Need assistance with props/dependancies (I think)

[Mbolism]

ah, that makes sense.  I wasn't thinking about bandwidth or other limitations, like updating later, etc.

Well, off to the above link you gave me to dl all the buildings and their models.

[Mbolism]

Whew, Ok, after about 10 hrs of downloading and learning how this works, I'm gonna call it a night.   Hopefully I'll have everything else downloaded tomarro, and then maybe the day after that I'll install it all, one...bloody...file...at...a...time.

Rofl.  Like the man said though, looks like it will be WELL worth the time.

[jestarr]

Hi Mbolism. 

For the Tower Residence 2, you'll need ks_jpn Mega Props Vol06, found here.

For the Europa, you'll need BSC Mega Props COBB Vol03, found here.

These and most others can be found at the link given by Threestooges.  The one by krba has a typo.  Cheers!

[Mbolism]

Couple of questions.  I got most of the stuff working now, thanks to everyone's help.   Missing just a few things so far which I'm sure I'll find.  However, after going into one of my cites, watching the new stuff sprout up and stuff, I went to zoom in, and the game crashed.  Same thing second time around.  It's a medium size city, and I didn't seem to have this problem with my small cities.  Have not tried on my larger or huge cities yet.

Any idea's on where to start?

And the 2 small building problems I have in my small cites (so far) are:

-Glenni-Knudsen Sko Factory - Dirty Ind.  No query
-Windmill Willys Tulip Farm - Ag.  Brown box on main building.

[threestooges]

There are a variety of issues that may cause a CTD (Crash To Desktop). I'm not sure if there are any known issues with CAM (though I don't recall hearing any). It would be good to know what you were doing prior to zooming in. Another thing it could be is a conflicting plugin (this tends to happen with outdated files or incompatible things) or duplicated files. If it is possible, post a pic/list of your plugins. That will enable a quicker check for such files.

One last thing I've heard suggested is a bit of a long process, but it will work. Divide your plugins folder in half (keep half in) and start the game and try to replicate the crash situation. If it crashes you know the file is in that group somewhere. Divide that in half and keep going until you narrow it down. With this method, keep the CAM stuff together. I don't know much about the system, but I think it should all be kept together (buildings and all).

I hope you get this taken care of soon. I know what a pain these issues can be, but we're here for any questions you happen to have.

[Mbolism]

Ok, Just now, I clicked on the CAM statue (large) that tells you how many CAMlots you have in your city.  I did this when I first got the reward, and it worked fine.  This last time, it crashed when I clicked on it.

Prior to that time, I had just been watching my city grow with the new stuff poping in, and it simply crashed when I went to zoom in closer.

The one thing I'm concerned about is that I accidentally replaced a BSC essentials file, the OG one, with a smaller one when copying over stuff.  Also, a lot of my stuff in the plugins folder is out on it's own, not in folders.  Don't think this should cause a problem, but it's possible I suppose.  I"ll run some cleanitol stuff and see if I missed something.

[Mbolism]

Ok, pretty sure I've got most of it figured out.  I needed some stuff from STEX, which was down when I was downloading and I missed a few things.  Also, for some the Oneil stuff (models) it says I need this file in my plugins folder without subdirs:

bsc_Essentials_OG.dat

I do NOT have this file, and have had no success finding it.   I'm guessing that this is the main problem with the CTD problem I've been having.

[Mbolism]

Well, I ran the Cleanitols as told to by the readme's, and started looking through my plugins folder and found that pretty much EVERYTHING was gone.  The folders are still there, and some of the dat files I re-downloaded as told to by the cleanitol program.

I went into the folders to try to undo all I had done, but found they aren't win32 compatible programs, so basically, unless I missed something, I just wasted about 15hrs of downloading stuff and would have to pretty much start over now.  There was over a gig of stuff in that plugins folder, and now it's just gone.  I went into my cities and all the stuff under each menu is gone, and some of the cities I was using with the new stuff now aren't functioning properly of course.

I'm just dumbfounded, as I don't see how a couple of cleanitol's erased EVERYTHING in my plugins folder.

[Mbolism]

Whew.  Ok, I found all the stuff in one of the backup folders in the BSC_Cleanitol (backups) folder, with a few other things in some of the other folders.  The undo.bat programs are working for those.

However, this still puts me back as square one (unless I DL'd some of the files needed to fix the problem), but I'm still confused how one cleanitol run erased everything and put it into one backup folder?

[wouanagaine]

Well it is a hard time and may depress you, but I hope we can bring some light here to you

First and we should have told you that first, deeply sorry, but when you go on massive downloads/install, you should install them in chronological order, and run their included cleanitol files in same order. Sometimes there are cleanitol meant to be used before installing, and it usually state in the readme

The cleanitol/Readme are only valid at the time of uploading
Because some files are updated, merged etc.. and the description/readme/cleanitol of older lots that use them as dependancies are not updated, it would take too much time to rebuild installer, reupload etc..
This what happen to you with some O'Neil stuff, which at the time of releasing needed bsc_Essentials_OG.dat, however now bsc_Essentials_OG.dat is included in bsc_Essentials.dat

I know it is a pain for new comers, but it is worth it, and as soon as you'll be ok, you'll easily tackle the download of a few stuff on week basis

Don't depress, I've rebuild my entire plugins and it took me 15 days ( well not on a 24/24 basis ) , and useally run the game in between to really see if I'm missing or not something

As for erasing everything from Cleanitol, the only thing I see is that there is a bad cleanitol file that specify *.*, and it should be reported if you find it

[Mbolism]

Yeah, I'm better now that it's a new day.

