Please Help - I'm Tearing My Hair Out!!

[emma.martin]

Hi Everyone
I'm new to here so I'm sorry if I've posted in the wrong place.  I've been merrily downloading stuff for a couple of months and yesterday my husband's pc lost it and he needed reinstall windows. I managed to save my downloads but I had to reinstall everything (sims 2 and all E.P.'s). The icons were used to be a sort of booklet thingy in the downloads folder, and now they're a windows icon and nothing is showing up in the game. Please help!!!

Thanks

Em

[IgnorantBliss]

Try removing your downloads folder from the game folder, then either install a sim2pack or start up BodyShop, which will create a new downloads folder, then move your downloads into this new folder. Also remember you have to enable custom content in the game, and then restart the game before it's going to show up.

[Inge]

And careful with your hair, or next you'll be asking for links to trichology forums 

[gali]

You won't see in the game any custom content, unless you check the "permit custom content" rectangle (the page before seeing the neighbourhoods), enter the neighbourhood, then exit, then enter again.

[simmiecal]

Try removing your downloads folder from the game folder, then either install a sim2pack or start up BodyShop, which will create a new downloads folder, then move your downloads into this new folder. Also remember you have to enable custom content in the game, and then restart the game before it's going to show up.

The reason for this is NL suddenly got picky and doesn't always recognize the download folder - especially if the "D" in downloads isn't capitalized.

As another person mentioned, you have to enable custom content and then exit and re-enter the game. For me, I actually had to re-boot my PC but then it showed up.

[emma.martin]

You're all so kind to take the trouble to reply - thanks 

I've tried everything but nothing's done the trick .... I made sure that the custom content was enabled, rebooted so many times that the pc is wondering whether it's coming or going and deleted and made new download folders ... it's all in there but nothing is showing up on the game. Am now seriously considering (a) buying a wig and (b) just chucking the lot in the recycle bin and reinstalling the game and E.P.'s and then re-downloading everything.

Is it too early at 3.15pm to consider a drink???

Thank you all for taking the trouble to read and reply - it's nice to know there are still some good people walking around xx

[rma]

You have to enable custom content then leave the game and start it again. Not rebooting the PC, just restarting the game.  Yeah, I know I'm grasping at straws here.

Do the bodystop items show up? Things like custon hair and eyes and clothes? I'm just trying to get a better idea of what is going on.

[florican]

The "booklet thingy" you refer to sounds like a winrar icon. Are the downloads you're talking about the installed versions or the zip/rar versions? It sounds to me like you need to install winrar or maybe winzip. Sims package files normally have a windows icon unless you've associated them with a program.

[emma.martin]

I restarted the game a couple of times and no change and then thought reboot the whole thing just in case.  Last night when it all went wrong it wouldn't let me install the E.P.'s because there was some fragment of the game still running that wasn't showing up in the taskbar and I had to reboot to shut everything down to add an E.P.
Ok, just checked and no custom hair, clothes, eyes, body meshes or makeup are showing and there are loads in there

Thank you for helping, i really appreciate it  

[ZephyrZodiac]

Where have you put your downloads?  If you have separate folders for your walls and floors, you don't need to put them into downloads and you can just put them into the Sims2 folder.  Remove all your other downloads and see if when you restart your game the walls and floor show up.  If so, then start to return your downloads about ten MB at a time.  Since it's a new install, it may just be that there is too much for the game to deal with in one go.  Also, if you check your Logs folder, there should be a file which shows custom content.  See if it's actually listed anything, or if it's even been generated.

[emma.martin]

Everything's in one folder which until the pc went wrong last night worked with no problems at all. Have done what you suggested and checked the log folder and there's nothing there about custom content.  There are a few txt documents in there but most of them are 0kb. Checked with hubby and he said that WinRAR is installed and he can't figure out why it won't work all of a sudden

[simmiecal]

Can you take a screen print of your folders and post it here so we can see it?

Also, do you have CEP installed? I made that mistake when I reinstalled and most of my objects were missing because I forgot to re-install CEP. As someone else mentioned, the book icons sound like the winrar icons.

Does you book icon look like this:

[IgnorantBliss]

A missing CEP will only affect certain Maxis recolors, not cloned objects/ objects with custom meshes.

