Hey! I'm Kayleigh! I am a sims 2 producer and addict! I also voice act! Check oout my series and machinima here: https://www.youtube.com/@papermoonsims
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! ♥️
Massive shout out to @julessims and @fireflowersims for saving a community pillar! 👏 You both rock and thank you for the open communication and also giving some background on the fixes!
In case anyone wants it today- back in 2020 or so I archived the Old Wood and Dead Metal (Build/Buy) section of GOS when MediaFire looked like it was about to go down.
It's probably less useful than @simnostalgia 's big 2023 scrape- I know I didn't get everything- but more backups are better than less backups.
There's @goatskickin's woods, a bunch of Ja and Kativip and NixedSims, some @mustluvcatz-reloaded ...
Back in 2023, @hugelunatic-deactivated20260510 gave @simnostalgia shit for archiving/scraping GoS “just in case,” citing concerns over scraping, bandwidth, and preservation itself.
Now GoS and Sims2Artists are suddenly gone, and people are left scrambling through remnants, mirrors, and whatever archives survived.
That is exactly why preservation matters.
You cannot discourage archival efforts and then act surprised when people are upset that massive parts of Sims 2 history vanished with little warning. You also cannot get angry over backlash when there was never any clear, direct communication to the wider community.
People were explicitly told that if GoS was truly at risk of going down, there would be an announcement.
No real community-wide warning was ever given.
And honestly, this is where the messaging becomes incredibly frustrating.
We were told:
hosting costs were manageable,
the site was not going anywhere as long as ads/donations covered most costs,
out-of-pocket expenses were still within budget,
scraping was mainly an issue because it increased bandwidth/server load,
“if I were not willing/able to continue, then there would be an announcement,”
and later posts even made it sound like things were functioning again after the PHP fixes.
Most people interpreted that as stability returning.
So yes, people are understandably confused and frustrated now, because the messaging for years was essentially:
“Things are annoying, but manageable.”
Not:
“Hey. This is serious. Archive what you can now. I may be done.”
And no, buried technical posts about PHP upgrades and drive failures are not the same thing as directly communicating that to the wider community.
I literally had to use archived Tumblr pages just to reconstruct the timeline before speaking on this.
And honestly, we are lucky @simnostalgia even had the foresight to preserve as much as they did back in 2023, because otherwise even more would likely be gone forever or nearly impossible to piece back together. But that archive is still missing huge amounts of resources, attachments, images, updates, and years of content added afterward.
What makes this even more frustrating is that @simnostalgia received backlash for trying to preserve the site in the first place. At this point, I honestly hope they feel vindicated, because this situation is exactly why archival efforts matter.
People absolutely would have helped preserve, mirror, archive, financially support, or even transition these sites if the situation had been communicated clearly, especially if HugeLunatic had simply said:
“I am done. Someone else needs to preserve or host this now.”
but i think this is an appropriate time to tell all of you that internet archive/wayback machine is *also* not safe for making backups
they have repeatedly been the target of legal battles, some of which they have already lost (see here and here) and which have nearly bankrupted them
so putting everything on the internet archive and calling it a day is a majorly stupid idea. Ideally, we'd need SEVERAL backups of everything, in different places.
Also, the archive requires active and regular archiving. You can't just do it after the site goes down.
The usual rule of thumb for me is, as someone with all over 40gb of CC, is to keep my CC that I don't use and keep a record of it on Google Docs. I also make sure to help with WCIFs on forums, as well as share - especially older and more elusive content, so that there are more touch points online for people to find that CC if any sites go down. Wayback is a last resort. When everything else has been exhausted. And if it's not on there, you can only hope to go find someone who may have it deep in their downloads folder.
As a web developer who works on the daily with this kind of stuff (and php!) it makes me sad how little preservation was actually tried. I understand that a php upgrade isn't possible anymore at some point, especially if the base is old, but if you know what to do, you can edit databases, remove all personal data like mails and usernames, leave the threads as is and upload it to an archive.
I think there are several people in this community who could have helped, or still can.
It just makes me sad to see so little care put towards this huge piece of history.
If any of you have an old ass php webpage, reach out to me, I can probably help.
I am not usually someone who gets involved in Sims community discourse or public callout-style posts, but this genuinely breaks my heart to see.
A massive amount of the custom content, creativity, and inspiration behind my work on Vermillion Sins came from communities like Garden of Shadows and Sims2Artists. They were huge pillars of the Sims 2 creative space for years.
What hurts most is not even just the shutdown itself. It’s the lack of warning.
These sites were not just forums anymore. They had become archives of nearly two decades of community history: old creators, inactive creators, forum attachments, resources, tutorials, contests, shared knowledge, and years of creativity that helped shape this community into what it became.
A simple “hey, this may go offline permanently soon, please archive what you can” would have allowed people time to preserve pieces of Sims 2 history before they vanished. Instead, so much appears to have disappeared overnight.
And to be clear, I do not think anyone is owed endless unpaid labor or permanent site maintenance. If someone no longer has the time, energy, money, or interest to continue running something, that is completely understandable.
But I do think the community should have at least been given the chance to help. People absolutely would have pitched in through backups, mirrors, technical help, donations, archival efforts, or simply having enough warning to preserve pieces of history before they disappeared.
The Sims 2 community has survived because people cared enough to preserve things. Without archivists, backups, mirrors, and Wayback captures, huge parts of this game’s creative history would already be gone forever.
And honestly, I hope this becomes a wake-up call moving forward. Preservation should matter.
TOUs and repost policies should not become barriers that result in entire pieces of community history disappearing forever the moment a creator or site owner leaves, especially in a community where everything is interconnected.
I respect active creators wanting credit and boundaries. But abandoned content should not be treated like untouchable lost media while the community watches it disappear forever. Communities preserving older Sims games and their content are a huge part of why those games remained alive and accessible long after EA itself had largely moved on from supporting them, and likely played a significant role in renewed interest surrounding things like the Sims 2 Legacy release.
I hope more people begin supporting archival efforts, mirrors, and preservation projects before more Sims history is lost for good.
The news of what happened to GOS makes this a good time to mention, probably, something that I didn't mention earlier because of the hate I received when I scraped GOS.
I've successfully scraped all of the available Custom Content that was linked on GOS from Mediafire, Box, and SimFileShare. (Mirrors on 4shared not included)
Of course, I can't go back in time to retrieve things that are already long gone but here's a .zip of 49 GBs of content. This is everything from the beginning of GOS to September 2023.
This is the entire site's worth of custom content scraped. There are a few things that you need to know.- This is not checked to see if depe
“Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all.”
A certain Spring Court High Lord's throne room... What'd you think? Did I hit or did I miss?
Been working on some sims with some recolors of various clothing and accessories. First, we have Tamlin. I must admit, I did like the idea of having him look proximal in his fashion to the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, especially since the story borrows from that fairytale. But, I felt the initial design was too muddied for someone like Tamlin. While he might wear something this frilly for court affairs, I feel something more structured but rugged was essential everydaywear for him.
Spring Courtier fashion always seemed to me to be a mix of Late Rococo and Tudor styles: opulent, layers, structure, and a lot of extras. Lots of saturated bright or pastel colors. Lots of gold and fine leathers.
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
discoholicmusic
origamiaround
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
areudirty
dededos
gummygunk
