One installer. Every essential fix, mod, and tool for The Sims 2, set up for you in a few clicks.
I got tired of hunting down the same "must-have" fixes every time I reinstalled The Sims 2 (to the point where it has kept me from playing), so I made a tool that does it for you! 🥳 You choose the fixes, mods, and tools you want, click through, and it installs them all — with automatic backups and a built-in undo, so nothing is permanent and nothing gets lost.
It works with both the 2025 Legacy Collection (Steam and EA App) and the older Ultimate Collection.
⚠️ One heads-up: I only own Legacy (on Steam) and the Ultimate Collection, so I haven't been able to test the EA App or Epic versions of the Legacy Collection myself. They should work, but if you run into any issues on those, please let me know and I'll push out a fix!
Most importantly, none of this content is mine. Every fix, mod, and tool belongs to the creators who made them — I only automate installing them. Full credits and links are in the guide that comes with it. Please go support these people 💜
⬇️ Download: SFS | GitHub
📋 Want to see exactly what's included first? Here's the full list of every mod, fix, and tool, with credits: https://github.com/familyfunds/sims2-essentials-setup-tool/blob/main/GUIDE.md
More details under the cut 👇
What is it?
The Sims 2 Essentials Setup Tool is a single Windows installer (.exe file). Instead of downloading, unzipping, and hand-placing dozens of separate fixes, you run one program, choose what you want from a checklist, and it puts everything in the right place for you.
There are three quick presets so you don't have to think too hard:
Recommended — the sensible default set.
Complete — everything.
Custom — start from a blank slate and pick only what you want.
What's included
Everything here is curated to work together and this isn't a random pile of downloads. I checked every package against the others for conflicts (comparing the actual game resources each one touches), dropped or swapped anything that clashed, and set the load order in the few cases where two mods needed to coexist. So you can tick things freely without worrying that two fixes will quietly fight each other.
Over 140 hand-picked fixes and mods, grouped into:
Anti-corruption & core — the safety-critical stuff that keeps your neighborhoods healthy.
Bug fixes — dozens of fixes for Maxis bugs, from memory issues to gameplay glitches.
Helpful gameplay mods — quality-of-life tweaks that just make the game nicer to play.
Essential tools & systems:
CEP (Color Enable Package) — downloaded straight from MTS at install, see the note below
The Scriptorium
Radiance Lighting System 2.5
GunMod's Camera Mod 3.1
Rugs off-grid
TS2 Extender 0.8.1 (fixes only, optional extras off by default)
Objects.package corruption protection
Missing content restore (you supply your own Ultimate Collection or disc files — EA content is NOT bundled):
Restore IKEA Home Stuff (works on both Steam and EA/Epic — it sets up whichever your game needs)
Restore Missing Music
Missing Holiday Items
Neighborhood setup: clean/empty stealth 'hoods, or fully disable them, plus the MATY no-townie-regen mods.
Startup cheats: 45° object rotation and quarter-tile placement.
Third-party tools: SimPE, Mootilda's HoodChecker / LotAdjuster / Sims2Pack Clean Installer, and Body Shop for the Legacy Collection.
Backups & undo
This is the part I care about most: before the tool changes or replaces any file, it backs up your original first (to C:\ProgramData\The Sims 2 Essentials Setup Tool\backups). To undo anything, just run the tool again and choose Undo — you get a checklist and can roll back everything or only certain pieces. It does not add itself to "Add or remove programs"; it stays fully self-contained.
Requirements
Windows (I tested and created this on Windows 11)
The Sims 2 Legacy Collection (2025) or Ultimate Collection
For the "Missing" content (IKEA / Music / Holiday), your own UC or disc files
How to use it
First, a friendly nudge: back up your Sims 2 "Documents" folder. The tool shouldn't touch your saves, neighborhoods, or downloads — and it automatically backs up anything it does change — but it's always better safe than sorry. Just copy your Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2… folder somewhere safe before you start. (Besides… when was the last time you backed up your saves? 😉)
Download the .exe. It's unsigned (normal for community tools), so if Windows SmartScreen pops up, click More info → Run anyway.
Right-click the .exe and choose "Run as administrator" — it needs admin rights because it writes into your game folder.
