Everything that can go wrong, is!

[Brynne]

Good God, what have I done? My game is suddenly as buggy as ever. As you may know, I've been painstakingly going through my character files, memories, cleaning things up, etc. and all was going well. Now it's not. I have the jump bug for the bed and hot tub, my sims cannot use the phone (it disappears from the queue as soon as I put it up), and when I looked in simpe, to my horror there are copies of many of my sims, with "no character data". What I suspect is the culprit is an occupied lot I moved to the bin. But before you rip my lips off, I did not know it was occupied when I moved it. I explained this briefly in the neighborhood terrain surgery thread, but I'll try again. There was a lot embedded in a mountain that I discovered only by accident when I moused over it and it showed up red. It was of no use to me where it was, so I decided to lotbin it, thinking it was *only* a lot. What harm could come from that? I got a message "Are you sure you want to move 'modern villa' to the Lots and Houses bin?", which surprised me, as I thought it was an empty lot. I thought, what the hell, okay. I'll just move this unoccupied, empty house to the bin. No problem. When I grabbed it for replacement in the hood, that's when I saw that there was a family in the house. So I unknowingly lotbinned an occupied house, which I know is an evil, evil thing to do.  I have not downloaded any occupied lots, so am I correct in my assumption that this is the root of my "no character data" multiple files, and, perhaps, the phone and jump-bug problem? I can't think of anything else that could have done it. If so, will removing these extra copies help resolve my problem? I looked at the files, and the copies have no relationships to anyone other than maybe phantom sims living in their phantom households, so I'm hoping I can delete them and continue with my fine-tooth comb-through of my real neighborhood files.

[LK]

Wow.  Sucks for you.

[syberspunk]

gah? Sorry to hear that. Man... but I sympathize as I'm sure I've done some equally bone-headed things and I would most likely probably also lotbin an occupied house that I thought was unoccupied. Sorry, no offense about the bone-headed comment. Hehe.

Anyhew, just so's I know, where exactly was this lot that you found hiding in a mountain, just so that I don't repeat this error by accident myself. lol

And... if this only recently happened, hopefully then all the no character data files will be numbered as the most recently added and hopefully you can delete all of those without a problem if they are at the end of the list.

Before I knew about the lotbin issue, I had moved in two families from my sister's game, and since then have created several other sims and added Uni to my game.  So it's kind of too late for me to try and clean up those files. *sighs* I'm settling for trudging along until my game blows up into a bfbvfos.

Ste

[gali]

Don't you have a backupped copy of the neighbourhood, to play it again? (I backup each 3-4 days the neighbourhood, just in case).

And, do you have a saved Downloads folder? I save it each 3-4 days.

Paste a previous backupped neighbourhood.

Paste your saved Downloads folders again.

Usually, when I try to move a house to the house bin, I get a message that I have to VISIT this house first, then move it to the house bin. Didn't you get this message? Weird.

JM will "kill" me, but the easiest backup is done with the Enhanser - it has many backups, with dates of the backup. The SimPe backups only the last one.
I can play in Strangetown, make a lot of backups, and then decide to play it from the beginning - restoring the first backup, then return to the last play, by restoring the last backup.

[Brynne]

gah? Sorry to hear that. Man... but I sympathize as I'm sure I've done some equally bone-headed things and I would most likely probably also lotbin an occupied house that I thought was unoccupied. Sorry, no offense about the bone-headed comment. Hehe.

Heyyyyyy, I resemble that remark. It was an accident!!!

And... if this only recently happened, hopefully then all the no character data files will be numbered as the most recently added and hopefully you can delete all of those without a problem if they are at the end of the list.

They are all at the end of the list. That's why I'm hoping it's not too late. Actually, I'm looking at a backup from last Friday before it happened. Of course, using that would mean losing all the changes I've made to the memories and such and I'd pretty much be starting over, but I'm worried about unforeseen long-term consequences of this current 'hood. Dammit.

Oh, and about where that lot was, it was a house I built with a family I forgot about, so you won't have to worry about that. 

[Brynne]

Don't you have a backupped copy of the neighbourhood, to play it again? (I backup each 3-4 days the neighbourhood, just in case).

And, do you have a saved Downloads folder? I save it each 3-4 days.

Paste a previous backupped neighbourhood.

Paste your saved Downloads folders again.

Usually, when I try to move a house to the house bin, I get a message that I have to VISIT this house first, then move it to the house bin. Didn't you get this message? Weird.

JM will "kill" me, but the easiest backup is done with the Enhanser - it has many backups, with dates of the backup. The SimPe backups only the last one.
I can play in Strangetown, make a lot of backups, and then decide to play it from the beginning - restoring the first backup, then return to the last play, by restoring the last backup.

We posted at the same time, I think!
Yes, I make frequent backups (almost everyday), and, like I said above, may go back to the last one. Which was Friday. Bleah.
I've gotten the "you have to visit the lot first" message in the past, before I even knew about the lotbinning thing and would try to move out a family or move the whole thing to the bin. I know better, now, but I screwed up anyway. And this last time I did not get that message, which confused me, too. I never actually went into the house before, so you'd think that message would have popped up! 

edited to shamefully add: okay, I must have gone into the house in order to put a family in there, right? Well, I didn't, which means it can only be a (gulp!) downloaded occupied house from long ago. I have honestly never played this family.

[gali]

Hey, Brynne - it's only a game, and we all make (gulp too, lol) foolish actions - that's how we learn (adding the ripped lips too)....

