There are a handful of build-mode items that were showing up in my catalog as a plain gray square (and plain gray when placed on a lot, also). Some were gray only in the catalog, but not in reality; I've fixed their icons using the Ctrl-right-click trick. These other "renegade" wall coverings are not fixable this way, and since they're not usable, I'd like to get rid of them, but searching for them on my computer has produced no results. I originally thought they had come as part of a Sims2Pack installation, with jibberish filenames, but a Google search has proved otherwise... They came from cherryblossomsims, and are part of Lamia's IvyCoveredWalls. I re-downloaded them, then tried searching my Sims Downloads folder for the filenames, which are "wall_592979dc" and so forth.. but nothing doing. So how do I find them? Tricky, eh?

The walls aren't "Mac-friendly", in that they aren't 256x512, but 256x768 px in size. The latter won't show properly for Mac, but do show fine for Windows. Resizing them to 256x512 px would make them able to show up.

--

If you have a downloaded lot with some weird grey walls that should be covered in ivy, that's most likely the culprit.

If they're renamed files from the Default installer (likely from a lot install) you have to find those filenames. Walls and floors usually get renamed to jibberish with the default installer.

The easiest way to find such items is usually by putting the items on a lot, packaging it, and checking the names with Clean Installer and/or SimPE (textures/meshes).

With access to Clean Installer, you could put the items on a lot and package it, then check in Clean Installer (The default installer often renames files, and you can't open just to view the files)

Cat has a Mac-friendly version of Clean Installer, not sure if that one will work for you, but could be worth a try.
(Cat also has a Mac version of SimPE)

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if the Mac Clean Installer was released in May of this year, it probably won't work with my 2012 operating system (as is the case with the Mac SimPE).
Re: the filenames - they're not exactly total jibberish: they do have the word "wall". I didn't install the files with the Sims2Pack installer - those are the filenames they came with, from the cherryblossomsims .zip file. So in theory, they should be in my downloads folder if they appear in the game.

Yeah, the Clean Installer .dmg contained "no mountable file systems", according to my computer. I'm guessing it's way too new for my OS to recognize.

If you at some point put the files directly from the zip folder into your CC - then yes, they should have the original names.

If they were at some point installed with the default installer (via a lot), the names most likely have changed to jibberish (as in, not being named "wall_592979dc" but rather something like "0f275a0acfe04bfa841e7ecc4a57fd50_0001". If they've been installed multiple times via different lots, there could be additional copies with different jibberish names - I've had the annoyance of sorting out about a billion mailbox/trashcan files which also tend to do this, and it's a big pain in the behind...)

"wall_592979dc" or "floor_582969db" or "7c552564_b2dc67c" (sim templates) aren't really "jibberish" names - it's the game's way of naming files, and it follows the same pattern for the same type of file every time, plus it's easy to see what kind of file it is once you recognize the type. On the other hand, the renamed "0f275a0acfe04bfa841e7ecc4a57fd50_0001" files could be anything - meshes, recolors, walls, mods, makeup...

@rhiamom (catandsusim) might be able to help you with the install, or any questions related to the Mac version - but yes, it is possible your Mac version is a bit too old, or that you need to run it through Wine or some such, as they mentioned this in relation to the SimPE version.

I don't install Sims2Pack files very often, and before I do, I clean up my downloads folder a little, so that when the jibberish filenames appear after I've launched the game, at least I'll know what they are. And I'll do one at a time... but these were just dropped in by hand. It's honestly not a big deal - they've just been annoying me for a bit. The ctrl-rightclick thing for the goofy catalog icons was a revelation - that cleaned up nearly all the ones that were hurting my eyes. But it would be nice to be able to use CleanInstaller anyway... my game seems to be prone to weirdness.

I am the Cat from the Cat and Susim’s Tumbler. Can you tell me which MacOS you are using? I’d like to look into this and see if it can be fixed. My SimPE for Mac runs using Wine, but it is nicely prepackaged in a Wine wrapper so you don’t have to know anything about Wine. If the wrapper is the incompatible part, there may not be much I can do. If .Net 8 is the issue there is nothing I can do, as that is the oldest version of .Net that you can build on/for a Mac. And I am disinclined to recreate Clean Installer, Hood Checker, and Delphy’s Download Organizer in Swift or Objective C rather just using the existing C# code.

My Clean Installer names the extracted package file the name of the Sims2Pack!

Okay, here’s the bad news. Catalina, MacOS 10.15, is the absolute floor for Dotnet 8, and Dotnet 8 is the absolute floor for a C# app on Mac. Chitownriverscum, you are ONE version too old if you are as upgraded as your system allows. I am so sorry! I do not want to rewrite these apps in a different language. If somebody else wants to, they can use my code as a starting point, which is on my github/rhiamom. I would be glad if somebody does!

Actually, I'm seven versions too old, currently... I'm running Mountain Lion, MacOS 10.8.5 The guy who sold me the laptop mentioned that I might hazard upgrading a bump or TWO, at the most, but that wouldn't get me anywheres near Catalina. According to the interwebs, though, my model can go all the way up to Catalina. But that would mean giving up my subscription-free Photoshop, which I won't do unless I have no other options. I can live with a few funky-looking wall coverings I think. Thanks for the info, though!

