing front:

1)I loaded and played the game without a download file (where "corrupting" custom content might be found [i.e., the "control group" of this test]). I added a custom neighborhood and sub-neighborhoods (University, Nightlife and OFB Suburb) and used solely Maxis content. I then quit the game and started it up again without any custom content or Download file to check if the names I typed in would be written and saved as part of the custom neighborhood.

When the game went to the neighborhood screen (where you pick the neighborhood you would like to play), the custom neighborhood I created was missing its name. When loading the neighborhood, all sub-neighborhood names were missing.

That means to me a couple of things:

a)In my case, it isn't the fault of custom meshes or the downloads (as far as I can see).
b)It might be, in my case, the fault of the game code itself. I now believe more and more that the game is buggy and affecting game play. Does anyone else have a different explaination that might help?

2)The Maxis families, btw, did not disappear. The Sims I added (with only Maxis content) disappeared. Their lots mysteriously disappeared.

a)From that, I conclude that there is something that definitely needs to be corrected with a patch (I hope).


Again, I hope that my investigation into this problem helps others in trying to find out what exactly is going on.

Ceci

[simsample]

cecim, it does sound as though the game is having trouble writing to the hard disc. Do you have all of the Aspyr patches applied, or just the latest patch, or none at all?

[cecim]

SimSample,

I have every Aspyr patch installed along with the EP's (Sims2, University and Nightlife; they have not made a patch for OFB or Pets).

However, it is funny that you would say that the game has had a hard time writing to the hard drive. I just had my hard drive upgraded two months ago because the other one broke down. :(

Speaking of the game having a hard time writing to the hard drive, do think this is a hardware related or code related occurrence?

However, late last night I did a clean install of my game once again. With each expansion pack, I added the neighborhoods in question. By the time it got to OFB (I'm kind of leery of adding Pets right now), every single neighborhood stayed in tact. Not one disappeared. I played OFB and built houses without any problems--with custom content enabled after the clean install was over.

At this point until a patch is created, I am afraid of using the Pets expansion pack because each time I added it on, the game would not run properly due to the disappearing neighborhoods and other occurrences that have happened.. :(

So, I am continually puzzled by the behavior the game.

Thanks for answering my comments. :)

Take care,

Ceci

[simsample]

I did hear on the Mac Help forum that the recommendation is to just apply the patch for the last EP and to uninstall first if other patches were installed... saying that, when you reinstalled, did you remove all plists and receipts from the game? For the disc writing problem I was thinking along the lines of a glitch sometmes seen in PC games, where certain versions of the operating system combined with certain patches seems to cause the game to not have permission to write to the Documents folder. This means that any changes done were lost when the game was exited, which sounds a bit similar to your problem.

[georgia111]

Hi this happened a while ago, details are below-

Operating system Microsoft XP Home Edition
Computer specs 3.0 Ghz processor
Games Base game, University, Night Life, Holiday Party Pack, Open for Business, Pets
Details of Neighbourhood I lost Plesentview but Veronaville and Strangetown were okay." I mostly played Plesentview at the time but i would sometimes play Strangetown and Veronaville

Neighbourhood File details The files are all there and I can see all the content but N001 is the only Pleasantview, N002 is Strangetown, N003 is Veronaville, and N004 is empty.

Sim PE Investigation: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption:
Nothing unusual happened I closed the game and wait 5/10 minutes before I shut the computer down, and the next time I went to play, possibly the next day it was gone!

Any other relevant information: I don't know if this will help but it happened a weel or so after I installed Open for Business

Thankyou so much :rofl:

[cecim]

posted by simsample
I did hear on the Mac Help forum that the recommendation is to just apply the patch for the last EP and to uninstall first if other patches were installed... saying that, when you reinstalled, did you remove all plists and receipts from the game? For the disc writing problem I was thinking along the lines of a glitch sometmes seen in PC games, where certain versions of the operating system combined with certain patches seems to cause the game to not have permission to write to the Documents folder. This means that any changes done were lost when the game was exited, which sounds a bit similar to your problem.

You know, I didn't think about eliminating the receipts after I reinstalled the game solely because I thought the problem centered around the "permissions", the Download folder and the .plist files. I did eliminate the .plists from the Library because I had been told that they would cause a lot of trouble if corrupted. I also repaired the "permissions" in Disk Utility for both Mac Os 9 and X (Tiger).

The latest EP patch (as far as I know) is Nightlife, so yes. The only patch installed (after reinstalling once again) in the game is Nightlife.

I will try and remove the receipts because I had never done that before. It is worth a try to see if things improve my game play. And hopefully, it might provide a pathway to deal with Pets.

I will give you an update on the state of these new developments.

Thank you for the wonderful advice. :)

Take care,

Ceci

[cecim]

I trashed both the .plist and receipt files. I then added Pets to see if it would work. Unfortunately, it still didn't. As soon as Pets was added on (and booted up), when the game got to the load screen for the neighborhood, it crashed. It didn't even get to the part of adding pets.

In this test neighborhood, there were only five families.

However, when I booted up OFB (before adding Pets), still again, things worked perfectly.

So, it's back to the drawing board. I will continue to run tests to see what exactly is fouling up the game when it gets to Pets. :(

Ceci

[Brynne14]

Operating system: Win XP Pro

Computer specs: laptop- Pentium M, 2 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, Ati Mobility Radeon 9700 128 mb dedicated

Games: All EPs, all patches, no Glamour Life, No Family Fun

Details of Neighbourhood loss: The only hood I play, N001, was not even on the screen when I got to the neighborhood chooser. Veronaville and Strangeville were fine.

Neighbourhood File details: All files were still visible for the disappearing hood.
Sim PE Investigation: neighborhood did not show up in SimPe

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: My laptop shut down, unexpectedly. Nothing in the game or on my system was altered.
Any other relevant information: I've had this problem going way back to when I first got Sims 2, back when the game was released. I posted in the SimPe forum, but was unable to get any help. I had no problems for months, but my laptop shut down unexpectedly, and when I went back into the game, N001 (which is Pleasantville) was not showing up. I did what I figured out to do way back when I had the problem: I turned the neighborhood .bak file into a .package file, and the hood showed up, again. It took my game back to the date of the .bak file, so I lost about 2 weeks or so of gameplay, but the hood worked fine.

[simsample]

Ahh Brynne, that sounds like the files got corrupted when the laptop shut down. Make sure you backup now you have the game running again! Also, it is worth checking that the laptop is cool enough- a sudden shutdown could be symptomatic of heat, or possibly even a virus.

[Brynne14]

Oh, yeah, I make regular backups. It was a heat issue. I had to send my laptop in to replace a fried motherboard not long after that happened, in fact.

Normally I keep it well-ventilated, but I had an attack of stupid that day. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm usually so careful about not letting it overheat.

[jbwise]

Operating system-Mac OSX 10.4.8
Computer specs 1.9 Ghz 1.5 gigs of RAM
Games- Base, Uni, Nightlife, OfB, Pets No fun packs

I installed pets and i created a neighboorhood. Everytime i boot the game the name and description is blank.

[simsample]

jbwise, do you have the Aspyr patches for your game? It may be a good idea to post your trouble on the Mac Help forum, there are a lot of experienced Mac Simmers on there:
http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=443

[inck243]

Ok here are the answers to the things you are asking in the order that you asked them:

1. Windows XP Home
2. Pentium 4 3.20 Ghz 1.00 GB RAM, ATI Radeon X300 Series (PCI express)
3. The sims 2 (cd), Holiday Pack, Family fun stuff, glamour life, then every other expansion in CD.
4. This still happens if i remove my downloads folder
5. I am missing Plesentview (N001) in the game, but the folder N001, along with all of the lots and stuff are all sitting there fine in the Neighborhoods folder.
6. i dont know how to check this in SimPE

7. Ok there are a few things that changed since I noticed this problem
- (within the sims2) downloaded and installed some packeged lots from sims2homes, and 3 that my friend brought over (but they all work fine in other neighborhoods)
- (not within sims 2)
- New monitor (i put in the CD but i dont think it installed anything)
- New Satiek X52 game control (installed drivers, and its programming utilities
- Microsoft IntelliMouse drivers
- Logitech Keyboard drivers
- installed Battlefield 2142 (which by the way is not working either)
- installed Flight Simulator X Deluxe
- installed a new DVD/RW drive (made by LG) with all its software and drivers (Cyberlink DVD solution, LG ODD Auto Firmware upgrade, LightScribe Disc Labeling, Nero, and Acrobat Reader are all of the programs it installed)

Additional Details:

I have removed the Lots folder from N001, and let TS2 regenerate it with all of the defaults, but that dosen't help so it isin't a problem with the lots. Same goes for every other folder that is in the N001 folder.
I have a file called N001_Suburb001 and N001_Suburb002, but all of the other Nieghborhoods have _suburb001 , not 002. Removing 002 dosen't do anything though.
I have also removed the LotCatalog folder from The sims 2 folder, but that didnt seem to help either.

And that little last trick did not work :(

are there any ideas as to why this happens or how to fix it yet?

Thanks

[UlaumeSarestes]

My neighbourhood just had disappearing problems today...

It wasn´t after a bad saving or computer reboot, I was normally playing a house, then I exited into the neighbourhood, and suddenly half of my houses there (that Ive had for ages) were flashing red, some were gone, including the families. and some were changed: aka, where I had some custom terrains, was maxis grass.
It happened to me before, that the pc would restart while looming in the neighbourhood screen (before entering a house)

Operating system Win XP Pro

Computer specs - Nvidia, Processor 3500+, 1024 MB RAM, Nvidia geforce 6600

Games: Original, University, Nightlife, OFB, patched

Details of Neighbourhood loss- it was a custom neighbourhood. Happened to me once in the past in the same way.

Neighbourhood File details- Yes, it's all there.

Sim PE Investigation- can still see all sims

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption - nothing I know of

Any other relevant information- it seems to only disappear sometimes, last time I had this, the hood it happened in would only go mad at some occasions and be allright on others (unrelated to downloads removed).

[HavenGlade]

Windows XP

2.4 GHZ, 1.00 GB RAM, Ge Force 4 Ti4200

Sims 2 PC CD, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, and Pets.

I lost about 3 custom neighbourhoods.

Pleasantview and strangetown are still there, and completely fine, also one of my custom neighbourhoods are there instead of veroniville, 3 custom are missing.
I can still see, all of the custom neighbourhoods that should be there in documents, sims 2, neighbourhoods..

I don't have sim PE.

I did delete my downloads folder a few days ago, but everything was still fine.

Last night Norton Anti Virus ran on our computer and I was made aware 4 things were deleted...?

I did change a few things around, I think perhaps I deleted one custom neighbourhood out of the folder, but I don't see why that would be that effective, seeing as I deleted only one? Wouldn't it only be out of the game, and that one only?

[simsample]

UlaumeSarestes, this sounds like file corruption of some kind- is this an old neighbourhood (ie, do you have a lot of character files/ lots in there)?
HavenGlade, did you take note of what exactly Norton deleted? Also, did you delete the neighbourhood from in game, or just by removing the file from the folder? How many hoods did you have in total, and are any of them large (a lot of characters- you can count how many characters are in the character folder of the hoods to tell this, let us know how many the largest hood has). Is your game patched?

[Leo-SSA]

I lost just one lot not the whole neighbourhood.
I managed to recover it. But when I place it back, another lot disappears.

Operating system: Windows XP Pro
Computer specs: Pentium-4 2.88 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia FX 5200 128Mb.
Games: The Sims 2 - CD and all Expansion Packs, and all Stuff Packs. Also all official patches.
Details of Neighbourhood loss:I lost lots in Pleasantview, but Strangetown and Veronaville were okay
Have removed your Downloads recently for any reason: No.
Have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood: Yes (I use the money order hack).
Neighbourhood File details: If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there?: All files are there.

DETAILS:

Previous Events: I only play in Pleasantview. Never touched the other neighbourhoods neither created any new ones. When I had “InTeenimater” hack installed, something happened when my teen girl got pregnant and my entire Pleasantview disappeared. I had only a white landscape with green gridlines where it used to be a small view of Pleasantview. I tried to open my “N001_Neighborhood.package” file in SimPE but the file was corrupted.
I managed to recover my Pleasantview neighbourhood by making a copy of my “N001_Neighborhood.bak” file and renaming it to “N001_Neighborhood.package”.
It worked although it reverted to a couple of days before the neighbourhood loss.
I kept playing, my teen girl got pregnant and had her baby, nothing strange happened to my neighbourhood. But from time to time I created a copy of my “N001_Neighborhood.package” file, just in case. And eventually it happened again, but my back-ups quickly solved the problem. It happened about 3 or 4 times. I didn´t want any other teens to get pregnant, so I removed the “InTeenimater” hack and the problem never happened again.

Lots Disappearing Event: My Sim-“A” has kids with 8 different Sim girls each living in a different house (lot). He has a total of 15 kids 5 of them grew up, got married and have their own kids. The whole family adds to 41 Sims. My entire Pleasantview neighbourhood have 46 occupied lots to a total of 184 Sims. After installing “Pets” when my Sim-“A” got his 15th kid and I exit the lot where the kid was born, I noticed that another lot with a girl and 3 of his kids had vanished. I renamed the “N001_Neighborhood.package” file to “N001_Neighborhood.current”, renamed one of my back-ups to “N001_Neighborhood.package”, played the game, moved my vanished family to the family bin, moved their house to the house bin, closed the game, renamed files back,
Played the game again and found the house in the house bin, but not the family in the family bin. I placed the house back in the neighbourhood and it worked fine, nothing unusual happened. Then I closed the game and opened my “N001_Neighborhood.package” in SimPE, located my missing family and noticed they were located in lot instance “8E” and not “00” as it was supposed to be since I had put them in the family bin. So I corrected it to “00” saved the file and returned to the game. This time they appeared in the family bin and I was able to move them back to their house. But when I left their lot and returned to the neighbourhood I noticed that another lot of members of Sim-”A” family had disappeared. At this point I stopped playing in Pleasantview. And started a new game in Veronaville. But I hope I can return to play in Pleasantview, it’s my neighbourhood from the start.

Speculation: As it was happening only to my Sim-”A” family, first I thought it could be the Sims2 engine that could limit the size of the whole family (player controlled members – not including ghosts) to 40 Sims. But someone said in The Sims2 site that he had a family with more than 100 Sims.
Then I thought it could be the number of Sims in the whole neighbourhood, I had 184, maybe 185 wouldn’t be allowed. But another guy said he had a legacy family with about 400 Sims. So, I’m clueless.

[simsample]

How many character files do you have in that particular neighbourhood?

[Leo-SSA]

How many character files do you have in that particular neighbourhood?

840 character files.

[SeOc]

I wish I could offer a solution, but I was unable to find one.

However, I think I have come up with a system to help if it happens again.


My situation:
My day job is a computer/software person, but that just led me to what screwed up my neighborhood...

I'd been making backup copies of the N001 directory and the NeighborhoodManager.package for awhile. One night I picked the wrong option during one of those work pop-up messages and my sim lost his job. I didn't want to lose the 4 vacation days with a baby on the way, so I exited and replaced the existing N001 with a backup I'd made earlier.

Then I realized I didn't make a backup of the NeighborhoodManager.package like I usually did, so I just put one in from a few days before.

That's when things started to go wrong. Specifically, sims kept disappearing from the phone lists and the ones that would end up being called were not the ones selected. For example, "Dina Caliente" may have appeared first in the list and was the one selected. However, it was Alexander Goth's relationship score that changed. (And he would have been first if he had been listed--which he wasn't.)

The baby was born and grew into a child. I figured I'd get the University expansion. Bought it, installed it, and no more Pleasantville. (Yet again, I had foolishly backed up the N001 directory and not the NeighborhoodManager.package before installing University.) A couple hours of Internet searching (which is how I found this thread) didn't yield an answer that worked.

Having learned my lesson, I uninstalled Sims2 and University and started all over.


Backing Up:
Based on my experience (both before and during the events above), the following should work to restore a missing neighborhood.

Note: Do not do this while the game is running.

1. Open the directory containing the neighborhoods, My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighborhoods
2. Right-click on the directory that corresponds to the neighborhood you want to back up.
3. Select "Send to" from the menu that appears and then select "Compressed (zipped) folder".
4. This will chug along for a minute or two as it places everything into a ZIP file called "n00x.zip" (where "x" is the neighborhood number). (Depending on your Windows settings, you may not see the ".zip". It will have an icon of a folder with a zipper.)
5. Drag the NeighborhoodManager.package onto that file. After chugging for another minute or two, it will add that file into the zip file.
6. Right click on the zip file and select "Rename" from the menu that appears. Change the "N00x" to something else. You should now have a reliable backup of the neighborhood.

You should keep at least two of these. That way, if you made the most recent one after the fatal corruption had occurred, you can go back to the one before.

Generally, I keep two named "temp" and "temp2" made just before I go into the game. I would also recommend making them after sim events you don't want to lose or before making edits, modifications, or installing new content to the game itself.

Note: Each one of these backups will be over 100mb in size. If running low on disk space, they can be burned to CD or placed on a USB external hard drive or flash drive. (Which will also protect them from hard drive crashes and system restores.)


Restoring:

Note: If using downloaded content or modifications in the neighborhood, make sure those are already in place first.

1. In the directory containing the neighborhoods, right-click on the current folder corresponding to the neighborhood (i.e. (N001).
2. Select "Rename" from the menu that appears.
3. Add ".old" to the folder name.
4. Right-click on NeighborhoodManager.package and select "Rename".
5. Again, add ".old" to the name.
6. Double-click on the zip folder of the backup you want to restore.
7. A window should come up with the "N00x" folder and the NeighborhoodManager.package file inside. Drag those into the directory containing the neighborhoods.
8. Then launch the program.

The neighborhood should be available again in the same state as it was when that backup was made.

Note: This system is only reliable if you primarily play in one neighborhood. Since the NeighborhoodManager.package seems to contain data for all neighborhoods So if pop back and forth between different neighborhoods frequently, restoring a backup for one may adversely affect the other(s). Unfortunately, that appears to be an inherent problem with the game's saving system itself.

The concept should work for Macs as well. Don't have it installed on one, so can't say for certain. The compression (zipping) portion may be an issue because I don't think the Mac OS comes with a nice user utility yet.

I've had a number of Mac people use the "GUI-Tar" utility with success for other things. It's a free utility from a company called Edenwaith. Google search for either (be sure to use "gui-tar", not "guitar") and it should be the first listing.


Again, I wish I could say I found a fix for after the fact (and so does poor "Sim Cinatti" the 1st, may his bits rest in peace). But this may help some a prevent complete loss in the future.

[simsample]

Thanks for that, SeOc- we also have a detailed backup tutorial here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?p=1105148

[decite_9630]

I reinstalled the sims on my computer yesterday and there was a problem installing the groups.cache file but the installation continued anyway and when i launched it, it refused to load and i had to shut it down via taskmanager.

this morning i discovered that i had no ea games folder in my documents so i made one and tried to launch the sims again and it worked. . . sort of :( veronaville was nowhere to be seen and strange town had a wierd green grid for a picutre. only pleasantview seems to be working.

i tried deleting groups.cache and nothing, strangetown disappeared altoghter!

recently i installed the sims on another computer and there was no problem whatsoever.

i have no cc, mods, hacks, patches or eps atm. Can anyone think of anything that could cause these bugs?

Operating System: XP Pro
but im not sure of everything else

[simsample]

decite_9630, sounds like your issue is slightly different- if the install doesn't go well then the files needed to create the neighbourhoods could be missing or corrupted. You need to reinstall the game, clean your discs and reinstall. You could also try a manual install. Follow the links below:
Uninstalling (http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=139059)
Clean your discs (http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?p=813428)
Manual Installation (http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=14221&p_created=1161378903&p_sid=y86m55qi&skin=)

[Borbanator]

Simsample, I have had multiple problems with the Sims games, I had to reinstall the University edition twice. Later, I lost strangetown while I was playing Nightlife , I didnt press delete or anything, what do I do, and is there a way to recover strangetown?