Pick your edition, confirm your Documents folder, tick what you want, and click through.
That's it. To undo later, run it again and choose Undo.
A note on CEP
CEP isn't bundled in the installer — Numenor asks that it only be hosted on Mod The Sims. So if you tick it, the tool downloads it directly from MTS at install time. None of Numenor's files are redistributed here. That does mean CEP is the one thing you can't install while offline — but everything else in the tool works completely fine with no internet connection.
Credits & terms
Genuinely, all of the credit goes to the creators — Numenor, LazyDuchess, GunMod & the Radiance team, HugeLunatic, Mootilda, cyjon, Pescado & MATY, TwoJeffs, Nopke, simler90, LordDarcy, MidgeTheTree, hiloyt, CroconawSims, and so many more. The full list with links is in the included guide.
While I've reviewed everyone's terms of use in detail to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules, I'm only human and I could have missed (or misinterpreted) something. If one of your mods or tools is included in this installer and you'd like me to remove it, please shoot me a message and I'm happy to do so.
The tool itself is free and open-source — you're more than welcome to review every file and exactly what it does on GitHub. It's not affiliated with EA or with any of the creators above.
Missing something? Suggestions welcome
Think I've left out a crucial bug fix or a genuinely helpful mod? Send it my way. If the creator's terms of use allow it, I'm happy to look into adding it.
A quick heads-up on my philosophy, though: I originally built this for myself, and I like my game as close to vanilla as possible. So mods that change gameplay in a big way, or add features that were never in the base game to begin with, generally aren't ones I'll bundle. This isn't meant to be an "everything" list, but I'm always glad to consider suggestions, so don't be shy about sharing what you'd love to see!
Did you know you can modify your game files to start with custom lots in the lot bin? Did you know you can add your favorite lots to the program files and you'll never have to import them ever again? I sure didn't. Here's how.
Part 1: Freshen Up That Lot!
Locate the lot you want to freshen up. If it's in your Documents > LotCatalog, it'll be named something like cx_00000001.package. [Hint: you can use CleanInstaller to browse your LotCatalog with pictures!]
Clean it up using LotCleaner and LotCompressor (and Magic Wand, if you want). Here's a tutorial. Do NOT skip this step, or you risk contaminating future save files with old sim references.
Make it a spiffy new picture. Personally I like to lump my similar lots together with a similar title/street name. And I color-code using CatherineTCJD's color-coding format. If you want to match me, you can download my template psd here.
Open your lot in Simpe and replace that old preview. Click 'jpg/png image'. Right click the property > Replace. Change file format to 'all files' to see your image. Click either 'yes' or 'no' on the 'resource changed' popup (it doesn't matter--one updates the image preview immediately, the other doesn't). Click save.
Part 2: Relocation Time! *MAIN LOT BIN*
You cleaned up your lot, right? No sim references left? Don't skip this step or you risk messing up future hoods. Clean up that lot!
Select your lot file and rename it to the cx_00000000.package format. You can use any numbers but it must be in that format and have 8 digits. The number denotes the order so get creative with your categories. (ex: lots cx_00000100-150: modern houses / cx_00000200-250: beachy, etc.). You can use any bulk renamer to rename files in order without having to manually number each one.
Pick an Expansion for your files. Mansion and Garden comes first in the lot bin, Base Game last. The expansion you select will denote the location of your lots within the catalog. The file location is the same in every expansion, so you can even spread your lots around for max organization.
Move your cx_#.package lot file to Program Files > The Sims 2 > [expansion of your choice (ex. Nightlife)] > TSData > Res > UserData > LotCatalog. You will already see some files here. These are the maxis lots that fill the lot bin every new game. You can delete them if you really want to, or just change the extension to something else to make them go away. (Catherine has a backup if you need them back.)
Done! Now your custom lots will prefill the lot bin every time you generate a new The Sims 2 save file in your documents!
This will not pre-fill existing games. If you want to put your new clean lots into your current file, rename your main The Sims 2 save file (in your Documents folder) something else. Launch Sims 2 so it regenerates a clean copy. Create a new Hood, let the game load, and check out the LotCatalog. It will be now filled with your brand-new lots. Copy them over to your main file's LotCatalog. [Check your main LotCatalog in game to make sure you won't be deleting/overwriting anything you want to keep (make a backup just in case!) Check it again with CleanInstaller. Do not delete/overwrite occupied homes! And delete your old and crusty lots in game if you want to be extra safe.]