How would upgrading make you lose your subscription-free Photoshop? Mac system upgrades don’t normally affect your installed apps. Unless Photoshop is somehow unable to run on the newer MacOS. I recommend some research.

^ I'd say so, too. If the older Mac version is holding you back in so many ways, it's perhaps about time to think about options.

I'd think if you have your original setup stuff for Photoshop, it's possible to reinstall it - most programs tend to be compatible with newer OSs for quite some time (unless Macs/Apple is being knowingly annoying about this, of course - like changing charging cables for new iPhones multiple times just because ). A subscription-free Photoshop or replacement for it is probably the easiest thing. There are plenty of free options available now, some of which are on par with Photoshop.

It's because these days Adobe only supports Creative Cloud, which is subscription-based; their legacy software won't run on anything much newer than what I've got... as far as I know, anyhow. The guy who sold me the laptop had to move to Creative Cloud after he upgraded, so the Photoshop came with the laptop. Kind of like Open For Business - I've got the disc, but the installer is from too long ago and won't run. So I build faux-businesses on residential lots, which is kind of fun to figure out.

This kind of goes back to a post of mine from awhile back. If I could figure out that sweet spot of what OS would be new enough to run the Super Collection, but also old enough to still run Photoshop CS4, I'd get that, and a lot of my browser incompatibility and Sims EP problems would be solved. Assuming I'd be able to figure out where to buy such a thing, which is probably ten years old at least. None of that would get me SimPE or the Clean Installer, but hey.

I've also got an old HP clunker laptop sitting around, that could probably run SimPE, and I'd just use SFS to transfer stuff back and forth. I think it currently has Win 7 installed, which would be fine for some version of SimPE, right? Even so, it's seriously out of date, and getting a Windows 7 activation key / getting all the required updates to load... could prove tricky. But enough about my morass of computer issues

I believe it's an Apple/Adobe collusion... another reason to move to GIMP, perhaps.

If you don't have to connect the laptop to wifi (and you have some sort of antivirus program that can update, just in case you do need to connect it occasionally), there's not much need to worry about updates as long as the computer is working fine and has Windows already installed. There are also lots of ways to install and play TS2 on a Windows PC, with or without internet access. I'd say using Windows 7 is probably even better than 10/11 in regards to compatibility, as long as the computer/laptop can handle the game. Plus, you'd have access to the full game and all the tools.

Despite its many quirks and flaws (especially the newer OSs), Windows is generally a lot easier to get around for compatibility issues. I can't think of much I haven't been able to install some version of, even older programs - most of what worked on WinXP or Vista still works with 10 (either the original version or updated).

(If the Photoshop CS4 version is for PC too, I'm sure at least Win7 and out would run it)

I haven't tried using it in a while. I'll pull it out of its storage bin and fire it up, see what happens. My recollection is that the activation key had expired (I got it secondhand from an old employer), and that there seemed to be no way to get a new one because I couldn't connect to the internet (because Windows wasn't activated). But I could be misremembering. I think I would want it to connect to wifi though.

If it's a time-limited activation code (date limited, or "lasts 3 years" or some such), it might be an issue, but if it's just an activation code for validating the version, it might still work.

chitown, I have SimPE on a different computer than the ancient iMac I use to play TS2 on, since I couldn't ever get Bootcamp or VirtualBox to work on my iMac. If you decide to install SimPE to your HP laptop, I can give you some help on which files to copy over from your Mac and how to set up the directory structure on your HP. SimPE likes to complain if it doesn't find a valid Sims 2 installation but I've worked around it somewhat. DM me for the specifics if you're interested.

How would SimPE work without Sims 2? Don't you need Sims 2 for SimPE to be able to find the files that you want to see/modify?

SimPE does not need the game installed if all you are doing is editing existing packages. You only need the game installed if you want to create based off Maxis items. In fact you should be able to clone an existing item to make a new one without the game installed. If you want to edit bhav's tho there would be a lot unknown errors showing. They would be there, and probably work fine, but you wouldn't be able to see what the bhav does.

I don't have much experience in 3-D modeling anyway - I tinkered with editing aircraft in X-Plane, but that was just tweaking the dimensions (and paint jobs) of other people's creations. In Sims 2, I mostly envision myself editing existing 2-D packages, as I was doing for a while in conjunction with AnMal. She would extract the image part of a mesh (from a business' shop sign, for example), send it to me via MediaFire or something, and I'd make the edits I wanted in Photoshop and send it back to her, whereupon she'd pop it back into the mesh and send the whole thing to me for testing. If I had SimPE myself, I could do all that much more simply.

What's the oldest version of Windows that I could use for a bare-bones version of SimPE? I actually do have an old Compaq with Win 95 on it that still works!
Ha ha, WHOOPS! It doesn't have a USB port though... Debatable whether I could get it online, so I'm not sure how I would transfer the files back and forth. I have another newer Compaq, and an HP Mini... perhaps I could get one of those to work.