This thread is to be used to post system details in cases where the neighbourhoods have vanished.

Lately there have been an inordinate number of cases where users are loading the game only to find that their neighbourhoods have gone. In an attempt to link these cases and to find a solution, I am requesting that anyone who has encountered this problem should post their details here.
Specifically, I would request the following:
Operating system (Win 98/ Win XP Home/ Win XP Pro/ Mac OS10.4 etc- I am particularly interested in whether it is Pro or Home for XP users)
Computer specs (for example, 3.0 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia MX440- this should be enough info for the purposes of this thread).
Games (list your Sims 2 version- CD/DVD and your Expansion Packs, and also whether you are patched- I also want to know which patches you have, for example base game patch, Uni patch, NL second patch etc)
Details of Neighbourhood loss For example, "I lost Veronaville and a custom neighbourhood, but Pleasantview and strangetown were okay." Details of which neighbourhood you last played or which you play a lot would be good. It would also be great to know if you have removed your Downloads recently for any reason, and also if you have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood (for example, a bank hack which allows money transfer, or a time synchronisation hack).
Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? They should be as follows- N001 to N003= Pleasantview, Strangetown, Veronaville. N004 onward= custom neighbourhods. Can you see the folder, and in it the neighbourhood files? There should also be files for the relevant subneighbourhoods- Campus, Downtown and suburb if you created them, and there should also be a folder containing character files.
Sim PE Investigation: If you have SimPE can you still view the 'disappeared' neighbourhood in SimPE? Can you see anything obviously corrupted or unusual about it (try comparing it to other neighbourhoods).
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Please give brief details of any system or game changes you made just before you noticed the missing neighbourhoods. For example, "I performed Windows Updates and installed some hacks using File Maid. I also defragmented the hard drive." If you installed custom content prior to the problem, I do not need to know which items/ hacks you installed, but rather the type- so I would be interested to know if you installed a lighting mod, or some clothes, or an SC4 terrain, and also how you installed them (Clean Installer, manually unzipped, QXpress etc).
Any other relevant information: Whatever occurs to you which may be relevant, I'm sure you will be able to make a connection that I haven't!

Could you also try this:
Go to My Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods and cut and paste the neighbourhoodManager.package file to your desktop. Now go to Program files/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ TS Data/ Res/ User Data/ Neighbourhoods and copy the neighbourhoodmanager.package file- paste it into your Documents folder where your old neighbourhoodmanager file was. Does that make any difference?

I would also be interested to hear from anyone with a similar problem, for example if you have had whole lots disappear from your neighbourhood, or entire families disappear as though they were never there. Please keep discussion to a minimum so that it is easy for me to make sense of the data, but please do offer suggestions if you have them!
Thankyou.

it all started when i wanted to move my family into a nicer home. i put everthing they had in their inventory and saved the game. I went to the move a family (in to family bin) and it worked. so then i moved them in to a lot (i was going to build the house) but the lot was to big. so i saved the game (because i levald the lot) and i eraced the lot where i was going to pout the house and put down another lot in its place. then i freaked out case i couldn't find my family but i rememberd they where in the ocupid houses/lots so i tryed to put down the lot they where in (i was going to move the faimly in to the sims bin) but the lot wouldn't load so i had to turn off my computer from the back. I rebooted sims 2 and it loaded fine. Then i went to pleasetview and tryed looking for my family. i tryed looking in the ocupied houses/lots but the icon wasn't lit up , so i looked in the family bin (nothing) i tryed looking in all my ocupied homes (nothing again). i looked in the faimlys parents homes (there children where in the family tree but they where not in their (who they know lists). i tryed looking in the lot i had put them in, i tryed looking in hte house i took them out of orignaly, but nothing. i even tryed looking in the other nighborhoods. Where the heck did they go! They just can't vanish. can they?

i havn't tryed using sims PE yet. i have microsoft xp.

Thanks, do you have XP home or XP Pro?

xp home i think

I too have dissappearing hoods. I am using OSX 10.4, a Mac.