Part 3: Relocation Time... 2! *SPECIALTY LOT BIN*
You cleaned up your lot, right? No sim references left? Don't skip this step or you risk messing up future hoods. Clean up that lot.
We will now populate the second tab in the lot catalog, the Specialty lot bin that holds Hotels and Apartments. You can put whatever you want in here; it doesn't have to be hotels or apts. You can move lots from the main catalog to this one, if you want. These lots do not appear in the LotCatalog of your main save file, in case you try to look for them there later. They only exist in the program files.
Rename your files. Unlike the previous lots, you can name these lots anything you want, as long as it ends in _Permanent.package. stinky_Permanent.package is perfectly fine. Name it something descriptive.
Pick an Expansion for your files. You can put them in any Expansion folder, but personally I keep my apts in Apartment Life to stay organized.
Move your files. Take your stinky_Permanent.package and move it to Program Files > The Sims 2 > [expansion of your choice (ex. Nightlife)] > TSData > Res > LotTemplates. You'll see some other files here already. These are blank lots and hotels/apts (if you're in Apt Life or Bon Voyage). Don't touch the blank lots, but you can remove the hotels/apartments if you don't want them. (You can move them to the main lot bin by renaming the files to the cx_# format and moving to the location in part 2). You can open them in SimPe to check what they are, but Catherine has a visual list here.
Done! These lots will appear in the Specialty lot bin every time you boot up the game, even in your current saved game.
Have fun and enjoy organizing!
[PS: did you know you can not only delete or relocate existing bin lots, but replace them with better, and cooler lots by simply overwriting the existing cx_0000000 files in your UserData > LotCatalog folders? Catherine has a visual guide which file is which, if you want to reinvent them all. The lot bin is your oyster!]
credits: CatherineTCJD for the Lot Refresh project that made me learn this. Bluerubberbear for the majority of the lots in my thumbnails and the lot in the psd file. Plumbtales for the other lots in the thumbnails and for the beautiful lot makeovers that I replaced maxis's community lots with.
I've always hated how the camera jumps up and down when playing tall and slim buildings. Turns out, it's really easy to fix! It’ll take you less than a minute. All the details under the cut.
All it takes is opening the LiveCamera.txt file in your Documents>Cameras folder with a text editor and changing these two parameters near the bottom to a higher value. Doesn’t matter if you're using a custom camera mod or not. Those parameters should be there. I have set mine like this (remember to save a backup just in case you don't like these changes).
It might seem a bit extreme, but I still think it’s fine.
-The top parameter, floorheightsamplerange, handles how much the floors “extend out”, so the camera object can stand on it mid-air. The higher it is, the further the floor will extend. This will make it so your camera will be able to stick to the floor you’re on, even if you pan away from the building. No more annoying jumps up and down!
-The parameter below that, floorheightsampleinnerrange, handles the transition between sticking to the current floor and dropping to the ground level once it goes past the edge. The higher it is, the smoothest the fall will be.
I’ll note though that the behaviour of these parameters might not be 100% accurate with how the game actually works, but from what I tested I think it’s pretty close as an explanation. If someone knows better how this Live Camera works, please let me know and I’ll try my best to correct any inaccuracies.
Save the .txt file and check how it works in game. It might feel weird at first, but personally I find it so much smoother and easier to handle. If you’re not happy with these values, close the game and edit those parameters until you find your sweet spot. Unfortunately, you will have to close and open the game every time you change it to check how it works.
There’s so many cool Custom Camera mods out there that I thought it’s probably better to just show how to edit those 2 parameters than editing and reuploading all of them.
So yeah, that’s it. Now you can play those tall lots without getting a headache. Go ahead and send your college simmies to that hideous Sim State Tower with a hot tub on top of it. Now you’ll be able to see what’s going on up there.
I've always hated how the camera jumps up and down when playing tall and slim buildings. Turns out, it's really easy to fix! It’ll take you less than a minute. All the details under the cut.
