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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 31st Oct 2014 at 2:13 PM Last edited by Foxfire Inferno : 31st Oct 2014 at 2:31 PM.

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Safely unpacking a Packaged Lot file (with Sims inside)
So a long time ago, long before I even knew that 'lot corruption' was a thing that happened, I had to rebuild my computer and I didn't want to lose all of the many families and homes that I built in The Sims 2, so I packaged them all up. Now, because I didn't know that lot corruption existed back then, when I rebuilt my system and reinstalled The Sims 2, things became weird.

That's not important though.

After EA released The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, saving me nearly an entire day of having to manually install all the expansion packs, I've been wanting to put those houses and maybe even the families back into the game but I've been a bit unsure as to how to go about that safely and, as a result, I've been rather hesitant in my desire to get back to playing the game.
Now before anyone responds, please keep in mind the following:

1) The game is pretty much a fresh installation. (The only thing I've done with it is create a family. They haven't been moved into a house yet.)
2) I'm fully aware of this help topic and the steps provided: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...elp:Moving_Sims
3) The Sims2Pack Clean Installer & SimsPE are always on my computer. ALWAYS.
4) The neighborhood has already been backed up just in case things go awry.

What i'm unsure about is how to proceed if I'm starting with the lots and families already packaged. (IOW, Step 7 in the above link is my Step 2)
Edit: I should add that all of the packaged lot files that I have from the neighborhood were made post-realization of the neighborhood being corrupted. My hard drive was about to fail and I needed to do a new back-up.

So this is what I want to know:
1) For all but one Packaged Lot file, I want the lot itself, which is the first thing listed in Clean Installer, plus the family that lived in the house intact.
Since Sims2Pack Clean Installer has listed the packaged data of all the sims that that family ever knew, I wonder if only extracting the lot file and the family will be considered 'safe' or if more cleaning needs to be done afterwards in SimsPE? (Removing gossip, memories, etc.)
2) Is the listed Packaged Family in CleanInstaller all that I would need to get the families themselves or would I also need to unpack their individual Packaged Sims as well?
3) For one single family that was too badly corrupted, I already remade their family in-game using the CAS but I still have the original corrupted packaged lot file that contains their house. If I only keep the packaged lot checked in Clean Installer, will that give me everything I need to just have the house & all of the furnishings or do I also need to keep every other furnishing item checked as well (even if those items are already installed in the Downloads folder)?
(The family was originally unpacked with parents living in Pleasantview & kids still living in La Fiesta Technical College. This caused the parents to have no memory of the kids & vice-versa. It also created a duplicate version of the son in Pleasantview that only ever appeared EVERYTIME someone wanted to set a sim up on a blind date. It became reeeeally awkward when the person that was being setup...was his own aunt. )

Thank you in advance
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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#2 Old 31st Oct 2014 at 3:04 PM
I don't believe you can save the lots. To clean the sims, you'll need to follow the moving sims article you linked above - it's up to you whether you go for the easy or the hard method, but do bear in mind that the easy method is 100% guaranteed, whereas the hard method will probably still leave some corruption.

In your position, I would install all the lots and families into a throwaway neighbourhood, then delete them from the bin. Take lots of pictures of the lots, to allow you to rebuild them easily in a new neighbourhood (hopefully all the CC you'll need is in the sims2packs), and then move the sims to the new neighbourhood following the moving sims article - I'd go for the easy/bodyshop extraction method.

