Gwill, I think you were right, thanks for the info.  I didn't know that the same name could be used for 2 wolves.

Orikes, I think that thread you linked explained it all even though as a die-hard Nvidia user I was flabbergasted.

After posting here and getting fed up with that hang I removed my downloads folder completely, uninstalled and reinstalled pets and lo and behold got the same damn problem without ever interacting with the LotP.  Even when I don't actually hang anytime a wolf comes on the lots I slow down considerably (like when a pet comes home from work after a promotion).

I think what confused me is that I have played Pets for awhile without ever seeing this but I have also done 2 things since Pets - downloaded the latest Nvidia driver and bought Happy Holiday something or other (2005/2006 combo pack thingy since I skipped it last year).

I *think* I had played Sims after the Nvidia driver but I know I hadn't since that stuff pack.  Maybe I finally just hit the threshold or something.

At any rate - I rolled back my driver and so far (knock on wood)  I haven't hung.  I do however still get that slowdown when pets come home and when wolves enter the lot which kind of ticks me off.  I haven't even owned this puter for that long and I don't think it is that bad (I was thrilled when the game defaulted to all the highest setting for the first time ever for me).

I am not ready to give up on Nvidia yet (I had nightmare problems with my ATI card) but I am certainly not as complacent about not even considering that my graphics card is the culprit.

The past 2 days I have restarted a PV (again) after a long break with WoW and for the first time ever my game keeps crashing.

Well, not exactly crashing - I get a blue screen and hang.  After learning to save my game frequently and playing 5 houses for a week or so I think I have narrowed it down to always happening when the Leader of the Pack comes onto a lot.  Checking in SimPE, I find that I have 2 "Balins".

I think I may have brought this on myself when I first started because for the first time ever I used the pet teleporter so that Chester could get to know him (Balin) and get nibbled.  Afterwards, it seemed like the wolf thought he lived there (although I didn't have his icon, he never left) so I used the pet teleporter again to clear the lot of pet visitors. 

Everything seemed to be working fine and the other wolves don't seem to cause any problems but I think my game is now cofused about whether it has a "leader of the pack" or not.

So... my question is this - if I delete the 2nd Balin's character file is there any way to make sure my game doesn't try to regenerate him again?  Or should I just delete both Balins?  And if I delete character files do I need to delete other stuff?  I only use SimPE to look, I am too illiterate to risk changing anything but I am thinking I am going to have to.

Any suggestions?

That sounds like ACR by TJ not the romancemod.  Definitely keeps things interesting!

Thanks!  I have only resurrected one other pregnant Sim (Cassandra Goth, mysterious choking death) and she never "showed" or delivered even though her needs dropped like she was pregnant the rest of her life.  She also couldn't "try for baby" because I think she was still pseudo-pregnant (now that would be a nasty state to be in!  )  That's why I am a bit hesitant about bringing her back.

Not to mention I bulldozed her lot and rebuilt it for another sim.  Unfortunately the new sim gets the irate ex-husband knocking over the trash can.  Apparently no one remembered to tell him his ex was dead. 

It has a been a long time since I had a pregnant woman die unexpectedly (pre-NL maybe).  Not the "oops, didn't feed her fast enough and now she is too tired, too hungry" death that is my fault but the "wake up and die because she went to a community lot at some point and died there"

So - I don't know if something changed with pets or I have just been lucky but I had the weirdest death last night that makes me wonder if I need to start carefully watching visiting pregnant playables again.

2-3 bump popularity sim comes to visit my romance couples' home (she wasn't invited and hardly even known but at 10 outgoing I guess she didn't care).  I pretty much ignored her because the couple was busy with several other guests until I see the grim reaper and realize he is coming for her.  I don't even know what she had been doing during the visit (the piano maybe) or why she was dying but they didn't know her well enough to beg for her life and now have her grave out back.

She had just kicked out her cheating husband from her home but she had a cat so I went to her lot to see what would happen to it.  She had been sleeping (and still was) but she was now invisible.  I waited a few Sim hours till she woke up on her own and got the message about her dying on another lot.

I have never had a playable actually die and get the reaper on another lot before.  I was very surprised that she hadn't just taken off at some point with the hunger bubble over her head (I'm assuming she starved) or for that matter why she didn't just eat when there was plenty of food out because of all the other guests. 