Additional Info: I have
Windows Xp, and this has not occured before
:( :cry: :help:

[Leo-SSA]

... is there a way to recover strangetown?

Go to "Documents and Settings/YourName/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N002" folder
Inside it you should have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.package" it is the last saved file of Strangetown neighbourhood. It is probably corrupted. Rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.corrupted". You should also have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.bak" make a copy of it and rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.package". Start your The Sims2 game, and your Strangetown neighbourhood should be back. But it will be reverted to a few days before the last time you played in Strangetown.

[karen82869]

I'm sorry to say I have joined this club, today!
Operating system: Win XP Pro
Computer specs: Intel Pentium M 1600MHz, 1.5 GB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro turbo
Games: Sims 2 CD version, Uni, NL, OFB, FFS, GLS, Pets (w/ all patches. Games and patches were all installed in the order they were released.)
Details of Neighbourhood loss: Lost Pleasantview only. All other neighborhoods, including custom, are fine. Pleasantview was the last neighborhood played. No other neighborhood was played during the session resulting in the Pleasantview corruption. There was no game crash nor any save/shut-down problem.
It would also be great to know if you have removed your Downloads recently for any reason, and also if you have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood.I have not recently removed my downloads. I have the following types of global hacks: banking computer, choice to bring friend home from school/work, no jealousy unless married/engaged/going steady, relationship decay auto clears crush/love, teens/adults don't lose relationship status when one grows up before the other, teens woo-hoo, pay bills at the mailbox, smarter lights, no bad makeovers, "hiders" to not display goofy clothing choices.
Neighbourhood File details: All neighborhood files still appear in Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods
Sim PE Investigation: The neighborhood is named "unknown" and all contents are displayed as "unknown." I cannot view or edit anything. When attempting to view details, I get an "unhandled exception" dialog box.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I used PE to change the heights of several sims in Pleasantview. I played Pleasantview once since then. There was one birth during that game play.
That was last weekend. Today was the first I started the game since. The only change to my system since then was a Windows automatic update about mid-week and the usual virus scan (AVG free) updates.
I installed some hair, clothing and skintones today by manually unzipping them.
Any other relevant information: Not sure if it's relevant, but I was able to restore a backup (from before changing sim heights) using SimPe.
Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?
This does not make any difference.

I hope this info helps identify a cause.

[simsample]

You should also have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.bak" make a copy of it and rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.package".

But only if you have made a backup previously, through SimPE for example.

Karen, your issue sounds like a 'straightforward' (if there is such a thing) file corruption. I would guess that, as you managed to edit the files with SimPE, this most likely occurred during SimPE save process- or else, during the virus scan. It's hard to pinpoint the exact cause, however I have noted that editing with SimPE and virus scanning/ Windoze updates (both system changes) to be common to a lot of incidents of neighbourhood loss.

[karen82869]

Karen, your issue sounds like a 'straightforward' (if there is such a thing) file corruption. I would guess that, as you managed to edit the files with SimPE, this most likely occurred during SimPE save process- or else, during the virus scan. It's hard to pinpoint the exact cause, however I have noted that editing with SimPE and virus scanning/ Windoze updates (both system changes) to be common to a lot of incidents of neighbourhood loss.

Lucky me. ;)
I'm curious if my problem can be attributed to a compatibility with SimPE that no one has yet identified.
For example, if a tiny, little hidden attribute was added or deleted with the Pets EP... and the tiny, little attribute wasn't updated in SimPE... Once you save a change to that attribute, the game can read it... but when the game tries to save... KABOOM!
Just a thought.
Personally, I'm just going to make sure I back up my 'hoods more often.
:)
I'm glad you have started this thread to document the problem. Hopefully the mystery will unravel!

[tempest1967]

Help! Installed objects.package and neigborhood is gone

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had an issue with some of my houses displaying properly in my neighborhood. I went throught the steps of not loading customer content, backing up and clearing out downloads folder and they didn't correct the problem. Thought to reload the objects.package file from the Pets CD by extracting and just copying the objects.package file to the C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\Objects dir.

I made a copy of the old objects file just in case.

When I loaded the game, my neighborhood was gone. I tried putting back the previous objects file and reloading - no help. I tried retoring from a backup of the neighborhood in SimPE and still nothing. Is there something I am missing?

My Current Setup is:

Windows XP Media Center Edition Service Pack 2
3 GB RAM
Intel 2.8 Ghz CPU
Radeon X300/X500 Series Video Card Driver 8.33.0.0 dated 12/16/2006

I have the following packs installed:

The Sims 2 - Glamour Stuff - OFB - Nightlife - University - Pets

[simsample]

Can you show us a screenshot of the files/ folders in your My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims 2/ Neighbourhoods folder?

[wicked_t0y]

Operating system: windows xp
Computer specs: right now, dont noe, ill edit later.
Games: sims 2, uni, nl, ofb
Details of Neighbourhood loss: i lost my latest custom neighborhood, but all 3 maxis and 1 other custom neighborhood are ok.
Neighborhood file details: when i go to that location i find everything is fine.
Sim PE Investigation: i opened neighborhood browser and still appeared, but when i click on it it gives me an error message and does not let me open it. the error says the file is corrupted and unreadable.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: nothing, just several pop ups from the tool bar saying that there is a corrupt file and telling me to run "Chkdsk application".
Any other relevant information: i ran the Chkdsk appli and this http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g287/wicked_t0y/chkdsk.jpg is what i get. then it just closes, and i went to the game, but this makes no difference.
hm... i let the computer on while i was eating but forgot to plug it so when i came to check it it was in standby, but when i rolled the mouse, it started to close down.
that neighborhood was the last that i played, yesterday at 12 pm XD.
i tried to delete the neighborhood in mydocs/eagaes/thesims2/neighborhoods/n#5 but it said it was corrupted and cannot delete it.
i used homecrafter to make some walls, and everytime the message of "the custom content has been imported" or whatever, the message from the tool bar appeared.

removed downloads: no
hacks: i do haff hacks but havent installed any new one recently.

EDIT: i turned my laptop off, and when i turned it on again after a while the blue screen appeared telling me that one of the discs had to be checked. it was the same exact thing as my screenie above, the Chkdsk was checking files and stuff. but it did not say "deleting" files, but recovering orphaned files. when it was done with this, i opened simPE and apparently now i can open the neighborhood, i can use sim surgery, no error messages. i guess that runnig the Chkdsk application corected the corrupted file. im going to go ingame to see if the neighborhood appears.

[simsample]

Wow, please let us know if it does! If you get it to work, back it up quickly:
http://www.modthesims2.com/article.php?p=1105148
And make sure you backup frequently thereafter.

[wicked_t0y]

i went into my game ,and my neighborhood went back to normal, i was able to enter it aswel as playing with my families.
sorry i didn't post yesterday but apparently i feel asleep while loading the game, and i don't even remember turning it off lol
wicked

[starberry697]

Operating System WIndows XP Home Edition
Computer specs 1.4 GHZ Processor, 510 ram, ATI something
Games I have Sims 2 Christmas edition, Uni, NL, OFB no patches
Details of neighbourhood loss I lost allll of them, not a single one left. I pretty much only play Pleasantview but I have characters scattered around the other ones. I also was just installing it on a new computer and I copied my saved games across. Sooo its the same files on a new computer might make a difference??
Neighbourhood File Details All there
System Changes New computer completely, so I reinstalled the game then replaced the save game files. I also some found some zip files and character installations and installed them aswell. Pretty much all clothes hair etc.

[starberry697]

All of the information so far points to this being a savegame corruption, without a seemingly common cause. So far it seems that the only way to proceed is to scrap the affected hood(s) and start over.
it can't be a svegame corruption, at least in my case. I have had this file backup since i reformatted my old computer and have restored it and had it run fine on my old machine. it the exact same file so it cant be that

[Starr7]

Hi,
I am so frustrated..I downloaded the pets 2, and everything has gone wrong..I listened to someone who told me to do the body shop trick, I moved my download folder to my desk top..then ran the sims2 body shop, then she said click all then cut and then paste to a new folder the bodyshop would create for me..i did that and now I have no neighborhood..can some one help me resolve this problem..I dont know how to get everything back to where it was before I installed the pets 2..please help..thanks,

[MorriganRane]

by a fluke i had to reinstall all my expansions because my reg-keys dissapeared but the game folders where still there.
I make it to my nightlife and as expected it stops installing on the second disk (i did have an iso of it for this reason but it was lost too) I know all the folders are there so i ignore that knowing the regkey was on the first disk, I finish installing, run my game and lo and behold
My default neighborhoods have dissapeared. So i skimmed this thread.
then i tried what SimSample said about coping the neighborhood manager file over to the my documents equivalant. Only i copy the entire Neighborhoods folder from My computer onto the my documents one as well as LotCatalog
Tada, they are back

[NudeBeMe]

i recently just downloaded some maxis-made downloads from the site and i went onto my game and noticed that all of my neighborhoods including default ones have been deleted. all of my files are in place and everything seems normal, so i try to make a new neighborhood, and in the middle of it uploading pets into it, the game freezes up and crashes, the music going wild.

ive never had crash problems before and other than the maxis stuff, ive done nothing wrong.

[ronnie62]

I have windows xp, can't remember specs, I'll ask my son later.
This is what happened to me. I made a new neighbourhood and played it for about a month, about 30 sims living there. with a downtown area. I went to play Pleasantview for a few days. Then one day I went to play my custom hood and it just wasn't there. The only thing I had done was delete my downloads folder. That was it. I have all EPs and some hacks that I got from this site, The hacks have never caused any problems for me.
I couldn't find the custom hood in any of my sim folders. it was just gone.

[jacquelyyn]

i was able to restore my neighborhood, but none of the families i made are there :/ anyway to get them back using simpe? i see the people in simpe but they have no skills,memories, anything so its pretty much using brand new people anyway, ugh

[simsample]

There may be, but you'd have to do a lot of work to repair the associations/ relationships/ memories.... unless you have a backup I'd recommend that you start a fresh hood, and backup often.

[jillysolo]

Well, I have fallen victim to the "Curse of the Sim". I've lost my custom neighborhood. I am running XP Home with 2.8 GHz and 1G ram and a Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4200. I have Sims 2, University, NL and OFB with no patches.

I had Pleasantview N001 and Simrose Place N002. I have been playing N002 primarily for the better part for a year with no problems. I went into the game a few days ago and N002 was gone. The files are all still there and the computer knows this because I installed another neighboorhood and it was correctly numbered N003. I had a recent backup which I installed and the same thing happened. No Show! It seems to me as if the path between the game and this neighborhood has been broken.

I 'm not sure when this happened because I had not been in the game for several days but during that time I had installed some microsoft updates and I downloaded a driver for my graphics card. It was late so I didn't install it that night. The next day When I turned on my machine the screen was a real mess. I found that the color had been switched to 4 bit and I couldn't change it back to 32. On further investigation, I found that somehow the driver had installed itself along with my old driver. I removed it and everything returned to normal, I thought. I also did some minor cleanup with System Mechanic. I've pretty much resigned myself to starting again but this is very inconvienient as I am shooting pics for a story I've written.

[simsample]

jillysolo, just for a test cut and paste your Sims 2 folder (from My Documents/ EA Games) to the desktop. Run the game- this will generate a clean set of folders. Now exit the game, and copy your N002 folder from your old Sims 2 folder to the new one, overwriting the N002 that the game has generated. Does it show up now? If so, you can put your custom content back into the new Sims2 folder, and also I would re-copy the N002 over as well (some hacks load up when you load the hood, so you could potentially cause some trouble by loading without them). If it doesn't show up then I would hazard a guess at some file corruption.

[Abu-antar]

hey, i was planing on making this great story to upload and suddenly, the game freezes for 2 minutes, then turns off, i restart it and find pleasant view has disappeared! H elp me plz :cry:

[*Laure*]

In regard to mac players problems:

Hello once again,

I have tried some new things in my search to understand this problem with the disappearing Sims and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, I found out more negative news than positive.

1)I upped the file limit to 40000 for my maximum files. When I tried the Sims2 Pets, it still displayed the wireframe neighborhoods and loss of Sims. So, on my end the lack of file space isn't the problem.

2)Because of the lack of solution with the file limit, I tend to think that it has to do with the corruption of files. However, I wonder (if someone can answer this) what causes the file corruption. All of my downloads have worked faithfully and wonderfully until I installed Pets.

Ceci

Missing neighborhoods and seeing a grid rather than neighborhood preview are classic signs of hitting the mac file limit. The limit is total files used by the game not the number of cc added. So, installing another EP could easily cause one to go over.

I see that you said you raised the maximum number of files and it didn't seem to help. The process can be a bit tricky and I wonder if the changes attempted actually were made.

A couple questions:

Did you up the maximum files per process as well? It is necessary to do both.

and

Did you create a rc.local file (won't work if root user isn't enabled) or did you raise the limit in terminal.? If you only do it terminal you have to repeat the process each time you start your mac.

This issue was discussed at great length in the summer of 2005 on the inside mac games forum. There are precise instructions for raising both the maximum files limit and maximum files per process by using terminal can be found it this post http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=20630&view=findpost&p=228523. Precise instructions for creating a rc.local file can be found in this one, http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=20630&view=findpost&p=229009 Note: you have to enable root user to successfully create the rc.local file. This Apple support doc tells how to do so - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1549.html Also note the warning in this post, http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=20630&view=findpost&p=228855.

I would strongly encourage mac players to read the entire thread for information.

On a personal note, I have found that raising the limits to 40000 + causes problems.

System specs:

2.16 core duo intel imac
256 mbs ati radeon X1600
2 gigs ram
Mac OS 10.4.8

[theGreatAh-Lannah]

Operating system
Windows XP Home Edition
Computer specs
3.2 GHZ, 510 RAM, RADEON X300
Games
Base CD, Uni, Nightlife, OfB, Pets. The base and pets are patched.
Details of Neighbourhood loss
Pleasentview will not show up, but was working the night before. I have reason to believe it may be one of the hacks that I downloaded that morning. I tried putting all my downloads in another folder, but it still wont show up.
Neighbourhood File details
N001 still appears and with all its characters
Sim PE Investigation:
Pleasentview is the only neighbourhood that will not show up in Sim PE
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption:
None that I know of.

[Altis]

Originally posted by: Psycho_Katie

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption N/A

Any other relevant information- I get messages saying that I don't have enough space on my harddrive. The first thing that happens is that, while playing, as I use a character and go to click something, their face dissapears. After that, the neighbourhood doesn't load. BUT- I have since cleaned out plenty of space and haven't gotten the "not enough space" message since. Strangetown shows up in the Neighborhood menu, but if I click it it loads to two blocks (in the upper left corner) then freezes. Unless I played another neighborhood before it, in which case it SAYS that it's loading Strangetown, but it's actually loading the last neighborhood I played.


Edit

Removed downloads- Nope.
Hacks- Nope.

You said you think it was a save game problem? I'm pretty sure mine had something to do with the low harddrive space. But it's still a problem and I haven't gotten the neighborhood to work since (I didn't delete it, as I had hope that sometime there would be a solution found here. I really liked my families there!) I see nothing abnormal about the game files, and I'll try loading that neighborhood again later today again. If anything changes, I'll be sure to post.



Operating system - Win XP Pro Version 2002 Service Pack 2, Pentium 4 3.00Ghz 512 RAM NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

Computer specs -

Games - original, university, nightlife, business, glamor life stuff, family fun, pets

Details of Neighbourhood loss- Only Strangetown. I only played Strangetown.

Neighbourhood File details- all there

Sim PE Investigation- N/A

I had the same "Not enough sapce " popping out. Suddenly my free space reached only 3mb. I checked the Sims 2 to find Strange Town gone. So i started moving and erasing files from my OS disk space. Right now the "Not enough space " is not coming out anymore but still strangetown is missing. I thought maybe it still needed space so I move my "My Documents" to another hard drive. Still nothing.

[kikiyoshi]

I have windows xp professional, service pack 2, radeon x1300

its an hp media center 930 pentium D processor featuring two processing cores, 1.5 GB memory, 300 GB hard drive

i have the sims 2, nightlife, OFB, university, FFS, GL and now pets (so everything except seasons, holiday pack and the celebration pack)

i installed pets and installed the patch before playing and i backed up my data before playing pets and i did the usual restore of my data. so i thought everything would be fine. well i didnt lose any of my custom content and my custom people are still there, but neighborhoods 1, 2 and 3 are all gone plus my custom neighborhood. my custom houses are there in the house bin and all my other downloads are there too. but my neighborhoods are gone! i have tried all i can think of and nothing works. also, i started a new neighborhood to see if i would have any other problems and i do:

in create a sim, my sim is standing in the very back of the room and not on the rug, plus when you go to edit them and their facial features and all that other stuff, the camera takes you outside the building, and thus you are stuck viewing the trees and grass and stuff outside.

also i cannot place a driveway, the grid is two spaces away from my hand (the move objects hand) and the grid is slanted, while the red area that says you cant place stuff there, that spins in circles no matter which way i move the hand.

when trying to move objects or plants, the object is two grid spaces away from the hand.

my sim does not walk either, he teleports or jumps, to where you tell him to go.
the plumbob on his head glitches in and out every second

my sim wont call a service on the phone when asked or put stuff away, he glitches in and out, and jumps to somewhere else in the room and the action is cancelled

i told my sim to make the bed and instead i saw him glitch in and out and then the bed was automatically made two seconds later.

so far, those are the errors i have gotten. any suggestions?
i am thinking of uninstalling it all and then just putting my downloads back and my saved sims too... but i dont know if that will work, or cause more problems and a huge hassle.

i thought pets was supposed to be fixed by now!! :!: this is soo frustrating!! :cry:


EDIT:i installed all my sims 2 games on my sisters computer, which is the exact same model i have, and its all there and its all fine. i did not install any patches and she has no custom content or downloads; so this leads me to believe its either my downloads or the patches. will check further and get back to everyone here.

[starfleetcadet]

Operating system Windows Something-Or-Other. Maybe XP? Maybe whatever was right before that?

Computer specs Don't know.

Games All expansion packs, no patches.

Details of Neighbourhood loss The last time I played the game, I was playing in Riverblossom Hills. I exited the game directly from a house in that neighborhood. When I got back into the game, Riverblossom Hills was gone, but Florin, my custom neigborhood, was still there. R.H. was my only Maxis neighborhood, and now Florin is my only neighborhood period.

Neighbourhood File details None of the associated files seem to be gone.

Sim PE Investigation: I downloaded Sim PE a while back, but it was too confusing for me and I have't touched it since the day I downloaded it. :/

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I might have downloaded some clothes or objects from this site using QXpress, I don't remember. I didn't download any hacks or mods.

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

I don't know what you mean when you say, "paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was." Does "your Documents folder" just mean the My Documents folder that's on the desktop? And I don't know anything about the old neighbourhoodmanager file, I didn't know there was one. And now I've made myself look incredibly stupid, but it'll be worth it if my game gets fixed...

[hockeystatqueen]

Pleasantview disappeared on me!
I have all of the expansion pack and none of the stuff packs.
I made sure to check each of the packs to see which was causing the problems,
and it happened when I installed Pets.
Now the preview for Pleasantview is just a picture of the Driftwood terrain, and when you try to load the neighborhood, the game just crashes.
I installed Seasons recently to see if things would help, but it didn't.
All of my other neighborhoods work properly.

I even went to my Program Files to see if I could restore Pleasantview, but Pets doesn't have the file for Pleasantview like the other EP's do.


Oh, I use Windows XP, if that's any help, but I don't think that this is an issue with my computer.

[tearshed]

I was playing the sims before and I shut off the game.
I actually shut off my whole entire computer... I didn't shut it off the correct way one is supposed to do it. Stupid me.

So then I restarted the game and when everything was done loading, I noticed all of my neighborhoods were gone except one of my neighborhoods which I had created on my own and this new neighborhood popped up called "Pets" which I had NOT created or ever seen before. And the description of the neighborhood was that it was a hidden neighborhood.

I use Windows XP
I have the Sims 2 Base games, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, and Pets expansion packs.
I have NOT downloaded anything recently. I think the last time I downloaded something was about two months ago.

Thanks for the help. =]

[xerendipity]

Hi all.

