Yup, my trip into SimPE could have done it...  I couldn't make the new version do what I was used to doing and I could have done something really stupid.  thing is... I had problems before I tried that.

ZZ - I thought the consensus was that you had to leave your game data in when you added an EP or a patch so the game could fix them up for you.  Read it here somewhere and have passed it on, so I hope it's true.  Adding them back later was said to be "a bad thing" likely to cause problems later   Backup first - obviously!.

EDIT - obviously saved the wrong link.  Here's how to to it.  Thanks and apologies to whover I haven't credited.

1) open a command window (Start - run - cmd)
2) go to the folder (cd "My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N004", enter)
3) type this command: REN N004* N00Y*
4) go to the first subfolder (cd characters, enter)
5) repeat 3
6) go to the second subfolder (cd .. , cd lots, enter)
7) repeat 3
Cool go to the third subfolder (cd .. , cd Storytelling, enter)
9) repeat 3
10) go to the last subfolder (cd .. , cd Thumbnails, enter)
11) repeat 3

Mostly sims stop at autonomous flirting - I guess they both have to be interested and have nothing else to do - maybe the the other sim wanders off to the loo or something before they can try it - real passion killer that!  I found one of my new-made sims in an unplanned clinch the other day - the ins and outs escape me as I am wracking my brains out over the complete absence of any old memories in the 'hood.

ZZ - so maybe something n the program files connected to that hood gets screwed?  Similar to the object.package problem.  Re-install huh.  Never done it 'cos I've helped simmers whose reinstall went totally wrong -  who got the stopped at x% problem when they didn't have it the first time, etc etc...  Probably should try that before I go to the back up.  I always assumed that if the problem was in the 'hood the solution must be in the 'hood files.

If nobody recognises the problem as in "the whole memory has overflowed and gone round the clock again" or "Oh thats x bug" or "I know what ths silly cow must have done....",  then that's the way to go.

GALI - I read everything on memories I could find a while back, mostly written by these guys, but I only know what they happened to put in print!    The duplicated files aren't normally linked to any other sims in any way which is what makes them safe to delete.  If Brandi's grey clones have friends and stuff, then it's not safe.  I'm not sure this is what you mean though.  There are also corrupt memories spread around the 'hood.  He might have 1 real memory and 3 passed back to him corrupt by other people.  Is Skip really linked to 4 different Brandi's by a married memory?  or has he got 4 memories of marrying the same Brandi?  Who is the event owner?  If he is not the event owner then it's probably one memory of his plus 3 gossip and you can take out the gossip.  If he's the owner, I think you are supposed to track everyone else in the hood and delete their memories first.  I say might and probably because normally the corrupt memory is about someone else.

I've been playing Veronaville for a year without any of the problems mentioned by processdenied.  At least none I noticed - I'm not observant....  I didn't do anything with the dead sims and I don't have uni or NL.  I started by making my own sims and didn't play any of the stories til I knew what I was doing more or less.  I know adding an EP to an existing 'hood can be troublesome.

I should point out the obvious - anything I make is base game only.  Someone has to make it Uni/NL compatible...

that's why they should have had a set of 3 in the first place.  But really, they could sneak it out as a late addition to the last set if they wanted.

Do you have any idea what has happened to my 'hood? 
Pleasantview and Strangetown are OK, so I figure it must be the 'hood not the program files. 
The September backup is OK, so I think something is screwed since then 
I've put all the current downloads, hacks etc in with the Sep back up and it's still OK so I don't think it's a conflict. 
It affects all the lots, so it must be something global not something in every single character file.

Are the memories in the character files or in that neighbourhood.package file or where? Is there a "sim memories 101" anywhere I can read?

Thanks for replying - it's obsessing me even more that my sims don't work than when I play them!

Zephyr - thanks, but I have all the existing patches.  I mean that the latest patch for the base game is months old.  the 2 new patches are for Uni and NL, but not everything in the uni patch is a Uni issue.  There should have been a third patch in the set fixing headmaster bug, portal bug, blank icon bug etc etc in the base game.  They didn't bother to do one.  A pet gripe!

don't have Uni or NL, so I'm not in.  willing to contribute though...  Really enjoyed the thread.
will you take suggestions or lots or sims from non players?  you don't have to use them...  on offer are :
1. 11 starter homes plus 5 community lots in a themed set - some look better than others, but they are all maxis content and are playable.  They are on TSR, but I have the package files - guaranteed clean.  They are all 3 by 2 lots around 1k in size with water and willows designed to load fast even on a slow PC - that was the whole idea...
2. a few challenging households
3. ideas

You'll need some community lots for the 'hood.

