[WORKAROUND] Infinite Loading Screen and Too Many Iterations Error

This workaround is intended for The Sims 2 Legacy Collection players who are experiencing the issue where traveling during vacation results in an infinite loading screen and the Too Many Iterations error, rendering the household inaccessible.

Before you do anything, create a backup of your Sims 2 user data so you can restore your progress if something goes wrong. By default, The Sims 2 user folder is located in Documents\EA Games\. Copy The Sims 2 Legacy folder to your desktop or somewhere else you can easily find it. If something goes wrong, you can always delete The Sims 2 Legacy folder from Documents\EA Games\ and replace it with the backup.

DESCRIPTION

The very first version of The Sims 2 Legacy Collection shipped with a bug that broke the Manage Inventory function, causing it to incorrectly and excessively assign tokens, memories, and other inventory-based items. The broken function could add thousands of invisible tokens to family inventories, causing performance issues and errors such as infinite loading screens. Although the Manage Inventory function has been fixed with a patch, meaning new households should not suffer from this bug, existing households could not be fixed and may still experience these issues. With this workaround, you should be able to create a new household instance with an empty family inventory, which should stop the error.

THE WORKAROUND

1. In the Neighborhood View, press CTRL-Shift-C to open the cheat console, type in boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true and press Enter. This will activate testing cheats and make error messages visible to let you decide what you want to do with them.

• Load the affected household. If you see a Too Many Iterations Error, click Cancel. It may appear several times, click Cancel every time you see it. The household should finish loading after a while. If they are on vacation, end it and send them home, then save the game.
• If the household absolutely refuses to load while on vacation, you can delete the Vacation neighborhood they are currently visiting which will bring them home. Keep in mind that adding the same vacation neighborhood again after this may duplicate all Locals who are native to that destination.

2. Once the household is back on its home lot, you have two options, depending on whether there is only one Sim or multiple Sims in the household. Pets don’t count. 

If you have any personal objects you wish to keep, place them in any Sim’s inventory. Once you complete this process, objects on the lot will be sold.

a) If there are multiple Sims in the household, direct one Sim* to Find Own Place using the computer or the newspaper. A popup should appear asking who you want to take with you. Bring everyone with you except one Sim who should stay behind, preferably a Sim with the most recognizable/unique name. Make sure to bring the Pets with you. The Sims you picked should move out to the Family Bin. Save and exit to the neighborhood.

Move the new household from the Family Bin to a new lot. It does not matter which one, it can be empty. Once they are moved in, proceed to Step 3. 

*The new household will carry the last name of the Sim who initiates the Find Own Place interaction.

b)  If there is only one Sim in the household (or one Sim + Pets), once they are back from vacation, save the game and switch to a different household in the same neighborhood. It doesn’t matter which one. Proceed to Step 3.

3. If testing cheats are not already active, press CTRL-Shift-C to open the cheat console, type in boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true and press Enter.

Hold Shift and click on a Sim, then select Spawn > Tombstone of Life and Death to spawn the cheat object. Click on the tombstone, select Add Neighbor to Family, then click More until you find the Sim you left behind. This is the part where having a recognizable name can be useful, as the pie menu will contain every single Sim in the neighborhood. Do not click on any other Sims in the menu. If you spawn a wrong Sim by accident, return to the neighborhood without saving, then reload the household.

4. If you followed Step 2a, once you have all your Sims on the new lot, save the game, after which you can use the kaching or motherlode cheats to get their funds back, move them to a new lot, or back into their old house. 

If you were dealing with just one Sim (Step 2b), after you spawn them (and their Pet if they had one) you can use the Find Own Place interaction on the computer or newspaper to move them somewhere else, or back into their original house. If they do not have enough funds, use the following cheat: familyFunds LastName x (e.g. familyFunds Smith 50000).