Difference between revisions of "Game Help:Finding Problem Custom Content"

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(Some Fucking Simple Logic)
(Some Fucking Simple Logic)
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'''Test 2.'''
 
'''Test 2.'''
  
Remove the second half and test the first half.
+
Remove the half you put in, and test the half you left out.
  
 
* If problem disappears with the second half removed, go to Conflict...
 
* If problem disappears with the second half removed, go to Conflict...
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'''Divide.'''
 
'''Divide.'''
  
Once you know which half has the problem files, then you divide that folder in half again.  Create a new folder on your desktop and move half of the suspect files into it.  Leave in any "good" files.  Test the remaining files in your Downloads.
+
Once you know which half has the problem files, then you divide that folder in half again.  Create a new folder on your desktop and move half of the suspect files into it.  Leave in any "good" files.  Test the other half of the suspect files in your Downloads.
  
 
* If the problem disappears with half the suspect files removed, go to Test 2.
 
* If the problem disappears with half the suspect files removed, go to Test 2.

Revision as of 05:39, 12 April 2007

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Contents

Finding Problem Custom Content

You’re playing the game, or running bodyshop, and something strange is happening. Maybe it’s crashing, or perhaps it’s not working quite as it should. You’ve read the FAQ and you’ve removed your downloads or saved sims folder, and you know the problem is in there. But the trouble is, you have thousands of files in there, how can you find out which one is the problem?

If you have put everything you’ve downloaded into your Downloads folder without categorizing them into subfolders, it can be tricky to figure out which file is causing the problem when your game is acting strangely. There are many tools you can use for scanning your files, such as SimPE or The Clean Installer, but this method will show you a way of finding a problem file quite quickly without using any of these. It is also great for Mac users.

Are you sure it's custom content?

This FAQ is meant to be read as part of a step of the Game Problem FAQ. If you have not arrived here as part of it, or if you are not 100% sure it's a downloaded file that is causing the problem, please go and read that FAQ first, and it will lead you back here if you need to do this. You need to have properly tested that it is indeed your Downloads or SavedSims folders causing a problem before you do this.

Warning!

Do not remove custom careers while sims in those jobs are away at work. Do not remove custom majors while sims in those majors are away at class. Make sure everyone's home first before doing so. Removing some hacks when in use can cause problems with gameplay too.

It is advisable to back up your game files before you begin doing this. There is a full guide on backing up your game at: Back Ups.

Important Note About Saving

Once you have removed your custom content, everything that was using custom content will look wrong - any sims with custom skins or hair will have default skins and hair. Any objects in your sims' homes will disappear or revert to defaults - so where you might have had some plastic plants, you might suddenly have a cluster of statues, etc. Walls and floors using custom wallpapers and floor coverings will go bare, and any areas of ground that were using custom ground covers will flash blue. If you save your game with your custom content removed, anything that has reverted will then stay that way.

That's why you backed up your stuff before you start - if you do have to save while testing for whatever reason, then you can restore your Neighborhoods folder and your sims and houses will be fine.

Remove Recently Added Files

Use your common sense. If you have recently added files and began getting problems right after that, the problem is most likely to be with those new files. You can identify those most recently added files and try removing them first.

Sort By Date

If all of your files are just in Downloads, not in subfolders, the easiest method is to sort your Downloads folder by date.

Open your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads folder and sort by date as shown in the picture below.

SortByDate.png

Search By Date

If you keep multiple subfolders and you're not sure which ones have your newest files, search your Downloads folder for the most recently added files. You can narrow things down if you know the approximate dates you might have installed something.

SearchByDate.jpg

Delphy's Download Organiser also includes functionality to sort by date of install, and has a lot of other nifty features you might want. It'd be a useful tool to grab at this point.

Remove Most Likely Culprits

Certain items are more likely to cause problems than others. Often, the following sorts of files can cause problems in peoples' games:

  • Careers
  • University Majors
  • Hacks
  • Hacked Objects

If you are having issues with downloads, try sorting out your files of these type first to see if they are the problem. Don't know where all of the files of those types are? Try Delphy's Download Organiser to sort those out.

Simsample's Amazing Patented 50% Method

If you have removed your most recent files and the most likely culprits listed above and you're still having trouble, then it's time to sort through using the 50% method. Though it may be a bit tedious, this is the best and most effective method for finding problem files and removing them while keeping the rest of your custom content.

Create Temporary Folders

Go to your computer's Desktop. Right-click and select "New Folder" (On a Mac, control click and choose New folder) - when the new folder appears, name it A.