All it takes is opening the LiveCamera.txt file in your Documents>Cameras folder with a text editor and changing these two parameters near the bottom to a higher value. Doesn’t matter if you're using a custom camera mod or not. Those parameters should be there. I have set mine like this (remember to save a backup just in case you don't like these changes).
It might seem a bit extreme, but I still think it’s fine.
-The top parameter, floorheightsamplerange, handles how much the floors “extend out”, so the camera object can stand on it mid-air. The higher it is, the further the floor will extend. This will make it so your camera will be able to stick to the floor you’re on, even if you pan away from the building. No more annoying jumps up and down!
-The parameter below that, floorheightsampleinnerrange, handles the transition between sticking to the current floor and dropping to the ground level once it goes past the edge. The higher it is, the smoothest the fall will be.
I’ll note though that the behaviour of these parameters might not be 100% accurate with how the game actually works, but from what I tested I think it’s pretty close as an explanation. If someone knows better how this Live Camera works, please let me know and I’ll try my best to correct any inaccuracies.
Save the .txt file and check how it works in game. It might feel weird at first, but personally I find it so much smoother and easier to handle. If you’re not happy with these values, close the game and edit those parameters until you find your sweet spot. Unfortunately, you will have to close and open the game every time you change it to check how it works.
There’s so many cool Custom Camera mods out there that I thought it’s probably better to just show how to edit those 2 parameters than editing and reuploading all of them.
So yeah, that’s it. Now you can play those tall lots without getting a headache. Go ahead and send your college simmies to that hideous Sim State Tower with a hot tub on top of it. Now you’ll be able to see what’s going on up there.
I felt that some of these meshes didn't have many recolors so I had to fix that :)
All meshes included (except for one, see below), younger ages are repoed to adult, adult files are enabled for elder as well.
My conversion of The Sims 3 Store's "A Hero's Journey" with shoes by wiccandove (I think?). I know Cynnix converted this already but I wanted it with shoes.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims 3 Store's "Tudor King's Robe" by Rented-Space shoeswapped with TSM shoes by me.
8 recolors
TM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Aarbyville Pirate" converted by VampireKiss6661.
8 recolors
TM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Bard Cape" converted by VampireKiss6661.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Blacksmith Vest" converted by Davina Ojeda. I edited the shape of the meshes so they're more fitted to the tm/am body and added morphs.
4 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Commoner Collar Shirt Belt" converted by Cynnix. I edited the meshes (a lot) and converted to children.
25 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Commoner Long Tunic Leather" converted by Cynnix.
12 recolors
TM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Commoner Night Shirt" converted by Vampirekiss6661.
These are repoed to Eulalia's recolors of the shorter version so you need it HERE!
8 recolors
PU-AM
Meshes not included: Maxis feet or sexy feet
Textures by Eulalia
DOWNLOAD
The Sims Medieval's "Commoner Night Shirt" top converted by Vampirekiss6661.
These are repoed to Eulalia's recolors of the medium fullbody version so you need it HERE!
8 recolors
CU-AM
All morphs
Textures by Eulalia
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The Sims Medieval's "King Cape Sword" converted by VampireKiss6661 and Alix.
4 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "King Fur Coat" converted by Jelly Meduza.
4 recolors
TM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Monk Shirt" converted by simborg (that's me!).
16 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Noble Puffy Sleeves" converted by Chere.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Off Duty Knight" converted by Davina Ojeda and me.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Peasant Long Pants" converted by Cynnix and Chere.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Rat Catcher" converted by Cynnix. I edited the meshes so I recommend using my included meshes.
10 recolors
TM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Tredony Jacket Striped Pants" converted by VampireKiss6661 and me.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
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The Sims Medieval's "Tredony Jacket Sword" converted by VampireKiss6661.
12 recolors
CM-AM
All morphs
Textures by simverses
DOWNLOAD
The end for the boys. Hope you like them and do tell me if I messed something up :)
Thank you so much to simverses (tack!) and Eulalia for the textures!!
It's been a while since I gave an update on how the Fame Pack is going.
I am very excited to let you all know that @dimond3d (creator of the masterpiece that is the Simwood series) is now a part of this project and has been hard at work on creating custom animations for the recording booth!
