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Cassi · (This post was last modified: 06-20-2011 03:22 PM by Regina.)

Okay - so everything is installed, everything patched etc etc. I play the game regularly since Generations and everything works fine. Here I sit happily decorating houses without any problems.

Then today I go to change a carpet in one of my houses. The 'materialising materials' whats-it appears and goes round - and goes round - and goes round ------ And nothing happens. Can't load patterns, can't do anything else. So I shut down the game and try again on something else. Still nothing. I take out all patterns and yep, still happens. Nothing seems to stop it.

Anyone got any ideas as to what's going on?

Oh and I tried running the game without any custom content and that didn't help either.

Cassi

**Regina** · 06-20-2011, 03:24 PM

I'm afraid this is the first I've heard of this but did you restart your computer? It may not work, but that's the first thing I would try.

BTW, I merged your posts. If you need to add extra information within a couple of minutes, edit your post to include it. :)

Cassi · 06-20-2011, 04:18 PM

(06-20-2011 03:24 PM)Regina Wrote: I'm afraid this is the first I've heard of this but did you restart your computer? It may not work, but that's the first thing I would try.

BTW, I merged your posts. If you need to add extra information within a couple of minutes, edit your post to include it. :)

Thanks Regina - and yes, restarting the computer was the first thing I tried too :(.

:reallysad: Ah well, I can see it coming down to the reinstall stage again, which is really annoying.

Cassi

**Regina** · 06-20-2011, 04:38 PM

Zoiks, I sympathize if you have to reinstall.

Something else I thought of just now, did you delete the cache files in the Documents area of the game?

Sorry, I'm not any too bright today, up to my ears in paperwork I've been trying to get done for days now. :P

Cassi · 06-22-2011, 08:06 AM

(06-20-2011 04:38 PM)Regina Wrote: Zoiks, I sympathize if you have to reinstall.

Something else I thought of just now, did you delete the cache files in the Documents area of the game?

Sorry, I'm not any too bright today, up to my ears in paperwork I've been trying to get done for days now. :P

Did that too. I've had a couple more tries since then and it still happens. So tonight looks like sit down and reinstall (grrr). Never mind - maybe I'll weed out the stuff I rarely use while I'm doing it. Thanks for your suggestions.

Cassi

**Regina** · 06-22-2011, 11:45 AM

Weeding out unnecessary stuff can definitely be a good side-effect of reinstallation. I'm just curious, do you have much in the way of custom patterns that have been installed through the launcher or even as .package files, or a lot of customized patterns saved? I'm always leery of getting too many because with only a few that thing takes forever to load.

**Judy Sims** · (This post was last modified: 06-22-2011 01:12 PM by Judy Sims.)

I've had that happen before where it freezes up the game when I am using the recolor tool. The little circle will hang and freeze everything up. I usually just get out of the game and it fixes it, but don't know why it is not fixing yours. Before I reinstall all the games and patches, I would do a vanilla game where you take out your Sims3 folder, start up your game and let the game create a new one. Then delete the new one and add back your old Sims3 folder. Backup before you do any of this. You have to reinstall all your CC, store items and worlds, but it is better than reinstalling the whole mess. And it is a good time to weed through unwanted CC. You might already know all this, so pardon my advice if so. LOL I would also defrag and delete all cache files before doing any of this.

That recolor tool has given me many problems in the past as well as the launcher getting errors, so I have had to do a vanilla install several times. GRRRR! But like I said, it is better than reinstalling the whole shebang. Good luck!:MrGreen:

PS: I might also note that I try to limit my saved patterns and object recolors as it takes a long time for the color tool to load them. I keep a basic of each color if I use it a particular object or pattern a lot.

**Spacerox** · (This post was last modified: 06-22-2011 02:32 PM by Spacerox.)

Here's a couple questions. Follow me down the rabbit hole for a sec and we'll get out the other side.

Do you normally download patterns? (If yes, continue.)

In which format do you install these patterns? (If .sims3pack, you may stop. If .package, continue.)

If .package format, do you verify first what tool made those patterns?

See...there are 3 pattern tools out there.

