I'm running Sims 2 Super Collection on macOS Sierra, on a MacBook Pro 2017 with the Touch Bar (8GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus 650 graphics). I do have some hacks installed, mainly game-necessary stuff like antiredundancy, no-unlink and the Batbox, and then a few other ones that shouldn't affect too much - stuff that makes Sims not wave at you, allowing toddlers to escape their cribs, the hacked coat hook... I can list them all if needed, although some of these I got from my sister so I wouldn't be certain as to where some of them are from. I also have a fair amount of CC, but aside from a couple of hairstyles, the Sims affected weren't using it. They were living in empty lots.

I created a custom neighborhood yesterday and made some Sims, and moved them into separate lots, though they were all on the same street. I was making a street full of teens, so I moved out one adult and she got put into the Family Bin like normal; the rest were all left with the adults in their household. Today I opened that neighborhood, and two of the Sims, as well as the one that landed in the Bin, are missing, and the lot that I moved one family into is empty. Everyone else I created is still there. I know I saved the lot and didn't delete the binned Sim, and they're in a neighborhood that was just created (way too early for overpopulation, and there are only 358 character files in the folder) and I don't have too many global mods that would be capable of causing a problem.

I can't really come up with an explanation as to how this happened, and while one would be nice, I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't one. My main questions: can I recover the missing Sims? If not, or even if that was possible, is the neighborhood already on its way to corruption? The Sims who disappeared didn't have any time to interact with anyone outside of their lots, and there don't seem to be any visibly broken family trees, so I hope tokens and memories didn't get too far, but I know hoping might not get me very far here.

I don't understand it either. You seem to be doing everything right, yet it seems like serious corruption. But you haven't been playing it nearly enough for corruption to develop. The only VBT I can think of, which you haven't already mentioned, or ruled out, is removing a CC object that contains a hidden Sim. You haven't removed such an object, have you? They're generally things that move about the lot, like rebecah's animals.

If you were on a Windows machine, I'd recommend you run HoodChecker and SimPE to try to find out what's wrong, but neither of these are available for the Mac. If you can get access to a Windows computer (a friend's maybe), I'd suggest copying the suspect neighbourhood to it and running first the HoodChecker and then SimPE. HoodChecker detects errors, and can fix many of them. In SimPE I'd mainly be looking to see if I could find the missing Sims; run the Sim Browser (it's on the Tools menu) to see if you can see them, I'd make a point of looking with "Uneditable" checked -- the Sims would end up there if the game had somehow deleted them.

Hope someone with more experience of the Mac can help you more.

Did you do anything that causes corruption? Deleting sims or graves, moving sims between neighbourhoods? Disappearing sims is a classic sign of corruption.

This also sounds like it might be a problem with your system preventing saves properly. One thing I would check is that the sim files are all there. Unfortunately, you're on a Mac and can't use SimPE I know but you could either count or estimate from the files in the sims (characters) folder for that neighbourhood.

Can you see if there are files for each of the characters you created? How many sims did you make? How many sims files are there that are from that creation session (that have the right save time and date)? If the files are there, it might just be that the game hiccuped and you could attempt to retrieve the sims using a transporter and something like the SimBlender to move sims back into a family. Actually using a transporter will also give you an idea whether the sims are still in the neighbourhood or have been corrupted because they will only show up on the transporter as an option to transport if the files are available and not corrupted. If not, there may also be an option to 'retrieve missing sim' on the batbox.

You are likely to have created the neighbourhood just before you started making sims and the times and dates of the files might not be that helpful. However, consider this: You have up to BV (according to your profile). If you made a hood with everything up to BV installed, it should make 254 character files of NPCs on hood creation - that is an otherwise empty custom hood (not one of the pre-installed hoods as they come with extra playables) but NOT using empty templates so you get all the townies and stealth hood playables. If you then added subhoods, they would add the following numbers:

University sub-hood: 98 files (a second university sub-hood adds another 50 files)
Downtown sub-hood: 78 files
OFB shopping district doesn't add any sims till you play (for a while too), unless you added Bluewater which again comes with playables
BV destinations - tropical 14 sims; mountain 12 sims; eastern 12 sims

That makes, if you add all possible sub-hoods, 468 sims, which is more than your 358, so I guess you didn't add all sub-hoods. Some sims will generate as you play though you usually have to meet specific criteria for that - for example, the business reporter only spawns once you start to run a business.

Does any of that help to work out if your sim files are still in the neighbourhood or that any are really missing and not just somehow hidden?

I'm wondering if you might have hit the Mac file limit. How many files do you have in the The Sims 2 folder in total? It's not just about how much CC you have; all those other neighbourhoods you haven't loaded will count towards the total as well, as will all the files in the Sims 2 application package.