Are you thinking of a sort of postal chess?  send someone a lot you've been playing with a challenge - pass it on after 1 week with a new challenge (or the same one and  if you haven't had time).  or will you all download the 'hood and try all the lots?   Do you try and put the 'hood back together after you've all played lots? wouldn't like that job - imagine if you make two sims friends and someone else makes them enemies... How do you reconcile it without upsetting people?  Are you all going to get sims in business? 

What do I do when my sims get boring?
move the townies into lots and play them.  my sims are all similar.....
visit Maty
go and help other simmers on the old sims1 board.  The sims2 thread helps newbies and are a nice crew.
try someone else's idea hence
1. the teen & child townie orphanage
2. faithful romance sims!  (if violetkitty can do it, so can I)
3. play a house someone else made - especially if they didn't do it too well (no lights etc)
download some more things I'll never use
organise the downloads and clean up files
make a collection from downloads from 1 site
refurnish a house with content only from that site.  (had to go back for more)
download clothes and make a few new sims.
design something to fill a niche gap eg small community lots for graphically challenged PCs in my case

Is Sims in business going to open up a whole new world of sharing? - some of the things I read on Snootysims sounded like that.  This was in the unsure bit "Earn Simoleans for your Sim online When an item your Sim has made is downloaded by the community, your Sim gets a royalty! Some Sims can become incredibly wealthy, as well as famous."  Surely Maxis have to be thinking about moving us all towards online simming in the longterm.

Haven't played any other games in a while.  Own a rack or two though they won't all run on XP.  Former addictions feature Colonization,  Alpha Centaurii and Dungeon keeper 1&2 with Railroad tycoon, Pizza tycoon 1 and 2 plus simcity 1 and 2 plus not to mention Sims1 and Colossal cave.  I played Civ a lot, but I never got on with diplomacy.  Oh and Heroes of might and magic 3.  I never played consoles apart from the ATARI 80XL.

I'm talking about the total lack of any memory icons, blank or otherwise, but initially I had blank want icons for ex-townies who I'd put into lots a while back but not played. They also had some weird wants at first.  I played them, wondered about blank icon bug and the wants eventually rolled themselves and the sims looked pretty normal.  I then played some new CAS sims in my own starter lots.  The only problem I noticed there was visitors standing around instead of eating or using the bathroom and then going home complaining of needs failure.  Didn't sound related to me.  After than I played some lots I'd being playing for a long time and discovere NOTHING where memories should be.  This is every single "old" lot i've been too!  sometime during this I had a look at memories in SimPE and found none.  Maybe the whole 'hood is imploding

I have all the empty lots packaged already, so your suggestion is what I will have to do if it's not fixable - it'll probably turn out better the second time.  BUT If the whole 'hood is going to implode again within weeks of doing all that work - maybe I won't bother! I'd really like to get a handle on what happened, so it doesn't happen again!  I really wish the latest patch had been issued for the base game.  It may be called the Uni patch, but a lot of issues were in the original game.

PS - I'm told that if you have boolprop testingcheatsenabled true, you can control click on a want and get it to re-roll.  This is according to a kind simmer on MTS2  who also said from heartfelt experience that it's NOT shift click.  I learned this after the wants rolled for me, but maybe it will help you with your toddlers.

I'm down to 1.  It was zero after I moved them all into lots and downloaded notownierespawn. Then I left the downloads out to test something and 1 respawned.   I'm enjoying playing a house full of townie teens.  They are more varied than my sims tend to be and you can't encourage or give permission to go out unless you mess with the relationships.   I meant to kill the ugly ones off, but couldn't do it....

Sims I have been playing a year now have no memories. We're not talking blank icons we're talking no icons at all for all the sims before the past couple of days play.  does anyone recognise this or have a clue what is messed up?  Is it fixable?