It started when I deleted groups.cache. When I started the game all the hoods turned into just the mesh/frame, no pics. So I removed my downloads and restarted. All was well. I ended up adding one folder at a time and restarting the game after everyone. Thought all was well. Although I still haven't got simstones folder in yet.

I made some lots, packaged. Tried to install one of my own lots after using clean installer. (I install using woohoo, the newest version straight from the programmer, release date july22) This lot I made has cc that I have had for many months, all used many times. I installed this in several neighborhoods, but not strangetown, which is also gone.

I have very few hacks, the newest being christianlov_permanentsmartmilk. And that was added over a week ago.

I am going to try removing the preferences, otherwise I will reinstall the game.

EDIT* I have reinstalled and all hoods are working, however I can't get bodyshop to work with any custom content. And all the custom content worked previously. I've removed the cigen and plist. Still no luck.

This *seems* similar to the problem I'm experiencing. I've lost not only all custom neighborhoods, I seem to have lost everything -- all downloads, all saved games, all saved game progress. When I open the game now, all neighborhoods are as if never played -- including expansion packs.

Loss details. I first noticed something was wrong because I had GunMod's Camera Hack, and I had been playing a lot in Pleasantview that I needed it for (don't think there was anything unusual about lot.) I think I opened the game to play, something wasn't right, so I quit, re-opened the game & made sure I enabled cc (it hadn't been before, I'd removed the disk; oddly enough a few random files were/are still listed), and though I could see where the lot should've been, it wasn't there. No new lots at all were there. All lots are brand new now. (Checked catalogs & haven't lost ALL cc, but I see only a handful of old downloads).

Computer details. 2.2 Ghz, Windows XP Pro, ATI Radeon Xpress. The Sims 2 DVD special edition, all expansion packs including FFS, and (I'm pretty sure) no patches.

Neighborhood File. Only original neighborhood files are here, all custom and subneighorhoods are gone.

Changes to system. Downloaded a couple things, a lot I think & maybe a recolor using GetRight. Installed with CleanInstaller, and manually extracted, respectively (I think). Installed updates for Acrobat, requiring several reboots (seemed odd). Also uninstalled AOL dialup & replaced with Verizon wireless.

I don't know much about computers, but I assumed it was connected to uninstalling AOL, because playing Sims was the last thing I was doing before I did that, and because it didn't seem right after that. Don't know why saved non-custom stuff was lost too.

****UPDATE: I noticed while searching for files on my computer, that it seemed I was seeing a lot of my old downloads flying by through the search. I'd only thought to search for specific files I'd lost, so I searched for files that said "sims" anywhere in them, and I've turned up over a thousand so far, so I've got a lot to look through ... but so far I see lots of my "missing" downloads, and they're listed as being in the correct Downloads folder, but I have to actually move them there from the search list to see them. Then it turns up as duplicate files. And still no saved game progress. No idea what happened.

I found this today at the sims2 forum:

I have urged the poster to register here and give the details.

Quote:This happened to me this past week, boy was I upset when it was gone. Good thing all it was that i went to start/ea games/sims 2/neighborhoods/ and there should be a characters folder, Lot's folder and thumbnails and storytelling a a few others that says NOO1-Downtown001 and few others like that, but the other day when mine wouldn't start it was because my Character and Lots folder and the N001 was in my storytelling folder so my neighborhood wouldn't show up till I put them back in the right place. start/ea games/sims 2/neighborhoods How this happened I will never know, lol. Maybe you will get lucky like me.

I hope this post is on topic. I'm as curious as anyone, as this seems to crop up so often.

Operating system (Win 98/ Win XP Home/ Win XP Pro/ Mac OS10.4 etc- Mac OS 10.4.7

Computer specs (for example, 3.0 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia MX440- 700MHz processor, 768MB SDRAM, GeForce2 MX

Games (list your Sims 2 version- CD/DVD and your Expansion Packs, and also whether you are patched- Original, University, Nightlife. No patches.

Details of Neighbourhood loss- Only Strangetown. I only played Strangetown.