Anyway...  if I have her brought back via the career reward thing will she be bugged because of the pregnancy?  Will she still be pregnant?

I have the same problem kinda.  Not so severe because my game doesn't crash just goes into a pause mode like when you are generating townies or something.  And this happens on all lots in brand new hoods too.  Think there is something buggy about when Fido gets home from work.  Not sure what the game is trying to "think" of but it definitely has to pause a sec to figure something out.

You are my hero Pioupiou!!  Thanks

I haven't seen it but the Prima guide mentions it several times.

I'll try that, thanks   I have no idea where anything is except downloads and the N00# files.  They are the only ones I have had the courage to mess with 

Yep, I don't have any problems with the sims in the bin (the 2 dogs and the guy with the dog) - they came back when I copied over N001.  The occupied houses did not.

I also just checked Strangetown and those houses weren't available anymore either.  I guess after I placed them in PV they are gone and if I delete and restart the hood I place them in they don't come back just by copying the N001 file back.

Well, I am still confused   because I have done this method since base game - deleting N001 and copying it over from the program files when I wanted to start from scratch.  All the Sims in the bin are always again in the bin and I have never had anyone disappear (the Burbs, the Oldies and then the Larsons and Gieke with Bluewater).  

I am assuming that the problem is that these are not just sims in the sim bin but "occupied lots" in the housing bin.  I would also guess that if I created a Stangetown or Veronaville that those occupied lots would still be available (?) since I didn't delete those hoods  (or for that matter even open them yet).  I really have no idea though since the info is apparently not in the hood file that I copied back from program files.

It bugs me a bit since I guess I will just lose those sims everytime I start a premade hood over which is fairly frequently.  I just thought that there may be some easy way to copy those 2 occupied houses back into my hood housing bin without causing problems since they will have never been placed before and so have no memories.  Maybe it is just as simple as packaging their lots immediately after I place them in a hood but that worries me because I have never messed with packaging occupied lots - particularly when they will be used in multiple pre-made hoods.

The immediate fix was to just uninstall/reinstall Pets and they were back but I don't want to do that everytime I start one hood over again.

After messing around with pets the other day I decided I was ready to start adding hacks back in so I deleted N001 and copied it back from programfiles/eagames....

When I started again everything seemed as usual but I noticed that the premades that came in houses were missing?  The comm lots were there but the cat lady and the family with the dog and cat were gone.

Do I have to do something different when restarting a premade hood now?  Is there any way to get them back short of uninstalling and reinstalling the ep?

I seriously debated installing pets not because they annoy me (I think it is a nice addition) but because of the way Sims wants will revolve completely around the latest expansion.  I still remember all my houses having entire bands in their homes after uni.

Sure enough, I was right.  I did a complete reinstall of all expansions with no saved neighborhoods/no mods and started up PV.  I always place Jennifer and John Burb first and typically she wants 100k or top of business.  He usually wants golden anniversary or graduate 3 kids.  But this time - Jenn wants the 6 pets to reach the top of their career, John wants to raise puppies or kittens instead of kids and even Lucy wants to buy a wombat cage.  No wants whatsoever about each other, getting jobs or even the usual 1st buys of the stuff they need in their empty house.  The LTWs are bad enough but the DAILY wants too!?!

I played them a sim week and ALL their wants were play with, scold, teach, become master of stupid pet.  They are not even friends with each other because they spend all their time filling wants about the dogs (I merged in the premade 2 after I saw their LTWs) so they don't go into aspiration failure.

A mod is desperately in order.  I just don't understand why the want trees always have to be based on one expansion regardless of what plans you have for a family.

The thing that is the most irritating is the genetics of the townies.  All sloppy, lazy, playful - even the knowledge sims (which I prefer as serious as possible).  To top it off the townies that are supposed to be serious have been altered to be more slovenly and playful than they genetically are.

It got to the point that I only create CAS Scorpios in my legacy house hoods - 10 neat, 10 active, 5 nice in an attempt to breed out the useless kids I kept having.  You know the ones - they fall over from exhaustion after getting off the school bus, require a few rousing games of red hands just to get through their homework, take a shower so they can splash in their puddles and then bounce on the bed until complete energy depletion?  Then they leave their bed that they were bouncing on to go sleep in their parents bed. 

Spawn of the townies = bad news.

Maybe this?

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,2271.0.html

I don't mess with jails and such but it sounds like it would work.