I had some blank want icons for townies moved into lots which seemed to have sorted themselves out and the missing memories happened about the same time.   I was thinking blank icon bug, but I don't have TSU (or NL),  so there are no radio controlled cars loose in dorms.  I have one in a lot I haven't played in ages and know not to save it it's in use.  I think maybe the wants were just blank 'cos they hadn't rerolled and were unachievable.  As I don't have TSU or NL, there is also no version of the recent patch for my game.  I've been into SimPE - maybe I did something stupid there, but that's where I realised the extent of the problem.   I cleared duplicate sim files out with simenhancer as recommended by Motoki and Zephyrzodiac, but it didn't have any effect on the missing memories (no surprise there - it needed doing months back).

I have found a back up from mid September that I can reload, but I have done a lot of things since then!   Including a very  timeconsuming addition of 20 or so vacant starter homes with water and willows in a nice arrangement.  I'd like to get that back in even if I lose a bit of gameplay.   Next question - is it going to happen again?

You can get a trial verson of SimEnhancer.  I was recommended to it for deleting duplicate sims easily, so I got the trial version and did the job last night.  It's very easy to use, but don't think I'm going to buy it.  If I had to do that job again, I might, but I don't need it for everyday.  I can usually cope with SimPE.  What would convince me to buy it would be functionality that doesn't exist in SimPE.  Like a cleanup tool for duplicate sims..   or fix duff DNA  or find duplicate object GUIDs......  SimPE gives us a tool to do everything.  A task focussed tool rather than a sim focussed tool would appeal to me.

yup -did that after the first 5 times I messed up and had to reload the backup - 4am by then! - thanks for the warning though - it might save someone else.  In that spirit here's more info on veronaville.  By my count Veronaville has 67 dead sims who came with the game (could be 1 or 2 out here).  Some of them have normal sized files and others are under 50k.  Their user numbers are all over the place - I'm guessing the number gets allocated when you play the lot, so next time I start a pre-made hood I might make things tidy by visiting all the pre-made families briefly and saving..

Oh rats! and here I thought I understood something at last!  "Deleting sims is bad" was such a nice golden rule.  I found 3 of the same sim at least 6 months ago when I first got SimPE and could have tackled it then.    So instead of preventing the fiery ball, failing to delete them has hastened it's arrival!    I only ever downloaded 1 lot with a family (in month 1 of owning the game), never moved lots with sims between 'hoods, I've hardly let any sims move house and the only time I've moved Sims in houses to the lot bin was while I rearranged the 'hood to fit more into the space available and one or two might have gone into the bin temporarily....  wish I'd known

I've backed up and deleted  about 130 of 440 grey files with simenhancer - which DOES delete the character files.  Unfortunately dead sims are grey too, so it's easy to delete a dead sim by accident.  There are about 60 of them - mostly the maxis made ancestors. 

I thought sorting the character files by size would give me a good handle on the number dud files and their character numbers.  I have 130 character files under 30k, another 60 between 30k and 50k, 5 between 50 and 100k and 3 between 100 and 200.  The other 250 are all over 200k.  Anything under 200k seems to be a dead sim or junk

Thanks JM, ZZ and Motoki.

re Veronaville.  I had a look at the DNA of the Maxis characters.  They have the same missing 2 lines as PT#9.  As all the Monties and Capps are "purebred", there aren't any difficult choices.  That also means you keep pasting the same skin colour - think it was 1 for the Capps and 3 for the Monty's.  I've never had a crash at birth - Bianca is nearly up to 10 babies and Juliet has 1.  Oops - just realised I forgot the Summerdreams.   

Here's another question everybody except me probably knows the answer to, cos I can't find the answer with search:
Why do you get 3 character files for the same sim?
Iis it a problem or a sign of a problem? - Other than the obvious bloating -
Can you combine them into one? - I know not to delete them!

I was thinking that if you knew when and why it happened, you could catch the duplicate early enough to fix it relatively easily in SimPE  - if you knew what you were doing.....!

I guess if you don't let your sims gossip you don't spread burnt dinner memories around the 'hood.  I used to use gossip a lot in making friends, but have quit - back to chess.

I have under 500 characters, but I've been playing most of them for a very long time.  Are there memory problems associated with a smaller number of very long lived sims?  Different dimension to bloated 'hood. EDIT looks like the answer to this is "No" from other threads.

PS-Thanks for explaining what those .bak files were in character files. found them when I counted characters!

This is probably teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, but  .........
I guess you're going to back up your 'hoods before you patch just in case...   AND take all the hacks out before you patch.  I think I'd back up before I put any back in as well once I'd had a quick trawl around the 'hood to make sure everything was OK.  You need to plan where you are going to go back to if you hit a problem with a hack or download conflict.  We haven't found all of them yet I'm sure!

um - how do you get from the front page to the forum if you don't already have a login?  there's no "register" on the front page - deliberately I thought.  Getting ready to feel stupid for failing to follow directions....