[emma.martin]

ok this is going to make me sound totally dense but could you tell me how you put that in your post? I've just sat here for the last ten minutes trying to make my screen shot an acceptable upload so you can see it and now i'm even closer to losing all my hair!!

[BlueSoup]

I use Photobucket to host my pics.  Right under the picture, it gives you the Image tags for easy copy/paste.

[simmiecal]

I use Photobucket to host my pics.  Right under the picture, it gives you the Image tags for easy copy/paste.

What I did was to press print screen.

I then go into a photo or paint program (sometimes even Word works). Make a new document. Edit-paste. You should see your screen print. File -Save as a bmp or jpg file. I usually save it to my desktop so it's easy to find the file.

I go to photobucket (I've already set-up an account, but if you don't have one, it's free and easy to register). I upload the picture.
After I upload the picture, this is what I see:




The third line under the picture that starts [img]  - I copy and paste that line into my response and the picture will display in my post.

[simmiecal]

A missing CEP will only affect certain Maxis recolors, not cloned objects/ objects with custom meshes.

Thanks. Not too teckie myself. Apparently, I must have had a lot of Maxis recolors. 

[emma.martin]

thank you so much! i'm so dense 

ok, this is what i see in my downloads folder - this is all the pretty little icons in there (grits teeth)

thanks - you lot are the best!

[emma.martin]

oooo that was a bit bigger than i thought it would be ... oops 

[simmiecal]

Well, the first thing that I notice is that this appears to be in a folder called desktop\demo. I am assuming that the user is stu.

You downloads should be in:

c:\documents and settings\stu\my documents\ea games\the sims 2\Downloads

I am confused with the icons with the books. Those look like winrar packages - your downloads would be zipped into those files and need to be unzipped into your downloads folder. But then, the description also says that it is a pacakage file - which is the description of a sims 2 file.

Where did you get your download files from that you are trying to put back - from a back-up?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Are they all the downloads you have?  If so, might it not be easier to scrap them and get them again?  The Sims2Pack file just needs to be opened and it will install itself, then you can remove the original.  But I'd suggest if you intend to download more things, to keep separate folders for Walls&Floors, and then Objects with subfolders (I put them in folders according to where I got them, but that's entirely up to you how you do it.

I keep the Walls and Floors folder directly in Sims2, not in Downloads and it works fine.  You should also see them in your game immediately, you don't have to restart.

Incidentally, I had problems with Winrar after I had a new hard drive, and just culdn't get it to work again.  I now use a little drag and drop program called ExtractNow, which will take a mixture of .zip and .rar files.  I can't remember the name of the website where I got it, but there was a link to it at Cindy's Sims (which is how I found it).

[emma.martin]

Yea, i quickly saved the whole download folder before Stuart reinstalled Windows and everything else and there are a couple of hundred of them. Do you think it would be easier just to track down the original downloads and reinstall the game and start over?

Thank you so much for all your help - you've no idea how much I appreciate it 

[simmiecal]

It's up to you.

I would use winrar or winzip - whatever you used to back-up the files and unzip them into the downloads folder to see if that solves the problem. Where is your download folder? One thing you could do is go into Bodyshop - if you don't already have the download folder in the right spot, it will create one for you.

[ZephyrZodiac]

If you open any Sims2Pack file, and there isn't a Downloads folder, it will create one, and much faster than opening Bodyshop.  And if emma can't get Winrar to work, then any other program that will deal with rar files will unrar them.

You can also create your Downloads floder manually bu simply opening MyDocuments/EAGames/Sims2/ and then creating a folder which you call Downloads and it works just fine.

[emma.martin]

My download folder is in the bit of "My documents" that has all the neighbourhoods and stuff - it all worked brilliantly until the pc decided to give up on us yesterday. I reinstalled The Sims2 and then the expansion packs. All ok there. Tried to put the downloads folder back into it's original place and it went in no problem but nothing showed up and I noticed the icons had changed - was up until the early hours trying to find the program to open a PACKAGE file but no joy so went to bed with the hump - uninstalled the sims again this morning then reinstalled and it was exactly the same.