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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 12:40 AM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Sims 2 game will not start up
So for the whole day I have been playing and the game has been fine, but when i tired to go back on to play some more my game won't even start up. I click it and a pop up comes up with a little red x and no words but ok. I have no idea what I did wrong and im really scared that my game broke in some way. I even took out my downloads and tired to play but it still doesn't work. before this i was downloading clothes but idk how that could of caused this since I have no deleted any main files from the games. If anyone one knows what is going on and could help me I would be so grateful as i love this game and I don't know what I would do if I couldn't play anymore.
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Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#2 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:04 AM
Did you delete the cache files? If not, delete those in the sims 2 folder.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:12 AM
Hmm I have not let me try that
Mad Poster
#4 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:28 AM
Always do that first if the problem is not launching. 99% of the time it's the problem.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:36 AM
Ok thank you I will definitely note that for next time as that was the problem. Thank you so much for the help
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#6 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:38 AM
The more CC you have the more often you will need to delete those files, along with any Body Shop files if you have loaded that up. I delete them about every third load of my game.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#7 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 10:34 AM
I have to delete them every time or Body Shop says, nope.
Alchemist
#8 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:12 PM
This could be an informative thread for others. Would you all mind explaining a little more about the cache files? Which ones? Why they need deleting? I've never had this issue and am surprised to hear people are deleting them regularly. I'd like to know more and maybe others will find this in google in future, too.
Scholar
#9 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:55 PM
I always remove the Accessory and Groups cache files whenever I close or load the game. Apparently, if you install a new Mod, you should delete those files for the Mod to take affect. I'm not 100% if that's correct though. Better to be safe than sorry.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#10 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 1:59 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Sunrader
Would you all mind explaining a little more about the cache files?

From Maxoid Tom:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=67356
Quote:
Each file is essentially a little database that contains records. Each of these records has a "key" that specifies the type of the record and what "group" it belongs to. When the game starts up, it looks into each file and determines what groups each one contains so that finding a file by a specific group (something that is done quite often) can be done quickly. To alleviate the need for querying the file for what groups it has, which may require opening the file more than what is necessary and doing file I/O, a cache of groups to filenames is stored in groups.cache. A timestamp for the cache per file is also stored so that if the file has been changed or updated then the cache is invalidated.

More info here:
http://www.modthesims.info/showpost...postcount=23520
Alchemist
#11 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 2:27 PM
Interesting, because that same post you quoted from MaxoidTom in 2005, also said, "We've noticed some issues here as well and are working to fix them. The group.cache file will rebuild itself when necessary so I wouldn't worry about deleting it." and, later, "BTW, we are resolving several issues in the upcoming expansion pack regarding the groups.cache file. "

Did Maxis fix this after 2005?

I just wonder because I've never had issues like people are describing and I just checked my groups.cache file, without doing anything else, and it's dated today. I added a mod today before opening the game, so it appears to have updated itself. Not to say it doesn't have a bunch of old junk as well, but it did change somehow. Maybe it just appended new stuff?
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#12 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 2:42 PM
Nope, if not deleted they stop the game loading at all. I am surprised you have not ever had this, or do you use no CC?

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Alchemist
#13 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 3:43 PM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
Nope, if not deleted they stop the game loading at all. I am surprised you have not ever had this, or do you use no CC?


Hahahahahahaha, I have lots of CC. CC is my reason for living. I don't think I've ever had the game not load. I use UC. Maybe some people use older versions? Of course, now that I know this exists, I'll probably have it happen. :P

Quote: Originally posted by Fyren5
I always remove the Accessory and Groups cache files whenever I close or load the game. Apparently, if you install a new Mod, you should delete those files for the Mod to take affect. I'm not 100% if that's correct though. Better to be safe than sorry.


This is definitely not true for me. I put things in all the time and never delete the cache. They work fine.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#14 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 3:46 PM
I also have tons of CC and this is the first time I am hearing that this happens and this is the first time that it happened to me.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#15 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 5:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Sunrader
Interesting, because that same post you quoted from MaxoidTom in 2005, also said, "We've noticed some issues here as well and are working to fix them. The group.cache file will rebuild itself when necessary so I wouldn't worry about deleting it." and, later, "BTW, we are resolving several issues in the upcoming expansion pack regarding the groups.cache file. "

Did Maxis fix this after 2005?

Oh yes, Tom was talking about an early game version, so things have undoubtedly changed since then. His info about what the cache does still stands though. (NB: Maxoid Tom was an EA employees who gave us lots of information which was helpful in developing mods and modding tools.)

Quote: Originally posted by Sunrader
This is definitely not true for me. I put things in all the time and never delete the cache. They work fine.

I would always recommend to delete the caches when removing or updating mods, to avoid any unwelcome behaviour. The second post I linked above gives some reasoning for that.

But, if you're not seeing any problems, don't worry about it. Everyone's game is different due to varying gameversions and mods. For example, I was always sceptical of advice to delete caches on every load of the game, as I thought it was not necessary. Now however, I have a certain combo of mods that makes it so that my game hangs on loading unless I delete the caches. So I wrote a script to do this automatically for me. Most modders would advise to delete caches when updating mods, but it's your game so do as you wish, and if you're not having any problems then don't worry about it.
Mad Poster
#16 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 5:31 PM
I'm surprised Sunrader never heard of this before, because it happens to a lot of us. But, as we see, not all.

The "problem" as not fixed after 2005 because I get it occasionally (almost every time on AGS) and all my disks date from post 2005. I suspect that the difference between Sunrader's game and those that do have to delete caches is nothing to do with the game at all, and peculiar to their particular setup. Different arrangements of hardware and software interact with the game files in different ways, which are difficult to detect or explain at the human level, and these create some apparently random differences in game experience. Just as some graphics interfaces are more prone to pink flashing, some computer setups are more prone to needing to delete caches. Perhaps your OS has devised an improved way to handle cache files, from which the game benefits.

When we had our first personalized computer built, back in the late 80s/early 90s, the tech we dealt with explained caches to us as the computer equivalent of a post-it note. We've all had post-its up around our workplaces at various times, with little notes of things we know we'll need to refer to - phone numbers, conversions, that word we have a hard time spelling, meeting reminders. These notes become obsolete over time - the info we need changes, the sticky wears off, we erase and write over till it's impossible to read, whatever. So we replace them. It's not a big deal and will be different for everyone.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Mad Poster
#17 Old 19th Dec 2018 at 5:59 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
When we had our first personalized computer built, back in the late 80s/early 90s, the tech we dealt with explained caches to us as the computer equivalent of a post-it note. We've all had post-its up around our workplaces at various times, with little notes of things we know we'll need to refer to - phone numbers, conversions, that word we have a hard time spelling, meeting reminders. These notes become obsolete over time - the info we need changes, the sticky wears off, we erase and write over till it's impossible to read, whatever. So we replace them. It's not a big deal and will be different for everyone.


Browser caches can cause funky issues too, such as loading old images or stylesheets and usually making things look a right mess. Using Ctrl+F5 does a hard refresh, which forces the browser to reload everything fresh from the server.

I have to disable the browser cache entirely when working on a (non-Simming) website that I manage. Even then, since the website's behind a Cloudflare cache, I sometimes have to go and refresh that as well.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

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