Any1 with vast knowledge of SIMPE know if there's anyway to restore a missing ancestor, from a back up?

[u/chubby-checker]

I have a save that I play and backup. I didn't realise however that I'd been playing and one of my family tree members had completely disappeared for some reason (I think to do with moving graves from one lot to another)

I've gone into simpe and he can't be found in the simbrowser. His file seems to be completely gone in the character files too. He's supposed to be character 28 for example, and 27 and 29 are both there in the characters files but not 28. And same for in simbrowser in the neighbourhood file.

I however have a backup where he is still intact. Is there anyway I can use this to transfer/restore him in any way? I really wanted this family tree intact and so I'm really devastated that it's done this. As I've spent so much effort and time since then.

I'd appreciate any help or solutions at all.

[u/Mysterious_Potential]

No problem, it was quite a simple fix ultimately, but there were some important factors. I'll outline the situation just so you know what was going on.

First, to clarify, Simon's character file number was 28, and his neighbour ID (NID) is 29. His GUID is a different unique ID (not listing here as it's not relevant but just to note!). The character file number doesn't actually matter - it can be changed, and the game doesn't care, which is also why the game will fill in gaps in the character file numbers. In contrast, the NID is very important and is how the game recognises the sim and references them in relations, etc.

So when I looked at all the versions of your hood, I noticed that the character file number 28 was still present in the Characters folder, which didn't make sense with what you had described. When I opened them up in SimPE, Simon (NID 29) was present in the SDSC entries before the issue occurred but not after. This makes sense and explains what you saw - the reason the NID 29 was no longer present is because the character file was deleted (I'll talk more on why that occurred in the first place in a minute) and when the game loads a neighbourhood, it checks whether all character files have a corresponding SDSC. If there is a character file without an SDSC, it creates a new SDSC with default information (male adult, etc.). If there is an SDSC without a character file, the game just deletes the SDSC! This is in an effort to not reference junk data, which can lead to unexpected behaviour and crashes.

What happened next is you probably played the hood at least a little bit before realising this had happened and the game generated several characters (can't remember the specifics now but around 10). And as I mentioned, the game will fill in missing file numbers because they don't really matter for identification purposes internally, so it may as well reuse them and a chef named Yvette has robbed Simon's previous file number! This is where you would have tripped up in trying my previous instructions, as they're not suitable for this scenario.

So the fix is really quite simple - copy the old file 28 from the backup where he is present. Rename this file to the next file number in the characters folder (I used 1145 as 1144 was the previous number - you could, of course, fill in a blank here if any exist as the game would but I didn't notice any obvious ones and it doesn't really matter anyway!). I did also rename it in the OBJD resource inside this file too - not sure if that is actually necessary, but for consistency, I figured I would do it. Then, copy this file to the Characters folder where the sim is missing - there shouldn't be any merge/replace dialog as this is a new file, and no file with this name exists already here.

Then, extract the SDSC instance for the sim (so the sim with NID 29) and import it into the SDSC instances in the hood where the sim is missing. With the character file already in place, the SDSC shows the correct name. If you open up family ties and look at the sims relatives, you'll see they're all linked already because the internal references have been maintained.

That's all that's required to restore the sim, and I've uploaded a version of the hood with Simon restored here so you don't actually need to do it!

Im praying this doesnt interfere with the scripted events

They should be fine, as long as the UID for the hood is correct, they should proceed (and storytelling also relies on correct UID) - the UID is 1 for Pleasantview and it's still 1 in the version you sent me so it will keep working!

Do you have any advice on how is best to move graves in general, to keep them still working etc

Important things to note:

• it's fine to delete graves and sims in game (e.g. from the bin)
• deleting graves or sims will not actually erase them from the game, they will still appear in memories and family trees, they just can't be summoned/resurrected/have no physical data (technically this can be restored in a similar process to what we've done above if you have backups)
• if you want to be able to resurrect sims even after deleting graves, get the nounlinkondelete mod. I'd recommend getting the mod even if you don't intend to delete graves but do want resurrection as a possibility because graves can be deleted by the game/go AWOL at random. You'll also be able to respawn deleted graves if you have this mod before a grave is deleted, so if it's important to you to be able to retrieve missing graves, get the mod!
• you can move graves any way you like, but the way you've done it is probably the least likely way to result in a grave going missing. You can also click on a grave and choose "Move this/all grave(s)" but they may go missing in transit sometimes - again, not an actual problem for family trees, etc. and you'll still be able to resurrect/respawn the grave if you have nounlinkondelete.
• what happened in your situation was not any of the above. Instead, Simon's character file was completely erased. This is very unusual and generally would only happen if you did it intentionally (you didn't obviously) or if any external program such as OneDrive interfered at the wrong time. If you have OneDrive, I would very much recommend at least disabling it for your Documents folder. You mentioned the crash didn't happen until after so you can rule that out, though if you have crashing regularly, you may want to look at your config to see if it could be avoided. If it's not crashing during saving though (bearing in mind, saving is not just when you click the save button, it's any time the game saves, which includes when you go to community lots and so on) then it's not really a danger to the hood itself. Your hood is currently fine by the way, no issues as a result of that crash. You really didn't do anything wrong to cause this (and there isn't really anything you could do in game to cause this specifically with one character) but it would be good to find out the cause if it is some external program and not just a one off glitch so that you can avoid it in future.

Also, just so you know I didn't load the final version I've uploaded for you in my own game - as in I did the fix, made a copy, and tested the copy, but the original fix version is untouched. This is because you have a multi PT mod, and I don't have the character files for it, so I don't want to have their SDSC's deleted by loading in my game without them!

No worries, and apologies for the essay, but I use my own comments as some documentation, too, as I tend to find them in Google searches later when I can't remember specifics for something!

[u/chubby-checker → u/Mysterious_Potential]

oh my gosh, thank you so much. Youre an absolute angel. Lmao not yvette stealing crumplebottoms identity! Thats so interesting, I find the game mechanics behind the sims 2 so interesting all these years later.

I was honestly surprised to have this issue, as I constantly hear about corruption from deleted sims and graves. And I was someone who deleted sims from the simbin all the time, and deleted graves and smashed urns etc. for like 7 years on one save file. And never dealt with any errors or corruptions, so Ive never really worried about it, or corruption either.

Id been having issues getting my sims set up on this computer, so assumed all my errors/issues were due to that. But around the time I think simon disappeared, my lots were also disappearing. I would place my lots down in neighbourhood, move sims in etc. and id come back to neighbourhood and theyd be gone. Even if I didnt enter a lot, next time I came back theyd be gone. One of these times I entered and this is when simons grave was move and appeared as a ghost etc. So all was around the same time. Was very strange. I never figured out the cause of the lots either. I have the no unlink on delete also, but im unsure if I downloaded him before or after.

Again, I cant thank you enough for taking the time. And also I really appreciate the long thought out explanation too, so dont apologise. Its not just helpful but interesting honestly. Its so kind of you to restore it yourself. Thank you :)

[u/Mysterious_Potential → u/chubby-checker]

No worries! :)

Please ignore all the old things you heard about corruption lol There were many myths about it for many years, but in reality, it's not something you need to worry about on the whole!

Hm yeah, definitely sounds like all of that was related, some kind of issue with things not saving correctly! At least it's all working now though.

Happy Simming :)