50p01.png


Do the same, making a second new folder, and call it B.

50p02.png


You should now have two new folders on your desktop, A and B. These two folders will be used for sorting your downloads - they're just temporary, so we can keep things organized.

Get First Half

Now it's time to begin sorting. To do this, we're going to grab a chunk of downloads and move them out.

Open your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads folder (on a Mac it's Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads).

If you want to see how many files you have in the folder, click on the Edit menu and then Select All. Then right-click on any file and choose Properties. At the top of the window that pops up, it will tell you how many files you have selected.

Now select about half of the files in the folder. You don't have to get too accurate - just about half. Click on the first file in the folder to select it. Then drag your scroll bar about halfway down and shift-click on a file. On a Mac, you can do this by clicking on a white space and dragging - everything you drag the box over gets selected. If you want to select more or less, you can shift-click on a different file. Mac users hold down the Apple Key and drag over more or less.

With the files still selected, click on the Edit menu and choose Cut. The selected files will go greyish, indicating they have been cut.

50p04.png

Go to your computer's Desktop and right click on the A folder and choose Paste. Mac users, you just need to drag your selection to the A folder that’s on your Desktop. This may take several minutes depending on how many files you're moving and the speed of your hard drive as the computer has to handle all of that information in one chunk.

When it’s done, you should be able to open up the A folder and see that half of your Downloads are in there.

Now what we need to do is test the game, as we want to see which half of the files contains your problem.

Test

Now run The Sims 2 (or Body Shop, if it was what was giving you trouble) and test to see if your original problem is still happening. Recreate the problem as close as you can and see if it occurs again. When you've determined whether the problem is persisting, exit out of the game.

No Problem

If it worked without those downloads, then you know the problem is in the files you moved to the A folder.

Problem Persists

If the problem was still there, then you know the problem file is still in Downloads.

So, open your Downloads folder and select all the files. Cut and paste them into the B folder on your Desktop (again Mac users will just select and drag).

Then open up the A folder and select all of the files. Cut and paste them back into the Downloads folder, as you know those files are okay.

Get Second Half

So now, we have all of the good files back in Downloads, and we need to split the rest of the files in half and repeat the process.

Open your A or B folder, the one with the ‘bad’ half of the files in it. Select around half of the files that are in it, as you did before.

Cut and paste (or Mac select and drag) these files to the OTHER folder on your Desktop - the empty one. So now you should have the A and B folders on your Desktop with around a quarter of your total downloaded files in each of them.

50p06.png

Put Back Stuffs

BALLS!

This is a bit complicated, but it -does- follow a very precise logic that is designed to make sure you find not only a single bad file, but also files that are conflicting. Make sure you follow along step-by-step, in order, as this is the quickest, best, and most proper way to find problems with your Downloads.

It is advisable to back up your game files before you begin doing this. There is a full guide on backing up your game at: Back Ups.

Remove Recently Added Files

Use your common sense. If you have recently added files and began getting problems right after that, the problem is most likely to be with those new files. You can identify those most recently added files and try removing them first.

Just shift any recently-added files into a temporary folder you'll make on your Desktop, then run the game to see if the problem is fixed. If so, it's likely one of those recently-added files, and you can add them back in a few at a time to try to see which file(s) are causing the problem.

Sort By Date

SortByDate.jpg

If all of your files are just in Downloads, not in subfolders, the easiest method is to sort your Downloads folder by date.

Open your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads folder and sort by date as shown in the picture.

Search By Date

SearchByDate.jpg

If you keep multiple subfolders and you're not sure which ones have your newest files, search your Downloads folder for the most recently added files. You can narrow things down if you know the approximate dates you might have installed something.

  • Delphy's Download Organiser also includes functionality to sort by date of install, and has a lot of other nifty features you might want. It'd be a useful tool to grab at this point.


Remove Most Likely Culprits

Certain items are more likely to cause problems than others. Often, the following sorts of files can cause problems in peoples' games:

  • Careers
  • University Majors
  • Hacks
  • Hacked Objects

If you are having issues with downloads, try sorting out your files of these type first to see if they are the problem.

Remove Unlikely Files

Before you begin these steps, you may want to sort out files that you can be reasonably sure are safe and will not be causing major problems with your game. These files include:

  • Walls
  • Floors (Regular ones - glass/transparent floors can cause problems with Homecrafter)
  • Ground Cover
  • Makeup
  • Eyebrows
  • Skintones
  • Recolours of Maxis clothing, hair, and accessories

By taking out these almost-always-completely-fine downloads, you can save yourself some time as you'll have less potentially-borked files to sort through. If you don't know where you have all those files, Delphy's Download Organiser can help you find them to sort them out.

