This is an issue I've had specifically with the TV section of buy mode, with a significant number of custom TVs that I've yet to count. Basically, when selecting a TV from the catalog, if the description card pops up (the rotating object preview) the game basically freezes and stops working. The music keeps playing til it finishes and the application in task manager is shown to still be "running", but the screen is pretty much a frozen frame and the only way to leave is to kill the task. Most of the CC is in sims3packs, so I tried converting one of the known crashing objects to package format and loading it the game, still crashes. I can still select and place them onto the world as far as I know, haven't made it as far as to interact with them, but it is the spinning preview card that's the problem.

How could I even begin to sort out this issue? If I manage to isolate the specific files, is there something I could perhaps do to try to "fix" them? Could it be an issue pertaining the game itself and not the file? Any advice is welcome.

EDIT: Bad news. My game froze with the wall TV from High End Loft stuff. Pretty sure it's not a CC issue anymore, but something wrong with my game. What to do now?

EDIT2: Found the culprit. It was the heaven's fixed objects mod. Looking into the comments, the author themselves admitted to having the game freeze with the tooltip.

but does it make sense for this to happen exclusively to televisions? If it happens to any other object category I haven't come across it. Just now I've tested all my cc for plumbing and appliances for example, none of them had an issue.

no, just some CC televisions, from several creators. but just televisions. From what I've seen, I'd guess I'd be able to place them down and use them by avoiding the pop up card, which is why I don't know if they're exactly the problem. Seems very odd to me.

I used the original sims3packs. No idea what dccache is lol

at least one of them (the one I tried using as a package) is actually very recent, the tiny living ts4 conversion from around the sims 3. most others are from TSR, I've yet to catalog all problematic files (it takes a crash for each one).

(picture of the frozen frame for said tv):

In all my many years of downloading from AroundTheSims, I have NEVER had a problem with her content and I have probably 3/4 of her content in my game. So, I am wondering if this is something else. It's really odd that a whole buy category is affected.
Sorry, I don't have any smart ideas here, but it doesn't sound like a piece of broken CC to me since it's unlikely all TVs are broken. Do the regular TVs work that come with the game/expansions?

I would take all CC TVs out and check. Then add one and see if that does anything.
Are you sure it's just TVs?

Only some CC TVs do this, base game/store + a few cc tvs are fine. I've yet to see this happen in any other buy category, as that would involve clicking through a lot of stuff. So far I've only managed to clear out plumbing and appliances category, those are working fine.

*sigh* here's to me digging through ts3 launcher for all tvs...

That is why I convert all my CC to package, easier to take out and test, or remove.

I tried that but it made my game unbelievably slow. I'm trying to pin them down with CC magic but I don't know how to uninstall them through there? Please tell me I can uninstall sims3packs with CC magic.

Here is an excellent tutorial written on CCMagic https://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.ph...-update-batman/ . It is over as the Asylum and you have to register but Nellas did an amazing job writing it up and there are pics (saved me some serious headaches).

Just disable them all except one to be tested in CCMagic and rebuild adn start the game. If they don't turn out to be the culprit, you can simply enable them again.

I did this but they still showed up in game :/

Did you clear cache before you rebuilt?
Otherwise, you could move them out of the CCMagic folder in My Documents and put them back in one at a time.

Tried that now, they still showed up in game.

I'm gonna try uninstalling everything through the launcher to reinstall through CC magic.

Okay, bad news. I took off all my sims3packs and booted the game.

Checked the tv category, selected the wall TV from High End Loft Stuff. It Froze the game.

Now I know it's DEFINITELY not a CC issue.

Yep. Took all of my mods out, installed sims3packs through CC magic (I didn't know it compressed it as well turn it into package, and my game didn't get painfully slow like when I converted them to package manually), and guess what? no game freeze on any of the problem tvs.

Now to figure out which mod is responsible for the freezing issue.

I would start with the ones you added more recently. Good luck!

I recall the same thing happened in my game way way back. I once had a shiftable tv mod that caused the same issue. There were several out there though I can't tell which one.

YEP. I think I just located the culprit, placing heaven's shiftables in my mods folder caused the freeze. Looking for some alternatives now and I think aldervine's shiftables might do. No more freezing!