I too 'lost' the abilty to click on any neighborhoods within the game (I get only the option to create a new neighborhood -
nothing else) although my files are all still in the my docs ... sims2 folder. So, after exhausting everything I know to do, but
being too frustrated and lazy to reinstall, I have a question. Since I really don't care about the relationships any of my
sims have built (i can start over), but I do not want to lose my custom houses or sims themselves ... how can I save them?

In other words, let me explain. If you move the entire folder 'neighborhoods' from the
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 folder and restart the game, the game itself will build you a new set of all folders, but
these are the default version. So, if I were to do this instead of reinstalling, how do I best go about getting my (old) lots and
sims back into the new, default game?

Thanks a million :lovestruc

[Achenar459]

Operating system: WinXP Pro
Computer specs: Athalon XP 2200+ (1.8 GHz), 1.0 Gig RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro, over 9 Gig's of HDD space remaining
Games: All games/patches up to the sims2 pets, installed in order of release. (haven't gotten seasons yet)
Details of Neighbourhood loss: Last neighborhood played was Pleasantview. My girlfriend has a family there. I haven't played Strangetown in a week or so. That's where my family is. Now the Strangetown neighborhood is missing entirely, but both Pleasantview and Veronaville remain.
- No hacks used that would affect an entire neighborhood.
- Nothing has been edited/deleted recently.
- No problems with opening/closing/saving of the games at all.
Neighbourhood File details: All files are still there.
Sim PE Investigation: SimPE site is currently down, so I can't investigate this. (will update when it's working again)
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: NONE
Any other relevant information: Nothing :(

- Tried the neighbourhoodManager.package copy/paste fix and it did not seem to change anything.



Any ideas what I can do to get my neighborhood working again? The files are still there... Does SimPE have a way to revive my neighborhood?

[mfield7]

I noticed about a month ago that my neighbiurhoods have disappeared. All the Maxis created ones are gone and only my custom one is left. I didnt notice straigt away as I play my custom one the most and as its normally on the second screen of neighbourhoods I didnt realise. I have back ups but I am clueless as how to use them to get my neighbourhoods back, please can you help me

Operating system: XP Home edition
Computer specs: 3.00Ghz processor, 1022MB RAM, Nvadia G force 6800
Games: Sims 2, Nightlife, Uni, OFB, Glamour, Pets I have all the patches for these games (I only have the first pets patch I think they released another recently)
Details of Neighbourhood loss: I lost the three Maxis neighbourhoods Pleasantview, Strangetown and Veronaville my custom neighbourhood is still there.
I havent removed my downloads recently but I have the money transfer hack.
Neighbourhood File details:I can see the N001 - N004 folders and the files seem to be there the only difference when I went into the N001 and N004 folder was the N001 have a file called:N001_Neighborhood.reia, this is the same for N002 and N004 my custom neighbourhood does not have this file.
Sim PE Investigation: I have no idea what this is

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?
This I cant do as I cant find the TS Data folder at all!

That's what we are trying to find out from this thread- a common link so that we can figure out how to prevent/ solve this. Could you all try an experiment- cut and paste the neighbourhood manager file to the desktop from My Documents\ EA Games\ The Sims2\ neighbourhoods. This should force the game to regenerate this file. I'm wondering if it will make any difference?
This had no effect except my game loaded up faster but still the neighbourhoods are gone

Thanks

[wait_for_me]

Go to "Documents and Settings/YourName/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N002" folder
Inside it you should have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.package" it is the last saved file of Strangetown neighbourhood. It is probably corrupted. Rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.corrupted". You should also have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.bak" make a copy of it and rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.package". Start your The Sims2 game, and your Strangetown neighbourhood should be back. But it will be reverted to a few days before the last time you played in Strangetown.
omg you saved my life I love you!!.. I tried it and it worked now I got all my neighborhood back!!! thanks!!

[Ionopachys]

OS: XP Media SP2
Specs: Pentium D 3.2GHz, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6800
Games: Sims 2 DVD, Uni, NL, OFB, FFS, GLS, Pets; all patches


I have not lost any neighborhoods, only individual sims and lots. A couple of weeks ago I finally installed Pets, and since then I've noticed sims randomly disappearing. At first it was one sim I had recently created for the purpose of running an electronics store. His house was still there, but it was for sale and he was nowhere to be seen. His store still had an "owned" sign on it, but when I tried to enter it the game crashed. I had been having trouble stocking custom objects, so I thought that was the problem and just ignored it.

A few days ago I found four university students missing. Their dorm appeared empty in the neighborhood view and they weren't in the family bin. I loaded the neighborhood in Simpe and discovered that two of the missing sims have become townies. They still have the same relationships, skills, college grades and levels, etc., but they are evidently NPC's now. The other two are listed as normal in Simpe, but have simply vanished from the game. Today when I loaded up my custom neighborhood, an entire lot was missing. The hill it was sitting on has changed. In Simpe, the sims dwelling on the lot were still there, but again there was no way to find them in game.

This only started happening after I installed pets. Just before I bought pets I had a bad download that caused the game to crash, so I went through the process of searching the Downloads by moving files back and forth, and removing hacks. I installed Pets and installed updated hacks (TwoJeffs, J. M. Pescado, Crammyboy, and a couple of others). I left the careers and majors. Then I defragmented the HD, since I had also recently uninstalled some old games and junk I hadn't used in a while.

Now, I did just realize that I had the wrong version of Crammyboy's nudist hack, for Seasons instead of OFB (which is evidently the version for Pets as well). The only glitch I noticed was that it kept sims from using exercise machines, but I suppose it is possible that it caused other unseen problems. I suppose I will backup from the bak file, but it's from January. What's the use anyway if the problem persists, and will it restore the University neighborhood?

[micheleg1]

I opened the game as usual only to find that everything was reset to original state as if I were playing it for the first time.

I did some investigating and found a folder under My Documents\EAGames named folder1. In that folder was all the files that had gone missing. I restored them to the downloads folder, played a while, all went fine... I quit the game normally, and again when I went back I had all new everything and another folder in the EAGames/TheSims2 directory.

I have the base game only and use several hacks, LOTS of custom content, and the building cheats, etc.

Don't remember downloading anything new but I may have and not remember.



My 'puter specs:

System Overview / Comparison
Your System Results Game Requirements

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) Pass Windows XP/2000/98/ME

System Memory 1015.1 Pass 256.0

Processor Speed 3192.2 Pass 800 MHz

DirectX Version 9.0c Pass 9.0c

Display Device Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family Unknown Compatibility

Display Memory 128.0 Pass 32.0

Display Driver 6.14.10.4363 Unknown Compatibility

Sound Device SoundMAX Digital Audio Pass

Sound Driver 5.12.01.5246 Unknown Compatibility



Operating System Information
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer Information
Version 7.00.5730.0011


System Device Information
Processor
Intel Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz 3192.2 Mhz

Memory
System Total 1015.1
Virtual Total 2047.9
Pagefile Total 2442.5

Snapshot
System Available 488.2
Virtual Available 1992.7
Pagefile Available 2067.4

Monitor Information
Monitor Name Plug and Play Monitor
Refresh Rate 60 Hz

Monitor Information
Monitor Name Dell E173FP
Refresh Rate 0 Hz

Network Card Information
Name Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection - Packet Scheduler Miniport
IP Address 70.238.241.230
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway 70.238.241.229
Primary WINS Server N/A
DHCP 192.168.0.1


System Device Information
Background Processes Information
Process Name [System Process]
Process Name System
Process Name smss.exe
Process Name csrss.exe
Process Name winlogon.exe
Process Name services.exe
Process Name lsass.exe
Process Name svchost.exe
Process Name svchost.exe
Process Name svchost.exe
Process Name svchost.exe
Process Name svchost.exe
Process Name spoolsv.exe
Process Name avgamsvr.exe
Process Name avgupsvc.exe
Process Name avgemc.exe
Process Name FreezeScreenSaver.exe
Process Name svchost.exe
Process Name ViewpointService.exe
Process Name explorer.exe
Process Name alg.exe
Process Name smax4pnp.exe
Process Name jusched.exe
Process Name tfswctrl.exe
Process Name hpcmpmgr.exe
Process Name CFD.exe
Process Name MotiveSB.exe
Process Name PDVDServ.exe
Process Name avgcc.exe
Process Name hkcmd.exe
Process Name igfxpers.exe
Process Name Weather.exe
Process Name ctfmon.exe
Process Name ViewMgr.exe
Process Name igfxsrvc.exe
Process Name msmsgs.exe
Process Name msimn.exe
Process Name iexplore.exe
Process Name WLLoginProxy.exe
Process Name EasyInfo.exe
Process Name wmiprvse.exe


Media Device Information
Mass Storage Devices
Type Removable
File System N/A
Total Space 0 Bytes
Free Space 0 Bytes

Mass Storage Devices
Type Fixed
File System NTFS
Total Space 145.6 GB
Free Space 70.6 GB

Mass Storage Devices
Type CD / DVD Drive
File System CDFS
Total Space 650.1 MB
Free Space 0 Bytes

Mass Storage Devices
Type CD / DVD Drive
File System N/A
Total Space 0 Bytes
Free Space 0 Bytes

Mass Storage Devices
Type Fixed
File System FAT
Total Space 23.3 MB
Free Space 15.2 MB

DirectX Information
Version 9.0c
Long Version 4.09.0000.0904

Display Device (Primary Only)
Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family
Device
Description Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer Intel Corporation
GUID D7B78E66-66C2-11CF-9873-8121ABC2CD35

Driver
Version 6.14.10.4363
Module ialmrnt5.dll
Date 7-20-2005

Memory
Local 128.0
Local 116.8
Non-Local 0.0
Texture 116.8

Sound Device
Information about the device(s) on this computer could not be retrieved.

I know my graphis card is not so good, but I do have a GEForce 5500 w/256K RAM on the way... but note that I have been using my Sims game on this system for several months now with the video driver as listed (ever since I got this computer).

It sure would be nice to know what's causing these problems! I am ready to forget the neat furniture and gizmos and other objects from anywhere except EAGmes themselves. Then THEY can figure out the problem :)

Thank all of you for being here - I have been reading these forums for months and never had to ask a question yet - it's already right here in these forums! Thumbs up to all contributors to this site!

Michele

[Skodeberg]

Operating system - VISTA
Computer specs - Genuine Intel(R) CPU - 1014 MB (RAM) - 32-Bit Operating System. [Hewlett Packard/HP]
Games - SIMS 2 with Family Fun Stuff and NightLife.
Details of Neighbourhood loss - I lost StrangeTown and I was playing it last... thenn when I reloaded the game it was gone. That is all I remember... Veronaville [Renamed TwilightTown], PleasantView and Oshma[Custom-Made] are all fine.
Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? Yes
Sim PE Investigation: N/A
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: We were playing with cheats before hand but they've never affected us before... and we also played with the Audio settings but that again is all I remember.
Any other relevant information: N/A at the moment.

Sorry it isn't the best of imformation but I hope it helps.

[foxxy_ladie]

I had the same problem. The other day I loaded the game and some Neighborhoods were missing.Strangetown,River blossom Hills and one of my own creation. Other than that the game works fine as far as I can tell.
Operating system : Windows Vista home premium
Computer specs: intel pentium D CPU 2.80Ghz 2.79 Ghz Ram 1014mb
Games:I have all the eps and stuff packs (except holiday stuff). I have all the patches.None were installed resently.The game worked fine after I installed the seasons patch this happened a while later.
The only changes before this happened was I downloaded some clothes From MTS2 using QXpress. I didn't download any hacks or mods.

[Vladan]

Veronaville dissapeared on me. The last time I played I quitted without saving. Afterwards I downloaded SimPE and TS2 Enchancer to give them a try. I didn't messed around with SimPE too much because they say it doesn't work with Seasons yet (I have all expansions and addons).
But I did with TS2 Enchancer. But before doing anything I used it's backup feature to backup my neighbourhood. So I changed some sims' relationships, saved and started the game just to find that Veronaville is gone.
I tried reverting to backup but it doesn't help, so the error probably isn't caused by TS2E, because both it and SimPE can open the neighbourhood just fine.

I read some posts here and made a test. I cutted one of my other neighbourhoods and changed the folder name of the one that doesn't show up (eg. moved N001 and than renamed N003 to N001). That didn't helped. But after I restored both neighbourhoods to before the cutting, the one that I moved doesn't show anymore either, which got me extremely confused!

Originally Posted by Leo-SSA
Go to "Documents and Settings/YourName/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N002" folder
Inside it you should have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.package" it is the last saved file of Strangetown neighbourhood. It is probably corrupted. Rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.corrupted". You should also have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.bak" make a copy of it and rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.package". Start your The Sims2 game, and your Strangetown neighbourhood should be back. But it will be reverted to a few days before the last time you played in Strangetown.

Unfortunately I don't have any *.bak files in my saves :cry:
The neighbourhoodmanager.package doesn't work either.

I don't think that it makes any difference, since this is clearly caused by game itself, but my specs are:
Windows XP Pro SP2, nForce 2, AMD Sempron 2800+, GeForce 6600, 1GB Kingston, 2x250GB Maxtor.

I have all expansions and addons, only a couple of downloaded packages (new objects only) which worked without probs all the time and NO hacks.


As a sidenote... Has anyone actually succeeded at restoring their neighbourhoods? I spent a LOT of time on my characters and I would really hate to loose them.


EDIT: I have just restored a backup of my first dissapeared neighbourhood which I made about 2 weeks ago and which I'm sure is/has worked properly. But for some reason it too doesn't show up. So first conclusion that comes to my mind is that the game is caching neighbourhood data somewhere else too. I don't have installation disks with me ATM so I can't test to see wether reinstalltion will restore default and custom neighbourhoods.


EDIT 2: I now tried copying default neighbourhoods from TS2 dir (../UserData/Neighbourhoods) and it still doesn't restore them ingame which mean that game is almost definately getting it's data from another location too.


EDIT 3: YES, I DID IT! I restored my saves! How I did it? Well, I managed to get installation disks again from my brother. Then I uninstalled all expansion and stuff packs. Then I removed EVERY single file and registry entry left after unstallation (took a while :P). Afterwards I rebooted and reinstalled the game, expansions and stuff packs and applied just the patches I had at the time I first started playing about a month ago. I then readded a couple of downloaded packages I also had when I started playing and restored the backup of my neighbourhoods. After that it was just a matter of starting the game and trying to get rid of a giant grin on my face from happiness that overwhelmed me when I saw that my neighbourhoods are back :D
I'm not sure if everything I did is needed or not, but it doesn't hurt to try. It might get your sims back ;)

[malthaussen]

This will be a longish post. I may have found a work-around that will help in some cases of the Great Disappearing Neighbo(u)rhood scam. Please note the qualifiers: YMMV. For that matter, my milage may vary: I start each Sims session with my heart in my throat: "will my 'hood be there TODAY?"

First, the paperwork:

OS: Windows XP Home, SP2.
In the Box: 3.0 ghz processor, 1 gig RAM, NVIDIA GFORCE 5200 card (128 mb and it shows), 100 gig HD of which c 30 gig are still free.
Game: TS2, Uni, NL with the NL patch.

Hacks and things: many, but there is no reason to think they are the cause of the problem in and of themselves, as the game has been stable with them for many weeks. However, see below.

What did I do to break it: I'm not sure. I had a crash-on-shutdown (first time THAT's happened), but when I restarted the game afterwards, it played fine, so presumably that didn't break it. I used Christianlov's "Send an Adult to College" hack to send a Townie to college, and I'm guessing tentatively that this corrupted the save file, although the game played fine for hours after I made the transfer, and I coulda sworn I restarted somewhere along the line.

So what happened, already? I'm playing N004, which is the custom 'hood I've played since I got the game two months ago. The stock 'hoods have been examined and dismissed. N004 has about 350 residents, one college, and one downtown. Aside from a number of content-related crashes, hangs, and glitches that have all been resolved as they came up, the 'hood has been stable and run well, even given some of the odd things I've done in it (houses sharing photo albums, teenagers moving in with adults via "Control this Sim" hacks, etc). So yesterday I finished, shut down as usual, and went to bed. Woke up this mornin', feelin' sad and blue, and then I discovered that 'Hood 4 was gone. Disappeared. No longer on the menu.

Opened the 'hood in SimPE. Yep, it's all there, and looks like it always did: same number of residents, same thumbs, same people... same place. Looked in the Neighborhood folder, and yep, it's all there, and nothing screams obviously "I have been irrevocably corrupted by the Overnight Computer Gremlins!" I will note, parenthetically, that nobody else uses my box but me, that it is not networked, nor is it connected to the 'Net except by dialup. And a scan with Norton, made immediately after the Problem was discovered, turned up no viruses, which was no surprise, since I try to keep up with that.

Oh, well, strange things happen. Restored backup with SimPE. Hood not there. WTF? Well, maybe the file got corrupted somehow. Restored older backup with SimPE. Hood not there. Restored every bleeding backup I've made (one a day, but only dating back a week), and the Hood just ain't there.

So I threw out the N004 file, and manually restored a second backup I keep around for emergencies, made by the simple expedient of copying the N004 file in Windows. It still isn't there. As far as TS2 is concerned, it seems, there is no 'hood 4.

Okay, it's damage control time. Here's what I did:

First, toss the Downloads folder. Start the game. Hood 4 still gone. Okay, then it's nothing to do with the Downloads folder, including hacks. Didn't think so, but I strive for completeness.

Changed Hood 4 files into Hood 3 (Veronaville, never touched), using AntRenamer. Yay, hooray, it worked! My old Hood 4 is now Hood 3, but everything is back where it belongs. Cool! I must write MTS and tell them all about it.

But first, make a backup. So I did. And then I copied everything back into Hood 4, because I wanted to restore Veronaville. (Why I wot not, I don't play it) And... there is no Hood 4. Still. More amusingly, Hood 3, while still on the menu, is... empty? WTF? It was just there! Good thing I hadn't written MTS to brag, yet.

For grins and giggles, created a new hood in TS2. Interesting. New hood is Hood 5: as far as TS is concerned, there is a Hood 4 around here somewhere, if they could only find it.

Intermediate conclusion: there are at least two cases of corruption going on here. My hood 4 is corrupted (by the tooth fairy or something: who the 'ell knows?), and some unknown file that tells TS2 where the 'hoods are is also corrupt.

At this point, I jumped the 'Net, cruised here, read this thread. Tried the "NeighborhoodManager" file swap as suggested. No joy. Wherever the pointer is, it ain't there. Wonder if we could get Maxis to tell us? Wonder if that low-flying pig will hit me? Onward.

Okay, so I tossed N004 again, and replaced it with a copy of the old original N003 (Veronaville) from the backups in the Program Files/Yadda yadda folder of the TS2 install. Still no N004. There are definitely two cases of corruption here, since we know the Virgin Veronaville must be clean.

But just to be sure, I created a new hood (Hood 5, for those keeping score), and put those files in there. Yep, that's my Veronaville -- number 5 on the list (and in the Neighborhood folder), but the fourth panel on the Neighborhood Selector Screen. N004 simply no longer exists... sort of. Well, let's just say, the game knows it's there, but it can't find it.

Okay, but maybe I'm on to something. Put my N004 files into the N005 folder, used AntRenamer (useful program, that), to convert N004 to N005. Joy! It's there! Yay, hooray.

Or... not. It was there, briefly, but then it wasn't. Yep, I started the game, played around in the 'hood, and exited, then restarted... and whoosh! N005 was still there, but it was empty. All my lovely Sims and lots dead and gone. Intermediate conclusion: that N004 save is definitely corrupt.

Is all lost? Fortunately not, or this would not be so manic a post. I manually-restored a savefile from an earlier date and converted it to N005. And everything is there, and working fine, and set as of the end of that particular session, which was before whatever corrupted the game corrupted the game. I have saved/restarted several times, shut down altogether, rebooted, and restarted, and N005 remains intact, and playable, and hopefully will do so for the near future. Barring a complete re-install (which may or may not work), I can play, but N004 remains a phantom.

