Game refuses to load: film at 11

[Tever]

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.

[JerseyGirlOOOO]

Have you tried running the game with no CC whatsoever?

[Tever]

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.

[kuronue]

When you first installed, did you edit the region code? You might want to try redoing that, if so.

Also, what framework method are you using?

[Tever]

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.

[wizard_merlin]

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.

Are you sure the game patched properly with both games at the right version?

[Tever]

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.

[sevrine]

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

Very interested to know what you did -- the automatic Windows updates always break my game as well, and I'm curious to see if you figured out a simpler way to correct the problem than reinstalling everything.

[Tever]

No, I did a complete system restore and reinstalled everything. Backing up the harddrive before letting Windows update would probably work. Presumably you could just roll it back and try again without losing anything.