Sims 2 University objects disappearing
Hello! I'm struggling a lot with my sims 2 game recently and I have no idea what's going on. So the issue for this thread is that more and more objects disappear everytime I return to the lot. I tri...
Forum Discussion
Hi! Omg we have a bigger problem : my neighborhood just disappeared!!!! What should I do?? All my files are still there, it just doesn't show in my game 😢
@kcassendo , yes, your saved games are safe. They are in your Sims 2 folder (Found Documents > EA Games > Sims 2). Ok, try this next and don't worry about your saved games for the moment. 🙂
Once you have located the Sims 2 folder, move it to your Desktop. Do not copy and paste it or create a shortcut, actually move it. You can rename if you wish, but that will insure that your saved games are safe.
Next, start up the game as normal remembering for the moment that none of your saved games or CC will appear in the game. Moving that folder resets the game to a vanilla state and is very useful when things like this occur. Starting up the game will allow the game to regenerate a new Sims 2 folder. Once the game has started up, select a neighborhood and play for about an hour to make sure that everything is running smoothly. You can then exit the game as everything should be back to normal at the moment.
Do this one step for me and let me know if everything is back to normal. Then we'll work on the next step.
@Tremayne4260 ive sent this message today but I don't see it in the thread 😭 so here it is...
Okay thank you for being reassuring. I will try this right now. However 2 things, just so you know what happened beforehand, I am Soooo sorry for the long thread, you might need to take some notes lol. I broke down the most details to help you help me. I'm extremely grateful for your time my heart is crying:
1. My game also crashed 2 weeks ago and I restarted everything
2. In My Documents, I have 3 sims 2 folders...
So what happened is I haven't played for years and I recently started playing again and I did something that crashed my game (I did not know then that these actions were absolute no-nos: putting an occupied lot to the bin / trying to move occupied lot from a hood to another / putting sims-families originated by the game in the bin and delete them). I have sims 2 Deluxe Nightlife and University expansion. Everything went down when I tried to move my occupied dorm. The game crashed a first time and when I reloaded it, Pleasantview was missing.
I tried moving it again and it crashed at the same moment. Now when I got back Strangetown was missing.
I thought that me trying to rename the dorm was the problem so I tried moving it again without renaming it and it crashed again. This time when I got back to the game. Veronaville AND my custom neighborhood were gone.
When I went to my documents, I've noticed I had 2 Sims2 folders....one was dated 2011 and the other 2017. Both had all the files. So after reading online, I've renamed one of the 2 folders because it was the one the game was using if I remember correctly. I deleted the other one. Now I can't remember if I was told to move the file like you just told me, or copy paste it, like you just told me not to lol. Everything happened about 2-3 weeks ago and I've tried so many things that I no longer remember the exact details. I must have saved my ask for help text so if you need I can send it to know I think I've described everything that I did.
Anyways so there were no longer any sims 2 files in My Documents and I loaded the game. There was still no neighborhood to choose from....but when I went back to my folders, it did generate a new one. I just started over without the base game neighborhoods. In my new game, I created 2 customs neighborhoods to see if one would disappear but they both stayed after that. *Note that when I've downloaded SimPE, it generated the Sim Retriever neighborhood in my game. But I never entered it I was scared this would screw things up as it said it was a temporary neighborhood. This Sim Retriever neighborhood was also there.* Since I saw that it didn't change anything I took the folder I moved to my desktop and put it back in My Documents. So as of today I'm clueless as to why I have a third EA GAMES folders......
There's the one the game is using, because all my newest custom content is in it and when I've downloaded SimPE it linked to this one. The second folder was created at the same date but I don't know why it's there. The 3rd folder is the one I renamed that's dated from 2011.
Now I've just checked them all and it seems like my game has been navigating between the 3 folders.
This is what I found out:
•EA GAMES FOLDER #1 (the main one):
*Sims2 folder last modified= April 23rd at 3:27am-->my game had already crashed at this point.