So, Summary:

1) There are two cases of corruption going on. In this particular case, the 'hood has been corrupted (somehow), and also some unknown file has been corrupted which tells the game the 'hood is there. Though N004 seems to exist, and can be manipulated in SimPE (changes made, saved, backed up, everything), though the files are there in the Neighborhood folder, and though the game KNOWS there's a 'hood around here somewhere, it cannot access it, regardless of what is actually in that 'hood folder, corrupt or otherwise. It is a ghost, a phantom, a pain in the blue-eyed butt.

2) Fortunately, an uncorrupted 'hood backup can be restored and converted to a new 'hood number, and will (apparently) play just fine. So keep those backups handy, and make sure you have AntRenamer around.

Caveats: as I said above, YMMV. I do not know what caused the corruption, I do not know why the game is acting as it does. Maybe a clean reinstall will restore access to the N004 "slot," maybe not. This is just a work-around. If your case is similar to mine, this may help. I sure hope so.

I agree with the posters above. This game is great fun, but it would be so much more fun if I didn't have to waste a day every couple of weeks trying to figure out what's broken THIS time. And I don't even have Pets!

Final note: I have had many assorted crashes, hangs, and blowups in this game, most often hangs either on loading or when entering a lot that require the power to be toggled in order to exit the game, and this is the first time that this kind of corruption occurred. However, neither the crash nor the hack appears to have immediately effected the gameplay. You go figger. Me, I'm having a drink.


-- Mal

[malthaussen]

When the going gets rought, the weird get weirder...

I'm going to describe what has happened since yesterday's post, and if it leaves whatever programmers and analysts who are watching this thread scratching their heads and saying "this doesn't make sense," rest assured, I've been doing that myself.

In the last episode, I had succeeded in making an "uncorrupt" backup (dated 25 April) to work as N005. N004, it appeared, was missing in action. So was my last couple of days play, but that was a small price to pay to keep my Sims, etc.

The last thing I did yesterday was copy all my N005 files into N004, and rename them with antrenamer. Sort of a backup, since N004 wasn't working. But also an experiment, since I can't leave well enough alone.

Today I started the game. The "four" 'hoods were there, my custom "N005" was fine, I could play. When I had originally made this save, one of my Sims was slow dancing with a Townie, and I had saved-and-exited in order to alter her height with SimPE. So I decided to do that first of all.

SimPE persists in telling me that there are five 'hoods, but of course TS2 knows better. I opened 'hood 5, noting with puzzlement that it did not have the current date and time as all the other 'hoods did, and made the alteration to the N005 files. Then I restarted the game. It was fine, everything was working... except the Townie had not reset to the proper size. How very odd... I took a look at the N005 files, and noted that their "date modified" data had not changed -- nothing, it seems, was happening in N005. But -- and believe me, I didn't believe this either -- N004 had updated.

WTF???? I exited to the Neighborhood screen, and added a line of text to my neighborhood description: "This is Neighborhood 5." Then I saved-and-exited, started SimPE, and opened 'hood 4, REPEAT, 4. And what do my wondering eyes perceive but "This is Neighborhood 5." Huh? Are we confused yet? It gets funkier.

I changed the Townie's height again, and also changed the amount of cash the Sim family had on hand. Saved. Opened 'hood 5. The Townie was the right height, so I changed the Sim family's funds to a figure different from the other one. Saved-and-exited. Restarted TS2. All the changes made in SimPE to Hood 4 were present and accounted for. The Hood 4 files had been updated. Though this was, supposedly, Hood 5, it was accessing the files of the Hood 4 folder. I took a screenie, and it showed up in Hood 4. Something is very, very strange, here.

Now I got daring. I am thinking more and more that the problem lies, not with my neighborhoods, but with something in TS2. I tossed out the Hood 5 files altogether, and restarted. The 'hood was still intact, and playable, and in its most recent state, no surprise since the Hood 4 files had been continuously updated. Hood 4 is now working as Hood 4? And yesterday it was gone? I need another drink.

So I got more daring. And I don't really believe this, but here it is: I took my supposedly "corrupt" Neighborhood file and put it back in the N004 folder. And it plays perfectly, now, when yesterday it was "corrupt," unplayable, and had apparently poisoned the N004 slot beyond repair. Well, that was then, this is now. After a strange journey, it seems the backup is restored and all is well. Right? Nope.

I'm still curious. I'm not worried about breaking my game beyond redemption: I have backups out the ying-yang, and if worst comes to worst I can always re-install this dog. As a long-time player of the original Sims, I'm used to the game breaking, and doing all sorts of exotic things to test the envelope. In this case, I did nothing special: "What would happen if I created a new 'hood now?" I did so, and it was N005, as it should be.

Now, a clarification, a note, and an oddity. Yesterday, when I had this problem, at one point I tossed everything beyond the original three 'hoods and created a new N004. I entered, looked around, and exited to the Hood screen. Now, I have a custom .png I made for my N004 screen, of two Sims dancing. My "virgin" N004 was now displaying this .png as its 'hood pic, even though that particular .png WAS NOT IN THE N004 FOLDER. This means something. I'm not sure what, but it confirms that the game is drawing some 'hood data from somewhere outside of the N### folders. After creating this "hood 4" yesterday, it suffered the same "disappearing 'hood" problem as the others.

Today, with my supposedly-corrupt-but-perfectly-playable (for now, anyway) N004 in place, when I created a virgin N005, the same thing happened: it was created, after exiting displayed the custom N004 .png (even though that .png is not in it's folder), and upon restart of the game it has disappeared. So it seems all I have accomplished is to a) move the "corrupt" slot to N005, and b) restored my game to the state it was in before all this madness occurred. Oh, and btw -- Hood 4 does not display the custom .png in the Selection screen, but does when you click on the 'hood to enter it.

Conclusions: there is no corruption in my neighborhood files. Everything that has happened can be attributed to some pointer in the game getting completely screwed up. Where is it? Unknown, but presumably not in the Neighborhood Manager file. What screwed it up? How has it been screwed up? How can I fix it? You tell me.

Will my 'hood still be there the next time I want to play? I sure hope so. I'm tempted to reinstall anyway, but that is such a pain in the neck. I hate playing with a broken game, though, especially when I don't know what broke it.

Comments?

-- Mal

Addendum: re-reading my last two posts, something occurs to me. It seems that all cases of disappearing neighborhoods (in my case) apply to the last neighborhood in the Neighborhood file. As I recall, when I "fixed" the game yesterday, I had a N006 file sitting in that folder -- which had disappeared from the selection screen as usual -- and N005 was working. Then I tossed N006, copied N005 into N004, and N004 was the one working, while N005 was not. Currently, I have my "playable" hood as N004, and a freshly-created 'hood as N005, and it is N005 that doesn't show up. Time for another experiment...

Well. I was going to add a N006 to my 'hoods, to see if N005 would "magically" show up. Unfortunately, when I started TS this time, N004 had disappeared, along with N005.

Follow this. I put the files in the N004 folder. Started the game. Played. Saved-and-exited. Modified Townie with SimPE. Started. Played. Made a phone call, danced. Saved-and-exited. Restarted, checked 'hood. Still there. Yay! Got on Internet. Wrote this post. Started game again as the new experiment had just occurred to me. Hood gone.

What did I do to break it? I got on the Internet. Explain this one if you can.

Back to damage control. This is getting redundant. Continued in next post.

-- Mal

[malthaussen]

Damage Control, Volume 2. Boy, I love debugging. It's why I quit the computer business to begin with.

Okay, I tossed all the custom 'hoods, leaving N001-N003 in place. Started the game, created N004, N005, N006. Two points: when creating N004 yesterday, and N004 and N005 today, the game did not prompt me to add a Downtown, and the 'hoods displayed the custom .png as mentioned above. I am sure this is relevant, I'm just not sure why. N006 created normally, did not display custom .png.

Exited. Restarted. As expected, N004 and N005 had ceased to exist. N006 is still there. Started SimPE. All six 'hoods show. N004 and N005 are "unknown," have population 0, do not have the debug text I entered when I created them. (Basically, just "I am N004," and "I am N005.") N006 has population 171, does show debug text, in all ways appears normal.

Copied 25 April "clean" backup into N006. Renamed with antrenamer. Started game. Yep, there it is again... but I've passed this way before. The important thing here is that repeated steps have produced repeated, expected results. This is progress, if you like. Played around, exited, started SimPE. Hood 004 and 005 are still unknown. Hood 006 is now my custom hood, everything looks normal. Did the height/money modification as mentioned above. Restarted game. Everything is copacetic.

Took two more recent backups, put them in N004 and N005 slots. Started game. Neither shows, but N006 is still in the playable state. For now, anyway. Opened SimPE. Hood 004 shows text, Sims, etc in accordance with the backup. Hood 006 is as before. Hood 005, however, displays the debug text and title. Opened 'hood 005. It crunched along like it was, in fact, the backup -- one could see the names of characters running along the bottom, etc. Displayed message "Two Sims were found with the same GUID." I've seen that message before -- it may/may not be what is causing the problem. But this is weird -- after doing all that work, N005 opened as an empty 'hood. Not only were there no 350+ Sims (with two sharing a GUID), there were no Sims at all.

Intermediate conclusion: perhaps this Neighborhood is, in fact, corrupted. And if two Sims share the same GUID, it may be because of my bringing a Townie into college. Problem is, so many things happened on the 26th that haven't happened before in my game, it is hard to pinpoint one thing and say "eureka! This is what screwed everything up!" What things, for example? Crash-on-shutdown, brought Townie to college, as above. Also had Sim inducted into Landgrabb Society; I exited while on the lot (I wanted to see where it was), and the lot doesn't show in the University plat (is this normal?) and the char doesn't have a Llama blazer (is this normal?). Moved Sims from dorm to house -- I've done that before -- and had one of them con Heather Huffington from the Tri-Var sorority to move in with them. So, two cases of moving Townies. Maybe one of these things corrupted the 'hood. Maybe nothing is corrupted at all. It maddens me that I can play around in these 'hoods, and have everything seem to be working normally, and then they disappear. If the 'hood is corrupt, one would think it would not play at all.

The N004 files in SimPE appear clean. No duplicate GUID message. Ditto N006. But N004 doesn't show up when I start the game. Nor does N005. N006 is still there (for now), I just checked. Changes made playing that 'hood do, in fact, alter the N006 folder. Am I back where I started, with one more corrupt 'hood slot for my troubles? That would appear to be the case.

This is enough to make me want to play Sims 1 for awhile. Like, forever. I am getting a feeling that a clean reinstall is the only way to get my 'hoods back in order -- and that I better give up on any backups made on the 26th, and play the one I have. I'll see if it's there tomorrow, and let you know. Right now, I'm going to read a book. I'm sick of this.

Tomorrow came earlier than expected. After reading a book, having a meal, and unwinding a little, I fired up TS2 to see if my 'hood was still there.

It isn't. Instead, N005 is now the fourth 'hood available. This 'hood is completely empty, even though the Neighborhood folder has files from one of my backups in it. N006 has disappeared from the menu; N004 is still not there. Opened SimPE, and nothing has changed there from the last time.

What did I do to break it? Turned off my computer and read a book. I have come to the end of the road, it appears, and nothing is making any sense.

Therefore, I am going to reinstall the game (since obviously, something is screwed up beyond my Neighborhood files), and see if one of my backups can be made to work.

A final aside: at the start of all this madness, before I did the swap of the NeighborhoodManager file, I noted that that file was about 68.7 kb in size. The "default" size is 22.6 kb. The size now is 22.8 kb. This is a non-trivial difference, but I am not sure what it signifies.

-- Mal

[malthaussen]

Just to finish up this saga:

I reinstalled the game, replaced my custom content, and dropped my most recent backup in as 'hood 4. After several days and a couple of (normal) crashes-and-restarts, everything is still there. Therefore, in cases similar to mine, there is a reasonable expectation that reinstalling will turn the trick. It appears nothing at all was corrupt in the data files, but rather something in the game itself, possibly due to the shutdown crash, but I won't rule out the tooth fairy. I have played quite a bit, modified Sim sizes with SimPE, and installed and uninstalled a couple of hacks, and basically done everything I've always done, and the 'hood continues to be there when I start up. So there is hope.

-- Mal

[julianarosalia]

Thank you for the update both Vladan and Mal. We appreciate all the details that you've posted and hope that this will help others restore their neighborhoods. :)

[camjamlar]

:cry: Hi
My system info is
windows xp home edition - e-machines 8230 pc (never again lol)
intel penium (R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz - 512MB of RAM
Unpatched - i have most ex packs apart from glamour life, celebration stuff and xmas party pack i other all others

i installed all my games from fresh because my pc crashed and i had to reset my pc and had to get all my download files again (boohoo) twice this happened in 6 months,
anyway i just got to play the game after rounding all my files up, i only got as far as moving a new neighbour into strangetown (N002) is it town or hood? i forgot that long since i played that one properly,
i moved the girl and dog in a empty lot and all i did was put 1 item in the house, (a sofa) one from i think binessimsrevue, and then i had to close my pc down, and i cant recall doing anything else with the game
i started it up again the next morning and it was gone (strangetown N002) my other 2 were fine, i didn't have any custom n-hoods

i have looked in my n-hoods folder and it still seems to be there,
i do remember a similar thing happening a while ago and i was told, to go to programs folder thesims2 and get the backup folder for the n-hood, but i cant remember if there was anything else please help
i hve had no luck with my game at all, i just never seem to get far enough, because of my pc resets and losing all my familys now this :cry:

[jodylee9]

Hi I bought sims university the other day and for the first day it worked perfectly but the second day this appeared...


http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u251/jodylee9/um.jpg

When I tried to uninstall it this appeared which I take isnt a good thing.

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u251/jodylee9/d.jpg

Anyone any ideas how to fix it?


Can I also state that university is the only EP that I have installed so far.

[JLonier]

Click on Start->My Computer. Then right click on your hard drive and select properties->tools. Then select error checking. You'll probably have to restart your computer. It will find and remove corrupted files. I'm not sure if you'll be able to uninstall after that, but give it a go and post back.

[jodylee9]

Hi
it took ages to do but I've managed to uninstall and delete the corrupted file. Thanks a lot for that =)

Do you think if I installed it all again the same problem will arise?

[malthaussen]

The only answer to that question is "try it and see." If everything worked normally the first time around, and there was no crash or you did not shut down the computer while TS2 was writing to data files, then it is hard to say what caused the corruption in the first place.

After you reinstall, make a backup of the neighborhoodmanager file, and if it breaks again, try swapping that in.

Remember that TS2 crunches along a bit after you exit, writing to data files. You have to wait until that's finished to shut down the computer, or all sorts of undesireable things can happen.

-- Mal

[lefttenant]

Operating system: WinXP Pro
Computer specs: AMD 64 Athalon Mobile; ATI radeon xpress 200M; 512 Megs of RAM (or is it 516? one or the other)
Games: base game and nightlife patched, and then seasons and pets not patched
Details of Neighbourhood loss: i passed up the maxis neighborhoods in favor of a personal creation. last november i let a friend play, she created a new neighborhood. worked fine, for a while. then i opened it and her neighborhood had vanished as well as the first and third maxis hoods (veronavillle and pleasantview?) mine was still there so i wasn't bothered. then two days ago i played, shut down, went to bed, started it next day and my neighborhood was gone!! however, her neighborhood was back, along with two other neighborhoods that i now remember creating but never really played so had never noticed if they were missing. have done the copy/paste thingy but to no avail. now in my folders, neighborhood 4, i created, doesn't show up - but all the files are there and it's in simpe. same with my fave neighborhood. the two missing maxis neighborhoods, same thing.
- i have plenty of downloads and hacks, and have dealt with problems from them, but i don't think this is related b/c all was working until i made the mistake of going to sleep!
- yep had removed my downloads folder and started it over, but that was a couple of weeks ago and i play a lot, but it's been working fine
- No problems with opening/closing/saving of the games at all.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: NONE

however - interesting point. the neighborhood package files seem to have issues - for instance, in the seasons neighborhood (riverblossom or something?) which is working, the the neighborhood package file (G001_Neighborhood package file) is like 1500 KB. same thing with neighborhood 2, which is strangeville right? both show up, both have huge package files. but veronaville (neighborhood 3?) and my neighborhood (5) both have a neighborhood package file size 1KB. weird b/c my neighborhood has tons of data. both of those neighborhoods aren't showing up.

so does that mean anything??

[lefttenant]

okay here we go... so it seems that i was right, it's the neighborhood file that's corrupted; i know this b/c i replaced it in veronaville (which wasn't working and was only 1 KB) with the same file from C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods\N003 and now it shows up and works fine. of course if i had played at all in that neighborhood it would have gone away (i tried creating a sim and moving him in, saving, quitting, replacing the file again, and of course *poof* he goes away). So i have the basic unplayed maxis neighborhoods back.

sadly, this does not help me with my custom neighborhood; there seems to be no way to replace the neighborhood package. does anyone know how to make a neighborhood package source to the folder it's placed in? i tried making a new neighborhood (N006) with the same template as the one i lost(N005) then taking it's package file, renaming it, and sticking it in the damaged neighborhood, but it just ends up being an empty neighborhood; i think it sources to the data in the N006 folder even though i moved and renamed it. do any of you know how i could make it source to the folder it's in? or is this even possible?

right now i'm looking at doing a full reinstall, but i'm concerned that it won't fix my problem since when i put my old neighborhood back in the new game it'll still use the old neighborhood package file which is damaged. :(

or... does anyone know how (or know of a tutorial) to get houses/families packaged like to upload (or in this case to put in my houses/families bin) in a different neighborhood? so i could extract them and put them in a new neighborhood? it seems this must be possible since i really don't think the character and lot files are damaged. any suggestions would be lovely!

[natzjr2]

I'm pretty convinced that the "missing neighborhood" issue *IS* caused by missing and/or corrupted neighborhood files. The source of the corruption can be a lot of different things, from a corrupt save game, a computer virus, a faulty system file, system lockups, your anti-virus program kicking in at a REALLY bad time, or a corrupted downloaded object. Keep in mind that The Sims 2 does NOT like to be minimized (doesn't matter what Maxis says, your game HATES you when you do that!). It doesn't matter how powerful your computer is; TS2 has a notoriously unstable platform, so the danger of crashing or file corruption is always there, no matter what you do or don't do.

I recently did a full CLEAN re-install of TS2 (I also have all the expansions) and I usually load each expansion as I install it, just to make sure that all the files are installed correctly. What I noticed is that if any expansion is not properly installed, you will be missing sims, lots, and even entire neighborhoods from your game. In extreme cases you will get an error message saying that the "application has crashed and will now close".

For the people like me who are download-aholics and are constantly adding new modded content to their game, here are some of the lessons I've learned (the hard way) during my bazillion re-installs of TS2:

(1) make sure you package ALL your favorite sims and pets. If you have an entire family you want to keep, make sure you package the LOT they live in. Keep these backups FAR AWAY from your EA Games folder =)

(2) don't delete the original .zip or .RAR files for stuff you download. Try to organize them into labeled folders, so if you need to start over with your game, most of your stuff will be easily accessible

(3) when re-installing TS2 (and expansions) make sure you LAUNCH each application before you move on to the next expansion. This way, if one of your EPs fails to install correctly, you will know right away.

(4) most importantly: don't add all your downloaded content all at once. Add a little bit at a time, so if something is broken or not working as intended, you can fix the problem or remove the bad file(s) before all hell breaks loose.

Hope this helps somebody. I'll feel a lot better knowing my (painful) experiences has helped someone out.

[shniveshnive]

Well , i dont even know what happend, but all my sims which were in contests were there and gone :cry:

Anyway.. i dont know exactly what happend i just clicked the ea games folder and i think i clicked something wrong and the like bar with the green thing going back and forth came up and i clicked cancel but then i went to check and like all my projects were gone and my N004_neighborhood package and reia and the photo thing so ..?
Could i have deleated it or something, but i pressed cancel so.. :wtf: ugh

-shniveshnive

[iluvamylee]

I only lost a few neighborhoods, but I don't need them anyway. My question is, is would it be safe to move the unneeded neighborhood files to my external harddrive, now that I'm not using them? Or would it corrupt my game? If I do this, I'm going to back up my files first, but what if I mess up and it's permanently corrupted, even if I use my back up files?