Neighbourhood File details- Yes, it's all there.

Sim PE Investigation- N/A

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption N/A

Any other relevant information- I get messages saying that I don't have enough space on my harddrive. The first thing that happens is that, while playing, as I use a character and go to click something, their face dissapears. After that, the neighbourhood doesn't load. BUT- I have since cleaned out plenty of space and haven't gotten the "not enough space" message since. Strangetown shows up in the Neighborhood menu, but if I click it it loads to two blocks (in the upper left corner) then freezes. Unless I played another neighborhood before it, in which case it SAYS that it's loading Strangetown, but it's actually loading the last neighborhood I played.


Edit

Removed downloads- Nope.
Hacks- Nope.

You said you think it was a save game problem? I'm pretty sure mine had something to do with the low harddrive space. But it's still a problem and I haven't gotten the neighborhood to work since (I didn't delete it, as I had hope that sometime there would be a solution found here. I really liked my families there!) I see nothing abnormal about the game files, and I'll try loading that neighborhood again later today again. If anything changes, I'll be sure to post.

I chose La fiesta Tech in strangetown, and suddenly, strangetown is gone, and in its place in the neighborhood panel, u can see the college. but when u click on the college, the game crashes

simaniaddict, please post the rest of the information in Post#1 that Simsample has requested.

What happened with me is, I guess I closed my computer too fast, so all my Pleasantview (Which i had been playing the night before.) lots where gone, and only houses that where not downloads, and were not occupied remained. Then I unistalled OFB, and all my neighbors where gone. I checked the EA Games/Sims2 folder and it was empty.
Now, I'm reinstalling of them, and I only have one neighborhood, whitch doesn't even work.

Never Leave Home, would please post the rest of the imformation that Simsample asks for in Post#1?

Operating system: Win XP Pro
Computer specs: AMD 1.1GHz, 512GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 XT
Games: Sims 2 version 1.0.0.932 built 2004-08-17-1847, by codebuilder on CMBUILD23
Details of Neighborhood loss: I turned on sims2 to find custom neighborhood no longer on neighborhood menu. This is the only neighborhood I play. No mods.
Neighbourhood File details: The custom neighborhood N005 files are all there. The N005_Neighborhood.package file was very small (1KB). All the subfolders look intact and up-to-date.
Sim PE Investigation: Looking at the .package file with SimPE displayed a neighborhood database file with no resources, etc.
What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing changed on the system before the problem appeared.
Any other relevant information: Frequently my computer will get powered off by other members of my family while sim2 is still running. I believe that this happened in this case and that the .package file was corrupted during an update. When sims2 was started it detected the corruption and reloaded the .package file. Many programs may be damaged by powering down, but since sims2 is updating the .package file fairly regularly it is probably more at risk of corruption then most. I sent an explanation and a copy of the small .package file to EA support and received just suggestion of starting over.

I started with a brand new custom neighborhood and I think that I can use Sim PE to update it but I do not know quite where to start. Since most of the other information like lots and sims, and such, still exist I would appreciate a suggestion on getting the existing resources reloaded into the neighborhood.

Thanks.

That's interesting- I'd wondered if neighbourhood loss was related to savegame corruption- sounds like it could be, if you suspect that the PC could have been powered down incorrectly.

Well I recently had an issue, in fact its been an annoying problem having to constantly backup my Neighborhood. It happened just now when I was trying to capture video, and then after I was finished, i had kept boolprop testingcheatsenabled, and then shortly after I exit the lot to go into the neighborhood, it crashes. And then when I restart the game, the neighborhood is gone. This problem is quite annoying, I'm not sure if boolProp had anything to do with it, but I'm speculating that it probably has something to do with it, and now none of my backups are working. The neighborhood is not showing up in the game, and the files are ok, because when I check the file with SimPE everything seems alright, but the neighborhood is just not showing up in the selection screen.