See this post by LordTyger for more info: http://modthesims.info/t/595866

I always delete any of the prebuilt neighbourhoods that I'm never going to play because of this, since even in their unplayed state they can add hundreds of files to the load count. I'm also gradually bundling as much of my CC as I can to reduce the number of files (not an option for a lot of Mac users, but I still have my old Windows game and SimPE available in Bootcamp).

You could try making a backup copy of the Neighborhoods folder and then deleting most/all of your other neighbourhoods and seeing if the missing stuff reappears. If you delete them from the Neighborhood chooser though, make sure you exit and reload the game afterwards, so it loads with the reduced file count.

And it does look like the game may shred missing sims in some circumstances, so you may need to restore that neighbourhood from a Time Machine backup if you've got one.

Sounds like you have Exceeded the Mac's Maximum Open File Limit. The Cause is not Corruption.

Missing Sims is one of the Symtoms of exceeding the Maximum Open File Limit as the game is unable to load the Sim Files and thus they are deleted. Look at InSimenator.org for other Symtoms of exceeding the Maximum Open File Limit if you are interested.

There is no way to recover the missing Sims, other than restoring from a backup that you made before the Sims went missing.

The best way to handle this is to Increase the Max Open File Limit to a larger number, I give details on how to do this in my Signature link.

Go to the link I provide and work on doing what it says, keeping in mind that you need to use Terminal a little bit as well as TextEdit and you have to be the Admin of the Mac you are using. If you have trouble after you have read it, you can ask me questions and I will try to help.

Okay, we have another problem here - I went to an unplayed house in the hood, which had a teen and an adult in it, and I'd left the teen playing Red Hands with the adult. The adult is gone, and only the teen is there. Game was paused, so he's still in the Red Hands animation, but the adult isn't even in the sidebar with him. Oddly enough, when I'd opened the lot, the adult was still in the family photo, but I had a brief freeze when loading the lot and the adult is no longer actually on the lot.

I checked the Batbox on Maxon's suggestion, and there's no option to retrive missing Sims. I'd wanted to move the adult out of the house anyway, but Sims need to only do that when they're told!

@AndrewGloria - Nope, I haven't removed anything from my Downloads in that nature. I don't think I have any of those to begin with, although I'm uncertain because I'm not sure whether you're referencing all NPCs (I have a hack in my game which fixes a bug with the cell phones, and I know phones generate temporary NPCs, although I haven't touched it since installing it) or just ones that have invisible Sims attached.

Would HoodChecker/SimPE be runnable on Mono alone? I did a search and found a guide here that requires installing so many extensions, and I'm really cautious with what I install, especially when it comes to things like this.

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@joandsarah77 - No, and in regards to the tombstones, I have Pescado's NoUnlink mod as well as no tombstones in that neighborhood (aside from L and D :P). I spent most of the time while my game was installing a few weeks ago reading up on how not to corrupt my game, so I haven't tried anything iffy. What loses me is that the neighborhood is too new to have had time to get corrupted (it's two and a half days old, with barely any of the Sims having been played aside from being moved into lots), and it's definitely nowhere near overpopulation status. Heck, the family that vanished from the lot wasn't doing anything except playing Red Hands with each other when I saved and went back to the neighborhood.

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@maxon - Does the Tombstone of L and D count as a transporter? Because I checked the summoning options on it, and the Sims that had gone missing weren't available. If not, what should I use as a transporter to check?

Yes, I'm playing with up to BV installed, and have the Stuff Packs that come with Super Collection if that's relevant (Happy Holiday, Family Fun and Glamour Life). I'd added a custom college and custom tropical destination, and hadn't put any Sims in those yet, so it's probably just loaded the default NPCs into those. I'd only manually created eleven Sims, ten of who were in the neighborhood before the disappearance. The numbers appear to match up in the character files - the game-generated Sims would result in 366 alone. (The last numbered file is 357, though there's a N005_User00000.package in there. I'm not sure who that would be, but judging by the timestamps, it's not a Sim I created.)

Does the numbering system in the character files mean anything, or is it just randomized? Because I'm noticing that quite a few of these appear to have been changed at odd times (like, file 14 being created right when I launched the hood yesterday, and 111 being edited around when I had exited the hood on the 24th), and I have no idea if that's relevant.

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@muridae (and @lordtyger9) - Files per process is 10,240 files, and my Sims 2 folder has 9,362 files in it. I do run background processes at any given moment, so that's probably a huge part of the issue (although on that note, I should probably figure out which of those darn CC hairs are causing invisible scalps so I can throw them out now!).

I moved Strangetown onto my desktop, but that doesn't seem to have solved anything. The adult Sim has still vanished from the other household I mentioned earlier, despite still being in the family picture on launch.

