Common Lot Compressor Mistakes

The Problem I Faced

I love you guys, but… cleaning Sims 2 lots for uploading can be a pain, that’s right, I said it! There is so much compress this, delete that, reupload this… and a hell of a lot of restarting the game just to make sure everything is working and bug-free for you. Yes, I do it for you guys, because I love this community so much… but am I also a tiny bit envious of Sims 4 players who can just share an ID to their lot gallery? Well I mean... I’m not denying it. 😭

Mean girls side eye meme

Sometimes uploading a lot can look like this:

Build something totally cute and realistic.
Spend seven business days trying to remember how you cleaned the last lot (swearing at yourself because you swore you’d remember this time).
Spend one day finally cleaning the lot.
Upload it… then immediately stress-triple-checking like, “Did I clean this right?! Please don’t blow up anyone’s game…”

When you have multiple steps and tools that just give you the blues, sometimes that process can be even longer. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened to me, again, when recently uploading Daxby's A millennial coffee shop micro lot for your sims, find it free here under community lots on the site. . I thought I was doing everything right: I ran Lot Compressor, I waited patiently, I watched it do its little thing… and then I checked the lot only to find that it still had sim references attached to it.

Spoiler: it wasn’t my lot. It wasn’t even Lot Compressor. It was how I was using Lot Compressor—and the mistakes are so easy to make that I'm basically counting it as a rite of passage.

Lot Compressor

Wait... did I even mention what Lot Compressor A tool that shrinks Sims 2 lot package sizes by clearing out unnecessary bloat (especially cached lot images) so your shared lots are lighter and friendlier to load. is? Girl… would you have made it this far if you didn’t know? Well 😭 don't leave it to me to be the judge.

Lot Compressor was originally created by a simmer named Mootilda, and yes, its whole purpose (as seen in the name) is to compress your lots. But it does so in order to make the lot package you’re uploading smaller and thus easier on yours and others’ games. It removes unnecessary files, like cached lot images and thumbnails, as this the stuff the game can easily regenerate later.

In fact, side quest, have you checked out The Ultimate Sims 2 Abbreviation & Acronym Guide? I've written it to help you decode all the definitions and commonly used words around The Sims 2. If not, its a helpful resource for getting you up to date so that you can breeze through Sims 2 tutorials like a professional, so go check it out.

Unfortunately, some time after the creation of the original Lot Compressor, Mootilda passed away. Thus, its work was continued by another member of The Sims 2 community, Chris Hatch, who updated it to also handle removing Sim data (i.e. Sim references, Sims Scores, etc.) as part of the process. That said, if you see two versions of Lot Compressor, that is why. There’s the standalone version originally created by Mootilda, and the updated version that goes directly into your SimPE a powerful editing tool for The Sims 2 that lets you look inside the game’s files and change things—like Sim memories, relationships, career levels, or even custom content. file directory as an add-on.

So what's the tea bestie? Do I need both versions for my game?... No friend you do not. Chris Hatch's version includes Mootilda's original features + allows you to remove sim references and data.

Note: The remainder of this troubleshooting guide will be focused on Chris Hatch's version of Lot Compressor.

Lot Compressor Chris Hatch Version

Common Mistakes Made When Using Lot Compressor

Girl Check Your Installation, Seriously

The first thing you should check when having issues with Lot Compressor is your installation directory. I know, I know... you're totally rolling your eyes and saying that's not it, right? But listen bestie, this actually can be the root of your problem. If you are using Chris Hatch's add-on version and up doing a late-night binge, it's so easy to miss that the actual LotCompressor.exe needs to be pulled from the original folder it comes in and placed into your SimPE directory.This is because the updated Lot Compressor needs access to SimPE’s files in order to run properly. If it can’t find them, it’ll either (hopefully) error out and tell you… or, in my case, pretend it did something while doing absolutely nothing (Love that for us).

Also, if like me, you’ve moved your Sims 2 install to an SSD or an external drive, it’s easy to miss whether everything copied over cleanly... or even copied over at all. Paths change, files go missing, you'd be suprised what can happen. So do yourself a solid and check that your LotCompressor.exe file is actually installed to the right directory.

Check your lot compressor install folder.

The UI Trick That Fools Everyone

I’m not proud of myself, but I’m also not the only victim of this from what I’ve gathered. This is going to seem so simple, but friend… when it’s late night and you’re at your bottom hour, you can easily miss this:

Make sure you’re actually clicking the Finish button on the last screen so the software can actually run.

Now I'm not blaming anyone for this, but when its 3AM and your finally on step 137—aka using Lot Compressor, that ~~last screen~~... correction, second to last screen looks a lot like its telling you that the process is done. But my 3AM work bestie… look again 😭 because that screen is NOT saying that the process is finished and you’re just clicking Finish to close the window. It is actually saying you have to click Finish to start the lot compression process.

I know, I know… reading comprehension has gotten the best of us.

Click the finish button in lot compressor to actually compress the lot.

There Is A Order To Everything

... and if you don't follow it, you don’t get a lot cleaned of Sim references. Cut, dry, and simple.

So here’s the biggest mistake I made—and ironically, it’s also what solved my problem:

After Lot Compressor runs, you have to open The Sims 2, then re-package the lot and close the game again. Once you do this and check the lot in SimPE, you’ll finally see that the lot has actually been cleaned of Sim references and scores. Otherwise, if you run Lot Compressor and then immediately go check the lot in SimPE, it’ll look like nothing changed. The Sim data will still be sitting there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ go figure.

TL;DR: Run Lot Compressor → Open the game → Repackage the lot → Close the game → Check the lot in SimPE

And I don’t know why, for the life of me, I could not find this spelled out clearly anywhere. Trust me, I was knee-deep in random threads from 2019. But fear no more, bestie, because as it was for me, this may be your issue and now you officially have a reference point to come back to if you ever get stuck again.

If All Else Fails, Break Out The Ole' Manual Method

Snow white blowing dust off shelf meme

Now admittedly, I initially thought I would have to forgo Lot Compressor and simply do it manually... once it hit 4AM and I could no longer hold onto sheer willpower, I finally crawled over to the Sims 2 Reddit Help Forum. (Thank you to the kind soul that helped me).

But shortly after submitting that post and actually allowing myself to step away from the computer like a normal human, I had the thought; "last time didn’t I have to open and close the game to get it to actually clean the lot?"

I know. It doesn’t seem like you should have to reopen and exit the game to see the lot get cleaned. My first logical thought was: wouldn’t that just create new Sim references and data? But it doesn’t, bestie. I don’t know why. It just… doesn’t.

However, if none of these quick-shoot troubleshooting tips help you, then it’s time to go manual.

What does that mean? It means you’re going to open the lot in SimPE and delete the Sim references by hand. Don’t be alarmed, it’s actually a pretty simple process, and I’ll link the tutorial below. But be forewarned, after deleting the references, I personally couldn’t figure out how to re-save the lot as a Sims2Pack file from the SimPE interface, so you’re on your own with that part, friend. 😭 But if you do figure it out, please help the next person in the comments below, or simply give a shout out if one of the above solutions worked for you.