Operating system- Windows XP Professional
Computer specs 3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6600
Games- The Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open For Business, Family Fun Stuff
Family Fun Stuff Patch Installed

Details of Neighbourhood Loss - Explained Above

All Files In N005 are there.

Sim PE Investigation: When I check SimPE, Everything Is There, But The Neighborhood Does Not Show Up on the Screen. When I would loose a neighborhood, and the file would get corrupted, it would show a bunch of question marks and etc. But in this case, everything appears normal.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: I haven't changed anything in my computer, as I had been having this problem since the installation of Open For Business. The problem always existed for me, however it wasn't as bad as it was today with 5 backup neighborhoods either getting corrupted and now not showing at all even though the backups have been restored.

Any other relevant information: boolprop testingCheatsenabled true may be the issue with the crashing and disappearing neighborhoods because I noticed that whenever I had it enabled it would dissappear, after I quit and return.

The only way of combating it is by restoring the backups.

-Vlad

The Sim Vlad, could you please also post your OS and system specs?

I did, they are right under the first paragraph.

-Vlad

Hi everybody, thankyou for your information so far on this- can I ask you all another big favour? In light of some new information it would also be great to know if you have removed your Downloads recently for any reason, and also if you have used any hacks which may affect an entire neighbourhood (for example, a bank hack which allows money transfer, or a time synchronisation hack).
I have amended my original post to include this information- if any of you could amend your posts to say whether this applies to you, it would be great. Thankyou!

This may not be of any help, but I lost all my neighborhoods shortly after installing Nightlife.(which goes back to when it was first released. )
(removed Download folder when I installed the new expansion)
No time or money hacks.
I had (and still have) Lizzloves' "No Jealousy at all " hack affecting the whole neighborhood.
I had University as well.

It may all be a coincidence, but here's my story.
Immediately after installing Nightlife and replacing the download folder, everything seemed normal except I noticed that my "Lady In Red" picture was perminantly replaced with a downloaded recolor. I started experimenting with the diferent Lady recolors and saw something was acting screwy. The Lady in Red would appear and disappear in the catalog and she nolonger existed for Lot use.
I shut down the game and when I restarted it I no longer had any Neighborhoods. I told the artist and she told me that she will fix it. (She knew something was wrong for it to replace the original.) I didn't redownload the corrected recolor....lol
I simply reinstalled nightlife and deleted her picture from the download folder before starting the game.
It only happened that one time.

Windows XP home edition
Pentium 4 3 ghz
8oomhz
Memory 2 GB
Ati 9800 Pro video card

I just bought the stuff pack the Glamour Life and installed it. I had a camera hack installed so that I could see the whole neighborhood, but GL overrode the hack and it reverted back to normal view. When I installed the hack again all my neighborhoods disappeared.

To fix the problem I deleted the camera folder and the game reinstalled a new folder.

As for my download folder I remove it all the time. Actually what I do is switch download folders along with the neighborhood folders.

Why do I do that? I had a bunch of neighborhoods and a lot of problems so I decided to start fresh and go with just one basic neighborhood. The problem was I wanted to keep a lot of content from the old neighborhoods. I found out long ago that if you package a lot of lots at one time they don't all show up, so I'm moving back and forth between my download and neighborhood folders. It's slower, but it works and I don't lose lots and familys this way.

Thanks Will- could you also include the details I requested in the first post, if possible?

I thought I signed up to get an email for this thread?????

Anyway I got my neighborhood view back. What was happening was everytime I changed the 'neighborhoodCamera' the game changed it back.

I was putting a new 'NeighborhoodCamera' file in my game. Finally I just changed the game file by cutting and pasting instead of replacing it and it worked.

To answer your questions, I have}

Windows XP home edition
AMD 2800/333 ATHLON XP
2.07 GHz
Memory 1 GB
ATI A-I-W 9800 Pro 128M 8X

My Sims 2 is the DVD version. I have all the games and patchs with the exceptions of The Sims 2 Holiday party pack, and The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff.

