Tutorial - Basic troubleshooting

I recently experienced some weird behaviour in my game. A little nuisance: water puddles would not go away.
But it might have been the symptom of a serious issue, so after asking for advice at MTS I decided to dedicate some time to troubleshoot my game.

I was given a link to a very complete and detailed guide (which you can find here) but I figure that it's a good idea to keep a short summary which helps me to get an idea of the right steps to follow next time I have a similar issue -and what worked for me in the past.

1. Back up
   Because you never know what's gonna happen while troubleshooting, you must back up all the neighbourhoods you plan to use again in the future. Just in case.
   And, as a general rule, I would say that it's wise to back up every once in a while even if you don't go through this process.


2. Delete cache files
   Delete the following files from your The Sims 2 folder: groups.cache, cigen.package, accesory.cache.


3. Check your custom content
   This is a good chance to clean all that CC you actually don't use.
   And then start testings. Remove the content which is most likely conflicting (mods that were involved in the glitch, recent ones, etc.), load the game and try to recreate the problem.
   If the problem is not located there, use an iterative method (keep removing some of your CC files) until you find the troublesome ones. 


4. Check your user files
   Just rename your The Sims 2 folder so it can't be accessed by the game and test again.
   Load the game and make sure it works -in this case one of your files was damaged.
   Try adding back one at a time until your figure out which one is the culprit.

I did not need to do the last step because my problem got fixed removing some faulty CC, which seems to be a common issue, but in any case that's what I would have done next.

After doing all those steps, you may need to use your backup -specially if you saved your game at any time while testing.
And you can keep playing safely where you had left it!