[reiroy]

Okie... Sims 2 worked perfectly fine on my computer. But when I tried to install it on my laptop(windows vista business edition), all of the nieghourhoods and templates disappeared. The game doesn't even create a EA games document folder in the computer at all. Even though I tried to put it in myself, the game loads but there is nothing in the menu screen at all. When I choose create custom neighbourhood, no template, as in ground terrain etc, can be found.
Solutions anyone?

[bidi2]

A long time ago (1 or 2 yrs.) I was playing pleasantview and it crashed and then the next time I went on it pleasantview was not there! :!: then i re-installed all my games and there was something called Vedena_2 or something and there was no more pleasantview or veronaville or strangehood like there should be! :cry: Is there any way to get it back? Anybody who can help, PLEASE DO!-Bidi2 :help:

[wait_for_me]

Hi I need some help in here, well the thing is that I had my neighborhood disappeared, with the advice of one of the members here I got it back, however I noticed that every time I do something faulty, like for example I had no battery and my computer hibernated or I minimized my Sims or my sims got frozen. Everytime things like this happen my neighborhood disappears and I have to reload my saved copy which is quite a nuisance since my game is never stable. Im wondering if anyone has the same problem or anyone can help me...
Im running Sims 2 Pets

[KyutieRin]

Operating system XP Home
Computer specs Don't know
Games BAse, Uni, NL, Pets, Seasons, Happy Holidays
Details of Neighbourhood loss Riverblossom Hills, Strangetown. I played a custom neighborhood last.
Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? Yes
Sim PE Investigation: Dont have Sim PE
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing
Any other relevant information: Had a male sim have three children using the InSIMenator

[smiles88]

I have not had any disappearing neighbourhoods but my sims disappear. Every time i make a new sim and then save it in a block of land the next time i open the game it is gone, but when it is a sim that came with the game there is no problem. I have just installed all the games, i have no hacks and there are no custom content. My brother has installed the same games as me and he is having no problems at all. The only difference i can really think of is he has a newer computer then me. I am really confused.


Operating system Windows xp, home addition version 2002
Computer specs AMD Athlon(tm)XP 2007+ 216 GHz, 512 MB of RAM

Games The Sims 2, University, Open for business, Nightlife, Seasons and family stuff. (the problem started when i got seasons) I have patches for all of those except seasons and family stuff,( i cant get seasons patch to work for some reason)

The problem started when i got seasons but before that i only had sims 2 and university.


Hope this helps.

[Zaphkiel26]

Operating system : Windows XP Home Edition

Computer specs: 2.66 GHz Processor, 1 GIG RAM, 64 MB Nvidia GeForce 4 MX 4000 Video Card

Games : All except H&M Fashion, and have most recent patches.
Details of Neighbourhood loss: Veronaville vanished after having to hard shutdown cuz the game froze, on restart chkdsk started, then when game was reloaded everything is there except Veronaville the only Hood I play.
Neighbourhood File details: My neighborhood file is only 1 KB in size
Sim PE Investigation: I have no clue how to do this.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption:
Any other relevant information: It seems after checking the N003 folder everything is still intact except for the small kb file and the fact Veronaville is bnot a choosable neighborhood on startup
Could you also try this:

Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?


I have tried the swap, it did not fix anything, is there any way for me to get my neightbor hood back?

[prettymorning27]

I'm so glad I found this place! My disappearing neighbourhoods have gotten me really worried!
Anyway-
I have a 1.25 Ghz Power PC G4 eMac with Mac OS 10.3.9. My trouble started when I was trying to clear some memory and accidentally deleted all of the custom content I'd downloaded. I went back and downloaded a bunch of stuff and went back to playing, but then Veronaville diasppeared. The new Seasons neighbourhood - Bluewater was there, as were the two originals.
So I went back and re-installed all of my games (that took a loong time) and they were all back! So I carried on merrily.
Today, however, I was downloading more custom content, and installed it all. I pulled up the game and all was fine! I went to the college in Veronaville. But I had to go to the grocery so I quit, then came back and all but Bluewater Village were gone! Upsetting.
Anyway... I use a few cheats. I use motherlode, and also boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true. I didn't do anything cheat-y, though, before I had to go. In fact, I didn't do anything.
I tried the suggestion from above, but that didn't work! Any help will be appreciated! It's kind of silly, but it feels nice to know I'm not alone in this yucky problem.

[MutantJedi]

Operating system Win XP Home
Computer specs 3.20 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Pentium Processor.
Games Sims 2, Nightlife, Pets, Seasons. I have the 2nd Nightlife patch.

Details of Neighbourhood Loss- I lost a custom neighborhood. All my other neighborhoods were fine. My sister last played in a custom neighborhood, then turned the game off. About 15 minutes later I went to play in my custom neighborhood and it wasnt there. The neighborhood that disappeared (MyLand) is probably the most played neighborhood.
Would it help if I told you that I moved all the sims out of the neighborhoods they came with and moved them to MyLand?

I have not removed my downloads recently.

Hacks-

InSimenator. (Seasons Compatible)
InTeenimater (Seasons Compatible)
Triplets & Quads hack by TwoJeffs (Full Version)
Functional Warrior Sword by JohnBrehaut1
Pet Baby Creator by Christianlove
No Family Size Limit by Doc Doofus
Bribe the Headmaster by Mitch44


The bold hacks were installed last night.

All my files are still there. (That was the first thing I checked)


Sim PE Investigation: I don't have Sim PE.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing.

If you installed custom content prior to the problem, I do not need to know which items/ hacks you installed, but rather the type- I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "type of mods". They were all global hacks. I also use "motherlode" and the pet control cheats quite often.

Any other relevant information: For the past few days the loading times have been killer, and the game has crashed several times while loading a lot. I thought it was because of installing Seasons, but I've read here that other people have had this problem.

EDIT: Your suggestion didn't work.

:report: I just remembered a backup I made just prior to installing Seasons. I'm set back by 5 days, but it's better than the alternative.

Also, I seem to remember the game locking up while I was loading a lot. I restarted the computer because pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL did nothing. THat's probably what screwed my game up.

[Pors]

I just lost a custom neighborhood and was directed to this thread. I've never had any issues with the game whatsoever so this is all new to me. I was in game on Thursday evening, quit the game as normal, shut off my computer, etc. as usual. On Friday I started up my computer, started the game and when I scrolled the neighborhoods one of my custom neighborhoods was no longer showing. It was the neighborhood I was last in and one that I just used for my contest sims. I have done nothing new or different with my computer either.

I am running Windows XP Home Edition with an Intel Pentium 1.8 Ghz processor. I have a Radeon 9200 video card. I have installed all the Sims 2 expansions but no stuff packs.

All of my other neighborhoods, both Maxis and custom, are fine - I just lost this one (and of course the most important to me).

Hacks: These have all been in my game and working fine - nothing new.
Trips & Quads
Risky WooHoo
Insem
Inteen
No Friends Needed for Careers
Carrigon Temp Mod
College Adjuster
LizzLove Swinger Bed


I can still see neighborhood no. 7 (which was my contest neighborhood) in the Neighborhoods file.

I ran SimPe and the first time it said #7 was corrupted and I could not get any further to see characters, etc. I shut down SimPe and the next time I started it #7 is no longer listed as an option to view.

I tried cutting and pasting the neighborhood manager file per instructions and that did not help.

I don't care about the neighborhood or lots but do care very much about the sims I created. If there is any way to capture those files and put into another neighborhood that would make my day. Unfortunately they were not created in body shop so that option is out.

I'm hoping someone has some ideas for me.

[Charmful]

Operating System-Mac OSX 10.4.9
Specs-1.25 GHz Power PC G4/ 1 GB DDR SDRAM
Games- Sims 2 and Nightlife, no patches, no hacks, but a decent amount of custom clothes, hair, and objects.
Details of Loss-I had three custom neighborhoods. Two of which I played and one that my sister would play. She told me she was playing hers but when it was saving, she got impatient and shut down my computer while it was doing so. When she returned, hers and one of mine were dissapeared, the other neighborhood of mine is still there.
Files- All files are in the Documents/EAgames/Neighborhoods file. The game just refuses to recognize the two missing ones.

Other
No Simpe, don't even know what that is.
Nothing changed in my system, I think the only cause would be a corrupted save and that is why my sister's hood is gone but I do NOT see why it wouldn't recognize my other neighborhood when no one was messing around in it. I've tried to swap neighborhood manager.pkg files but that doesn't work.

I really hope the case of the disapearring neighborhoods is solved because I've kind of lost interest in playing now that one of my neighborhoods is gone.

:(

[Zaphkiel26]

Well after losing my internet and talking to Maxis Support, it was a corrputed savefile and they said nothing they can do, but I did somewhat get my neighborhood back by removing the SIms 2 folder from My Documents, and letting the game rebuild the default neighborhoods, then I placed the folder back which made my characters "default", used Inseminator to summon these default characters back to my Lots unfortunately they lose all wants and relationships, as well as family ties, but SimPE was able to fix that, hope this helps.

[Canoodle]

There has been a sneaking suspicion amongst the mods here for some time, that corrupt saved games could be one possible explanation. Of course, every game is different, and some lost hoods could and can be due to other problems.

[cmkb396]

Hi Friends! Glad I found this thread to know I am not alone! I just lost the only neighborhood I play, Pleasantview, about an hour ago. I am so bummed! Just when I had the town looking good! :) Oh well - I guess I will re-build and make it better! Hopefully someone can come up with a solution to this problem soon. Here's my Info:

Operating system: Win XP – Home Edition
Computer specs: AMD SemPron(td) Processor 3100, 1.8 Ghz, 512 MB, Nvidia Drivers and DDS Utilities
Games: Sims 2 (DVD); All except H&M Fashion. All patches.
Details of Neighbourhood loss: I lost Pleasantview – the only neighborhood I play. The other neighborhoods (Veronaville, Strangetown, Riverblossom Hills) appear OK, but I had no saved games/sims/lots for these other neighborhoods.
Downloads: Several. Almost entirely from MTS. I remove things from my Downloads file often – when textures/images show up blurry in my game, or when there are parts of a set I don’t. The last thing I downloaded was a few days ago. It was phoenix_phaerie’s “Pedimentary My Dear”. This was installed with Q-Xpress.
Hacks: Just a few custom careers…the mod for the Shop At Home Coat Rack by Mary Lou and Numenor.
Neighbourhood File Details: Yes – Pleasantville still appears in my Neighborhoods. All relevant sub-neighborhoods also appear (Campus, Downtown, etc.)
Sim PE Investigation: Yes, I have SIM PE. I get the following message when I try to access Pleasantview in Neighborhood Browser Mode: “Unhandled exception has occurred in a component in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. The process cannot access the file ‘c:\documents and settings\oem\my documents\ea games\the sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001\N001_Neighborhood.package’ because it is being used by another process.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I was exiting a new lot, not wishing to save my changes. The screen went blue and the hour glass appeared. The screen went unchanged (didn’t return to desktop) for over 10 minutes. Knowing I didn’t want to save my changes, I hit Alt+Control+Delete to shut the game down, since it appeared to be “stuck” anyway. Afterwards, I rebooted my computer. When I went to play the game again, my neighborhood was gone.
Could you also try this: (Moving neighborhoodmanager.package file): Yes. I tried this, but it didn’t make the neighborhood reappear.

[Faerieimp]

Operating system: Windows XP Home

Computer specs: 1.8 Ghz processor, 1.00 Gb Ram, AMD Sempron Processor 3000+

Games: I have all expansions and stuff packs to date. I know of no patches other than those that came on the game.

Details of Neighbourhood loss: My sister was playing our main custom neighborhood, Simpleton (N004). She had two sims trying to graduate college and was trying to invite family and friends over for a party (we are talking thirty or forty sims). She had most of them invited and the computer closed down, so she restarted and went to her sims' lot again and started the process over inviting family and friends. She said she had one call left to make when it closed down again. I was on another computer in another room, not really paying attention. She reloaded and Simpleton was gone. Everything else was there, but not Simpleton. We had this happen once beofore, but it was something we did and it's be two years. We had lost Veronaville, but we restored it to it's original state eventually. We'd played it all of once.

Neighbourhood File details: Neighborhood present and accounted for. Actually bigger by 0.02 gigs than the last time we backed up three days before. All downtowns, universities, and suberbs accounted for.

Sim PE Investigation: It's there and it's not. It was listed as Unknown. Checked the list of suburbs and the regular downtown (which we don't use) was listed as unknown. Our custom downtown was listed by name (Arcadia) and university was listed by name (Sim State University). Could not enter regular neighborhood, so I tried University, closed off, said I didn't have enough space. So I freed up around 30 gigs. Entered, but only showed date for four Characters (Polination Tech, Hula Zombie, Grim Reaper, and Therapist, two of whom have never been used in Simpleton and none of whom have been used in university). Quit that without saving. Also it said A sim was found twice. I copied the data if anyone wants to wade through it then I'll post it, but it's on another computer.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Only thing I can think of is I fixed some family connections in SimPE when SimPE told me that I had an additional expantion pack (H&M, there is no version out for that yet), but I did this twice and I don't think that was the problem. Then there was the whole shutting down thing. Oh, and when my sister entered the lot which later closed down, one of the times the background was dark blue rather than showing the progress and it's been blue screening on us lately, but it always came back except once (at which point we did turn off the computer).

Any other relevant information: One time when I tried to enter the game after the neighborhood had disappeared it said something about Direct 9.0c compatable graphics adapters, but the next time that was gone and other than the missing neighborhood it started as usual.
I compared the file with the last backup, four days previousand found some interesting differences. Here are all the differences I found.
Totals: 1.33 GB vs. 1.31 GB
Character Files - 464 vs. 458
Lots - 309 vs. 308
Storytelling - 558 vs. 549 (we take a lot of pictures)
Thumbnails - 3.69 vs 3.63
N004_Neighborhood - 18,823 vs. 13,989
N004_Neighborhood.bak - 11,838 vs. 12,167
N004_Suburb002 - 1,059 vs. 1,057
N004_University - 681 vs. 666
The one that makes me confused the most is the Nieghborhood vs. the bak file since the bak file is smaller in the more recent save.
Oh, and I don't know if this is helpful or not, but here's a list of the hacks I have, but I've had them all awhile.
ebruere's Dorm Room Reservation
Crumblebottom's Happy Helmet Wants Reroller
Crumplebottom's More Winter Snow
fwiffo's Multi_Polination_Technition
Cyjon's Nicer Phone Messages (which did cause me problem's when I had the wrong version, but is absolutely awesome.)
Numenor's Cash Register Training
Sim Wardrobe's Playables Don't go broke (which I deleted once because I wanted my sims to actually by stuff and keep them and this is desined so they don't keep anything they buy unless you are playing their household)
Sim Wardrobe's Employees Arrange Flowers Dammit
Sim Wardrobe's Employees Make Robots Dammit
Sim Wardrobe's Employees Make Toys Dammit
Corky's Solo Romantic Photobooth Pics (which is very cute)
More Awesome Than You's Marriage-Traditional
More Awesome Than You's Primpfix (trust me it's useful)

Could you also try this: Did not try. I did a search and found five Nighborhoodmanagers. Two appeared to have the exact same address, but perhaps one was from recent files used or something. One was my backup file (the entire game from four days ago). One was in program files as was the other, but the second one was in program files\EA Games\TheSimsSeason . . . The first two were both 192 kb. The backup was 191kb. The program file one was 22.6 kb and the Seasons one was 769 bytes.

Oh, to finish up I deleted the files (after backing them up) and transfered the backup there and at present that seems to have worked. The neighborhood is there and I have enter a couple dorms. One thing that has given me cause for concern is when I entered my sister's dorm, the one that the game closed the computer on, there was that dark blue screen behind the four sisms. And also it blanked out all the pictures of the sims one of the times I was looking at the dorms. I will repost if anything changes or it messes up again.

I have learned the reason that the sims turned off. It appears be that my computer could not handle having 40 plus sims on the lot for a graduation. This does not bode well for future weddings in this neighborhood. I have a toddler that by the time she marries her eleven older siblings will likely have well over fifty kids between them. I mean it is up to eight with only four siblings married and plans for at least four more before another sibling graduates college. Not sure why the sims corupted the data, but it most likely had to do with being shut down inproperly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So far so good, though I've been terrified everytime the game shut down the computer while my sister was trying to get her couple married. This took her five attempts. I have been saving a backup in SimPE everytime I go on or my sister gets off. Then, as everything goes all right, I delete the earlier ones. I actually probably have seven or eight backups from that plus my master back up, which is everything. I usually only make a master back up when I add an expansion and that has been helpful twice when I had to uninstall because of something happening during instalation. We are having slight problems. My sister has a sim, newly wed who as a child and teen had a cat. The cat lives with her parents and we are trying to get the cat to live with her, but she she keeps refusing the offer of a free cat. We cannot deturmine the cause of this, but it may just be normal game play. The sim is friends with all members of the household including the cat and her mom (who is offering her the cat) is friends with the cat. I'm hoping our problems are behind us. Two babies have been born and I'd like to keep them.

[arkoth24]

I just loaded sims, only to find out one of my custom hoods had vanished! It was one of two custom hoods, but that one was full, the remaining custom hood was blank except for one house that I moved from the hood that disappeared. I tried the copying and pasting of the hoodManager package files but that didn't work. However the hood file (N004) Is showing up in the game directory with complete character folder and everything. In simPE the hood shows up as "Unknown" and won't load properly, but the subhoods (blewater and downtown) showed up as normal, and I could access them normally. WTF??

I recently added the "StayThingsShrub" and "Notownieregen" mods last night, if that would affect anything?

I use Windows Vista Home Premium (Awful, would advise strongly against getting vista, fucked up my game a lot, but its still playable.)

The version of sims I'm using is Pets, I have original, nighlife, OFB, glamour stuff, christmas stuff, and pets

Some other specs: nVidia GE Force 7300 SE. Intel Duo Core processor 1.86GHZ.

What changed on your system before the corruption? Nothing to my knowledge, but vista likes to do what it wants when it wants.

The last thing I did on sims before shutting it down last night was I moved a house from the custom hood that vanished, to a new custom hood. I did it the safe way, deleting relationships memories, packaging the lot etc.
Then I loaded the family in the new hood, then quit. I havent loaed sims since then until about half an hour ago, when i discovered the missing hood. Would the move have effected anything?

Any advice is appreciated, Thanks!

**UPDATE** Luckily I found a backup of N004 I made, and restored it. Now the neigbourhood is back, all sims seem fine. I strongly suspect it was the staythingsshrub that cocked up things. I didn't have that shrub on any lot in the backup file, I've now deleted it from my downloads file and hopefully this should never happen again, If something similar has happened to you and you have the StayThingsShrub installed, the one that lets you keep objects on a lot after a family moves out. I strongly reccomend taking it off. I've backed up every neighbourhood now incase something else happens, but hopefully it should be fine.

**UPDATE 2**
It happend again =[ I think it was another corrupt mod i installed (think it was the frontdoorhack) so i removed that, and its been fine since. I think its a select few mods/hacks that can cause this glitch. Only ones I'm running now are the notownieregen, mind control mirror, and the transportation shrub to make sims townies. So next ime you install a mod, backup your hood before hand =]

[cybergrrl]

it happened again... :( this time on another computer, so here the details:

Operating system: mac os 10.3.9 (emac)
Computer specs: 700 MHz PowerPC G$, 640 MB SDRAM
Games: family fun and all expansion packs except seasons, pets patch

Details of Neighbourhood loss: I played in my custom neighbourhood, just one family. I shut down as normal. Next day I start the game and my custom neighbourhood is gone. (I tried twice)

I had not removed any downloads previously.

Hacks that affect the whole neighbourhood: not sure what that means. Do not all hacks affect the whole neighbourhood/game? Do you mean something where my actions in one family affect all the other families in the neighbourhood as well? hm... the only thing i am using like that would be the monique's Child Support Controller v3.A.

Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? Yes, everything's still there.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing.

