Friday 5 October 2012

Crashing problems once again!

I've been suffering from some crashing problems again, which is the reason there hasn't been an update. I've also been getting some pink flashing objects/sims, which I suspect may be related to the crashing.

The pink flashing is very odd. I'll go into a house and a sim or object will be flashing pink, or even several sims/objects. I'll exit out to the hood screen and go back in and everything will appear normal again. Or I'll go into my options and adjust the anti-aliasing up or down. Sometimes that fixes it, sometimes it makes it worse and sometimes it crashes the game. It's a bit of a mystery.

The crashing is also a bit enigmatic. It can happen on any lot, residential or community. Sometimes it happens just as I enter the lot, sometimes it'll be after a good while. Sometimes it happens on the first lot I load, immediately and sometimes it takes a few hours. Sometimes I can successfully go back and forth from a community lot with no crashing and no pink flashing but just often, I can't. If I was crashing consistently on a certain lot or after a certain interaction, this would be a lot easier to solve!

So I'm trying to figure all this out now. Currently, I'm testing out my theory that it might be a hood corruption issue. Even though I started Sullivan in 2008, I still made some mistakes along the way which really aren't great for the health of a hood. So corruption is definitely a possibility. Everything is backed up but if I end up having to rebuild, that's still going to be a big job. Just the process of transferring everything over and cheating everyone up to where they were will be an enormous task and that's assuming it all goes smoothly.

I'm playing the Uberhood with all my CC in and seeing if I get any of the issues I get when I try to play Sullivan. It might take a while though, because I have to be sure that the game isn't crashing and that I'm not just going through a lucky patch. So far though, I haven't crashed or seen any pink flashing.

Honestly, this game is just ridiculously finicky though, isn't it? So many things can go wrong with it and you really don't get too much of a clue about what it might be without going through a hell of a lot of trial and error! It's very frustrating.

But anyway, please bear with me while I try to get this fixed! I hope to be back playing Sullivan and sharing it with you all as soon as I can. :)

12 comments:

  1. Here's keeping my fingers crossed that you'll be able to fix this soon!
    I, too, make backups of my Uberhood every now and then, and your post reminded me of making one today. Like you, I've been playing mine since 2008, and really don't want to lose all that. But ever since I have decided to play completely without CC, I haven't had problems anymore.

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    1. I would probably have less problems if I played without CC but it's just not something that appeals in the slightest to me! I need my CC, lol!

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  2. Good luck with fixing the problem! Hopefully you won't have to rebuild but it's good to have that option if all else fails.

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    1. Thanks! Rebuilding is a daunting prospect but even if it's not the cause of the crashing/flashing, I know there are things in the hood that need to be fixed. I'm thinking I might do a rebuild regardless. We'll see.

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  3. Good luck, I hope it's not a serious issue. I've had to rebuild before and it sucks! And Sullivan is much larger than any hood I've ever had so it would really suck for you. I really hope it's a more simple fix.

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    1. Sigh, yes, it would be a very big job indeed! Maybe it would be worth it though, so I'm definitely keeping it under consideration. :)

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  4. I hope you are able to get it taken care of, and it's just something like ugly eyebrows that is throwing things into a tizzy. If it comes down to a rebuild though, at least you have what you need, and if it fixes the problem, then it's worth it. Did you run that Corrupt Hood runner? And try to fix some things in there manually? Might find that those households have something corrupt at play, and then maybe they pop up at the community lots too. The game is so large, it's like you're the police in a giant, over run city. Here's hoping it can be fixed and quickly for you! I want to see Leslie's babies, as I know you are excited about that too!

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    1. Thanks. It would be great if it was something simple like that! This time, I haven't even tried to comb through my CC because I just have a feeling that's not the issue.

      I guess you mean Mootilda's Hood Checker? Yep, I ran that and it found a lot of invalid relationships and the like, as it always does. I swear, the game creates these out of nowhere; Alex Moretti had an invalid relationship with himself and he's been on exactly 3 residential lots and met maybe 12 sims in total. Crazy. But anyway, I let Hood Checker fix all the errors it could but no dice there. I have no clue how I could fix the other stuff manually as SimPE really doesn't like it when I try to poke around in the memories. :\ It throws errors at me.

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  5. For the first time ever, I had that pink flashing on the characters in a lot: both human and canine. There's not much in this hood to be corrupt since it's a rebuild and populated by maybe half a dozen sims. I restarted and it was ok the second time, but it's ominous. I've also had crashes, but I have large and fully loaded lots so I assumed that was the problem. I hope you find a way around it.

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    1. "Ominous" is the right word! I would actually rather deal with crashing than the pink flashing stuff. Things that look like graphical errors are always a bit scary to me, because it's really not a part of the game/my PC that I understand all that well. I have my fingers crossed that it was a one off for you!

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  6. I've had the pink flashing and crashing problem before. It was due to having too many lots in a neighborhood and that was easily solved. So now I make sure to have at the most 65 lots per neighborhood. The problem also comes up when the terrain I use it too big, or when I have many big lots in the neighborhood.

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    1. Hmmm, now that's interesting! I've never had pink flashing in my uni subhood or in any of the vacation hoods, which all have fewer lots than Sullivan and Exeter, where I *have* had the flashing. The problem first started to show signs of reappearing when I played Susannah and Zac this round - I just had one single flashing sim walking by the apartment. I was expecting to have problems again when I played the next family, Malcolm and Hope but I sent them to multiple vacation lots and there was never any sign of anything pink and flashing.

      So that's all very interesting. I'll definitely keep that in mind next time I try to tackle this. Thanks for the idea.

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