I took the Garden Club Lady on vacation, and other disasters

[V]

My sim had a crush on the Garden Club lady, named (in my game) Lisa Gross. So, even though they only had one bolt's worth of chemistry, I let him take her with him on his vacation with his young daughter.

There were many errors. I turned off the testing cheats because I was getting an error every few seconds and they hadn't even gotten out of the shuttle yet. I turned it back on later, when I noticed that Lisa's want slots were no longer blank.

I sent the family (and guest) off to a comm lot to enjoy some mountaineering excitement. When they were at the lot next door to the campgrounds I happened to accidentally click on the campgrounds. It said, "Lisa Gross lives here" (or words to that effect).

I hoped that was not going to be a problem and got the family & Lisa back to the campgrounds for the shuttle run home.

The shuttle picked everyone up, then dropped Lisa off at the campgrounds. Lisa went about the campgrounds as if she were home, but the controls were still disabled.

I exited to the neighborhood and then tried to go back to the campgrounds and the application crashed.

I went to SimPE to see if there was anything I recognized as removable so they would either still be on vacation or never went on vacation and saw the "Days left on vacation" so changed that from 0 to 1. I was hoping maybe the game would think they were still supposed to be there. Of course that did not work and the game still crashed when I tried to load that lot.

I tried to make Lisa a member of a different household, but found that I could not because first I would have to go to her home lot and play that before I can have her move to a new lot.

Is there anything that I can do now to save this hood? It is not a very old hood, but I have actually put quite a bit of time and effort into it and would like to actually have it for a while longer than this.

*V types, "I am an idiot and made a series of incredibly stupid decisions that may have destroyed my hood." 500 times while she waits for an answer

[J. M. Pescado]

I have no idea how you did that. There isn't even a good reason why bringing a garden club townie as a vacation buddy would break your game. I am baffled.

[V]

Well I am pleased to learn that my initial action of bringing the Garden Club lady along on a vacation was not inherently stupid. But I was hoping for some sort of brilliant troubleshooting plan or series of questions.

I have further tried to fix this by adding a new sim with a new house and artificially making him friends with the head of my lost family and then asking them to move in.

I received the message, "Jim's household is not currently saved on Jim's home lot. If you would like to ask Jim to move in, then you must play Jim's household and save once the household has returned home."

Well, I can't play Jim's household because they are on vacation and haven't gotten back yet. And I can't play the vacation lot where they were lost because that causes an app crash.

I have lots of error logs that I could send:
25  Object Errors, 6 from the last working session, 9 from the first session
8    Sims2Exception Errors, 4 from the last working session, 4 from the 3rd
8    Missing anim-* Errors, all after it stopped working
14  other errors, all after it stopped working
1    excel spreadsheet titled OETreeDelete from the last time I loaded the game to try something clever.

But I don't know which one of these error logs may be of any use or if any of them would be of any use.

Do you (or does anyone) know of any way that I can cheat this game back into existence? Is there any sort of SimPE thing I can do to force the family to go home and the Garden Club lady to not be stuck thinking she lives on the campgrounds?

ETA the 2nd direct question: Is there a debug cheat to move someone into your house whether the game thinks that you should or not?

[witch]

Do you have a backup from just before you went on holiday?

[Invisigoth]

ETA the 2nd direct question: Is there a debug cheat to move someone into your house whether the game thinks that you should or not?

Yes; you can select "add neighbor to family" from the tombstone of L&D and then select the name of the missing sim. Or you could use Inge's teleporter shrub.

[spaceface]

I have taken the garden club lady on holiday with no ill effects.

I have noticed other vacation guests behaving strangely, though. Sometimes they just go home when it gets late, the action queued is "leave" and it cannot be cancelled. They reappear if I exit and re-enter the lot, and leave again when it is 2a.m.

[V]

Thanks, Invisigoth. I used the tombstone and got my family working again, albeit with some little strangenesses. They started their lives over again from the top, but they still remember everything that happened up until about 10 sim minutes before they got lost on the shuttle home.

The only problem I have left is that the campground is unplayable since it thinks that there are still sims there. Is there some way to get that lot working again? Do I need to bulldoze it and try to build one of my own? Would anything unfortunate occur if I were to move the lot into the lot bin and then put it back? Would that even do anything? It doesn't really have anyone on it; it just thinks that it does. I was able to enter the lot (in F2 mode) to add the lot debugger, etc, but I could not send a sim there at all. I have, admittedly, not tried every possible way to get someone to that lot yet and I probably will before I do anything drastic. But in the meanwhile, is there a good way (or a cheaty way) to get this lot working again?