[Brynne]

Hey, Brynne - it's only a game, and we all make (gulp too, lol) foolish actions - that's how we learn (adding the ripped lips too)....

I am making that my daily mantra. "It's only a game. It's only a game. It's only a game."

[ZephyrZodiac]

Words of encouragement:  I've had similar things happen before I knew lotbinning was the seventh deadly sin.  I got multiple files.  I deleted them.  I'm still playing the original haracters with no problems.  Just take care you get the file numbers correct. My game may eventually disappear into a gfbvfos, but it may well have done that anyway even if I'd played correctly from the word go - at least so I understand.

One thing I don't have in my game is any CAS ghosts, in fact any ghosts of sims that were alive when I first started to play this version of Pleasant View.  I think ghosts are the problem!  They do seem to wander from lot to lot!

[veilchen]

Anyhew, just so's I know, where exactly was this lot that you found hiding in a mountain, just so that I don't repeat this error by accident myself. lol

Val did the terrain surgery and one of her houses ended up in a mountain. Many others were lost at sea if I remember correctly (although she forgot to do a screenshot...ahem). When you do the surgery, the houses will be scattered all over the place and you have to manually move them so they sit on a road-side. AncientSim's houses were all invisible after the surgery, and Ancient had to mouse over the new terrain to find them, but I think that was so because something was done/left undone before surgery.

G.

[Ancient Sim]

The SimPe backups only the last one.

You can have as many back-ups as you like in SimPE.  I usually have 2 or 3 and can reinstall any one I want.

[nothingbutsims]

Okay, so the house and the family are both in the lot bin?  Pardon me if I sound like an idiot but when I think of the lot bin, I think of where you go to get lots OR houses (depending on which icon you click).  You would think being a house, when you lot-binned it, the game would have placed it with all of the other homes.  Can you not access the house through the lot bin and place it back in the neighborhood?  Again, pardon me if I sound idiotic, but I didn't catch in any of the posts that the house actually disappeared, only that it was in the lot bin.

[dizzy]

I've noticed that if you lot-bin a house with sim(s), the only way to avoid the dreaded profusion of empty character files is to "deleteAllCharacters", wipe the memories of the lot-binned sims, then replace them (not pretty). I avoid the lot-bin unless I'm building a neighborhood.

[gali]

You are right, Ancient - I didn't double-click on the backups folder, to see there are many subfolders.... Duhhh....

[ZephyrZodiac]

They lose memories outside the family anyway when they're lot-binned.  If you move them straight back in without playing any other lot first, they don't get the chance to wander round the neighbourhood, so you may not get the extra character files.

I don't do it these days, but before I knew it wasn't safe, I did it to the Brokes so Dustin would lose his memories of Angela and his burglar friend!

[Brynne]

Anyhew, just so's I know, where exactly was this lot that you found hiding in a mountain, just so that I don't repeat this error by accident myself. lol

Val did the terrain surgery and one of her houses ended up in a mountain. Many others were lost at sea if I remember correctly (although she forgot to do a screenshot...ahem). When you do the surgery, the houses will be scattered all over the place and you have to manually move them so they sit on a road-side. AncientSim's houses were all invisible after the surgery, and Ancient had to mouse over the new terrain to find them, but I think that was so because something was done/left undone before surgery.

G.

I went to the backup from Friday, found the occupied house, and simply placed it elsewhere in the neighborhood, avoiding the lotbin altogether. I found four or five other (unoccupied!) houses in that same mountain! They were "invisible" because they were actually inside the mountain (or "under" it). Hopefully I got them all this time.

[cwieberdink]

Well, I know that before I knew about the occupied houses buggering your game, I downloaded a couple.  One or two I actually played in my custom neighborhood that I made (without noticing any troubles).  Can I just evict the people, and move them back in and I'll be all okey dokey, or will the whole game eventually become a bfbvfos?  Or just that one neighborhood?    Should I bulldoze the houses?  Ack!

Chris

[Brynne]

I'm in the same boat. I haven't downloaded any occupied lots since learning about the inevitable horrors of it all, but I have a few from way back when. One of those is the one that I suspect caused my problems. I don't even play these families! Unfortunately, they've wandered onto my lot in the past, so my sims have memories of them. I want them gone gone gone! I was playing my latest backup last night, and the sim from that damn house of pure evil kept trying to wander the sidewalk in front of my house. I zapped him off immediately with the teleporter shrub every time. Why must he torment me so?!  I hate him hate him hate him! Deep breath, now...

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you got the Townie and NPC zapper?  Sorry, actual name is NPC and Visitor zapper.

[Brynne]

Yes, actually. I hadn't even considered using it, but I think I'll give it a try now.

[ZephyrZodiac]

At least once a sim is banned, it's permanent and you don't have to stop what you're doing!

[syberspunk]

Val did the terrain surgery and one of her houses ended up in a mountain. Many others were lost at sea if I remember correctly (although she forgot to do a screenshot...ahem). When you do the surgery, the houses will be scattered all over the place and you have to manually move them so they sit on a road-side. AncientSim's houses were all invisible after the surgery, and Ancient had to mouse over the new terrain to find them, but I think that was so because something was done/left undone before surgery.

I probably wouldn't want to do this, but what is this terrain surgery that you speak of? [/said the curious cat... ]

Ste

[witch]

I probably wouldn't want to do this, but what is this terrain surgery that you speak of? [/said the curious cat... ]

In the war room is a tutorial...
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0