Operating system: Windows XP Home
Computer specs: 2.4 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia Geforce 4
Games: Sims 2 CD and All expansions except the holiday pack. I think my last patch may have been Nightlife...I'm not sure.
Neighborhood loss: I lost STrangetown. Everything else was fine.

I haven't removed all of my downloads but I was cleaning out some things, clothes, makeup, etc. I also recently installed the new CEP version along with the newest light mod that came along with that. Those were installed with the windows installer. I also unzipped some SC4 terrains recently. I haven't added or removed any other hacks within the time this happened.

EDIT: I removed the SC4 terrains and nothing changed. I tried reinstalling the CEP with the radiance 2.1 instead of 2.2 and nothing changed so then I tried reinstalling the CEP while restoring the original Maxis lighting. Still nothing changed. I'm guessing that the CEP update is the problem but I can't be sure as I don't know where to find old versions to replace the new one with.

I've also lost all my lots...

Operating system: XP Pro

Computer specs: 3.06 Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM, Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440

Games: Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for business, family fun.
All packs except glamour life. All patches from EAgames too.

Details of Neighbourhood loss: Everyone dissappeared. I had Veronaville and three other custom neighbourhoods. I recently reinstalled my game since I had a big problem with graphical glitches when I installed Glamour Life. So I reinstalled everything except Glamour life. I backed up my downloads and neighbourhood folders. So the downloads and neighbourhood folders has been moved around. I do have a lot of hacks (mostly clothes though, but a couple of other, like Inteenimater) but no new ones. I've had those hacks a long time and it has never conflicted with the game before.

Neighbourhood File details If you go to Documents/ EA Games/ The Sims2/ Neighbourhoods are the neighbourhood files still there? : Yes! I can see them all.

Sim PE Investigation: If you have SimPE can you still view the 'disappeared' neighbourhood in SimPE? Yes!

Can you see anything obviously corrupted or unusual about it (try comparing it to other neighbourhoods): No, I've tried to find something unusual but I can't find anything.

What changed on your system immediately before the corruption: Nothing else than the reinstalling of the game..

Any other relevant information: Not that I can think of.

I had a very similar problem! Sorry if my information are not detailed enough but it happened about 4 weeks ago and i don't remember everything. I gave up my families and made new ones and just now discovered this thread here...

Operating system: Mac OS10.4.7
Computer specs: 1.25 Ghz PowerPC G4 256 MB DDR SDRAM
Games: basic game, no expansions, no patch

Details of Neighbourhood loss: I wanted to start a completely new custom neighbourhood and thus played around with some downloaded neighbourhoods. I do not remember all the neighbourhoods i installed then, about 6 or 7. I also remember i created a neighbourhood in my game: The SimStones thing... But did not do anything with it and then made a new one (i don't remember which template i used, but it was also a downloaded neighbourhood. There i put some houses and maybe even one or two sims already. Then i decided i want to move all my favourite families to this new neighbourhood. So i went to my basic neighbourhood - that was one i created myself but not downloaded (i used a template from in the game). There i moved the families to the bin. Then i went to my new neighbourhood. But when i tried to move them in there, the game crashed. After restarting the computer and the game, the particular family i had tried to move in when the crash happened, was gone. i couldn't find them anywhere! Thus, i lost my two favourite families
My game just wouldnt work anymore (neither did bodyshop) Then I found out that i just had to install the mac patch - after that my game worked fine again. i guess the problem was that there were too many files in my download folder. Anyway: families remained gone...

Details of which neighbourhood you last played or which you play a lot would be good: Besides the neighbourhoods i already talked about, the only one i played much is Strangetown.

I cannot tell anymore if i removed parts of my downloads before that happened; sorry. I also cannot tell for sure which hacks i used then, but i think they were:
censor thing against the blur
the happily unemployed career
the InTeenimater
LizzLove's SwingerBed and Gender Preference Kit
the MultiPainting
Maybe not all of them but certainly not more

i'm sorry i cannot give you information about the neighbourhood folder, since i do not remember... Hope these information help anyway - and if i can get my families back somehow (what sounds highly unlikely to me that would be ... GREAT! *g*