Okay, my friend you came up here because you happened to have that message! Don't panic now we'll try a way.

FIRST, and this is important step - is QUIT WITHOUT SAVING. You might know SIms 1 is following such logic that all things return to previous once you make it that way - your sim can come not fired, not dead in fire and havee no children if that happened after your last save. Objects are following same logic. Thing could become quite complicated once you already saved your lot after, or you caught those message when your sim is traveling. But I'll tell about that later.

SECOND - is to retrieve all your OS to previous saving point if you have no backup of your neighborhood or you have no those lot file downloaded (if those happened to shared lot) is remember last time those lot, worked fine with no pop-up message and try to understand events were happened in between. Once you'll find events, you could now solve the problem.

Which can be the case? This is NOT 100% custom content problem. Yes, maybe you deleted come CC recently, UPD: but also you might have deleted in-game files from Downloads folder, or downloaded something that should overwrite game files. With game files overwrited in wrong way those could come corrupted and you can miss even objects that were been in game. So you should reinstall your game in case of missing in-game object. Or find those CC item was missing when searching tile-by-tile those lot that in question. That message pops up on many lot means all they had those CC item.

The problem with Sims 1, compared to other games, that all missing objects are never replaced by proxy. And you have no any log files to examine, and should search youself for empty space, like bathroom with no toilet, TV with no sofa against it, and something like that. In my case that happened when I deleted downloads folder by accident and even I restored all the CC items, almost half of my downtown lots gets this message. I did not found any physical object, so those probably was a global mod, which altered some hidden objects, like car portals, pedestrian portals or sims behaviour on some downtown lots, or maybe a wall speaker overhaul mod I don't know exactly, so yeah things can come you even won't find those object which causes this.

And this is where I find out such a great phylosophy of our life - "no body means no crime".

Well, this isn't QUITE true. This pops up whenever a lot loads up with a GUID on it that the game didn't load on startup. This is USUALLY a third party object, yes, but CAN be a Maxis one depending on what happened. For instance, House11 (not normally accessible unless you rename it to a used lot number) contains a prototype object called Outside.iff and will always throw that error on first load if an object with that GUID is not in the game (which it won't be for most people, because that object was deleted, but it might be if they somehow gave some other object the same GUID, either by happenstance or deliberately (I made a default replacement for Outside.iff in the 1998 beta objects thread, though it's essentially a dummy object that doesn't do anything because I was having some trouble getting beta accurate behavior with it--anybody with that file in their game will not see a missing objects error on House11 for instance)).

More commonly than the House11 thing, this could happen with Maxis if you happen to delete the Maxis objects that happen to ALSO be stored in Downloads (or less likely, the Maxis objects stored in ExpansionPack folders or GameData/Objects). Some of those contain controller objects meant to fix bugs, so they could cause this to happen on very many lots. This can also sometimes happen temporarily with just one object if you happened to have it open in something like IffPencil while the game was loading--sometimes that can lock the object's file from being read by the game and prevent the game from loading it, which can cause this error (but that's more likely to happen with third party objects since the Maxis objects are USUALLY in far files).



Those would be default replacements, so under normal circumstances such files would a) not be stored in Downloads, and b) cause the original files inside the Maxis far files to load instead if removed. That should not normally cause a missing objects error unless the original was removed, too. I think if you removed the Downloads folder and didn't restore an EXACT backup of it (as in if you went looking for every download you remembered putting in the folder instead of going "oh, I should grab my Downloads backup. *paste* there, done!"), then what is more likely that happened is that you ONLY restored third party files and didn't restore (or didn't restore ALL) Maxis files that were also in that folder, and the problem lots contained a Maxis object (either an inconspicuous one or a controller) that was stored in a folder in Downloads.

Guess I understand such technical details. Then if not certain, the person who encounter with "Missing object!" error may check default Maxis lots in other neighborhood. I think nobody plays ALL the neighborhood so you still have at least one unchanged. And once you see such error on Maxis lots, then crap happened, meaning you should check around files of those neighborhood, which came with EP.

I also did it and Maxis lots doewnloaded fine, hence in my chance, it is 100% CC issue.



I don't believe that. Is this game so stupid? Downloads folder is for full clones, expansion pack is for default replacements, expansion shared is for files recognised by several packs at one time. Why should game even should check other folders? That does look like the Sims 2. Collection files woks both in "Downloads" and "Collections" folder. Such a mess.


Looks like you don't trust I can restore all the Downloads without copypasting. 😏 Well, I am sure I did well. Changes were insagnificant, so, when learned from Sims 2 experience, I reverted to safe lot copies and repeated all the changes I did again (and did that even better then the first time). I use slightly edited with CC lots of my Unleashed and House Party mash-up

Not that I didn't trust, just that I'd REALLY recently seen someone who didn't realize Downloads had Maxis objects in it too so the chance of it happening in such a way the game was missing them was just on my mind! Good to know that's not the case! o.o (Also... I've accidentally given a few prototype conversions the same GUIDs as Maxis objects before (mid-testing) due to using the proto OBJDs unmodified and had that cause issues with some Maxis lots anyway so just the general logic of "Maxis object causing problems" was on my mind as well. XP)

I THINK the game only checks ExpansionPack[#], GameData\Objects (and \Walls and \Floors and \UserObjects and such), and Downloads for objects but I'm not totally sure... I don't know if the reason some Maxis objects are in Downloads is because some of them were initially distributed as downloadable objects, maybe... 🤔

I suppose the broader point of my reply had more to do with trying to flesh out information, because I know my immediate motivation for wanting to reply was sharing the "usually a downloaded object but could be a Maxis one in some more uncommon cases" sentiment with anyone reading

Yeah, in Sims 1 custom content files are very close to game files. And accident delete it is futile fatal

If anyone read this post without yet having such issue, please keep in mind:

First. BE ACCURATE. Do not trust creators who says "my files are safe, just overwrite game files, and you're all right". Of course, maybe they do, but you may got tired of your choise and maybe will find better mod in future, which follows different coding or maybe will clash in other way with those that you have now. Do not overwrite game files, do not overwrite it with custom created because you'll have to reinstall the whole game, repeat some certain steps, and this would be your time waste, which follows second stone in our sequence, saying:

ALWAYS BACKUP: The Sims 1 grew the whole generation of creators who lives one step aside from death with constant genuine fear of "always backup". I do the same. I have a backup of files that I need, for example, judging by MY Sims2 play, I follow certain gameplay of playing with no wants related to technics like a stone age generation. But what if I ever will want to revert technic-related wants back?Again, that does not mean that files are bad, I keep in mind may be to have a different plan in future. That's not hard, and that's not harm. It just occupies space on your HD which in some cases already reach 1TB. I am sure you'll find some there for 600KB.

UPD: @purplewowies I updated the text of the first post a little bit following your advices about thos not just CC problem. Thank you very much.