Previews are under the cut.
This is just a first pass - lip sync will be coming soon! This is unbelievably cool to me.
Meanwhile, I've been coding the runway! It's made of two separate parts: a clothing rail you click on for the interactions, and a rug that turns invisible in live mode to mark where the end of the runway is. This means you can build your own runway using a platform and style it however you want! You get the dialogue from the original game asking you to pick a sequence of outfits (couture, formal or lingerie) and the Sim changes and struts their stuff! Katelyn is wearing PlatinumAspiration's conversion of the Simtimates lace body suit.
Bonus pic of some objects that were hidden in the background of my previous post. The theatre seat is my cleaned up version of the one from Werewolves. Director's chair and barstool are repo linked. The film advertisement bench is from Get Famous but I added extra recolours for the metal because I don't always want green.
The scripts and clapper are conversions from Syboulette's actor career collection and are just for decoration.
I am thrilled at how well this is going and I wish I had more time for it. If only this were my actual job...
Boosting a GoFundMe to support our creator community and help cover operating expenses for the next year.
If you’ve ever enjoyed the builds, mods, stories, or general content from Plumb Bob Keep, please consider checking it out or reblogging to help spread the word.
Let's keep the beloved Plumb Bob Keep going! I know this is way past our nor… Stanislav Syursin needs your support for Help Keep Plumb Bob K
Firstly, I know I am posting A LOT but I just saw this mod work. I saw a townie in Twinbrook that got set on fire due to the summer heat and I saw my custom memory and got excited!!! The above image was just a test :P
These mods come with a custom memory. In the unmodded game, Sims only get a generic memory for fire in any form.
With my mod, Sims will also get a memory for being ON fire!
The memory is called "Got Set on Fire!"
If you use the Pyromaniac 3t2 trait, these Sims will have a GOOD (green) memory from being set on fire. Daredevils will also get a good memory. Everyone else gets a bad memory.
You don't need traits to use this memory, just Easy Inventory Check.
BOTH files in the ZIP are required. Download "ys2g_MEM_setonfire" AND ys2g_MEM_setonfire_event" to use this mod.
PART 2
Pyromaniacs can start fires!
This is a custom self-interaction. Only pyromaniacs can do this. They will start a fire right in front of them! Make sure they have clear space to do this.
Download ys2g_pyro_startfire to use this mod
No conflicts that I know of, but you might want to check if you have a mod that uses the BHAV "Panic-On Fire! All files require Easy Inventory Check. Run HCDU to sus out conflicts.
I've had this in my game for a while, but for you guys, I added traits and made every little detail BCON configurable, because I know many of you would like to set everything just how you want it. Enjoy!
Download Page
For @maksplaygroundsims2, @tedsies, @grilledcheese-aspiration, @katatty and others
I finally got this mod to work autonomously with a private controller! Yay! Param 0x0001 is the variable for a Sim's autonomy in CT - Object Menu.
This mod requires Easy Inventory Check and Clumsy trait.
Sims now have a five percent chance of autonomously falling down if they have the Clumsy trait. Will only do if they're standing still. They lose comfort and people will react based on personality. Uses the roller skate animation.
Redownload my trait interactions here: Sim File Share - Filehosting for Simmers
Sims 2 Traits - Self Interactions! I found a disabled animation!
Since I'm obsessed with socials now (and I watch @teaaddictyt streams and VODS where she gives me ideas...) here are some mods that affect Neurotic, Dramatic and Insane Sims! These are fun little self-interactions for storytelling or other purposes... I originally inserted these into the PersonGlobals TTAB. But as some of you may know, this causes a great deal of issues because it conflicts with other important mods.
So, I split them up into three separate controllers, so they don't conflict with anything! they all have unique GUIDS. These are non-autonomous and require Easy Inventory Check and the base traits mod by Hexagonal Bipyramid.
Interactions
Neurotic Sims can now "Freak Out" if their Comfort is low. They will cry, worry, or throw a tantrum and their comfort will increase. Paired great with my "Motive Decay" for traits, because Neurotics have greater Comfort decay!
Dramatic Sims can now "Fake Pass Out" like the Sims 3. Sims will react to your Sim, and their reactions depend on personality and traits (Evil Sims may enjoy it...). They can only do it if their Social is fairly low and it gives them Fun and Social.