So yeah,  I have everything re-loaded from the backup in the BSC_Cleanital folder.  I've removed the _OG.dat file manually, since it's in the essentials one now.  However, it seems you are right about all that.  I should have taken things a bit slower.  So now the question is, do I erase everthing in my plugins folder and start from scratch?  Or do we try to go through it and fix it as it is now?

[jestarr]

It actually depends on how bad it is.   I, like Wouanagaine, redid my plugins folder some months ago.  It took about a week and a half.  The way I did it was to install items by date created (oldest first), running any applicable cleanitol files, prior to installing the file it was included in.  Then all you need to do is go in and remove any empty folders left over and it's done.

Edit:  Forgot to mention something I think is important.  I had a test city, that I used to check for oddly modded items, backing it up each time I opened it.  That way if it crashed I had a fairly immediate inkling of what caused it.

[Mbolism]

Ok, looks like the easiest thing for me to do might be to just start from scratch, by deleting everything, and then re-downloading what I need and doing it all chronologically.  The only problem is, what if, after I'm done with a bunch of new stuff, find something older that I want in my game?  Seems like installing older files into the plugins folder is what causes most of the issues.

Alternatively, I could list what .dat files I have in my plugins folders, and maybe we can find out where some conflicts are, or where I might be missing something?  I'm guessing the lot, model and desc files aren't going to cause many problems, unless I don't have the .dat files for them, right?

[Mbolism]

Will having the growable AND plopable models in in my plugins dir (and subdirs) cause crashes/problems?

[jestarr]

Well, actually, the lot and/or any loose desc files can be a problem.  Badly modded lots are the cause of all sorts of mischief, including CTD's.  Props, models and textures don't generally cause problems.  Having a growable and plopable in your plugins won't cause a problem, unless one or both have the above condition.

[wouanagaine]

Oh, btw always keep the zip, this way you won't have to redownload it

Last time I redone my plugins I have the following folder
SC4Stuff
downloaded
installed
   dependencies
   team folders
   plopables
   growables   
removed
   
When I download something, the zip goes in dowloads folder
When I install a download, if it shows good in SC4, then the zip from downloads goes to one of the subfolder of installed, if not, it goes to removed

It helps keep tracks of what I have installed ( especially in regards to dependancies and updated/outdated files )

As for what is the best to you, it may depend of how much brown boxes you have and how much crash you may encounter in a sandbox region

[Mbolism]

Yeah, I got rid of everything once it was done installing, which I though about afterwards as a really stupid thing to do.   I will setup a better subdir system of folders like you suggest.

as far as brown boxes go, I don't have any (that I have seen).  Most of my CTD's have occured from trying to zoom in/out, trying to save, etc.  Very rarely, if at all, have they just happened with me sitting there.

So, I went in and got rid of all the images/useless files from the plugins folders, leaving only the essentials stuff.  Should I maybe copy all that, back it up somewhere, and then start from scratch?  Or should I go through and try to find the badly modded lots and loose desc files and weed them out?

[wouanagaine]

well, that quite good news IMO
1) crash from in/out can be evicted by using datpacker which as a side effect can relieve you of deleting non sc4 file ( ie jpg etc.. )
2) you don't have brown boxes so far
3) loose desc won't produce any harm besides making the loading longer
4) badly modded, unfortunatly there is no easy way to remove them nor identifying them until you get into modding, however you can go to that thread and look at the info provided, this will however only help you to find and remove some kind of bad modded files ( but really bad one if you like growables )
As for other badly modded files which provides unbalanced values to the game, well you'll have to run the game and see when something goes wrong in the city, what can cause it - And ask here

[Mbolism]

Ok.  Well, I've been pretty careful with my files that I've downloaded.  Most are the popular, updated ones from the most reputable modders, as well as the files to support them.  But yeah, I see no real way to figure out which one it might be (if that's the problem)

[Mbolism]

Ok, I browsed through my files, after playing one of my cities for a bit with no CTD (a small one) and it crashed right after I put in the big school.  It says 'High School'  Cost is 1050, monthy cost is 750, and student pop of 3500.  It covers almost all of a medium size map.  Says "educates young sims".  Can't find the files though in my plugins folder, thinking I might be able to delete that and see what happens.  However, went into one of my other cites (medium city) and ran it for a while without doing anything but basic maintainance and watching things grow.  Did fine for some time, then crashed on a zoom out.  I didn't add the school or anything else new that was plopable.

Also, I found a folder called Tahvontorni, with a sub folder of the same name, and 2 files in it WITHOUT extentions.

Tahvontorni-Lot
Tahvontorni-Model

kinda odd they don't have extentions, and I'm wondering if this is a problem.

Also, I have these files that I'm thinking might have something to do with it, since my traffic isn't one until scrolled in one level from default.

ms family high wealth eurocar props.dat
and the medium and low welth ones of that too.