I'm trying to help a simmer with graduate problems.  We are still cleaning hacks out of downloads that she didn't know were there and are about to move on to PC cleanup.  Then we need to get back to her initial problem.  I'm posting it because it sounds similar and we did get quite a detailed description.  I was going to suggest SimPE or an error log next.  Suggestions welcome!

Post 1
" My game is still filed up!!!!!! After my sims graduated from college, I tried to play them and I couldn't!!! It is like you entering an empty lot!!! How do I fix this problem? I have NL, and I installed the patch for it & it still ain't working!!! Will somebody tell me what to do to fix this problem?"

Post  1+nnn
"Hi there. I tried what you said, and it still didn't work. When I went to play one of the sims I had the problem with, he was fine! I could play him, but I couldn't have him to throw a graduation party. The other one, I couldn't play at all !!!!! I bet you the next time, I will have a grad party, so I won't be sad!!! I love my Simmys!!! I neglect my school work to play my game!

I went to the lot like you said, but it's like going to an empty lot!!! House, furniture, appliancese, bathrooms, bedrooms, but No sim! Help me, I'm despirate!! I even move other sims into that same house, still no Casadee Lothario! What is a girl to do??

Scenario #1
For starters, I graduated 2 sims from college. I placed one in a house with his children's mother and played him all on the same day. The next day, I tried to play the other sim, and I couldn't. It was like an empty lot! So I went back to play the Male sim, and the same thing happened with him. So, I cheated using the Tombstone of L and D to add him to the family. I saved it, went back to the same lot, he was gone again like he didn't live there. I tried played the female sim, and it was the same way. Today I played the family with the missing father, and there he was! I played him, got him another job, and saved the lot. I haven't went back yet to see will he still be there, but I bet ya he won't.

Scenario #2
Today, I went to play Casadee Lothario and she wasn't at her lot. Before you go into the lot or you run your mouse over her lot, it will say, "Lothario", but she wasn't there. I move a couple into the same lot and I used the T of L and D to make her join the family. I tried to move the couple out and it would let me do it from the lot, I had to go to the neighborhood view. So, I moved the male sim out and later tried the same thing with the female. The pop-up said, "There is only one adult / elder sim on this lot. Move them out in the neighborhood view. So tomorrow, Casadee will be gone. I could command her, but the lot didn't recognize her. PLEASE HELP ME!!!! "

I learned quite a lot about gameplay early on from the BBS -   Pinstar's ghost posts spring to mind and there was a thread on cooking and headmaster bug.... 

I used search. Now there's a lost art!  does anybody  EVER search for anything?  or read the stickies?

The technical help stickies were also useful when I tried to help people with install problems.  As for bugs - I found out they existed and where to go for the real info.  Headmaster bug took me to MTS2 then variousimmers then here.

If your game is patched, you do not need Crammyboy's fix.  It is confirmed they put it in the patch.  so cancelling a "read to..." at the wrong point doesn't ever delete a portal in a patched game.

If there is a portal problem, it is either a new one, or one we didn't find before.
You can still use Crammyboy's diagnosis tool to see if a portal is missing.
If one is missing you can replace it though it's a little techie.

portal fix and portal prevention..........
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=83684
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=79045

I am illuminated!  Thank you.

Do you mind if I link people here?   I can repost and give you credit instead if you don't want another influx of people.

thank you, but what I'm asking is - if you had a bugged lot and installed the patch Have all those stuck NPCs really gone?  They now have a portal to leave through, but did they use it?   I'm trying to help a technically challenged simmer and I need to know if I can assume absolutely that he hasn't got any left over problems from all those nannies running around in their underwear. 

I've also asked a couple of times if Maxis is going to update the base game patch as a lot of the problems came from there.   I guess the silence isn't encouraging....

Given how long it took for the first one and how serious the bugs were, I think that's a really bad idea.   Shed loads of error messages are better than real bugs.  Maxis only just put out this patch - they're going to want to wait a decent interval before fixing the patch!  doing that too soon would look really bad!

Climbing on hobby horse - Of course what we really need is an updated patch for the basic game with headmaster bug, plagiarism etc etc fixed.