Playing the Legacy Edition. Have been doing so for almost a year now. Had a custom neighborhood ingeniously named "N004," and which I created to contain my old N004 from 15 years ago. No problems, game has been doing just fine.
Tonight I fire up the game, and N004 has disappeared from the selection screen. The file is still in the "Neighborhoods" folder, SimPE can read and manipulate it just fine, but the game doesn't know it exists. I copied a couple of backup N004 folders in to see if the problem was corruption with N004, and the game still can't find them, so the problem would appear to be with the 'hood selection: somehow, it has forgotten N004 exists.

I made no changes at all since playing the 'hood yesterday. No downloads, no file manipulation, no system or disk crashes, nothing of the nature that would destroy data. The 'hood was there yesterday, and it's gone today (at least as far as the selection screen is concerned).

The obvious fix would be to add a new neighborhood to the game, and call it "N004" and put my backup files back into the Neighborhood folder. But before I try something so obvious and simple, I want to make sure I won't make the problem worse. I don't know how the selection screen could have become corrupted between one day and the next. And I don't know where, exactly, that particular bit of data is, or how I could manipulate it directly anyway.

I will note that all six 'hoods that come with the LE show up, so that "N004" has actually been the seventh 'hood in the game all along. I have created nor played any other 'hood but N004 since installing LE. I am baffled and shocked that this has occurred, but more importantly, I want to know how to fix it so I can keep playing my old 'hood.

-- Mal

(Backup the hood folder before you do anything to try to fix it, just in case)

Could be a corrupted "NeighborhoodManager" file.
You can try to delete it - it should rebuild when you next run your game.

Could also be an issue related to where the game gets the savegame info from.
Does your game still show/read your downloads? If yes, it's most likely reading the proper folder. If no, it's possible something has gone wrong.

Do you have enough harddrive space on your computer? Too little space, or if you've got OneDrive messing with the folders because it's running out of space for synching, and you could end up with issues like this.
(Make sure the folder path for your game doesn't have "OneDrive" in it, and that OneDrive has been disabled - this might be a whole process on a new Win11 computer, but at the very least check that the game isn't synching).

No, I disabled OneDrive as soon as I got the new computer.

I followed your suggestion and deleted the Neighborhood Manager file. No joy, alas. The file did regenerate as expected, though. But it just doesn't see the N004 folder.

I also fired up one of the stock 'hoods and checked to see if my CC is in place. It's all there, so it's not a pathing problem.

I have about six backups of my 'hood in various places on my computer, as well as on an HDD. No way I'm losing that 'hood after all the work I've put into it.


-- Mal

It's in the main Neighborhoods folder (alongside the N00X folders). It's a "package" file.

Yes, thanks, I did see it. So panicked right now I missed it at first. This bloody game... it used to crash and wipe out my 'hood every couple of weeks back in the Good Old Days (I exaggerate, but only a little).

-- Mal

Since regenerating the Neighborhood Manager didn't fix the disappearing 'hood problem, I decided to try creating a new neighborhood and swapping my files to the new folder. Didn't get past Step 1: the game crashed trying to create a new 'hood. Did it twice. It crashes right after, or at the end, of "Creating Pets."

Threw out all my CC (ie, moved away the Downloads folder). Removed all the stock hoods. Fired up the game, and it had a Neighborhood Selection screen with only the option to create a new 'hood. Tried it. Creation was successful, a brand new N001. But my N004 folder still didn't show up.

Wiped the board and tried again. Put stock neighborhoods N001, N002, and N003 into the Neighborhood folder. Fired up the game (still no CC). All three appear on the selection screen. N004 does not. Removed N004 folder, told game to create a new neighborhood -- and it crashed again. Oh, dear.

If I'm looking at a re-install I'm gonna cry, but that looks to be the way the wind is blowing.

-- Mal

So, this is certifiably weird, IMO.

I put the three stock neighborhoods, N001-N003, back into the Neighborhood folder. They all show up on the loading screen and are playable.
I added my N004 folder, and as expected, it does not show up.
Then, for the heck of it, with N004 still in place (along with N001-N003), I told the game to create a new neighborhood. It did so, and now we have N001-N005 in the Neighborhood folder, but only N001-N003 and N005 are shown to select.

So, let's recap:
When I tried to add a neighborhood with all 6 stock neighborhoods in place, it crashed.
When I tried to add a neighborhood with only N001-N003 in place, it crashed.
When I added N004 back in, it created N005 just fine.

Now, you tell me why the game suddenly wants absolutely nothing to do with any Neighborhood called "N004," whether new or already in a folder. Literally overnight, I add. It doesn't object to any of my CC (and I have a lot), it's not a memory issue, but it just hates N004 all of a sudden.
I'm sure there's a very simple explanation.

Whatever that explanation is, though, it's kinda academic. I used a batch renamer to rename every file in the N004 folder to N001, renamed the folder N001, and dropped it in the Neighborhood folder. And it works just fine, didn't even reset the Sims. It did re-activate "Game tips," but that's easy to disable. Yes, all my CC is intact: clothes, objects, BEHAV files, utilities, the lot. Yes, it appears all of my families are right back where they were when I quit yesterday, pregnancies, books, college terms, and all are intact. It's just N001 now, not N004, and while I still wonder what caused it, I don't care a lot, since I can play again.

And it did do one strange thing. It trashed three "unknown" Sims which the game created a couple of months ago for now apparent reason. I now have 1187, according to SimPe, not 1190, and the ones missing were three unknowns sandwiched between some babies I had back then. I tell ya, this game is enough to drive you to drink.

-- Mal

Where are you getting the neighborhoods? And are the files inside N004 named properly? Just renaming a folder does not rename all the files inside.

Also, do not create multiple threads for one issue. Edit your post.

N001-N003 and E001-E003 are the stock neighborhoods supplied with the game. N004 is the neighborhood I have been playing, in one form or another, since 2006. Yes, all the files in the folder are properly named, as could be inferred from the fact that I batch-renamed them to N001, renamed the folder to N001, and dropped it into the Neighborhoods folder where it now works as expected. Or could be inferred from the fact that I have been playing the 'hood for almost a year since getting the LE, and it worked fine until suddenly disappearing.

The curious thing at this point is that the game will not only not recognize any folder named "N004," if it tries to create one it crashes. Yet if the unrecognized N004 folder is in the Neighborhood file, the game will create a new neighborhood just fine, and put it in a folder called "N005."

As the 'hood is now operating as N001, I have a work-around, but not a fix, since the reason N004 is suddenly poison to the game is unknown.

-- Mal

Probably a better idea to rename it (and the files inside) to N005, as it's a custom name.

The default hoods are named N001, N002 and N003 + E001, F001 and G001. There aren't any E002 or E003 default hoods (unless Legacy uses different names?)

If you want to start over/reset all the hoods, you can delete the whole "Neighborhoods" folder - it will regenerate from the install files. Might help with resetting the N004 folder, in case you want to fix that problem.

I haven't kept up with the Legacy bugs, but it's possible disappearing/self-corrupting hoods could be a legacy-spesific bug from an update. Might want to check that if your game keeps having issues.

Yeah, you're right, the expansion 'hoods are named E, F, and G 001. As N001 is working now, I'll probably keep using it until it breaks and then try that Neighborhood regeneration trick you suggest. Worse case, presumably, is that I just keep renaming the old N004 until I run out of patience with it.
I'd give a nickle or even a dime to know what caused it, though. The only thing I did between closing the 'hood on one day and finding it gone the next was create a Sim in Bodyshop, who is now in the 'hood. Oh, and her dress, too. But again, that's something I've done oh, a few hundred times already without a problem.

-- Mal