And, Witch, no. I did not back up the game before going on vacation.

tngrspacecadet: I am glad to know that whatever happened was not about bringing the garden club lady along. I really thought this was going to turn into a point & laugh festival akin to marrying the drama professor or some-such.

[witch]

And, Witch, no. I did not back up the game before going on vacation.

Bummer. I back up my game after every session because I am so crap at fixing things, inevitably making them worse, it is easier to only lose a session's play. Mind you, with the sims sometimes the problems start way back and it's hard to pinpoint.

Anyway, glad it sounds like you're getting the situation under control.

[Invisigoth]

The only problem I have left is that the campground is unplayable since it thinks that there are still sims there. Is there some way to get that lot working again? Do I need to bulldoze it and try to build one of my own? Would anything unfortunate occur if I were to move the lot into the lot bin and then put it back? Would that even do anything? It doesn't really have anyone on it; it just thinks that it does. I was able to enter the lot (in F2 mode) to add the lot debugger, etc, but I could not send a sim there at all. I have, admittedly, not tried every possible way to get someone to that lot yet and I probably will before I do anything drastic. But in the meanwhile, is there a good way (or a cheaty way) to get this lot working again?

I blatantly stole this idea from Pescado, so don't thank me. First you'd bulldoze the borken lot. Next you should create a junk hood and attach the mountain vacationhood. Rip the new campground lot out and make a copy to transplant into your real vacationhood. Tah dah!

[J. M. Pescado]

No, that was never what I suggested. My recommendation involves a full lot file splice, to avoid Lot ID holes or any disruption at all. However, this is a different situation. For THIS situation, you want to hex replace the Lot Descriptor.

[V]

No, that was never what I suggested. My recommendation involves a full lot file splice, to avoid Lot ID holes or any disruption at all. However, this is a different situation. For THIS situation, you want to hex replace the Lot Descriptor.

I don't really know what that means. I wonder if I should be pleased that you think that just saying "hex replace the Lot Descriptor" should be enough information for me. How clever you must think I am.

Well, it sounds like it means there are some hexadecimal numbers to be found somewhere. Perhaps these numbers could be found in SimPE, or perhaps they are locatable if the .package file for this lot is opened in Notepad. But wherever these numbers are, they are wrong and need to be replaced with proper numbers.

So, if this is a correct interpretation, and if I can find which of the files in the "...\program files\ea games\...\m001\lots" folder is the right one for this lot then where would I find the wrong files? I have not seen them in SimPE. Is there an easier way to find this particular lot besides opening every single one of the lots in the "...documents\ea games\...\lot catalog" folder?

Last night, before I saw this reply, I was looking in SimPE for the campground lot to see if I saw anything that announced "I am the wrong thing that you want to fix". But I did not see a way for me to look into any of the "vacation suburbs" so that I could fiddle with the specific lots.

[Nailati]

They started their lives over again from the top, but they still remember everything that happened up until about 10 sim minutes before they got lost on the shuttle home.

Makes for an interesting storyline, actually.

[V]

They started their lives over again from the top, but they still remember everything that happened up until about 10 sim minutes before they got lost on the shuttle home.

Makes for an interesting storyline, actually.

Yes, Nailiti. I can make that storyline work for me, actually.

No, that was never what I suggested. My recommendation involves a full lot file splice, to avoid Lot ID holes or any disruption at all. However, this is a different situation. For THIS situation, you want to hex replace the Lot Descriptor.

I have found the main file for the lot and I have found the bad lot's file. I have also found the hex editing tool. I cannot find "Lot Descriptor". The closest I see to something like "Lot Descriptor" is "House Descriptor". But the hex numbers for the two files are identical on the point of House Descriptor, even when I looked at the signed Dec & the unsigned Dec. What would be another possible name for the Lot Descriptor?

I am guessing that it would probably not be a good idea to just take the default file and "save as" with the broken file's name.

I haven't given up yet. I am working with the theory that I probably won't break the entire game by looking around in SimPE on this one lot.

[J. M. Pescado]

House descriptor might be what it's called in some versions. What's the ID code?