Any other relevant information: The only weird thing that happened during this session is that I tried to register my pet as a breed (it was a dog created by the game, i had adopted it) and it wouldn't work. No matter how often I pressed the confirm button (where you are supposed to type the name of the breed), nothing happened and i had to cancel the action in order to leave the dialog box. I think I tried three times.

Could you also try this: I tried and it did not help.

BUT NOW THE GOOD NEWS: I managed to get the neighbourhood back by using an older save from 2 days ago! Here's what I did: I deleted the folder Documents/EA Games, then inserted my old EA Games folder instead. Then I copied the neighbourhoodManager.package file from that just inserted folder and pasted it in Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods, replacing the one that was already sitting there. I restarted the game and there it was: my custom neighbourhood as if nothing had happened in the last two days! Ta-taaaa! It's good I always backup twice after I lost my favourit neighbourhood last time... Besides my most recent backup i now always keep an older one; and that's the one that saved me this time. (now i know it's worth the gigabytes of space :jest: )

[patronus06]

If it makes any difference, my computer if fairly new...as in I got it about a month ago. Well, ever since I got my computer, it has a tendency to occasionally freeze and the screen will go black and a small square that is about an inch on each side and has multi-colored lines on it will appear. The only way to get the screen to go away is turn the computer off. There have also been times when the stripes are large and grey and cover the whole screen (I realize this is not normal...I'm calling up Dell tech support later). This can happen regardless of what I'm doing, whether I'm on the Sims, on the internet, or even if my computer is just sitting there doing nothing.

Anyway, this has happened several times before when I was playing the Sims without any apparent consequences. But today I had just told my computer to leave the university and go back to Veronaville when my computer did the strange freeze thingy. Now Veronaville has completely dissapeared...I can't access it inside the game. Is there anyway to get it back? Almost all of my characters that I spend a lot of time on live in that neighborhood.

And I went inside my neighborhoods folder and it has G001, N001, N002, N003 in it plus, a tutorial and neighborhood manager file (by the way, I tried pasting my whole neighorhood file to my desktop and then putting it back and that didn't help and neither did pasting just the manager file on the desktop and then putting it back in the neighorhood file...Veronaville was still completely missing.

I have not done anything with my downloads folder since the first couple days I got my computer when I transfered all the files from my old computer and downloaded a few new things...so that was like a month ago.

Model: Dell Inspiron 1501
Operating system: Windows Vista (not my choice)
Processor: AMD Anthlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-53 1.70 GHz
RAM: 894 MB
Video card:ATI Radeon Xpress 1150

I have:

Sims 2 Deluxe
Sims 2 University
Sims 2 Pets
Sims 2 Seasons

[sammytisme]

OS: XP Home Edition with SP2
Games: Sims 2 Deluxe (Base game with Nightlife). No patches, as I assume the games were patched with the new edition (Deluxe).

My game played perfectly until I added a lot of custom content to my downloads folder. Something I added was causing my game to stop loading. It would load to the point of "Replacing Wheel Bearings" and then kick off. I went through all the custom content and after many hours, found the problem files. During this removal process, the neighborhoods were loading fine. Once I found all the problem custom files and deleted them, I loaded the game. It got past "Replacing Wheel Bearings," but when I got to the "neighborhood selection screen," the 3 neighborhood icons were gone and my only option was "Create Custom Neighborhood."

I had made a backup of my game folder (I'll call Sims Folder 2) which was located on my desktop, so I compared it with the original folder (I'll call Sims Folder 1) which was located in my My Documents/EA Games folder - this is the folder the game would pull information from.

When I compared the Neighborhood folders of each, I found the following folders: N001, N002, N003, Tutorial, and the file NeighborhoodManager.package. Both N002, N003, and Tutorial folders contained the same subfolders and files. However, the N001 folder from Sims Folder 2 had many subfolders and files that Sims Folder 1 did not have.

Then when I checked the Teleport folder from Sims Folder 2, it was empty, but the Teleport folder from Sims Folder 1 had all of my neighborhoods in it, and contained EXACTLY the same subfolders and files as the Downloads folder from the Sims Folder 2 (the backup folder).

I hope this is making sense!

I removed the Neighborhoods folder from Sims Folder 1, replaced it with the Neighborhoods folder found in the Transport folder of Sims Folder 1, started the game, and all the neighborhood icons were there!

All of the customer items I downloaded are there, all of the "pre-loaded" characters and houses are there, however...NONE of the characters I created or houses I built are there! And none of the relationships, skills, etc are there for the "pre-loaded" characters. It's like a fresh install. Any suggestions on how to get my characters and houses back???

Thanks!

[T.Tica]

Hey.I don't realy know if this is related,but I really need to ask this:How can I get back the neighborhood I deleted?
It all started when I was cleaning out my sims game(deleting stuff that I didn't need)and I deleted a neighborhood,forgetting that my favorite family was there.Now,I really want them back!PLEASE,HELP ME!!!

[julianarosalia]

T.Tica, you can try to restore the Neighborhood folder from the Windows Recycle Bin.

[T.Tica]

Thanks.But I deleted it from the recycle bin.Any other ideas?

[Canoodle]

It's gone now. You can't replace what you have permanenetly deleted. :(

[T.Tica]

Thank you.
P.S;IS there any way i can recover the sims?

[julianarosalia]

Nope. The files containing the information about the sims is in the Neighborhood folder. If you created them in BodyShop then the 'sim templates' are still there because those are found in SavedSims.

[T.Tica]

Thanks.I really appriciate the help you've given me. :Pint:
Shame,there's no way to recover it :cry: :cry: :cry:

[sammytisme]

Hi again. Based on the information in my post above, does anyone have an idea why I lost all the characters and houses I created, and how to get them back?

Thanks!

[Halei]

I'm on a Windows XP Home edition computer with 1.99 GHz and 1.00 GB of RAM.
I have Sims 2 and Sims 2 Pets (Neighborhood disappeared on Pets.) No patches.
I lost one of my custom neighborhoods, and it was replaced by a neighborhood called "Pets." The description of the neighorhood is "Hidden Neighborhood for the pets..."
When I clicked on it, it tried to load, but ended up crashing the game.
I last played on a different custom neighborhood.

[patronus06]

My neighborhood is still missing, even though I had to erase my hard drive and re-install the Sims 2 because of my computer's problem. I had saved a backup of Veronaville, and it still didn't work when I tried to replace it with the Veronaville already in the game. I think maybe it's just forever damaged?

[lechapeau]

Hi again. Based on the information in my post above, does anyone have an idea why I lost all the characters and houses I created, and how to get them back?

Thanks!

When you put the files back that were missing from the neighborhood did you delete or remove the originals completely or did you let it overwrite when you moved them?
Overwriting a neighborhood or the files from it can lose houses and sims. Also although the files looked like they were complete, them moving from folders they should be in to folders they normally wouldn't be in might have messed them up anyway.

Have you tried removing the N001 from your playable game and putting the backed up N001 from your Sims Folder 2 (your name for it from above)?
That's the most likely way to get them back as if you say that set of files looks properly complete, but if you have overwritten them and don't still have the back up anymore then I'd think you've lost them.

[scottishflame]

:cry: I lost Strangetown and Custon 004 neighborhood two days ago. I have been playing in Strangetown La Fiesta Uni and have not had any problems. The custom hadn't been played in about 10 days. I had not had any problems except for slow logging out of game. I downloaded and installed a pregnacy hack from here and two careers also from MTS before all this happened. Last date in neighborhood files updated was Aug.30. Which is right on the money. I can tell you which ones if you want just let me know. I have not messed in the guts of the game as I am liable to kill the patient entirely. I did check like you asked and both neighborhoods are still in the neighborhood file.
My system is AMD XP 2000+ with 1.67 GHZ. 512 MB RAM and a NVIdia gEfORCE 6200A-LE. I have Windows XP PRO installed and am the only user. I have not attempted to delete these three files for fear of scewing it up worse.
When I powered up yesterday my computer gave me a scan for errors thingie and started checking for particular files. I saw where it said 002 neighborhood and 004 neighborhood incomplete file and the it typed it under that statement that it deleted both of them. This was before it got to the log in. How can I get them back. I am really going to be an ill little bunny if I loose my guys in uni. Thanks for your time and help. Oh yeah NO PATCHES. I an a serious addict and have ALL the Sims 2 expansions and add-ons. My Sims2 is CD not DVD. That was added later but not the cause of this fiasco. :wtf:

[scottishflame]

:Pint: Go to "Documents and Settings/YourName/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N002" folder
Inside it you should have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.package" it is the last saved file of Strangetown neighbourhood. It is probably corrupted. Rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.corrupted". You should also have a file named "N002_Neighborhood.bak" make a copy of it and rename it to "N002_Neighborhood.package". Start your The Sims2 game, and your Strangetown neighbourhood should be back. But it will be reverted to a few days before the last time you played in Strangetown.

:Pint:
O.K. I gave up last night and had some fitfull nightmares about my poor missing simmies wandering lost in the shadow worlds. I checked out the folders as Leo-SSA suggested and found 2 somethings interesting. First, I do not have a neighborhood 002.bak file. I have a neighborhood 002.reia file. Is it the same thing? I am NOT intellegent in this crap so guys feel free to use BABY talk to me. I promise not to be offended but eternally grateful. Second, my Neighborhood 002.package file has only 1KB in it like lefttenant's does. My custom neighborhood doesn't have Neighborhood reia file at all just a package file. Its custom #4. So somebody out there hear my plea. The custom is my 11 year old foster neice's baby and she is ssssooooo upset. All her teanagers are JUST PERFECT in their assorted hair and makeups. :(
I however have a spectacular male sim in La Fiesta I would rather not lose. I have not played in Strangetown just at the University. I checked my other neighborhoods that are working fine and their package files are showing over 3,000KB at least. I sure do not want to have to reinstall and have to put in TONS of downloads again. Thanks for any help at all.

[julianarosalia]

The .reia file only appears in the Maxis neighborhoods. It contains the little video preview of the neighborhood that only those neighborhoods have.

Have you tried Simsample's suggestion from the first post of this thread?

"Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?"

Before trying that, you can always make a backup copy of your entire My Docs/EA Games/Sims2 folder somewhere safe 'just in case'. :)

[scottishflame]

The .reia file only appears in the Maxis neighborhoods. It contains the little video preview of the neighborhood that only those neighborhoods have.

Have you tried Simsample's suggestion from the first post of this thread?

"Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?"

Before trying that, you can always make a backup copy of your entire My Docs/EA Games/Sims2 folder somewhere safe 'just in case'. :)


:( It didn't do a thing different. Still nothing. I'm wondering if installing the new expansion might correct this problem. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.depressed sign! This suks. I have tons of stuff to reinstall. Thanks for your help and time.

[lefttenant]

my favorite custom neighborhood randomly died several months ago and after excessive attempts to restore it (see previous posts) i finally gave up on my old neighborhood and created a new one; and it just died also, after a few months of gameplay, with no readily apparent reason.

my question is this: has anyone else experienced time-delayed continuing problems? as, you lost one neighborhood and so started again, then after a significant period of time that one dies as well? i didn't reinstall but i think i will now, so i'm wondering if other people have reinstalled and had the problem after they did. thanks all!

[-Diamondz-]

:( THis morning when i played the sims... pleasantview was reset back to defualt as well as its university... i didnt do anything different on my computer. I only have the Sims original and sims uni.I have windows XP and i have cheked the program files HEAPS of times but nothing is there :(

[Kuramalover_Bunny]

All the technical jargon eludes me, but I do know that my Veronaville is gone, kaput, vanished. I doesn't really matter, since that was the neighborhood I used the least, but it's still unnerving.

[nvmarvel]

i see my riverblossom file as G001 in both My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods AND Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods but it doesnt show in the game.

[julianarosalia]

If you have not tried the suggestions in the very first post of this thread, please do so now. We also need the information that Simsample requests in that post. Thanks. :)

[Ting]

Hi

First off, I didn't have time to read through the whole thread because I've got to get to work, so I apologise if I'm posting a problem that's duplicate to someone else's.


Operating system: Windows XP Professional.

Computer specs: 1,9GHz processor, 512mb RAM, NVIDA.

Games: Base game, Uni, Pets, Seasons, Glam Stuff, H&M.

Details of neighbourhood loss: All of my neighbourhoods are still there (haven't checked the uni neighbourhoods though). What's missing is a number of Sims. Most lots have lost all but one Sim, while other lots are intact. There seems to be no correlation between who's lost, along the lines of original families, custom clothes, etc. The hack I use is the inSIMenator, plus the "no dig dirt pile" one.

What I did before it was lost: My computer got turned off while it was loading a lot. When I then ran the game I deleted a number of custom clothes through the "Create Sim" function, which I do every now and then to sort out stuff I've downloaded but probably will never use.

File details: The neighbourhood files are obviously still there, and the character files appear to be too. I've played the custom neighbourhood in question for some time now, and have reached my third and fourth generation Sims, so there are more than 500 character files there.


EDIT: I might also add that I tried the suggestion in the first post, with the NeighborhoodManager.package, even though my problem isn't with a missing neighbourhood, and nothing changed.

[wallisdj]

Once the accumulated Simolean cash reaches 243 million, the game crashes. Any reason why?

[julianarosalia]

wallisdj, this thread is for Disappearing Neighborhoods. Please repost in your own thread since your question has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand.

[Charlizzie89]

I MADE SURE to save before I quit. As I am quitting the screen always goes black and music plays. While that was happening the power went out for about 2 seconds and my computer was shut down. The next day when I went to play, I saw that my two favorite neighborhoods were gone. Pleasantveiw and Strangetown are gone but Veronaville is still there. Also there is another weird neighboorhood I've never had before named Pets. It light green with dark green lines all over it and when I hover over it, it says it is a hidden neighborhood for pets. I am about to cry for all the hard work I did. When I check in the files and stuff Pleasantveiw and Strangetown are still there. What can I do!? Any way to bring back what I did! HELP! :cry:

[julianarosalia]

Charlizzie89, did you try replacing the neighborhoodmanager file like Simsample suggests in the first post?

[lustmyeyes]

I lost a house that I needed for moviemaking !
I was switching these sims between two houses, then I came back, and the one wanted them in was an empty lot!
I thought maybe it was just a neighbourhood glitch so I opened the lot but it was empty!?
EEEK.
The lot has since been deleted and this really sucks considering I really wanted some more scenes in it.

Not happy.
Amy <3

[simalocus]

I posted this on another thread because I didn’t see this one. My apologies to the moderators.


What happened to the Sims of Riverblossom Hill?

Hey folks,

I rarely post but something happened in my game that I find truly puzzling. I installed Bon Voyage about two weeks ago, applied the patch, thought everything was OK but my game has been unstable and buggy ever since. The only vacation spot that works is the mountain resort. Twikikii freezes without locking the game and the Asian based destination works but the Tour Guides won’t interact with my Sims so they can’t book tours.

However, last night I loaded River Blossom because I like the terrain and wanted to play in a fresh location. I had over 20 families in River Blossom and they completely disappeared. I checked the character files in the My Documents/Sims 2 folder and all of the character files were there. If I have a new Sim make a phone call all of the disappeared Sims are listed as available and they can be called. It’s a mystery. Has this happened with anyone else? I’ve removed the downloads folder to no effect so I know it’s not a hack.

System specs:

• Processor: 1
o CPU_Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz
o CPU_Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
o CPU_Caption: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11
o CPU_Version: Model 15, Stepping 11
o CPU_CurrentClockSpeed: 2666MHz
o CPU_AddressWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_DataWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_SocketDesignation: Socket 775
• Processor: 2
o CPU_Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz
o CPU_Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
o CPU_Caption: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11
o CPU_Version: Model 15, Stepping 11
o CPU_CurrentClockSpeed: 2666MHz
o CPU_AddressWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_DataWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_SocketDesignation: Socket 775
• Processor: 3
o CPU_Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz
o CPU_Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
o CPU_Caption: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11
o CPU_Version: Model 15, Stepping 11
o CPU_CurrentClockSpeed: 2666MHz
o CPU_AddressWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_DataWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_SocketDesignation: Socket 775
• Processor: 4
o CPU_Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz
o CPU_Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
o CPU_Caption: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11
o CPU_Version: Model 15, Stepping 11
o CPU_CurrentClockSpeed: 2666MHz
o CPU_AddressWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_DataWidth: 32Bits
o CPU_SocketDesignation: Socket 775
System Memory

• Memory Module: 1
o Mem_Capacity: 1024MB
o Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #1
o Mem_Type: DDR2
o Mem_Frequency: 800 MHz
• Memory Module: 2
o Mem_Capacity: 1024MB
o Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #2
o Mem_Type: DDR2
o Mem_Frequency: 800 MHz
• Memory Module: 3
o Mem_Capacity: 1024MB
o Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #3
o Mem_Type: DDR2
o Mem_Frequency: 800 MHz
• Memory Module: 4
o Mem_Capacity: 1024MB
o Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #4
o Mem_Type: DDR2
o Mem_Frequency: 800 MHz

• Video_Caption: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
• Video_AdapterRAM: 256MB
• Video_DriverVersion: 6.14.11.5822

OS Windows XP Media Edition.

Thanks for your help.

Matt

[Ting]

I took a closer look in my character folder. The last file is called N004_User00580.package, which suggests that there should be 581 files including the one named N004_User00000.package. However there are only 547 files in the folder. Apparently 34 character files were deleted somehow, and I'm betting there's no way to get them back. So it looks like I've just got to accept the lost characters and start over with a new neighbourhood.
What I really would like to know though, is how this error occurred. If it was because something I did, then it would be good to know, so that it can be avoided in the future.

[simalocus]

Forgot to put this in my original post. I have all of the expansion and stuff packs.

Matt

[prcd]

Well it appears I'm the next person struck by this problem. Yikes!

OS: Windows XP Pro

Computer Specs: 3.0GHz, 2Gb RAM, Radeon X1950Pro

Games: All the Sims 2 expansion packs, up to and including Bon Voyage as well as all the patches

Details: I only play on Pleasantview and Riverblossom Hills. Both of the neighbourhoods are now gone. I haven't removed my downloads and I have many, many hacks. I don't think they caused a problem since I have been playing with them forever.

Neighbourhood Files: they are all there and contain all the correct info but the game can't seem to read them.

No SimPE

Recent Changes: updated my video driver

I did try the copy/paste neighbourhoodmanager.pkg file but that didn't work for me.

Hopefully this info will help someone solve the problem. I'm off to do a complete reinstall. Lucky me!

[simalocus]

Well it appears I'm the next person struck by this problem. Yikes!

OS: Windows XP Pro

Computer Specs: 3.0GHz, 2Gb RAM, Radeon X1950Pro

Games: All the Sims 2 expansion packs, up to and including Bon Voyage as well as all the patches

Details: I only play on Pleasantview and Riverblossom Hills. Both of the neighbourhoods are now gone. I haven't removed my downloads and I have many, many hacks. I don't think they caused a problem since I have been playing with them forever.

Neighbourhood Files: they are all there and contain all the correct info but the game can't seem to read them.

No SimPE

Recent Changes: updated my video driver

I did try the copy/paste neighbourhoodmanager.pkg file but that didn't work for me.

Hopefully this info will help someone solve the problem. I'm off to do a complete reinstall. Lucky me!

Interesting. I also updated my drivers but I lost my sims 2 days later. What kind of video card do you have? Did you do backups of your neighborhoods?
The reason I ask this last question is that I wonder if a fresh install will restore my sims.

[The Sim Vlad]

You can try to reinstall, but it will only bring the default neighborhoods back. Your Sims and Lots might still be gone.

[simalocus]

Well I got the missing Sims mystery figured out but now I've got a new problem with the Wants Controller. I have never had this many bugs in my game. Bon Voyage is fun but EA really did a terrible job with the software.

[Ting]

As it turns out, Sims disappearing is not the only new bug in my game... I haven't played for a while since I kind of lost some interest when more than 30 of my Sims disappeared, but yesterday I started playing again. And it wasn't too long before I started noticing further errors.

My Sims can no longer get married. If I try to wed them via the arch they do the whole exchanging rings bit but then they just jump apart before they can actually become married. If I try to go via the pie menu the game ignores it and the Sims jump apart.
Also, some Sims can't do romantic interactions with others. Just as with the marriage thing, they just jump apart from the other Sim.