Insane Sims (and this is my favorite) can now scream psychotically and everyone around them will react. I found a disabled/cut interaction called "Primal Scream" in the code so I just HAD to enable it for Insane Sims. There's an animation for this and everything!
Ok it doesn't show you the Anim, but trust me, it's great! And they actually scream! Like audibly!
Enjoy! Looking at this mod will also help you understand self-interactions if you're into modding!
I also have one for the Clumsy trait where they do the roller-skate fall animation randomly, but I can't get it to work autonomously in a controller. It stays in my PersonGlobals unfortunately.
Credits: JellyMeduza for their "Insane can Summon Social Bunny" Mod!
Well it wasn’t just me, to be fair. I would have never been able to without @fireflowersims help and HugeLunatics trust in both of us. Thank you to both of them for their work and thank you @teaaddictyt for reaching out and doing the more public communication.
I’m super happy I got the chance to work to fix it. It wasn’t an easy undertaking. It seemed like every little thing would cause more errors, I fixed one and another thing broke. But now it seems stable, finally.
A lot of technical stuff below the cut, beware.
Fixing such an old forum is not easy. Documentation is rather sparse because the framework it runs on is old. There is however a more modern version, but updating is difficult. Here was the issue for the forum - upgrading failed.
A website (usually) consists of two different parts: 1 - The files. They contain the code, scripts, designs, images, attachment, profile pictures etc. 2 - The database. The database connects all the different parts and tells the website where to find something. Everything gets stored in tables, assigned IDs and given values. Everything written, each post and topic is also stored in the database. So without the database the whole page would be useless.
It was clear from the beginning that the database was the culprit for the failed upgrades. I got an earlier backup from HL and started working.
I set up a local environment with two versions of XAMPP. One running on php 7.4 (the last version having compatibility for the forum framework version and the upgrade script to the recent version) and the other on a modern 8.3, which was the same as the version the server @fireflowersims set up for GOS.
I ran the upgrade script (which consists of 4 separate parts) on the old backup and ran into errors right away. The script would just outright crash on me, most often without a log or message. The (local) server would just stop responding. My original plan had been to upgrade to version 2.0 first, then 2.1, since it was the recommended order. However the database backup had already been partly upgraded to 2.1. That was the reason my upgrade script failed. Reversing those changes could have been a possibility but extremely time intensive.
(This is the frontpage of the upgrader. I stared at it so much. Like you can see it has a ton of steps)
Instead I asked for the current database and HL provided it to me. This one was already further along on the upgrade and I could see the error HL had run into before handing over. I had to look at the upgrade scripts and source php files to diagnose what the framework was expecting - and failing - to find in the database.
That’s where I found the main culprit for *most* of the errors: Time tables. The framework saves every action that a user does in a log, a long table with the action, an id and a date. This was where everything had gotten wrong. The upgrader expected to see one column for the date, named *day*, while the current table had a different column for day, month and year. I tried fixing the table at first but that didn’t seem to work, so I completely deleted the table and created a new empty one myself. (By now I think the issue stems from forgetting to uninstall certain packages before upgrading, more on that later)
That was possible because the log actually doesn’t hold relevant information for the forum to work. It just records each step, probably for moderation purposes. Once I had done that step the upgrade script was finally able to proceed.
There were a few more errors where I had to look at what the script was doing, find the corresponding code in the sources and edit the database myself. Thankfully the code is relatively well commented and named, so I was able to find what I needed.
Finally I got the upgrade script to run to the end and I was actually able to open the forums (local) page. I hadn’t been able to for now so it was a first. But a lot of stuff was still missing, like all the topics. I could see that the posts were back, but not sorted correctly.
The fix was simple but annoying. The forum framework comes with a repair_setting.php file which I had run several times to fix all the paths, but apparently it didn’t fix *all* of them. So back to the database I went, ran some queries and fixed them myself.
Then the forum finally worked again!
(This is what the forum looked like when I first opened it. It ONLY had recent posts)
(The working local forum, no files yet with the default theme. Seems wrong to look at GOS without the dark theme, right?)
