Help!! Quickly!!! omg!!! i just got the sims 2 nightlife expansion, i put it on the pc and now when i go into the game all my custom content has gone and i have stuff everywhere flashing an eirie blue colour. :( the custom content is all downloaded from the internet and is still in the correct folder, but none of it shows up in game and all the stuff thats already been placed has been replaced by maxis stuff and is flashing blue.. if any one has heard of this or knows how to fix this, PLEASE HELP ME!! thanks in advance, caduto xx
make sure you have Custom Content Enabled checked...it should be a big screen that comes up right when you load the game up. Then exit out of your game, and load it again and your custom content should be there...SHOULD...now then comes the part on if they are NL compatible. Any hacks might not be, but all clothing should be and the majority of furniture, if not all, as well. But try the Cutom Content Enabled first, it defaults to disabled when you first load the game after installing any expansion pack.
Quickly, you say? Whatotherexpansionsapartfromnightlifedoyouhave? You probably just need a thingy called the CEP but honestly asking for (quickly) help doesn't make people rush to help. What are your system specs? What expansions have you installed? See the FAQ's (in my signature) for more help and information. A proper question with helpful and salient information is apt to get a quick, and surprisingly easy to implement, answer. Just blubbing about blue flashy stuff and wanting help quickly implies that you only feel that we who reply have nothing else better to do ... we have.
*tut* ... ya stay up all night waiting for the bozo to post some info for their urgently wanted help ... and <yawn> g'night all
sorry, i was in such a panic last night and i was sooo excited cos i got the expansion (finally!) and it all went wrong :( anyway, the sims 2 is installed on my other pc, which is not connected to the internet, i had to let my b/f go on this pc while i tried to sort out the other one, hence why i didnt reply pronto.. sorry.. i only have the original game and nightlife installed at the moment, but university and open for business are on there way (placed order yesterday) it comes up with the 'allow custom content' screen when i load up the sims and i have tried it with both options 'enable custom content' and disable custom content' .. i get blue flashing things with both options... i have heard before of a program that organises all of your downloads.. does this program check for bugs and make sure custom objects are compatible with current game? thanks for any help
Ah OK. So you just added Nightlife and it all went wrong, eh. Well the problem is caused by the fact that naughty Maxis went and changed the way the game does things and so all your downloads are either not going to be compatible or they might work if you get the CEP (color enabler package) from the nice guys at SimPE who make the gizmos that so many custom content creators use to perform their magic. The site you want is: http://sims.ambertation.de/ and got to the CEP section. Installing it is a doddle ... just download it and double click it. If that doesn't fix all your problems you may either need to search for updated versions of the problem downloads or else dump them and go shopping for new ones. I know it's a nuisance but blame Maxis rather than "us" LOL We have a great thread running here Our favorite Download Sites ... been there myself today and came away with another fifty or sixty items Utilities to manage downloads: One of the best non Maxis ones is Sims 2 Pack Clean Installer ... but note that you also need to download additional software from Microsft to run it Maxis also have a Content Manager with rather less functions ... but it will probably do what you need. Hope all this helps [OOh just saw the pic ... nasty That's classic missing custom content error. You need the CEP and/or new downloads ... ]
i already have the CEP so that shouldnt be the problem... oh this is sooo annoying. do you think i should wait till i get university and open for business and see if that fixes the bug? thanks for your replies oh, im downloading the clean installer now, maybe it will delete the buged file and i can live in peace!
Poo! Sure you got the latest version of the CEP? If not sounds like all those (shrubs are they) are gonna have to go. Clean installer should help you locate all the ones that aren't working, anyway.
they are bamboo bushes.. and all the windows, and most of the furniture :( im just gonna check that i have the lastest version of cep, though i only downloaded it about 2 weeks ago... :(
right.. i downloaded the new cep.. that didnt help. i downloaded the content manager, it just seems to be a list of all the objects with preview pictures, doesnt do anything???? i also downloaded the sims 2 pack clean installer and the additional software needed to run it, i installed them both on my other pc and tried to start it, it comes up with an error box that simply says 'error' with the only option to click 'ok' and the thing doesnt load, from what i can gather it needs to connect to the internet to work and my other pc is not connected to the internet :( any other suggestions would be tottaly appriciated! thanks
Whoa! Are you saying that Content Manager gave you previews of the stuff that flashes lue in the game screens? That shouldna oughta happen. I can't do much else tonight, but if you can isolate a problematic download and zip it up and post here as a file attachment and I'll see if I can duplicate your problem. Can't really help much with sims 2 pack clean installer ... I have it myself but have hardly used it because I didn't fidn it as helpful as I had hoped it would be. My downloads folder has passed the gigabyte level and frankly some of the stuff in there doesn't work but the thought of trying to isolate a couple of dozen files out of 4,000 makes my brain go all melty. I just got used to the fact that some curtains are blue flashers and some other packages are orphaned recolors of meshes I haven't got. What can I say? I'm a sloppy downloader Suggestion. Move your downloads folder out of The Sims 2 folder and drop it on the desktop. Then make a new one and download a few objects and stuff from, say: http://www.modthesims2.com/ Install those and build a brand new trial house and furnish it with the newly downloaded stuff ... if that doesn't work then the problem resides in a faulty game file (bad install) or your display adapter is perhaps having problems. Can you post your system specs (dxdiag) ... see FAQs in my sig.
