Went to open Sims and it wouldn't run! It made a whirring sound as the CD drive fired up and then... nothing

I tried not to panic, turned my computer off and on, noticed the date and thought "No way... they haven't somehow disabled my game have they? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Luckily I stayed calm and remembered that I'd had this problem years ago. I couldn't remember what had started it so I went to post in the help section, found the link to the FAQ, and followed the directions. My alternative Sims 2 folders were working, but not this one...

Eventually (so it seemed) I got to the step about deleting caches, and then I laughed - it was so obvious. My accessory cache was over 16,000 kb.

So my warning to you all. Delete your cache files regularly, and if you have a problem, READ THE FAQ!! I could have been playing in two minutes instead of wasting one hour 20 minutes of my one-and-a-half hours gaming time

I only delete the cache files if my game won't start, if Bodyshop won't start, or if I've been messing around with body/accessory/hair meshes. As long as my game starts and everything is fine, the cache files make the game load a little bit faster.

I delete cache files occasionally. Not every time, but occasionally. Just so I never have to wake up to a scare.

I delete mine before I start up Sims 2, every single time, otherwise the game won't launch to begin with. :') Woo! There's an upside to everything indeed!

I had the same problem last month and googled the answer. Afterwards I felt terribly stupid for not to having thought of it. I regularily clear my browser cache, but somehow wasn´t aware that offline games/programs could have cache files, too. Me and computers... I know what to do to them in case they do not behave, but I hardly understand what exactly I´m doing and why.

I haven't played TS2 in years... not since TS3 came out but I'm looking to install it again and play with all the brouhaha TS4 is generating. I still play TS3 and love it but I'm thinking of giving TS2 another go. As for the cache files, I'd forgotten about that. I faithfully deleted them after every game session in TS2 when I was playing it and do the same for TS3. Thanks for the reminder

I delete cache files every time I play. There is also a method shown by Jessa how you can make them read 0 permanently.

I've never heard of this. Will need to go find these files now...

HERE IS AN EMPTY GROUPS.CACHE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD - extract to your desktop and copy into your Sims 2 folder. Then, right click it then click properties, tick the "Read Only" box at the bottom then click apply. You don't -have- to keep a copy of it on your desktop. I do because it -could- need replacing. I've actually had the game refuse to start even with this empty file and had to replace it. (Not saying that will happen to anyone/everyone, but it's a possibility.)

Not really related to the groups.cache, just my own personal, computer related scary moment: those times I have something plugged into one of the USB ports (phone, mp3 player) and restart the computer. Since there's something plugged into the USB port that isn't bootable my computer won't start properly. It always takes me a few minutes to remember something is plugged in and I panic until I remember, lol.

If you want to fix that, give your hard drive boot priority over USB drives in the BIOS.

As for the topic, that's a lot of accessories it had cached. How does that file get so big? Mine's only 6250KB... and where did my cigen.package go?

Portaller - Huh, I've never touched the BIOS at all and would've thought that the hard drive would already be set that way. Strange. I'll have to check it out.

The link takes me to an empty site on a domain that's apparently for sale. I'm very interested in obtaining this mysterious cache file though! I did already try a program on here that was supposed to automatically delete the cache files when launching Sims 2, but it didn't work for me.

Oops. Try it now: http://www.mediafire.com/file/admhh81bsyyhda4/Groups.7z

I have to chime in on this: I tried the 0kb groups.cache file, and found it significantly slowed down my game load time. Same as nuking groups.cache every time I play, though that's more variable: sometimes it takes a lot longer, sometimes not. My conclusion is that since cache files store info so the game doesn't have to build it from scratch, forcing it to do so takes time.

I'm not saying it's a bad file, or that deleting caches every time is a bad idea. On the contrary, I agree that using one of those methods is probably a best practice for the cleanest possible game. However, I found the side-effect of longer load time was annoying. So, I went back to deleting my cache files on as-needed basis. YMMV.

I have a computer that sometimes throws a bluescreen at me and restart the computer if I delete the cache files before I start up my game, so I prefer not to delete them if I don't have to.
(I think it might be a problem with the OS not being installed properly, or a faulty OS in general, because it's always been a little weird)

When you get a bluescreen every other time you start up your game, then you can talk about getting a shock.

I have a lot of jewellery catalogued as glasses which I need to change, and it errors and flashes blue a lot so I'm guessing that's the culprit.

Flashing blue accessories usually have some wrongly done settings, or they lack the Lens group.

I use the Compressorizer to cut down on my file size. From what I'm reading recently, there has been some dispute whether this actually helps the game, but I like looking at the smaller file size. It consoles me somehow.

According to the utility's instructions, you have to clean your groups.cache before using it. And I download several times a week. So the Compressorizer helps there as well, I guess!

I do notice that loading the game takes a little longer afterward, but in my case, it is not that much of a difference. However, I think blue-screening would concern me as well!