There were still a few things I needed to fix but the database seemed to work fine now. I had never done so many queries in my life. I know SQL, and had to fix databases before but not this intensely. So I guessed I learned something new haha.
Next was the exciting step to upload my clean install to the server. @fireflowersims and I had some directory issues, but I was able to fix them manually once again.
Then I had to take a look at the files which mostly consist of avatars and attachments. They didn’t work at all once moved to the clean install. Once again I took a look at the code and realized that the upgrade script would have changed those files as well, but because I ran it on a clean install it didn’t actually do this step.
I didn’t want to run the upgrade script again, worried that it would mess up a now working database. Instead I wrote a script myself that sorted through all the attachments, looked for the IDs of the avatars from the database so it could move and rename them.
Last were the attachments. This was an easier fix. They just had to be given the ending .dat. @fireflowersims ran a command through the console and then the attachments worked too!
We were getting closer!
Next was the theme. The old theme didn’t work on the modern framework anymore so @fireflowersims looked for a new one which I customized with CSS, trying to get it closer to the way the forum looked before. I think it turned out quite alright, hope you guys think so too!
(Trying to find out what CSS class addresses what? Make everything red and green!)
(All the spider webs)
Next was packages, or mods, to the framework. Fire and I encountered some hiccups here too, since there were some leftovers in the database. The packages hadn’t been properly deinstalled before running the upgrade script, which was another source of the errors. I tried fixing them manually but one of the packages would continue to just break the site no matter what I tried, so we settled for an alternative.
Some more work was put into SSL and making the forum secure. Once again some settings seemed to just break the page and each time I had to go back in the database and manually fix what had gone wrong. It was tedious but by now I knew my way around quite well.
@fireflowersims handled a lot of the server administrative work and DNS settings. I know very little about that part so having @fireflowersims there was great and they made sure the page is reachable at the correct address.
So yeah, I hope the site stays online for a long time now. It’s such a big part of our community and communities history. I used to download so much from there when I was younger. I wanted to give back to the community I love so much. That was the reason I spent many many hours digging through code and old forum threads.
Jules, I cannot emphasize enough just how cool you are for having done all of this work to get GoS back online! I'm glad I was able to provide a good new space for GoS to live from now on and assist with all the DNS. It was a trip alright, and I'm glad we could work together on this!
You are a hero and I (and I bet so many others) am so grateful for your skill and dedication! ♥️
Sims 3t2 Traits - Talk About Hobby (Trait mod for Sims 2)
Because Beau Andrews has the "Can't Stand Art" trait, he always rejects when Sims talk about Arts and Crafts to him!
This mod edits the "Set Result" BHAV for "Talk About Hobby".
In the unmodded game, Sims without the hobby will still accept talking about said hobby if the two Sims relationship is high. This mod adds some caveats to that.
Effects:
Sims with the Can't Stand Art trait will always reject talking about arts and crafts.
Sims with the Technophobe trait will always reject talking about Tinkering.
Sims with the "Hates the Outdoors" trait will always reject talking about Nature.
I edited Simler90’s “Outfit Sense” to make sense with traits and also edited two Global BHAVS that control playable Sims getting dressed for community lots and getting dressed for going home.
Obviously, this mod conflicts with Outfit Sense.
Effects
This mod changes what outfits Sims will appear in, on community lots, as walkbys, welcome wagon, etc.
Sims with the “Snob” trait are considered when the mod checks if a Sim should wear formal wear
Insane Sims run a random chance of showing up in Formal, Pajamas, or Underwear.
Inappropriate Sims run a random chance of showing up in their pajamas.
Couch Potato Sims run a random chance of showing up in their pajamas if its before noon
Global Effects
I also edited two Global BHAVS that control for Sims getting dressed for traveling to community lots and going home from community lots. Insane Sims run a fifty percent chance of not changing into casual from another outfit, so they may choose to go to a public lot in their formal or undies! They also won't change to casual when leaving the lot. No naked though, all Sims will change out of naked.
Inappropriate Sims run a thirty percent chance of not changing out of pajamas or undies to go to a lot and won't change to Casual when leaving.
Couch Potatoes run a thirty percent chance of not changing out of pajamas to go to a public lot and won't change to Casual when leaving.
