The Mess Hall

**~destin~** · Sprocket Rocket Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 719

Thanks to cari for bringing this to my attention.

Everyone needs to read this:
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=63174&page=3

Those of you who have Sims here for download may want to pay particular attention. There is a possible risk of this bug affecting users who have downloaded Sims from other users. Everyone, just use some common sense until this is figured out; we should all use caution uploading and downloading Sims packaged in bodyshop. I know so many people have problems since BV was installed, so any info we can find is always good. (Alexis, check this out please!) Thanks again cari! And thanks to beosboxboy.

EDIT:

"I have been experiencing all manner of problems with my game in the past few weeks, and I finally discovered what the problem is.

Body Shop is including a whole copy of the Sims06.package from the base game with Sims packaged with some version of Body Shop.

I checked random Sims on the Exchange, TSR, MTS2, and InSIM. It appears to be a wide-spread post Bon Voyage bug. *oh joy! more evidence they did not one god damned test of this software before they shipped it to market*

You will need to use Sims2Pack Clean Installer to locate the "no category" files with junk-code name (e.g., b18484e15a91c5a039d61f635d15d7c3.package), the file size will be about 6.8 MB, double check the file in SimPE, and you will easily see that this is indeed the Sims06.package.

Delphy's Download Organiser -- an otherwise relable and useful tool -- was of no benefit in identifying these files, however it did give false positives on a wide number of "duplicates" that weren't duplicates, no doubt because of the freak occurance of 41 copies of the Sims06.package file being in the mix.

I just deleted 41 copies of this file! The presence of 41 un-needed copies of the Sims06.package did NOT help my game play better! *way to go you dullards at EA/Maxis*

I also ended up deleting over 300 redundant copies of meshes *a joy of the post-Pets Body Shop - EA/Maxis retards at work again* (which was made more problematic by the junk-code renaming and JFade's compression thing changing the checksum number) - this is insane and wasteful! The presence of 328 un-needed copies of custom meshes I already had installed did NOT help my game play better! *way to go you dullards at EA/Maxis*

SO after 28 cumulative hours of crawling through 1000s of files, my game is sane again.

Someone needs to slap the development team at EA toothless. Death to EA/Maxis! Hanging's too good for 'em! Burning's to good for 'em! We need to just kill them to death a lot even!"

Also:

quoting beosboxboy again:

"AjaAja - at the moment, the bug seems to be limted to Sims packaged with the version of Body Shop that is installed by Bon Voyage EP; the file it includes (id est, Sims05.package) is one of the base game's root file for Maxis meshes that everyone already has installed (otherwise the game won't work). But as you will read below, it may spread like a virus to non-BV versions of the game fairly quickly.

The problem is one that Sim-makers need to be aware of, and a problem downloaders of Sims need to guard against. For instance, when I went to the Exchange, all of the sims I downloaded were labelled as requiring only the basic game or those EPs which I have installed (I do not have Bon Voyage or Pets EPs installed and did not re-install any of the stuff packs on this latest re-install) - but upon close inspection of the files the Sims2Packs that contained the duplicate Sims05.package were all made with Bon Voyage EP's Body Shop and carry the Bon Voyage EP version stamp.

The chief hazard is that this file is almost always renamed in the Sims2Pack to some bizarre name of letters and numbers, and is not easily differentiated from a mesh that has already passed through Body Shop's renaming process. The bizarre number-and-letters name is not a way to identify the file. I had three files named b18484e15a91c5a039d61f635d15d7c3:

b18484e15a91c5a039d61f635d15d7c3.package <-- Sims06.package renamed
b18484e15a91c5a039d61f635d15d7c3_0001.package <-- a recolour of Kavar's Edge hair
b18484e15a91c5a039d61f635d15d7c3_0002.package <-- a custom object recolour

The file was renamed 41 unique names in my Downloads folder and was of different sizes and MD5 checksum numbers -- I can only assume that the various game patches and JFade's The Compressorizer! account for the different sizes and checksums.

I located 1000s of Sims in Sims2Pack files on the Exchange, MTS2, TSR, InSIM, and other sites that all have this file inside the Sims2Pack. In one instance, I found a Sims2Pack with a file size over 18 MB with 3 copies of the file in it. The bug operates like a virus, a trojan in fact, spreading the infection to subsequent installations of the game and raising the risk that any Sims2Pack'ed sim you create subsequently may include the redundant file.

I think this risk may be limited to persons with Pets EP, Seasons, EP, and Bon Voyage EP, because these versions of the game install a Body Shop that includes meshes, and the Sims05.package file constitutes a portion of Maxis meshes. I checked Sims2Packs I created with my Seasons EP Body Shop and the file had propagated into the Sims2Pack from my downloads folder.

So if this bug isn't fixed with great urgency, then very soon this issue will proliferate like a virus accross the entire on-line sims community resulting in potential problems for all Simmers."

Alexis · AnAngelAlways Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 284

Grrrrr...I wonder if this could be part of the problem with my touchy game lately. *sigh* I guess I'll be searching through my downloads with clean installer and SimPE today. Thank you cari for bringing this problem to attention, and to Destin for posting it all here.

**foolinthemoon** · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:39 pm Post subject:

i dont' think this is a problem for me at the moment, but until its sorted out, i won't be putting in anymore sims... that's for sure...
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**Sizza** · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:56 pm Post subject:

So THAT'S why I got "This package requires un-installed EP" even though the creator said it uses only the base game. I was like WTF when I saw it.
Better go check.
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Alexis · AnAngelAlways Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 284

I know for a fact that I have downloaded sims from people using BV...but I had none of these packages. I'm curious as to why it would occur for some and not for others? Hmmm....

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