I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you accidentally deleted the UI skintone box upgrade instead of the double slider mod.

That might have been what was going on. I didn't think to use the patch viewer to check. I'm going to blame Windows Update, though, since everything is normal again now.

I've never needed to mess with region codes, and I switched to the new method when Ambitions first came out. Haven't had a problem with it before.

Actually, this may turn out to be a computer problem rather than a Sims problem. The dang thing crashed a couple hours ago and wouldn't load Vista for money. I just got back from a system restore and haven't tried reinstalling again. I'll check the region codes when I get back to that. Wouldn't surprise me if they suddenly decided to be a problem.

Er, yeah. Like I said, I removed everything. CC, mods, saved games, store CC...everything. Did that before I uninstalled the second time, and didn't put it back again.

Problem solved. Windows Update broke my computer. Everything is working again.

So I know I'm probably missing something tiny and stupid, but crap if I can figure out what it is. I have legal base game and arr'd everything else, and I use that patching tool from MTS

I uninstalled everything because I wanted to try out Pes' ramdisk method (and belatedly discovered I don't have the ram for it), and so I got everything reinstalled, put my saved games and CC back in, and started it up. Everything goes fine until the game reaches the title card where it proceeds to sit there with its thumb up its ass. Loading bar doesn't move at all. So I remove everything and try again, same deal. Uninstall, run CCleaner, make sure all traces of Sims 3 has been eradicated, reinstall...same deal. Uninstall, run CCleaner, make sure blahblahblah, reinstall base game only.

I let it patch through the launcher, run the game; it works fine. I install WA Reloaded, manually patch, try to run the game, and get told that my expansion is not compatible with my version of the base game. What the crap? I've had this ISO since it came out. I've installed it numerous times; pretty much every time EA releases a new patch, something breaks and I have to reinstall. And now, spontaneously, it's not compatible? What the crap is going on here?

ETA: And now, apparently my region is fine, but my base game install just isn't good enough.

Could also be the neighborhood itself that got corrupted. Put everything back one piece at a time. If you find it, great. If not, I hope you didn't have a legacy going in that neighborhood. Try Lorina's solution of deleting and replacing everything that got unselectable, but keep an eye out for other glitches.

Did you try removing those furniture sets to see if things went back to normal? Ordinary CC can be corrupted, too.

Did you grab the right copy of Resource.cfg? I had to reinstall Sims 3 a couple weeks ago (ridiculous amounts of patching failure *sigh*). Spent about two hours trying to figure out why AM suddenly wouldn't work before I realized I'd downloaded the old Resource instead of the new one.

EA has changed their method. Try looking at some of the topics on the first page and see if you can guess which one will answer your question. Protip: it's remarkably obvious.

Deleting the caches helps when you download or delete default replacements, like skins. The previous defaults are stored in simCompositor, and you can't sometimes can't see the replacement until you delete it. I think there's a few other times when it's useful to do, but I don't know what they are. The increased slow down is because the game has to rebuild them whenever you delete them. So yeah, don't bother unless you have a good reason.

If you have a lot of custom content, including store stuff, merging it all into just a few files might help some. But yeah, like the above guy said. It's just part of the Sims 3 experience.

I think I know the bug you're talking about, and no, the clock does not stop.  I've seen that bug, too. This is a different one. What other mods do you have installed? When I had the problem, it was a weird conflict between two seemingly unrelated things that left me scratching my head when I finally found it.

I have that problem whenever I save and reload while on vacation. Pretty sure it's some weird EA fail.

No idea. People screw up and forget important files, sometimes. Or maybe they just did it wrong. Might even be they screwed with it on purpose just to be malicious. When I was trying to download Sims 3 Reloaded before I gave in and bought a legal copy, I kept getting downloads that either contained or were entirely viruses.

Uninstall everything, then reinstall. Don't forget to patch up to 1.7 before you install WA and then 2.2 afterward. If it happens again, you might have gotten a corrupted version or something. A different download might help.

I had this problem, too, but I thought I had just done something stupid. I used moveobjects on to take my toddler out of her crib, and after a bit of glitching, the babysitter finally interacted with her. Then he put her down and it was back to using a max motives cheat until her father got home. At least it keeps the social worker away, though.

You can try Twallan's supercomputer. I'm not sure if it'll find tombstones from before it was installed, but it should find anymore that crop up while you play.

You'll have to ask Delphy for clarification, but I think that happens whenever you move your Mods folder, even when "moving" is defined as just uninstalling and then reinstalling to the same paths. You don't need it at all, though. All it does is set up the framework and move files into the appropriate folder; you can do all of that on your own as long as you know what goes where.

As for stuff not showing up, I'm not sure what's causing it exactly, but I'm having that trouble too. I guess it has something to do with the way they changed how content works.

It's not too terrible. Just make sure to go through your CC and any other mods to make sure they're compatible with 1.7 and read through the 90% of Sunset Valley is Gone thread to avoid blue lot syndrome.

I used to work at a Wal-Mart snack bar. Talk about taking stupid to a whole new level. "No, sir, we don't sell Big Macs. No, we don't have the #3, either. I'm sorry, sir, but we are not a McDonalds. No, we're really not. Promise."

You can download a pirated copy.

Honestly, I've never seen that message before. Backup your game, then try going on vacation and see what happens.

It's just two different locations in case one is down. Download from either. And make sure to read the instructions on installing the framework carefully. It may seem a little intimidating at first, but it's really simple.

Since you have AM, make sure you have the option that removes the max trait limit enabled in the config tool. You might have disabled it and forgotten or not even realized.

First, go here and install Daemon Tools Lite. I assume you managed to merge the two parts of that download into a single .ISO already? All you have to is unzip them to same location if not. Open Daemon Tools, go to Add File (the icon of a CD with a green plus sign) and find your .ISO. Once it's added, click on Mount (the icon of a CD with a green triangle). You have now tricked the game into thinking you have a legitimate CD copy.

Go into My Computer and you should have a new drive letter. This is your Daemon Tools' virtual drive. It works just like your regular CD drive, so open it up and run Setup. While it's setting up, look through some of the folders. There might be one called Crack, with a file called rld-s3wk. This is your keygen. Just double-click on it and click generate, then enter the serial it gives you. There's also a cracked version of TS3EP01 here, but I wouldn't mess with it if I were you. Just get AM and enable No-CD in the config tool, then make sure to never use the launcher. This way, there's nothing to overwrite.

Based on what you said about copying some file into your Game/Bin directory, I'm thinking you'll probably need to reinstall the base game first. Maybe you just weren't being clear, but it sounds like you copied whatever that was into Sims 3/Game/Bin, and that's not what it was talking about. It expected you install WA first and overwrite the file in that Game/Bin, but if you do like I said in the last paragraph, there's no need to worry about it.

If you get it all installed okay and it's still broken, just download someone else's. I recommend number 10 because it's been working fine for me.