A few hours ago i was playing, i quit like normal, nothing out of the ordinary occured. Now a few minutes ago, i restart my game and it's behaving as if i just installed it for the first time.

My downloads folder hasn't been changed in any way, in fact i haven't done anything to the sims 2 folder at all since the last time i played a few hours ago.

It's not just the downloads that aren't in the game, it's also a camera hack in the cameras folder that isn't showing up. Basically, the game still has all expansion packs like it did before, but looks like a brand new installation with all my options reset and all custom lots gone.

Take a look in your Documents folder. Do you just have one EAGames\ The Sims 2 folder? If so, are your Downloads and cameras folders still there, complete with your custom files? It could be that the game has not read your original folder for some reason and created another. However I've never heard of this happening; the most likely explanation would be that your Sims2 folder has been moved or deleted. Take a look to find out.

I have that folder, and the downloads folder is still intact, and so is the camera folder - with all my custom content.

I was playing fine before, quit the game and didn't play for about 6 hours, and in that time i didn't do anything sims related on my computer. No changes have been made whatsoever to any of my sims folders in that time.
When i started my game up again, i get a message at startup asking would i like to enable custom content, as if it's my first time playing. I say yes, and in the neighborhood all my custom lots are gone, options are all set to default like when you are playing for the first time.

Do you have SimPE? If so, take a look at your Neighbourhood files in SimPE to see if they are intact. If you do not have SimPE, all I can suggest is to delete the Documents\ EA Games\ The Sims2\ Neighborhoods\ neighborhoodmanager.package file, to see if the game can detect your hoods. If the neighbourhood files have become deleted or corrupted there would be no way to recover them except for restoring a backup. It sounds as though your config files also became damaged; hence you had to reenable CC. The camera mods and your Downloads should work if they are intact and you have CC enabled correctly.

i downloaded SimPE and opened neighborhood browser, and my custom families are there. I also deleted neighborhoodmanager like you said.

When i started the game, I get the same message asking if i would like to enable custom content. I say yes, then go into belladonna cove which is where i play and have all my custom lots and families.

First of all, the camera hack i installed a long time ago is not being recognized right from the getgo, the default game camera is in effect. Also my custom lots are all gone even though everything was showing up in simpe.

I loaded a random lot to see what would happen, and game tips started, it's as if i'm starting to play for the first time.

LIke i said before, the game options are all reset to default somehow. I don't understand how this can happen, you have no idea how much work has gone into customizing this neighborhood with lots and soo many custom families and stories. I haven't even touched my sims files at all, this is apparently happening for no reason whatsoever. I'm giving up on this game, it's not fair to have worked so hard on my families and spent so much money on expansion packs only to have everything i worked on disappear because of bad programming or i don't know what.

There are still things to try. Cut and paste your existing Sims 2 folder to the desktop. Run the game so that it creates fresh files. Then enable custom content. Copy your Downloads and Neighborhoods from your old files into the new Sims 2 folder. Run the game and check custom content is enabled/ dialog turned off. Restart the game. Can you see your files now? The camera hack you may have to install- if your old camera file was damaged/ deleted the game would have copied a new one over.
If this does not work then it would seem like your files are damaged in some way that the game cannot read them. This could be caused by a number of things. Disc damage, viruses and antivirus software to name but a few. The only way to safeguard against this happening is to backup- this goes for personal files as well as Sims 2 files. This may not have been caused by the game, and had you backed up you would not have lost any files.

i did everything you said, including redownload the camera hack.
the camera hack is now working, but my lots are still gone. i don't understand why they are showing up in the lots folder, with all my families photos. but in game my families are gone. i didn't do anyhting that would cause the files to become corrupted, i don't have viruses or antivirus software turned on.
my backup files are from a long time ago, i don't think to make a backup every single time i play, there's no reason since this kind of thing never happened to me.
i guess i'll just say goodbye to the sims 2, but thanks for trying to help.

I would advise to check your hard disc for errors also; this could be caused by disc error. If your lots appear intact in SimPE then it is possible that the Neighborhood.package file has become damaged. If this file is unreadable the hood will not show up in game. I've seen problems before where the game does not shut down correctly causing file errors, and loss of neighbourhoods seems to be a common game problem- seemingly due to file corruption, but cause unknown. Frequent backups are the only safeguard really. I've personally never had this happen, and never had chance to examine the files of a hood which is damaged. However there have been many threads where people have had this happen, although I've not seen problems with the config file being damaged before.

I know it's been almost 2 decades, but this just happened to me where my camera mod stopped working and the tool tips and graphic settings reset but nothing has changed and all my cc is still in the game. Did you ever find a reason it happened? I didn't touch anything between launches!

Do you have enough space for the game to save? Find your disk drive and see how much empty space it has.

The original poster has not been active since 2008; the best thing to do is to start your own thread in this forum.