Processor: amd athlon xp 1600+, 3d now, ~1.4ghz System Memory RAM 1024mb ram Windows Version - microsoft windows xp professional Free Hard Disk Space - 27.1gb Total Hard Disk Space - 74.5gb DirectX Version - directx 9.0c Display Adapter - nvidia geforce fx 5200 (yeah i know, i need a new one) Display Driver Name and Version Number & date - nv4_disp.dll.. 6.14.0010.7730.. 12/05/2005 Approximate Total Video Memory - 256mb Game Detail Sims 2 DVD Version with nightlife Nature of problem - see above that ok? it doesnt run simmies amazingly, i do need a new graphics card, but these problems have only started happening since installing nightlife so im hoping its not hardware related.... *gulp* my downloads folder has 3984 files in it, it is 935mb big. will get back to you on the above advice, im moving downloads folder to desktop, taking 3 minutes! thanks caduto
ok, i have moved downloads folder out of the folder and onto desktop.. rather than spending an hour downloading, moving and installing new dowloads i just moved a couple of the downloads from the old downloads folder and used them, i loaded up the game (clicked enable on the pop-up) and the objects were there and they worked. so, it is obviously just 1 (or a couple) of these files that is causing the problem... right? i am now going to move all the files to the internet pc and see if i can use the program on this one. otherwise, im at a dead loss of how to sort all those files out and pin point the one thats iffy. i have had to do it before but there were only about 300 files then, still took me 3 hours... grrr... thanks caduto
Sounds like it your problem, to me. Many of the early recolors and custom meshes were not recolorable until Numenor et al came up with the CEP. Even then the CEP has needed revision for each expansion pack and even then there are items that just don't work outside the base game. You may be in for a long slow session of adding downloads in small batches ... yawn ... or else just wipe the whole lot and start over. If you have broadband it shouldn't take you long to collect a massive quantity. May I recommend qxpress (@ modthesims2.com ) as a fab tool for installing a shed-load of items ... mind you it doesn't seem to care much if the stuff is any good or even if you have the mesh/recolor already ... but what they heck! I just go mad at least once a week ... it's retail therapy without the blisters or the bills. PS With a gig of RAM and 256MB of video memory you're up in the top 20% of TS2 players. Sure you can get a fancier (faster) display card and 512MB would be even better but bang for buck you've not got a bad system.
the best thing about my pc is that its what we call the ''small'' pc, the ''big'' pc sat next to it is soooo much better, and has a radion graphics card thats twice as good as the geforce. the pc's are networked and used to share internet connection, but it messed up and now only the ''big'' pc can use the internet, which sucks. if i do need to restart all my downloads again, should i only go for stuff that has all 3 expansion symbols on it or not (the other 2 expansions arrived this morning... yes!!!) i ran the sims 2 pack clean installer on the ''big'' pc last night and it found 1 (yes that right, just 1) red file. i deleted it and am now hoping that it will have sorted out the problem, im in the process of transfering them all back to the 'small' pc, it takes half an hour so i will get back to you shortly thanks for the help. caduto
LOL ... I can't help thinking it would've been quicker to fix the network issue In answer to your question ... yes! If a download specifies a required expansion pack then you must have it. However ... (I think slowly and can't be arsed deleting the bum ideas) ... if you have all the expansions you should be theoretically able to download anyything ... though be aware that some old stuff will predate the original CEP and will therefore be problematic. It would be interesting if you can let me know what the red item was. Can you send it to me by email? (email me to say yes -- click my name -- and I'll reply so you get my email address to post the attachment to ... the forum email form doesn't allow that sort of malarkey and I'm not about to set my email address in stone for webcrawlers to scuttle over and harvest for the spambots).