The problem is really that we don't know all the places that corrupting data hide in a lot or a sim - and we do know that some data hides in places that we can't get to to delete it in SimPE - so fully cleaning anything is a -lot- of work and, frankly... is unlikely to be much of a success. Especially with multiple families, it's definitely gonna be quicker to extract appearances and then go through and set up the skills, relationships etc. in SimPE, than to painstaking comb through every corrupt sim file trying to chase out all the stub data.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 31st Oct 2014 at 5:42 PM
Damn.
That's both worrying and reassuring at the same time. Helpful either way though. Thanks.
It's reassuring that I can at least save the sims since almost all of them were made using Warlockk's Bodyshape project. That saves me a lot of time on matching up clothing & body sizes.
On the other hard, the issue with the house lots is definitely a worse-case scenario since a number of the homes utilized broolprop methods to make certain things doable like stairs against wall corners with landings half-way up the staircase and other tricks that took quite a while to get right.
I'm so glad that I never moved anyone into this unfinished monstrosity of a house: http://gyazo.com/e33e575648bde1f31ce26d388c60371b which is a replica of this: http://www.dongardner.com/plan_details.aspx?pid=2800
The amount of broolprop work it took just to get the shape right in some areas is an experience that I would never wanna relive. lol.
Field Researcher
#4 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 1:28 AM
I reuse previously occupied lots for the same reason. Many of the lots took me months, and in some cases over a year, to design and build. I wouldn't be interested in playing the game if I couldn't reuse the lots. Try it and see what happens. Your neighborhood might crash really fast. On the other hand, some of mine lasted for more than 5 years, and the final problems may have had nothing to do with the lots. It just depends on how much you care about using the lots and how much risk you're willing to take to use them.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#5 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 11:21 AM
It's certainly an option, but the more corrupted lots you install into a neighbourhood, the greater your chances of it crashing and burning very quickly - so to do that with a whole 'hood's worth of lots is... iffy at best.

The best solution, of course, is to always copy your lots to the bin before you move anyone in - if only we could go back and do that. :P

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Field Researcher
#6 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 12:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
It's certainly an option, but the more corrupted lots you install into a neighbourhood, the greater your chances of it crashing and burning very quickly - so to do that with a whole 'hood's worth of lots is... iffy at best.

The best solution, of course, is to always copy your lots to the bin before you move anyone in - if only we could go back and do that. :P


Yeah, you're right: reusing a whole lot of lots is probably not a great idea. I've reused about half a dozen and a couple of those are community lots. I'm pretty obsessive about saving - I have 15 versions of one lot - but I still end up making major changes to some places once I move sims in. I'd go for it, but that's only because the risk is worth it to me. The terrains and the lots are a big deal in my game. The sims are visitors...
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#7 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 12:55 PM
Community lots are always safe as long as they've never been owned businesses, so that's a plus.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#8 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 3:55 PM
Yeah, I actually have no problem redoing most of them. There's about 3 lots that I'll try to hold on to with that mansion in the last post being one of them. That took way too many months to get right (as it is still the hardest house I've ever tried to create) and I had just started working on the floor planning of the basement, getting overlapping staircases to work properly for three floors, and the interior designing.

If I had to redo all that from scratch, tables would be flipped. There may even be tears.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#9 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 6:43 PM
If you can, allowing Clean Installer to remove the furniture, so you just architecture leftover, may help reduce the potential corruption.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 2nd Nov 2014 at 3:26 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
If you can, allowing Clean Installer to remove the furniture, so you just architecture leftover, may help reduce the potential corruption.


That's actually what I had been doing (mainly out of worry of duplicate installed files) though only unpacking the lot still keeps the furniture that's already inside of it since it still calls upon content, both maxis & custom, that's already installed.

If I delete all of the furniture that's currently in the house after placing it down in my temp neighborhood, and then package it back up as an empty house, will that help reduce corruption?
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#11 Old 2nd Nov 2014 at 4:05 AM
I would not save the lots, although you could place lots into a throw away hood and try to copy it to a new piece of land. The sims need to be extracted and that can be done by placing your old backup, if you have one into the game and using SimPE to extract them and then Body shop to clone them. You can then delete the old hood along with all it's sims and houses, delete all the extracted sims keeping the clean clones. That way you end up with clean fresh lots and clean fresh clones. You can then set them up with the same skills etc as your original sims so long as you took down their stats.

Certainly emptying the house of furniture would do some cleaning, but fresh lots would be cleaner. Your game, your call. if the lots were not extensively borked that might be fine.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#12 Old 2nd Nov 2014 at 12:27 PM
There are two "versions" of emptying the lot of furniture. First, unticking everything in Clean Installer or pressing the "lot file only" button removes the CC files from the lot but, as you mentioned, the house still has furniture when you place it; this has no impact on corruption. Second, you can tick "Remove furniture" above the list of CC included in the lot, which will actually delete all furniture - CC and EA - from the lot, using the same process that the game uses when you move sims out without placing a Staythings shrub, and that's the option which can help minimise corruption. If you don't have that tickbox, you might need to download the latest version of Clean Installer.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
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