Anybody got any clues?

[julianarosalia]

Ting, are entire neighborhoods disappearing or just miscellaneous sims?

[Ting]

Just miscellaneous Sims. And from what I can tell, only from the neighbourhood I'm currently playing.

[julianarosalia]

The problem you're having isn't the same as the disappearing neighborhoods plus you ahv other issues. So please create a new thread with the information you already posted plus your computer specifications.

[Ting]

Okay. Thanks

[Desmei]

Joining the club. Looks like I'm in good company at least. ;)
Operating system Mac OSX 10.4.7

Computer specs 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4, memory 512 MB

Games (list your Sims 2 version- CD/DVD and your Expansion Packs, and also whether you are patched- I also want to know which patches you have, for example base game patch, Uni patch, NL second patch etc)
Base, Uni, NL, OFB. All expansions are DVD. All patches that I'm aware of.

Details of Neighbourhood loss I lost Pleasantview and Strangetown, but Veronaville and a custom seemed to be okay. I play Pleasantview and Veronaville the most. The most recent "big" hack is the no more angry walkby hack. I haven't tried removing it.

No SimPE for the Mac, sadly. Not sure if neighbourhood file details are all there, as I've farted around with my Sims 2 folder quite a lot in the past few days. When I've created a new Sims 2 folder, the proper files did show up. The creation of the new Sims 2 folder worked temporarily, but when I shut down and restarted the game, Pleasantview had taken off again. Am just starting up the game now to see what 'hoods I've got left since y'day.

Common issues with my game: It does freeze occasionally, requiring a hard shut down and restart. Can't recall if it's happened lately (ie. just before losing my hoods) or not. I did have my very first jump bug last week as well.

Note: Pleasantview and Strangetown are gone again :cry:

[thexvillain]

Operating system: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)

Computer specs: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz processor, 510MB RAM memory.

Games: Base game, Nightlife, Bon Boyage.

Details of neighbourhood loss: This has happened to me several times. It's happened about 3 times in the past month. But this time really made me upset because I had a bunch of families in this neighborhood that I was currently using in contests. The neighborhood thats gone is the Neighborhood 1 (the first maxis neighborhood, I forget what its called because I renamed it) that was renamed as Sim City Beach a long time ago. Another problem is Strangetown is replaced with downtown on the Neighboorhood start menu. And when I click on it the game crashes (I read someone else had this same problem but with university).

What I did before it was lost: While I was loading a family the game froze so I shut down my computer. I also added some new custom clothing.

File details: My N001 folder is still there along with everything instead it. However like I said the neighborhood doesn't appear when I try to play the game.

I really hope someone can help me! I am so upset over this because I had SO MANY important things in that neighborhood! :(

[simalocus]

I've decided to scrap my old game and start with fresh neighborhoods and new sims. I regretted having to do this as I had family lines going back to the first installation. The game is still buggy...especially bon voyage so I may wind uninstalling it. That's a shame because it is an interesting expansion and when it works it's fun...but man...the bugs...

[aussieman123]

My computer is a windows xp home laptop, with 1gb processer a good graphics card (one that can run the game) i don't really know my laptop well, there is nothing wrong with the laptop either.

I have just resently installed bon voyage and i have had all ep's including all stuff packs installed exept for teen style stuff before i installed bon voyage no patches installed yet but i will tell if it changes.

the problem started when i was playing bon voyage for the first time i had a problem on the holiday lots with my sims they weren't able to interact with each other and when they preformed actions on objects they would reset so i quit the game and i cut the custom content in the downloads folder and pasted them into a safe folder then i started the game and all was well again then when i had enough and was tired i quit the game and turned my laptop off the next morning i played the game and two of the neighbour hoods where gone :blink: , veronaville (even though i wasn't playing veronaville and havn't played any of ingame hoods for a long time) and my custom nhood so i quit the game and cut and pasted the downloads i had back into the downloads folder and started the game again no result so i went out of the game and saved my custom content including my nhood folder into a safe derectory i reinstalled the game i put the custom content back into the game folder loaded the game up and i had only 1 result veronaville showed up but not my custom nhood so i looked here in the forums to fix the problem nothing helped so i turned here and asked for help.

The only thing i changed was moving the package files from downloads to a file on the desktop (so I knew where they were), shut down the computer when i was done with bon voyage and also reinstalled the game only to only to find veronaville back but no custom nhood.

All is the same as it has been the wierd thing is how come with my other games (before i installed bon voyage) you could move the downloads willy nilly everywhere and the game still worked perfectly.

Oh and another thing i must add, in the game the custom content window at the start comes up and shows the char.package and lot.package weather to enable or disable this happened when the last time i opened the game up, anyway when i chose enable i quit then loaded the game back up the mesage came up again and i accepted enable again guess what no result.

So please :help: and believe me if you saw my nhood you would probably die of a heart attack, because i'v went into so much detail with this nhood and the sub hoods including the lots which i was going to upload one till this happened.

[Bee]

Operating system Windows XP Home Edition
Computer specs I have no idea, where can I find this information?
Games Only the Base Game
Details of Neighbourhood loss I lost Pleasantview already, but I ignored it and continuid playing in Strangetown and Veronaville. I played mostly in Veronaville,and Veronaville disapeared.Strangetown is still in my game. I didn't/don't have custom neighbourhoods.
Downloads/Hacks I recently downloaded some hacks from www.sims2workshop.com
Sim PE Investigation: I just downloaded SimPE to check if I could still save my disappeared sims, but I couldn't. SimPE doesn't display a single Veronaville-sim, original or custom.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption Uhm,the hacks installed where foods, clothing, hairs. I installed them all with just Filzip.
Any other relevant information: I'm not sure if the neighbourhood disappeared yesterday or today. If it was yesterday, it could be thanks to shutting my computer down immediatly after closing the game. If it was today, I guess it's from a hack or somthing.

"Could you also try this....difference?"
I tried,and it doesn't make any difference.

God,I hope this problem is solved soon.I was so terribly annoyed when this happened>< I still am,since I almost finished my sim's "10-kids-want" And all my in-game born sims were so pretty =[

[mionenoelle]

Operating system: Windows XP Home Edition

Computer specs: 1300 MHz processor , 256 MB RAM

Games: Base game, University EP, Nightlife, OFB, Family Fun Stuff pack

Details of Neighbourhood loss: I lost the custom neighborhood I'd been playing since I first installed the game about six months ago.

Downloads/Hacks: The hacks I've downloaded didn't cause any conflicts, but I recently deleted Quaxi's censor blur remover. When I loaded the game, the neighborhood was gone.

[gglibertine]

Operating system: Win XP Home
Computer specs: 2.93ghz Celeron, 1GB RAM, GeForce 5200fx
Games: Sims2 DVD edition, Uni CD, NL CD, OFB CD.

Details of Neighbourhood loss: All neighborhoods are missing. The one I played most recently (and most often) was a custom neighborhood.

Neighbourhood File details: The neighborhood files are still there.
Sim PE Investigation: I can open all the neighborhoods just fine in SimPE; they don't appear to be corrupted.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: A lot of things might have changed on the system since I last played the game, which was a couple of weeks ago. I had just installed TwoJeffs' romance mod and some assorted cc before I fired up the game, but when I found the neighborhoods missing I removed it -- no change.

Any other relevant information: Removing Downloads and Saved Sims (and even the lot catalogue) and deleting groups.cache made no difference. A couple of interesting things: while removing the Neighborhoods folder did cause the original neighborhoods to be regenerated, they still don't appear in the game -- and when I created a new neighborhood it worked fine, but when I reloaded the game, that neighborhood was also missing. (Which means my game is completely unplayable at this point. I presume I'll have to reinstall everything to get it working again.)

The only other thing I can think of is that I did quit out of the game while it was loading using Task Manager the first time around, because I realized I hadn't installed a new sim I wanted to use. But I've done that dozens of times and it's never caused a problem before.

Oh yeah, and I also did the replacing-the-neighborhood-manager thing. No love

I'm completely stumped.

[simsample]

I'm still trying to pinpoint the file which is becoming corrupted, causing hood dissappearance- and to find out how to correct it. This is an experiment which could help with this. Try replacing the catalog description and ID number of the affected hood. To do this you will need SimPE, plus a fresh copy of the affected Hood (so, if you have lost your Pleasantview, you need a fresh Pleasantview to work with). First, backup your Neighbourhood files- even though you can't see them in game, we still want to preserve the files! Just make a copy of the entire My Documents\ EAGames\ The Sims2\ Neighbourhoods folder. Now, cut and paste your existing Neighbourhood folder to the desktop, and run the game to generate fresh hoods. Exit the game and open up the freshly created N00x_Neighborhood.package in SimPE (where X is your hood number- 1 for Pleasantview, 2 for Strangetown etc. Riverblossom is G001.) Now, extract the following two attributes- Catalog Description and ID Number. Save them where you can find them; now you can discard the newly created hoods.
Open up your actual hood package with SimPE- you now want to import the Catalog Description and ID number that you previously exported. You should be able to right click in SimPE to import the attributes. Commit and save. Now close SimPE and put your edited hood back into your Downloads folder. Test the game- does the hood show up now? Is it playable? This is devised from tutorials showing how to make the Tutorial Neighbourhood show up in game- it's an actual complete working hood, it's just that the Catalog Description and the ID Number are missing. So maybe these are the codes which are corrupted in missing hoods.

[gglibertine]

Unfortunately, it's too late for me -- I decided to give up and reinstall. I now have visible neighborhoods, however, I can't yet try to reinstall my old neighborhoods because I lent out my NL disk to someone who's out of town for at least another week, and I can't find the box from OFB with the serial number on it. I'll report back on whether I was able to restore a custom neighborhood after reinstall.

[TheOtherWoman]

Operating system: Win 98 or Win XP (i'm not sure what you mean by home or...yeah.)

Computer specs: Um, I'm not entirly sure about this...

Games: I have no stuff packs and up to Seasons. and they are all CD version. I have not installed any patches because they tend to screw up my game play.

Details of Neighbourhood loss: I have lost all naighboorhoods that were in the game to start with, including the one that came with the Seasons expansion pack, and a costom naighboorhood.

Neighbourhood File details: If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? No. All that remain in that area are Characters file, thunbnails, and lots

Sim PE Investigation: No naighboorhoods show up there either.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I went through and deleted costom content that I was not using, I also reinstalled all CC on my computer because some had been missing. I've also installed WinRAR. Last night I also installed the Instigater (sp?) hack as well. I've installed clothing, meshes, and behavior and global mods in the past 2 days.

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

Um, I can't find the TS Data file. I looked, and it wasn't there. My Documents area also doesn't have an adress bar so I can't type it in. I put view adress on it, and it just put adress at the bottom left. So, like I said, I can't type it in.

Think you can help me?

[JewelsMax]

my problem:
http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=2483e409117080768bfb661d2ad368f4&directoryID=21&startRow=251&openItemID=item.21,root.1,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23

I was playing celestas merged neighborhood. All was going well. I saved and exited. I ran the game today and it loaded everything up fine, except pleasantview (my merged neighborhood) does not show up in the neighborhood screen. I tried pulling out the sims 2 folder and re loading the game fresh. The putting back in the sims 2 folder I have. N001 is in the folder but doesn't show up in the game. How do I fix this?


Operating System:XP home sp2

Computer specs 3.2 Ghz processor Intel with hyper threading, 1Gb RAM (2 sticks of 512 dual channel each), Nvidia gforce 6600gt Pcie

Games All ep's and sp's upto Bon Voyage. All are patched except Bon Voyage; I'm using moreawesomethanyou hacks instead of the Bon Voyage patch as I have lost confidence in ea games.


Details of Neighbourhood loss explained above

Sim PE Investigation: I don't know enough about simPE to notice a difference between neighborhoods.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption:
nothing. I saved the game and quit then went to bed. Then next day, I loaded the game and the neighborhood was gone.
It does still show up in it's place under my documents though.

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?


I haven't tried that but I will, thanks for the idea.
Edit: It didn't work

[zorba2357]

Hello! I was sent here from the sims2 BBS. I'm glad Someone is researching this problem so thanks!
I have been playing this game since it first came out and Never had a missing neighborhood before now. And I really don't see anything different that I've done, have made many custom 'hoods, have renumbered 'hoods before etc.

Well, here goes:

current operating system, vista home premium

computer specs, NVidia 8500, intel dual core 1.4 (I think) , 2 gigs RAM

Games, all EP's thru BV and H &M, Glamour Life, and teen style stuff

Details of Neighborhood loss:
I have 7 neighborhoods total on this computer, N001,2,3,4,6,7,and 13. N013 is the "Lost" one . It is a renumbered Veronaville. I renumbered it by hand . I've done this before with other neighborhoods , no problem ever. It worked fine and has been there for months. I haven't actually played it. It has no subhoods yet. It's exactly as maxis made it only renumbered to N013.
Yesterday I noticed I had only 6 neighborhoods. Veronaville N013 was gone. Never ever had this happen before and been playing since the game came out.

Downloads:
I download only clothes, genetics, hair. do it all the time, have been doing it forever. Same sites as always. no have Not deleted downloads folder or any downloads.

Hacks: have NoNe

Neighborhood files still in my documents: YES! Exactly as they should be.

sim pe: don't have it and not going to download it, never used it

What changed in my system before neighborhood loss? Don't know really. I think we did update Nvidia driver a few weeks ago, but neighborhood was still there 'til yesterday and everything else fine. Other people in my household use this computer and go online and play other games and stuff so hard to say. We DO have a problem where SATA cord apparently comes lose connecting hard drive to motherboard and has to be re plugged in and rebooted. If anything would lead to data loss this Could be it. Happened last 2 weeks ago though.

Any other info:
Seems an unlikely cause However the one thing I've been doing in my game that I've Never Done Before is create clothing catagories and place clothes in it in CAS. I can also see it in my documents files under catagories.

Neighborhood manager package relacement: Yes I tried it and it did Nothing! I actually copied the NeighborhoodManager.package from my Other computer that I have the sims2 on also. I Noticed the new package was much bigger than the one I replaced. It has 34.4 kb, the replaced one had 10 kb. I don't know what this means or even what the file does.
Also: I simply deleted the N013 folder and replaced it with a back up I keep on CD-R disc. This DID work and Veronaville N013 was back in my game. That was yesterday. I haven't loaded up my game yet today to look!

Again thank you very much for researching this and hope I've been of some help. And hope you come up with some answers! Good Luck

p.s. I use winzip to install all my custom clothing. Last neighborhood played: N007, so that would be the one right before N013

[Canoodle]

The problem seems to be pointing to corrupt saves. Possibly caused by system crashes, power outages or gremlins. :/ Noone has yet come up with a definitive answer...but things seem to be pointing in this direction. Cold comfort, I know, but hopefully someday we will get to the bottom of this irritating problem.

The only advice I can give is to save and save often. That way you always have your backup to fall back on.

[TheRealSpring]

I found that system restore fixed the problem. Just make sure you back up your downloads somewhere first!

[Mina H.]

-Current operating system:
Windows XP Home (SP2)
-Computer Specs:
Intel Centrino Duo 1.83 GHz processor, 1 GB of ram, ATI Mobility Radeon X1300
-Games:
Original, Uni, NL, OFB, Pets, Seasons - I might have one patch for seasons, but I can't really remember... ^^;
-Details of Neighborhood loss:
Only one custom neighborhood keeps disappearing...I had downloaded recolors and objects from MTS2 and installed some with File Maid, installed Clean Installer and installed and uninstalled a few things with it, ran a Disk Cleanup, and saved N007 files to a flash drive. I think I played the game after doing all that, and it was fine until the next time I played, when N007 was gone v__v Even after restoring a SimPE backup and playing it, it would be gone the next time I ran the game.
-Sim PE:
Right after I saw that N007 was gone, I opened up SimPE and looked at the neighborhoods... N007 was there, but listed as "Unknown" instead of the name, and I could open it but there were no files. And because after every time I played it it'd be gone, I couldn't ever backup any of my recovered progress :(
-Downloads:
I download pretty much every type of download all the time, mostly from MTS2 but occasionally from other sites (usually linked on here). I have a few mods, but I got them a long time ago and they never caused any issues. I have a lot of downloads and the folder is pretty messy...I don't know if that's a factor or not... ?
-Neighborhood Files:
I'm not sure if they were there or not afterwards, but when I play it again (if it HAPPENS again), I'll check and update this.
-Neighborhood manager:
Too scared to try that...but if it happens again, I try it and update this. :)
-Any other info:
I've had this happen on a different computer to another custom neighborhood (it never seems to happen to the maxis-made neighborhoods for me), and I'm kind of guessing it must have something to do with whatever I just downloaded at the time, but I'm not sure. On the other computer, restoring the SimPE backup worked and it didn't happen again.

So hopefully I didn't forget anything... >> Thanks for going to the trouble of looking into this - it's so frustrating >< I really hope you can find out what's going on :)

Edit: I deleted the downloads that wouldn't install, and then didn't seem to have problems with the neighborhood anymore.

[Kkori]

Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium
Computer specs (I've got a sticker on my laptop so here I go):
Note: This is a LAPTOP.
Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5600 (1.83GHz,667 MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 up to 512 MB HyperMemory
120 GB HDD
2046 MB RAM
Games: Sims 2 with base game patch; no expansion packs, no downloads.
Details of Neighbourhood loss: I've lost my custom neighbourhood, but the other three neighbourhoods (which I never visited) are okay. I've visited Pleasantview and Veronaville too after the disappearance to see if my Sims somehow ended up there. I have had this installed for less than a month, but the CD itself is quite old, maybe 1 or 2 years. Installed no hacks or custom content, but I use cheats from the cheatbox you can get in the left hand corner. I bought a ready-made house for a new Sim family and was adding furniture before I saved and shut down.
Neighbourhood File details: I can see them, N001 to N004; the package file for N004 is much more than 1 KB
Sim PE Investigation: No Sim PE.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing. I saved and shut down normally.
Any other relevant information:

EDIT: The neighbourhood just popped up again! I think it's because I started from the Start Bar instead... thanks anyway ^^

[Bluelfears]

My friend had this problem after installing quite a few expansion packs at the same time. She installed Seasons, Bon Voyage and Freetime, as well as the Celebration! Stuff and Teen Style Stuff packs. All her custom neighbourhoods and Veronaville had disappeared.
She did what you suggested and replaced the neighbourhoodmanager.package file in her My Documents folder with the one from the Program Files folder. However she also had restored the backed up neighbourhoods she'd made before installing all the new packs. This worked, and she got all her neighbourhoods back, but we can't be sure which thing she did restored them.
She's too busy playing the Sims to reply to this thread herself lol

[lilibet]

I had this problem on both of my computers. After I installed Free Time everything was gone. All my families, the only neighborhood was the new one, Desderata (sp?). I've been playing Sims since Sims1 first came out. I have all the expansion packs and fun packs, and have never had this happen before. I was on my 7th and 8th generation on some of my families so they were like long time friends. I have a new (since Christmas) XP computer and I bought what they told me was a really good graphics card. Sorry I can't be more specific than that because I'm a computer idiot. I do have some hacks to include Insimenator, Monique's computer and bookcase and Merola's picture. That's about it. The same thing is going on with my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop. Lost everything there too. Have the same hacks. If this helps you figure out what is going on, I"ll be pleased. Or if there is anything I can do that I can do with my limited computer savvy, let me know. Oh yes, I"ve uninstalled each of them and reinstalled at least once.

[Canoodle]

Installing a new EP can sometimes destroy your sims2 folder (or pieces thereof). Rare, but it happens. That is why they tell you to backup all your files before an install. So, take out your backup of your sims2 folder and plop that into your EAgames folder in mydocuments.

[spiceXisXnice]

Operating system: Win XP Home
Computer specs: Uhhh...really don't know...fairly run-of-the mill, though...
Games: Sims 2 Deluxe (Sims 2 + Nightlife), no patch.
Details of Neighbourhood Loss: All neighborhoods gone. I'll turn on the game, create a custum (all my downloaded objects and houses are there), then exit and restart it, and it'll be gone.
Neighbourhood File details: All there, just don't show up in game
Subneighbourhoods- None listed
Sim PE Investigation: No SimPE
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I'd been having obj. download issues with game crashing, so I removed downlads and put them back when I was sure they weren't corrupted.
Any other relevant information: No other info.