I don't have any backups since the town was still so new and I hadn't finished creating it. Should I just delete the hood?

No I meant something like Inge's transporter cat but from what our Mac players are saying, I'd look into file numbers. Sounds convincing to me.

If you did do something hood corrupting understand that it corrupts immediately. Corruption is simply miss read or misplaced data. It can be as easy as placing a lot with a grave into the housing bin. Most time misread data is going on without the player being aware of it, but other times you can see the consequences almost immediately.

Check your anti-virus they have been known to corrupt game files. Some years back I had a new install and a new virus protector and it made sim babies disappear and on age up sims acted like the age before. It turned out to be my anti-virus. Try turning it off, making a new house with sims, exit and reload. If it's untouched with it turned off that could be your culprit. You will want to start your hood fresh.

Since most Mac Players AFAIK, myself for example don’t have an Anti-virus App on their Mac, it is not likely connected to some misbehaving Anti-virus App. I have had the missing Sim problem though.

Running background processes just adds to your problem with the game!

Every Process that your Mac is running Counts Toward the Maximum Number of Open Files!

You can't retrieve the Missing Sims, sorry.

Good news is the fix is not really hard it is a matter of following directions and then copy and paste. Then a bit of using Terminal.
Really Good news is that once you have implemented the change everything will work great and you won't have missing Sims.

My advice is to Stop Playing and implement the needed Change to your Mac's Maximum Open Files Limit, until you do this you will keep having problems.

Nothing else will really solve your issue with your Mac.

Once you have made the needed change to your Mac, you can then sort through your Downloads and remove the wonky hairs, etc.

Look at InSimenator.org for other Symtoms of exceeding the Maximum Open File Limit if you are interested.

To Increase the Max Open File Limit to a larger number, see how to do this by going to the link in my Signature.

Go to the link I provide and work on doing what it says, keeping in mind that you need to use Terminal a little bit as well as TextEdit and you have to be the Admin of the Mac you are using. If you have trouble after you have read it, you can ask me questions and I will try to help.

*doh*, of course, you don't. I forget hat is mainly a PC issue. What about files set to read only so it isn't saving.

Read-only isn't typically an issue on Macs - it's more likely that, like Tyger says, it's a file limit issue. (I've never had files on Mac set themselves to read-only - in my experience, that's generally been a Windows problem.) Even if it was a read-only issue, that would have thrown out the entire neighborhood, not just a few families and Sims.

I'll see if I can run the Terminal processes tomorrow, and will post back once I've done so.

By restoring from backup I didn't mean a backup of Sims 2 specifically, but if you have Time Machine running in general. If so, you could try browsing back to see whether it backed up that neighbourhood after you added the Sims and it was last okay, but before you loaded it and it corrupted due to the file limit.

Bit of a longshot, but once you have your file limits increased it might be worth a try as it'll be the only hope of salvaging the hood.



From what I've observed, the game goes back and fills in gaps. So if you create Sims1-10, then delete Sim4, then create a new one... it might be either Sim11 or a new Sim4, depending on whether you've exited a play session in between. Timestamps are more useful than Sim numbers because of that, though as they'll show who you played last as well as who you've created, they don't help a lot in identifying a specific sim.



That definitely sounds like the file limit then. Default limits are 10240 for maxfilesperproc (the limit that Sims 2/anything as a single process can take) and 12288 for maxfiles (limit for the entire OS and everything in it). When setting my new limits I tend to keep that 2048 files extra for the OS to use.

I just meant the ones that have invisible Sims.

If Mono is a utility that allows run Windows programs on the Mac, there's a chance it might work. SimPE and especially HoodChecker are less demanding of resources than TS2 itself, so they have a better chance of working. However I really wouldn't know. Way back about 1991 (long before The Sims were even thought about), when I was beginning to learn about computers, I spent about 3 hours messing about on a Mac Classic. That's the full extent of my personal experience with Macs! I think LordTyger and muridae are on the right track, and it's probably something to do with that file limit. As an inveterate PC user, I'm afraid it's beyond my sphere of knowledge.

The good news is that the method I used to change the file limit numbers to higher numbers operates across rebooting and security updates.

Just make sure to set the Permissions properly, the owner of the XML file has to be root, and you need to use Terminal to do that. It is not really hard though as I give step by step directions. I did it on my Mac and I am not a UNIX expert nor an expert with Terminal.

BTW the method I am sharing Works with Yosemite, the original author of the method was using Yosemite. I don't recall where I found it, I spent a lot of time on Google and searching Apple Help Topics on Apple.com as I recall. I just added a little to the bottom explaining how to set the Proper Permissions and I got that information from a UNIX expert that I know in a Mac list that I belong to.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.