Party glitch?

[Sandilou]

Should I be worried?

Last night a Uni Greek House sim threw a party from her cellphone; I'd clicked on 'phone friends', then changed my mind and clicked on 'throw toga party'.  Unusually, no party list came up.  Instead, every single sim she'd ever met turned up at her house - relatives, friends, npcs, townies and Uni students. Only a handful in togas. There were between 40-50 sims present. 

The game was jumping, and only certain commands worked for the two playable sims on the lot - mainly interactions with each other.  Interactions with other sims only worked if they were physically nearby, and as soon as they started them, they jumped out of them.  The party message eventually cancelled itself out, so all of those sims stayed.  When they gradually left (after 2am)  the lot became playable again but, needless to say, I didn't save: During that time the mother of the party thrower died on the lot and left no tombstone.

Was this just a glitch or should I just wait for my game to explode - once again?  (I don't think that this is linked to any of your fixes from this site which are already installed in my game).  I replayed the lot, and threw another toga party, this time 8 guests were invited and 6 turned up.  The game has played fine since.  Any real cause for concern?

[J. M. Pescado]

Beats me. Shit happens, I guess. What do you mean, you "changed your mind"? As in, you X'ed it out before, or after, it started actually doing?

[Sandilou]

Yes, I clicked on it then x'd it out before I clicked on 'throw toga party'.  The key thing was that the usual party menu didn't appear at all.  I waited for it, but the screen message about the party being underway came up instead.

[J. M. Pescado]

That's just bizarre. I'll have to see if I can even reproduce that. Did the interaction actually light up green and start to run before you X'ed it out, or was it not yet running?

[Sandilou]

The icon had travelled up diagonally (as usual) and I x'ed it out before it changed into the face of the person being called.  I touch type, so I was pretty quick - it didn't have a chance to go green.  I still think that it's a one-off but just in case, the most recently installed fixes were the No townie/npc - move in amnesia fixes and and the no pool hack - which didn't seem to be working, because one of the guests did go for a swim and she hadn't arrived in her swimsuit. 

I reinstalled those fixes today; On a separate note, a cheerleader that moved in didn't keep her memories - that mystery sim was still there.

[gali]

It happened to me a couple of times before, until I installed the wedding party fix mod. From then on, this bug dissapeared. I realy don't know what is the connection between the two (a party, and a wedding party) - but it works, and I don't ask questions....

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, I *DO* ask questions. Why is that kitten in a glass?

[gali]

Lol, I found two pictures of kittens in the net - and I "fell in love" with this kitten. It was so cute in the glass, that I "adopted" it.... Like "cat shampagne"....

[gali]

This is the second one - "the dog's friend"....  But I like more the first one.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'd have to agree, the one in the glass is funnier.

[gali]

Lol, thanks....

[GloamingMerle]

Kitten in glass... Hmmm... Reminds me of BonsaiKitten.com. I know that site is old news, but it still makes me snicker when I think about it..

[gali]

Oooohhh...what a cruelty! They should be sued for animal abuse! How can they treat anumals that way - it's a shame! Poor kittens...

My kitten was put in a glass only for the photography, without any intention to abuse it. It's cute and funny. I wouldn't choose any cruel photograph of any animal...brrrr.

[nectere]

err...you don't actually believe the bonsai kitten is real do you?


*sigh*

[Sandilou]

The Party Glitch happened again today but this time I think I know what's caused it;
Sim A called up a party on their mobile
Sim B called a friend almost immediately using the house phone.

Sim A's party screen didn't even come up.  I didn't realise the party was underway until the party balloon came up:  I spun the camera around to the front of the house and saw 30+ sims arriving. 

Once again the party cancelled itself out so the guests stayed.  The Soviet Russian Toilet worked a gem throughout!  Sims were queueing patiently for hours!  A cheerleader did die waiting - but aside from that....

So this particular glitch happens if the party call is interrupted before the guest menu crops up.  Guests are still called but the program seems to default to every sim listed in the neighbourhood, including npcs, uni students and townies, irregardless of whether the sim party caller has met them personally.

[J. M. Pescado]

The Soviet Russian Toilet worked a gem throughout!  Sims were queueing patiently for hours!  A cheerleader did die waiting - but aside from that....

Oh, that would definitely have been something to see. What, you had maybe 40-50 sims hovering over the bathroom in a holding pattern? And it actually worked? The game didn't explode? And somebody literally died waiting, even though nobody peed themselves? Cool. But yeah, when you try to land 40 planes at a single tiny airstrip capable of only servicing a single landed plane at a time, and air traffic control is forced to put them all into a holding pattern, bad things will happen when people start running out of fuel.

The Party Glitch happened again today but this time I think I know what's caused it;
Sim A called up a party on their mobile
Sim B called a friend almost immediately using the house phone.

Sim A's party screen didn't even come up.  I didn't realise the party was underway until the party balloon came up:  I spun the camera around to the front of the house and saw 30+ sims arriving. 

....

So this particular glitch happens if the party call is interrupted before the guest menu crops up.  Guests are still called but the program seems to default to every sim listed in the neighbourhood, including npcs, uni students and townies, irregardless of whether the sim party caller has met them personally.

This sounds like a race condition, actually. Both the phonebook, and the party invite list, use arrays to determine who to invite. Presumably, this would happen if the Phone book list smushes the Party Invitee list, resulting in everyone in the smushing character's phonebook being placed on the invite list. Messy. There are several other race conditions associated with the phone, such as if a Chance Card dialog pops up at the same time as the phone book menu, your game gets FUBAR'ed.

[Sandilou]

I'm pleased to say that my game didn't crash and this time I actually saved it - couldn't endure another party as most needs were met. During that 'neighbourhood party' I still managed to move in 2 other sims.  I loaded pics up on MySimPage over at TS2.com but couldn't figure out how to insert one here (duh).  Besides, my game is run on low picture spec because it runs so much faster (I can load it from scratch in under 2 minutes) so the pics aren't up to much.

[baratron]

Like this . Or click the "world" symbol - 2nd row, 3rd from the left. You put the link between the two url tags. Board help --> Insert hyperlink.

[Sandilou]

Thanks baratron. 

Uh duh...couldn't paste the picture here.  Could do the link to mysimpage but was too lazy... (Can't shorten the long version of the link

Like this

though).