[ddtigers]

i have lost my neighborhood vorniville, i don't know what to do. i haven't backed-up anything. yet when i look in the file underneigborhoods it shows pictures still there. i'v tried to copy the neighborhood manager but that doesn't work ..... what should i do

[simsample]

spiceXisXnice- how much space do you have on your hard drive (I'm interested in the drive/ partition your Documents folder is on)? Can you create and reload a successful neighbourhood if you generate a clean documents/ sims2 folder?

ddtigers- do you have a backup you can try? Right click and select properties on N003_neighborhood.package. What is the file size there?

[Pineapplerum]

My Neighborhood just disappeared too. It's got to be one of your hacks. It's the only thing I did different.
I downloaded some hacks...
no spin clothes change MQ
Knights mantle enabled
no weeds numerator
MQ Hygiene decay (I think)
Fast homework
Um, I forget what other ones
My specs?
Windows XP professional
NVIDIA 8800 GTS 512
Intel Core quad
Sound Blaster Audigy
2046 MB RAM
Direct X9


I'll have to figure out what other hacks I've downloaded. They were all from here besides the "Mod Conflict" download I installed from the link you General Help Custom Content gave me. I forget who made it.

[Pineapplerum]

OH, games...
All of the expansion packs up to Seasons.
No Stuff packs (rip offs)
It's my RiverBlossoms neighborhood that disappeared. The shopping district showed up in it's place instead.

This is very weird. I think EA games is behind this. Making everyone's neighborhoods disappear so they can take over our Sims world.
Very, very scary. :(

[Pineapplerum]

Okay, now I lost BlueWater, too. :( me cries :( All my neighborhoods are disappearing.
Do you think when you remove a hack a neighborhood goes with it?

[StarboardParoxysm]

O.o

Hacks don't cause neighborhoods to disappear. Whatever's happening, it is definitely not hack related...

[Pineapplerum]

I'm going to try uninstalling and then reinstalling my Seasons game. I already lost all of my saved games and I have my downloads backed up.
I'm going to see what happens.

[Moonflower]

Operating system: Windows ME
Computer specs: 2.0Ghz processor, shitty graphics/video card, i think it's got 156 MB ram, I'm not entirely sure.
Games: Base game, NL, OFB, Pets, Seasons, University, no stuffpacks and no patches.
Details of Neighbourhood loss: I lost my favourite custom neighbourhood, Arbordale, nothing else.
Neighbourhood File details: Yep. All the files are still there. I even created a blank neighbourhood and pasted the Arbordale files into it. I went onto it, hey presto, NO FAMILIES and NO LOTS, but I could see all their photos in the neighbourhood story editor!
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I don't actually know...It was some time ago :P
Any other relevant information: It's strange that none of the families came up, but it let me look at their snapshots in the story editor...hmmmm. I would really like to get it back because my best ever families were on there.

[jwebbeventer]

Operating system: Windows XP Home Edition
Computer specs: Pentium 4CPU 3.00GHz 3.01 GHz, 1.0 GB of RAM
Games: All expansion packs through Free Time; family fun, glamour life, celebration, and teen style stuff packs
Details of Neighbourhood: loss I lost all custom neighborhoods. All five game created neighborhoods are there. Base neighborhoods have been reset to new install – the many generations and new houses my daughter created in Pleasantview are all gone (she mostly played there, I played two custom ‘hoods and the other daughter had her own ‘hoods).
Downloads/Hacks: Have several objects/wallpaper, etc downloads, some lots, a few hacks. None downloaded recently.
Sim PE Investigation: Never downloaded it or used it.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: C drive near death on computer, installed new J drive, loaded all Sims2 games onto J drive and copied over old Sims2 folder from the C drive. All neighborhoods (G001, f001, and n001- n010) show up in the TSData/Res/Neighborhoods folder but not in the game. We hadn’t played sims for at least two weeks before the new drive installation. Scanned the J drive for errors and none were found.
Any other relevant information: there were several old backup folders in various places on my computer. We've rooted them all out and just kept the one that includes all the custom neighborhoods.

"Could you also try this....difference?"
I tried, no change.

Thank you for trying to find the solution! I hope there is one!

[Pineapplerum]

I uninstalled my last expansion pack and then reinstalled and everything is fine now. Of course, I don't have any of my saved games but at least I have my neighborhoods back and all of my downloaded objects.
One thing I've noticed but I don't know if it's from deleting the groups.cache/accessories.cache files or if it's something else...
My clean installer isn't working. It happened to me twice. I have to uninstall it and then reinstall it for it for it to pop up automatically, like it use to, when I go to download something.
Anyone having this problem also?

[Canoodle]

Sometimes the cleaninstaller decides to take a powder lol. What you can do is: download a sims2pack. Right click it and chose 'open with >choose program. Highlight the cleaninstaller and check the box below that says 'always use the selected program to open this type of file'. That should set the clean installer as your choice of program for opening sims2pack files.

[Pineapplerum]

Thanks Canoodle.

[ceramicaaa]

Hi everyone. I think I've found a partial solution!

Operating system: Windows XP Professional (version 2002) Service Pack 2
Computer specs: Lenovo Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 CPU T5500@ 1.66GHz processor, 0.99GB RAM memory.

Games: Base game

I've had a few problems with my game ever since I messed with SimPE's Sim Surgery. My game always froze at "Capicitating Genetic Modifiers"...so I removed the neighborhood (custom) that held the sim I tried to do surgery on. The game turned out to work fine without it. I tried to replace the custom neighborhood folder with my backup but somehow it just didn't show up ingame. Then I tried lots of tedious stuff like deleting duplicate sims (blue background in SimPE's family ties), mass amnesia, removing all family relationships etc. But it just didn't work. Instead everyone became Unknown and Family Ties was totally screwed up.

After reading forums for a couple of months I replaced my custom neighborhood folder with the untampered backup again. Then, I deleted NeighborhoodManager, a DBPF package in Neighborhoods. To my surprise my custom neighborhood is back! There's only one catch: I have got no sims left in the neighbourhood whatsoever. All the lots are shown as empty. There are no more townies/NPCs and when I use the phone to call them new ones have been generated...

I checked the N004_Neighborhood package in SimPE. It's somehow shrunk (982KB to 940KB) and to my horror everyone is shown as Unknown. There are no Family Ties/Neighborhood Memories. Sometimes the link for Lot Description goes missing entirely. I have tried to edit the Lot Instances/Family Lot to new ones even though they currently show up in SimPE as matching but still no sims ingame...and neighborhood package is always reset and filled with Unknowns once I start the game.

Maybe everyone can just try deleting NeighborhoodManager; at the very least even if the sims files are corrupted and go missing you have the houses left?

Hope this helps!

[simsample]

Thanks for the information, ceramicaaa. Deleting the neighbourhood manager was one of the early suggestions in this thread (it goes back a while!) but some people have found it unsuccessful. If the neighbourhood package or any of the character/ lot files get corrupted there doesn't seem to be anything to do apart from restoring a backup. The message, as always, is- backup frequently if you value your sims!

[Tigeress_10]

Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Media Centre Edition
Computer specs: Intel Pentium M Processor 1.70 GHz, 1014MB RAM, Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express
Games: Sims 2 DVD, Open for Business, Bon Voyage, Pets, University, Seasons, & Family Fun, Glamour, H&M and Teen Style Stuff packs.
Details of Neighbourhood loss: I lost Pleasantveiw, the only neighbourhood I have ever played consistently.
Neighbourhood File details: The files are all there.
Sim PE Investigation: Nothing is there and it is listed as 'Unknown'.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: The game crashed, although the music was still playing and I could move the mouse, I was in buy mode in a University dorm. I minimized and a message flashed up on the screen informing me there was an error in saving UserData. This message flashed several times. My game crashes constantly because my fan is terrible, but this wasn't a heat-related issue and I'd never gotten that message before. I turned the program off via Windows Task Manager and continued to use the computer normally. The next day I loaded it up and Pleasantveiw was gone.

I tried using the package file in My Programs instead, but both that file and the one in My Documents are empty (at least, for Pleasantveiw) according to SimPE, and no changes occurred. I know the problem happened because it didn't save the UserData, but my question is if, since all the files still appear in their folders (but not in the package file), I can somehow keep those files on a disk, re-install Sims 2, and then move those files into the new N001 folder. Will that work? Should I just delete the package file?

Thank you in advance for any help.

[simsample]

Tigeress_10, by 'package file' are you referring to the N001_neighborhood.package file? Unfortunately, it's not likely that reinstalling will help. In fact, there is no need to reinstall as the original of Pleasantview is in Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims 2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data. You can just copy the neighbourhood files from there to reset Pleasantview. However if the N001_neighborhood.package file that you've been playing- or indeed any of the character files or lots- are corrupted, then restoring/ replacing with the original files will not get your sims back. The only way to do this is by restoring a backup, if you have one. Your computer is very underpowered for the game and you should take care to keep the laptop cool when playing. Make sure you backup often and I'd advise a disc check to repair any damage caused by the game crash.

[Hinata_Kidou]

Operating system Windows XP Pro, 1Gb RAM, ATI Radeon X1650 PRO, not sure how to check the processor.
Games
Base game to Bon Voyage, all stuff packs except for H&M and Teen Style, I am patched all throughout.
Details of Neighbourhood loss
I had just created a nice dormitory for a couple of my characters, but I had to enter build mode to fix a couple of things. It took ages to load, and then nothing would move at all. I couldn't alt-tab to another window either. I decided I had to manually reboot the computer, and poof. The neighborhood was gone. I only use my one custom neighborhood, N004, and all my characters were there. Pleasantview, Strangetown and Veronaville are all selectable. I didn't download or remove anything from my downloads folder recently, either. No neighborhood hacks that I know of.
Neighbourhood File details
The neighborhood files are all still there, N004 and all the screenshots are there, the character files, etcetera are all in place.
Sim PE Investigation:
I don't have SimPE, I'm not sure if my computer can handle it.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption:
I was basically about to go into build mode for a dorm I just made, [I think it was way too big, which caused the whole pc to hang... .__.;;] and I had to restart my pc. No lighting mods, manually unzipped clothes have been there for half a month, no terrains either.
Any other relevant information:
Most people have had this problem after having to reboot their pc D: I really hope I can still fix this... >_<

Could you also try this:
No difference whatsoever... :cry:

I really hope we can find a solution to this problem...

EDIT:
I decided to go and make a new custom village, N004, renaming my original N004 to N004MISSING and exited the game, and attempted to copy+paste the files of the missing neighborhood into the newly created N004 folder, and I got this message. http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/7591/screenshot002may2704244ma3.jpg
I'm going to see if I can remove that file and copy+paste the other non corrupted files to the new folder. Wish me luck! x__x
EDIT 2:
Gah, I got another message, saying the same message, only this time, the file corrupted is "N004_Neighborhood". e_e Going to continue to try.
Note: The two corrupted files cannot be deleted... Anyone have suggestions on how I should go around removing them from my pc?
EDIT 3:
Okay. Nothing I tried worked >_< I'm going to try to at least save my sims, I just downloaded SimPE. Good luck to everyone else :c
Final Edit
...And since my N004_Neighborhood file is corrupted and cannot be read, I'm screwed. Bye-bye, all my sims! :cry:
OK. FINAL Final Edit... for now.
I got it all back!! O_O I performed a chkdsk operation on reboot, renamed my folder, deleted the new one I made (that really wasn't a success, lol), and it's all back! *scratches head* I'm trying to remember everything I did... but that's as far as I remember. I'll post anything else that comes to mind.

In closing: running CHKDSK might solve your problem. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

[simsample]

Hinata_Kidou, make sure you backup your files now! File corruption can occur for a number of reasons- e.g. if the game crashes, if the computer is switched off as the game is exiting, if your hard drive is damaged. You should keep note if you have any more disc problems, as sometimes- but not always- file corruption can indicate failing hardware. Make sure you keep backups of all of your files, not just The Sims 2! Also, things to try are: Disable antivirus scanners and firewalls when running the game- also it's a good idea to exclude your Sims 2 folder (in My Documents) from the virus scans. I've never known a virus attach itself to a package file, but if you're worried scan the files manually before adding to your downloads. Also, give the game plenty of time to shut down- it writes neighbourhood changes to file upon game exit, so any interruption of this saving/ shutdown process will cause data corruption.

[Hinata_Kidou]

Yes, yes, I've definitely learned my lesson. Thing is, I wasn't shutting TS2 down, I was trying to load the dormitory I had just created and it crashed, leaving me no choice but to manually reboot the PC x__x. My C:/ Drive is mainly for The Sims 2 and Photoshop, to be honest. Everything else goes into my slave drives xD. Thank you for always keeping an eye on this thread! I'm off to backup my files, now! ^^

[Thirdo]

Operating system : Windows Vista Home basic

Computer specs : 64 X2 dual core processor 3800+, 2.00 Ghz, 1982 MB RAM, 32-bit operating system.

Games : The Sims 2 (CD), nightlife, university, OFB, Pets, Seasons, holiday, glamor, family, celebration. I did download the patches, however, it was so long ago I have no idea which ones they were.

Details of Neighbourhood loss: the only neighborhoods I have the option of playing are Riverblossom Hills and Pleasantview. I *did* accidently take off all my downloads so I could transfer them to my labtop. I put them back on when I noticed they were gone. I also use many of the hakes in my game.

Neighbourhood File details : yes, all files are still there. Though I did not see the subneighborhood files. However, that could be because I had tried to reset the neighborhood.

Sim PE Investigation: the missing neighborhoods do not show up in Sim PE either.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I have not played the sims on this computer for a while. I had tried to Reset the neighborhood, but it had not worked (it only took out my custom sims. I then tried again, and had the same problem. Until now, I have not been able to play them. When I loaded up the game to see if it worked, the neighborhoods were missing.

Any other relevant information: though I *thought* I was being carful, there is a possibility I copy pasted from the wrong folder (since to error is to be human and all). Could that have possibly deleted the neighborboods?

[simsample]

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I have not played the sims on this computer for a while. I had tried to Reset the neighborhood, but it had not worked (it only took out my custom sims. I then tried again, and had the same problem. Until now, I have not been able to play them. When I loaded up the game to see if it worked, the neighborhoods were missing.

Any other relevant information: though I *thought* I was being carful, there is a possibility I copy pasted from the wrong folder (since to error is to be human and all). Could that have possibly deleted the neighborboods?

How exactly did you reset the neighbourhoods? Do you mean that you just deleted the character files?

[Lolpout]

:help: :help: :help:

OS: Windows XP Home
Games: Sims 2 Deluxe, universiy, and Open for Business
Computer: HP Media center PC m7067c
Specs:1 GB SDRAM, Intel Pentium 4 Processer, 250GB 7200RPM serial hard drive
Problem: On Pleasentview, and IDK about the other neighborhoods, When I go into the University and Shopping district chooser, I go in, the names of the buildings are the same, but they are houses that are from the catelog, or houses I made and put into the catelog. I don't know what to do about this issue, so I need someone to help me, because it is not a hardware error, well, maybe a Disc error, but what should I do? :( Please help me out
:new:
My Bluewater Village disappears and the Neighborhood takes over.
Thanks,
Lolpout

[imusi71]

OS: Windows Vista
Games: OFB, Seasons, Freetime, Holiday Stuff, Glamour Life Stuff, Kitchen and Bath, and just installed University.
Computer: Dell Inspiron 1420 Laptop
Specs: Intel (R) Core 2 Duo Cpu T5450 @ 1.66GHZ
Memory: 1.99 GB
Problem: Installed University last night, and played the game immediatly after install. Everything worked ok, but i had been having some issues with serious lagging and jerkiness that was driving me nuts, so I quit the game and searched online for some possible solutions. Anyway, came across postings about the game patches, and I knew about the issues with the FT patch and have not installed a single patch for any of my games until now. So, I decided to backup my game and install the freetime patch. Once tha patch installed, I loaded up the game and it certainly took it's time, but when it finally loaded, only the original Neighborhoods that came with the games and EP's were available. So I immediatly exited the game, checked my neighborhoods folders for BOTH Sims 2, the one I had backed up, and the one that i was playing with the patch. Anyway, the patched version was missing 3 things in the neighborhood folder, so I deleted that, copied the neighborhood folder from the backup game, and replaced the one i deleted with the one from the backup. Loaded the game up, and everything was fine. My 2 neighborhoods were back, and everything was in place, but when I would enter a lot, it acted like it was my first time playing. The game tips would pop up, and all the introductions like when you first install an EP. I don't know if you really care to know about a problem with a solution, but it might possibly be useful to someone!

[Cool-Kid-Skater]

OS: Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
Games: Sims 2 Deluxe & Open For Business Expansion Pack
Computer: Fujitsu Deskpower P300
Specs: I don't know...
Memory: 32.3 GB
Problem: I have downloaded LOADS of Custom Content into the Downloads folder of Sims 2. Then when I created a custom neighborhood: Snow Winterville, I created a house for my Sims. Then I saved and exited the game because I had to go to Bed. The next morning, I woke up and played the Sims 2. Then Pleasantview and Snow Winterville neighborhoods disappeared. I went into the folder "Neighborhoods" and saw the files "N001" and "N004". Both files have a package file called "N001/N004_Neighborhood.package". They were corrupted. Please help! Note: I moved all of the existing lots and families on all the 3 Neigborhoods (Pleasantview, Strangetown and Veronaville) to Snow Winterville.

[simsample]

The advice as always is to make sure you backup often! If you value your hoods enough that you would be upset to lose them, then I'd recommend to backup each time you finish playing. Just copy your Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims 2/ Neighborhoods to somewhere save (like a flash drive, another hard drive, another computer, or even another location on the same hard disc).

[lilaflack]

From what I've read it's likely unless I have a backup of my neighborhood I might never get it back! Sigh. Well I hope there's a way I might get my sims back at-least, with intact memories, relationships or otherwise.

Operating system Mac OS 10.4
Computer specs Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM (I think), ATY,RadeonX1600 128 MB VRAM?
Games base game, university, nightlife. (DVD) No patches that I can remember.
Details of neighborhood loss Just my custom neighborhood vanished. I did remove my downloads a month ago because the game wouldn't start up but I had fixed the problem by sorting through them in groups and the game had been working fine since then.
Neighborhood File details the files for the custom neighborhood are still all there.
Sim PE Investigation: since I'm on a Mac I haven't used SimPE, sadly.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I was loading into a house when it froze on me and I had to force quit, when I went back into the game my custom neighborhood had vanished. There was very little custom content in that specific house. I was running low on hard drive space when it froze, if that could of caused it.
Any other relevant information: If there is no way of getting the neighborhood back short of replacing the neighborhood from a backup which I don't have, would there be a way of salvaging just my sims. I'm not to bothered about memories or if their relationships are still there, I'd just like to save my sims! :(

[simsample]

lilaflack, it's likely that the low hard disc space could have caused the data corruption. Building uses a lot of memory (which the game has to write to disc if physical memory is low) so saving often could help, as saving clears the cache of 'undos' that the game remembers.

[Insaneagram]

I had this problem with one of my custom 'hoods. It seems so far that I have solved the problem for me at least.

I looked in the neighborhoods, file at the neighbourhood that was missing in game called N007 on my game and than looked at a backup I made previously.

I noticed that there was one file missing in the newest non-working neighbourhood compared to the backupped previous version. It was called N007_Neighborhood package file. So I decided to see what would happen if I copied this from the backupped version into the newer version that will not work.

The neighborhood now shows up in game! I went into the neighborhood and it seems like I've left it. In the backup hood the sim was just a toddler but in the new one he was a child, and when I checked in game he was a child. I still need to go in the house though to make sure every thing is as I left it.

The only difference was that University and downtown had disapeared. I'm not to bothered because I hadn't played them in this neighborhood yet anyway but just thought I should mention that.

I'm sorry if this didn't make sense I'm really bad at explaining things... :/