*neighborhoods folder= last modified April 23rd at 4:58 am.--> My game had crashed already. However the neighborhood files:
There are 4 neighborhoods, which is confusing to me because I only had 3 neighborhoods in the game (the ones I described, my 2 customs (one test and the other where I started over) and the Sim Retriever):
-N001: last modified April 10th. Storytelling: Academy LeTour base game sims+ 1 family from my old neighborhood....I don't know why it's there. They were not even on campus so I'm confused why their picture is in this folder.
-N002: last modified April 23rd at 2:29 am-->this is the moment I saved my game. I was playing in the regular neighborhood, not on the university campus where it has a lot with missing objects because I haven't seen your message yet and I didn't want to play until I fixed it. Then I wanted to go in the neighborhood but that's when it crashed for a reason I can't explain. That's the custom neighborhood I've been using and backed up in SimPE. storytelling has Academy LeTour base game sims + all my new sims I created.
-N003: last modified April 11th. Storytelling: Academy LeTour base game sims+ another family from my old neighborhood....I also don't know why it's there. They were also not on campus so I'm confused why their picture is in this folder.
-N004: last modified April 09th. Storytelling: omg everything from my old main neighborhood....???? Maybe that's the Sim Retriever neighborhood folder...it must be.
•EA GAMES FOLDER #2:
*Sims2 folder last modified= April 23rd at 2:44am-->the first time I got back in the game after crashing and realized everything was gone.
*neighborhoods folder= last modified April 7th. Neighborhood files:
There is only 1 neighborhood...
-N001: last modified April 7th. Storytelling: none, there's not even a storytelling folder. There's just the characters folder. And files files N001 downtown/neighborhood/university
•EA GAMES FOLDER #3:
*Sims2 folder last modified= April 23rd at 2:48am-->The 2nd time I loaded the game to see if it was just a nightmare.
*neighborhoods folder= last modified April 8th. Neighborhood files:
There are 4 neighborhoods, this must be my old game. They're all last modified April 8th at the same time:
-N001: Storytelling: the exact same as EAGames folder #1
-N002: Storytelling: only has Academy LeTour base game sims
-N003: Storytelling: Exact same folder as EA Games folder #1
-N004: Storytelling: Exact same folder as EA Games folder #1
SO NOW....should I delete EA Games folders #1 & 3 before moving the main one to my desktop?
I hope I gave you every detail that you need to picture what I see and understand what's happening.
@Tremayne4260 ive sent this message today but I don't see it in the thread 😭 so here it is...
Okay thank you for being reassuring. I will try this right now. However 2 things, just so you know what happened beforehand, I am Soooo sorry for the long thread, you might need to take some notes lol. I broke down the most details to help you help me. I'm extremely grateful for your time my heart is crying:
1. My game also crashed 2 weeks ago and I restarted everything
2. In My Documents, I have 3 sims 2 folders...
So what happened is I haven't played for years and I recently started playing again and I did something that crashed my game (I did not know then that these actions were absolute no-nos: putting an occupied lot to the bin / trying to move occupied lot from a hood to another / putting sims-families originated by the game in the bin and delete them). I have sims 2 Deluxe Nightlife and University expansion. Everything went down when I tried to move my occupied dorm. The game crashed a first time and when I reloaded it, Pleasantview was missing.
I tried moving it again and it crashed at the same moment. Now when I got back Strangetown was missing.
I thought that me trying to rename the dorm was the problem so I tried moving it again without renaming it and it crashed again. This time when I got back to the game. Veronaville AND my custom neighborhood were gone.
When I went to my documents, I've noticed I had 2 Sims2 folders....one was dated 2011 and the other 2017. Both had all the files. So after reading online, I've renamed one of the 2 folders because it was the one the game was using if I remember correctly. I deleted the other one. Now I can't remember if I was told to move the file like you just told me, or copy paste it, like you just told me not to lol. Everything happened about 2-3 weeks ago and I've tried so many things that I no longer remember the exact details. I must have saved my ask for help text so if you need I can send it to know I think I've described everything that I did.
Anyways so there were no longer any sims 2 files in My Documents and I loaded the game. There was still no neighborhood to choose from....but when I went back to my folders, it did generate a new one. I just started over without the base game neighborhoods. In my new game, I created 2 customs neighborhoods to see if one would disappear but they both stayed after that. *Note that when I've downloaded SimPE, it generated the Sim Retriever neighborhood in my game. But I never entered it I was scared this would screw things up as it said it was a temporary neighborhood. This Sim Retriever neighborhood was also there.* Since I saw that it didn't change anything I took the folder I moved to my desktop and put it back in My Documents. So as of today I'm clueless as to why I have a third EA GAMES folders......