I don't really know anything about hardware other than the basic necessities but I have occasionally had problems with our networked PCs reading the CDs.

It is so nice since I bought GL as an electronic download (wasn't really worth going to the store) and now I don't even have to worry about it.  I trust my broadband connection much more than I trust not having CD problems.

I'm really going to miss starting up with no CD with the never-to-be-mentioned expansion.

Moonluck, I get those too but usually it is if the family funds are really low.  They seem to know they need to do something to get some cash.

I think they can get that just because an expensive telescope is on the lot.  On the LTW - I don't think it sets until after they sleep and get up.  I wouldn't worry... yet

I thought I saw a mod somewhere that eliminates the whining that happens when a Sim doesn't go to college and gets the "uneducated memory".

Anyone know where I may have seen it?

Thanks for the links to Winter's mods!  Pretty much what I needed I think. 

I have tried so many ways but they always seem to fail for whatever reason.  For example I had a husband lock his cheating wife in her bedroom with enough food preparing things to create flies but that was when I found that locking the doors to her room doesn't stop service NPCs from going in and cleaning it.  I  just removed the doors but even then she lived for so long I finally just let her out for her preserverence.  Those "non-locking for service NPCS doors" also allows the cowplant to eat nannies while the parents are at work (if you want to guarantee a visit from the social worker).  Since the plant seemed to randomly eat people walking by I think those locks may not work on those outgoing sims that invite themselves in too so I just don't use it.  I kept just losing people unless I remembered to completely take the gate off.

Also, it seems that the robots "do chores" doesn't allow them to die without turning freewill off.  I had one take a bubble bath so social, fun and power were red but all she did was run outside trying to recharge (she couldn't because of outside music which I thought was odd but oh well).  Finally I locked her up with all 3 still in the red and she just continuously tried to recharge while the social bunny laughed at her.

I thought the mad scientist career reward creating a virus could be given to sims but there are no options when the virus is created other than discard.  Same husband mentioned above also tried that on his tramp wife thinking maybe she would get ill which would make the death much quicker but no such luck.

On the same subject - there should be a mod when sims are getting robbed to wake up to beat the tar out of the robber instead of standing there watching with no interactions available.  That is a guaranteed weeks worth of wants to see the robber's ghost and it's not like he will come over if you invite him later.  It just isn't right that Captain Hero stands there like an idiot watching the cop lose the fight.

Oh well, off to test my new killing options!  Thanks again Jade!

Ok - here's the deal - I can't get my sims to die.  I get alot of wants to "see the ghost of ??" but no way to kill them when they totally tick someone off. 

I have a legacy family with primarily 0 nice (STILL! and this is gen 5).  They autonomously argue, irritate, etc and then want to see the ghost of or "drink" so and so that ticked them off.  However, without cheating I have no way of killing anyone.  I got the run with scissors thingy - no one died.

Does anyone know of a mod that allows a Sim to kill another Sim?  Maybe the "attack" option?

I micromanage until they get permaplat (some before the end of college).  Then I * hope* to let them kill themselves by allowing them to do whatever.  I have noticed though - they just relax in bed unless they get caught in one of the things that they don't seem to know when to quit - the instruments, the poker table, standng there "calling" at that damn myshuno thing for no apparent reason...  They do nothing interesting.  Maxis really needs to add some real personality.

Totally agree.  I got sick of restocking the fridge cause servo won't stop cooking so she stays powered down ALOT.

I don't know how much the mood requirements are but I had a rejection just today.  She was at 100/100 with her boyfriend (both in love) and while he accepted the engagement proposal he left her at the altar.  Orlando Centowski ( a family townie Sim no less).  I am pretty sure he was 100/100 with her too and the marriage proposal followed immediately after the engagement so I guess his mood must have dropped to some critical point during the engagement cinema.

Maybe it is just the cursed twin syndrome.  She is the non-heir twin of a legacy family and her luck has just been bad her whole life.  Her parents NEVER rolled wants about her while she was in college even though they did her "good" twin brother every day.  I know the relationship was good thanks to that phone hack "call friends". 

First day home from college, she starts a fire, gets demoted from a chance card and then gets dumped.

I think I see a satellite in her near future 

I have OFB and no trouble with this one except that it only works on non-hacked computers.  I use Monique's computer most of the time so some of my elders have two (Monique's and a non-custom one to get their jobs).

Maybe you have a custom computer?