So you think your game's corrupted

This is not new information, Toni has posted it on her 'hood thread, but it's such good advice that I thought a summary here would be useful since this is the place where people who are having problems might look.  

First of all, the symptoms - which led me to think there was something seriously wrong with my game:  

My sims were no longer behaving themselves. I'd set them a task and it would just disappear from the activities lineup (upper left corner) and the sim would just stand there.
I like to queue up actions. E.g. Use toilet/take a shower/sleep in pajamas. If the whole sequence didn't disappear, often the first action did.
Starting cooking, then not completing the action, no matter how many times I ordered the sim to resume cooking.
Starting to make a 'phone call, then hanging up before even getting started. Very maddening when you're trying to get the repairman to fix your computer!
The sim would quit most actions (studying Mechanical from the bookcase, for example) and just stand there, or in a flash, turn around with a different image.

Now the advice (and believe me, when you need tech advice, Toni's the one to go to)  

1) Don't reinstall - there's some good advice here (Miros in woodensimolean.com)

2) I didn't think this would fix it, but it did! You will need this in addition if you don't have it already. It's needed by the No Sim Loaded hack. You just install these two DBPF packages into your downloads folder (I actually have a subfolder named "Hacks", where I put my...  Doh!)

These hacks (and they are hacks) may not solve every problem but they're worth a try. They certainly worked for me!  And, Toni...  

Good stuff Mac!  

I don't want to jinx things, so I'll whisper ***lowers voice***  I've been playing the same hood for nearly four years.  Mind you, I'm a slow player...in that time, I've covered about 25 years in my simmies' lives...and my hood has grown to nearly 700 characters.  I'm convinced following Miros' tips, and using NoSimLoaded (with the Smater EP check) and Pescado's Bat Box has made a huuuuuge difference!

So pleased to hear you've resolved some of your buggies Mac!  

My 'hood has over 1000 sims (not all playable). The playable number of sims is probably around 350 or so. (I had 150 households in May). I was afraid I was starting to push the limits of sims and households - and was seriously thinking about cutting back.

Now I know from your post, Toni, at least for the moment, that I don't have to. I do limit the number of different kinds of houses - use a lot of duplication of my favorites - since (I think) this helps loading time. And I'm maxing out my "Retirement Homes" at 8 sims per house. Not very playable, but saves on households. My retired sims are mainly those maxed in their careers etc. Sometimes I just get tired of playing them. I do keep singles active forever, though, hoping eventually to match 'em up!  

I'll be putting back a hack or so that I installed just before the troubles began. Now I don't think they were the problem. Probably adding another sim, too (Miss Scarlet from Cluedo)  

Good advice, mac! Glad you posted this. It sounds like you had the ol' Debug Super Duper Hug Bug which is almost impossible to fix except with the No Sims Loaded fix, which I put in my game a long time ago (because I had to! I have almost fifty gigs of custom content in my game and I'm not about to go searching through all of that to find some buggy stuff! LOL!)