There's the one the game is using, because all my newest custom content is in it and when I've downloaded SimPE it linked to this one. The second folder was created at the same date but I don't know why it's there. The 3rd folder is the one I renamed that's dated from 2011.
Now I've just checked them all and it seems like my game has been navigating between the 3 folders.
This is what I found out:
•EA GAMES FOLDER #1 (the main one):
*Sims2 folder last modified= April 23rd at 3:27am-->my game had already crashed at this point.
*neighborhoods folder= last modified April 23rd at 4:58 am.--> My game had crashed already. However the neighborhood files:
There are 4 neighborhoods, which is confusing to me because I only had 3 neighborhoods in the game (the ones I described, my 2 customs (one test and the other where I started over) and the Sim Retriever):
-N001: last modified April 10th. Storytelling: Academy LeTour base game sims+ 1 family from my old neighborhood....I don't know why it's there. They were not even on campus so I'm confused why their picture is in this folder.
-N002: last modified April 23rd at 2:29 am-->this is the moment I saved my game. I was playing in the regular neighborhood, not on the university campus where it has a lot with missing objects because I haven't seen your message yet and I didn't want to play until I fixed it. Then I wanted to go in the neighborhood but that's when it crashed for a reason I can't explain. That's the custom neighborhood I've been using and backed up in SimPE. storytelling has Academy LeTour base game sims + all my new sims I created.
-N003: last modified April 11th. Storytelling: Academy LeTour base game sims+ another family from my old neighborhood....I also don't know why it's there. They were also not on campus so I'm confused why their picture is in this folder.
-N004: last modified April 09th. Storytelling: omg everything from my old main neighborhood....???? Maybe that's the Sim Retriever neighborhood folder...it must be.
•EA GAMES FOLDER #2:
*Sims2 folder last modified= April 23rd at 2:44am-->the first time I got back in the game after crashing and realized everything was gone.
*neighborhoods folder= last modified April 7th. Neighborhood files:
There is only 1 neighborhood...
-N001: last modified April 7th. Storytelling: none, there's not even a storytelling folder. There's just the characters folder. And files files N001 downtown/neighborhood/university
•EA GAMES FOLDER #3:
*Sims2 folder last modified= April 23rd at 2:48am-->The 2nd time I loaded the game to see if it was just a nightmare.
*neighborhoods folder= last modified April 8th. Neighborhood files:
There are 4 neighborhoods, this must be my old game. They're all last modified April 8th at the same time:
-N001: Storytelling: the exact same as EAGames folder #1
-N002: Storytelling: only has Academy LeTour base game sims
-N003: Storytelling: Exact same folder as EA Games folder #1
-N004: Storytelling: Exact same folder as EA Games folder #1
SO NOW....should I delete EA Games folders #1 & 3 before moving the main one to my desktop?
I hope I gave you every detail that you need to picture what I see and understand what's happening.
@kcassendo , move all three folders out of the EA Games folder. I think the game is getting confused about which one to get the data from. Before moving them, you might want to rename each folder something different like Folder 1, Folder 2 just to keep them straight. Move them all out so the game can generate a new folder from which to find the game data. Once the game has restarted, there should only be one Sims 2 folder in the EA Games folder.
I didn't mind your long post as it was very informative and you told me exactly what was happening. 🙂 You are most welcome for the help as I too have had lots of problems with Sims 2 and did cry a lot over the game. The Sims series has been my lifesaver for many years as I enjoy the game in all its versions. We'll get this sorted for you and then you can have fun.
Omg I understand you! I think it's a shame that gamers have to go through so many crashes and frustration as the game has A LOT of glitches! And I'm so grateful that some of y’all are like geniuses because I can't sort it out alone. We invest so much time in our game so yes it does create a lot of stress!
Alright so I just moved the 3 folders to my desktop and I'm starting the game now. I'll tell you what I see