Test Unlikely Files

Once you get them sorted out, you should go ahead and remove everything else from your Downloads folder, and just test those files. While they are normally safe, there can be a problem if one of them gets corrupted, so you should rule them out before you continue.

Divide Downloads in Half

50p02.png

Go to your computer's Desktop. Right-click and select "New Folder" (On a Mac, control click and choose New folder) - when the new folder appears, name it Mongoose. Do the same, making a second new folder, and call it Womrat.

Why these silly names? Trust me, it helps a LOT when you have 15 folders, rather than numbering or lettering them.



Open your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads folder. Select half of the files and cut and paste them into folder Womrat. Select the other half of the files and place them into folder Mongoose. Put folder Mongoose in your Downloads folder. Go to Test 1.

Test 1

Now run the game and test.

  • If the problem persists with only folder Mongoose in place: The problem is in folder Mongoose. Go to Division 1.
  • If the problem disappears with only folder Mongoose in place: Go to Test 2.

Test 2

Cut and paste folder Mongoose to your Desktop. Move folder Womrat into Downloads. Run the game and test.

  • If the problem persists with only folder Womrat in place: The problem is in folder Womrat. Go to Division 1.
  • If the problem disappears with only folder Womrat in place: You have a conflict. Go to Conflict 1.

Test 3

Load the game to test.

  • If the problem disappears with half the bad files moved to folder Platypus: Go to Test 4.
  • If the problem persists with half the bad files moved to folder Platypus: The problem file is still in Downloads. Go to Division 2.

Test 4

Create a new folder on your desktop called Antelope. Move the remaining files in Downloads into folder Antelope. Move the folder Platypus into Downloads. Load the game and test.

  • If the problem disappears with only folder Platypus in place: Conflict between files in Antelope and Platypus. Go to Conflict 2.
  • If the problem persists with only folder Platypus in place: The problem file is in Platypus. Go to Division 3.

Conflict 1

You now have a bit of a problem... Something in one half of your downloads is conflicting with something in the second half. Finding out exactly what it is might be difficult and this is gonna take a while.

First, you are going to sort through folder Womrat to find which file(s) are conflicting with something in folder Mongoose.

Conflict 2

Something in Platypus is conflicting with something in Antelope. First you are going to sort through Platypus to see which file(s) are conflicting with something in folder Angelope.


Division 1

You now know which half of your downloads has the problem.

Create a folder Platypus on your Desktop. The folder with the working files is still on your Desktop, too. Leave it there.

Open up the folder in your Downloads which has the problem (this could be Mongoose or Womrat). Select half the suspect files and cut and paste them into folder Platypus.

Go to Test 3.

Division 2

Some Fucking Simple Logic

Test 1.

Remove the first half. Test the second half.

  • If problem disappears with the first half removed, go to Test 2...
  • If problem persists with the first half removed, the problem is in the second half. Divide.

Test 2.

Remove the half you put in, and test the half you left out.

  • If problem disappears with the second half removed, go to Conflict...
  • If problem persists with the second half removed, the problem is in the first half. Divide.

Divide.

Once you know which half has the problem files, then you divide that folder in half again. Create a new folder on your desktop and move half of the suspect files into it. Leave in any "good" files. Test the other half of the suspect files in your Downloads.

  • If the problem disappears with half the suspect files removed, go to Test 2.
  • If the problem persists with half the suspect files removed, the problem file is still in Downloads. Divide again.

Conflict.

File(s) in the first half are conflicting with file(s) in the second half.

Leave the first half in, and Divide the second half, repeating until you have found any problem files in the second half. Then put those problem files in their own folder and test the first half against them, Dividing and testing until you have found all problem files in the first half.

You should now have at least two files which you know conflict with one another.

Final tests.

Once you have divided and divided and tested and tested, you should have one or more files which you suspect are bad.

You should put ONLY those files you suspect into your Downloads folder to ensure that they are indeed the problem. If they are, the problem will persist even with no other downloads.

Then, put back everything ELSE and test again, to make sure you didn't perhaps miss something. If all is well, then you know you have found the problem file(s).

Related Links

Sims 2 Game Help Categories:

Custom Content  | Expansion Packs  | Installation  | Gameplay Guides  | Technical & Graphics Issues  | Body Shop & Homecrafter  | Miscellaneous Issues  | FAQ Index

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Search: 

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