There's Delphy's Pattern Packager which only makes .package patterns, but has never had any issues.
There's TSRW which has had some issues with .sims3pack patterns not installing in the past, though newer versions of the tool don't have this issue. TSRW patterns can also be safely installed as .package files by extracting them from the .sims3pack.
Then there's EA's Create-a-Pattern. Create-a-pattern patterns are the easiest for most people to create since it does all of the work for you, but there are several problems with it, in my mind. However, only one pertains. Create-a-pattern patterns CAN ONLY BE INSTALLED AS .sims3packs. Doing otherwise will cause each CrAP pattern to appear dozens of times in the category it's from, cause crashing issues on attempt to recolor, cause crashing issues when you open your CAST menu, etc. I actually had some issues that even after I removed the offending pattern, that house caused me problems for a while until I cleaned my game fully.

This may or may not be your issue, but since I know about this one, I wanted to verify that this was or was not your problem.
Maybe not. If you want to be REALLY sure, before you reinstall, like Judy said, just open your Documents-->Electronic Arts-->Sims 3 folder and drag EVERYTHING out into a new folder. You can add your library and sims and saves back in later, check your CC before re-adding it. You'll need to reinstall everything, all worlds and store content, etc, but you won't have to reinstall all disks. I've had to do this method several times before. But it works. It gets rid of the issues I run into, starts me off LIKE I have a clean install, but I'm fully patched. Then I just pop all vital stuff into my downloads folders, my worlds and Store stuff, and I'm off.

**Judy Sims** · 06-22-2011, 04:25 PM

You are not going to believe this, but I just had the same thing happen to me. I was going to recolor a rug (the small round EA rug) and suddenly the rug went black with a little of the original pattern showing. Then it hung with the hour glass spinning. It froze my game and I had to turn off my computer to get out. I was using an EA pattern to color the rug, so it is not custom patterns. I lost about an hour of work in EIG mode while working on a lot. GRRRRRR! I have not tried going back into the game yet. I hope this is not some bug with Generations. Are you playing with Generations? I have never had something go black like that when I was trying to color it.:badday1:

Cassi · 06-23-2011, 12:24 PM

I have a *lot* of custom content installed - probably way too much - and I'm not always sure which tool was used to make it. I think a lot of people have times when they download everything in sight and I'm no exception. Anyway, I'm now on the treadmill of reinstallation and so far everything is working fine. When it comes to putting custom content back into the game I shall be much more selective this time. Fortunately I won't have any problems identifying what's what - when I download CC I always save the original files to an external drive *and* I always save a picture of everything I download. I think I might be glad I did when it comes to trawling through oceans of the stuff - at least I know what the files are.

Thanks everyone for their help and suggestions. Where would we all be without forums to go to for help.

Cassi - drowning in the Sims

**Regina** · 06-23-2011, 01:24 PM

Cassi, I think all of us have been caught at one time or another in the "ooh, hey, I can HAVE this!" for our Sims games. I know I sure was with the original game. By the time TS2 came out I'd learned to be much more particular. Now I have very little in the way of CC because I'm so selective about what I download. Of course testing and merging everything I want to keep into multi-files to help with load times and game performance also puts a damper on things because the hundred or so extra files I decided I couldn't live without ARE going to need merged eventually. And a hundred files here, fifty files there, etc. and before I know it I have way too much stuff to sort through in my game. :blush:

**Spacerox** · 06-23-2011, 01:33 PM

I get bad about it now and again. I KNOW I do, so I feel your pain.
I TRY to restrict myself, but I'm pretty bad at that.
I have certain creators I ADORE and CANNOT say no to lol.

Outside of those handful, I keep it fairly moderate, but I made the mistake of falling in love with the stuff of some pretty prolific creators lol.

Cassi · 06-24-2011, 05:32 AM

Wish I'd seen the post about reinstalling without the disks before I started. I was halfway through before I read it. Ah well, hopefully everything will be okay when I get up and running again. And I shall be very very careful with CC this time!

Cassi

**Judy Sims** · 06-24-2011, 05:50 AM

(06-24-2011 05:32 AM)Cassi Wrote: Wish I'd seen the post about reinstalling without the disks before I started. I was halfway through before I read it. Ah well, hopefully everything will be okay when I get up and running again. And I shall be very very careful with CC this time!

Cassi

Oh, too bad, Cassie, but you will know if there is a next time and we hope there won't be. I have had to do the vanilla install a couple of times, so it taught me a real lesson about organizing my CC and keeping it to just my favorite things. I love it, too, but it is like buying shoes. How many pair of shoes does a person need? Laughtingoutloud_32x32