M&G jump bug - no other hacks or CC

[Doranwen]

I have all the EPs up through FT, and recently installed M&G so now I have all the SPs.  To start playing it, I took out all hacks but left in CC like walls and floors and stuff, and I had no issues or bugs of any sort playing with those.  However, as I started adding hacks, little by little, I ran into a major jump bug involving social interactions.  I can direct each person to do one action to someone else, but as soon as I try to queue another action, it cancels the whole queue and makes them jump.  Even trying to interact with anyone makes the currently selected sim change his or her face orientation entirely (they turn left or right in the little headshot pic that shows who you're controlling).  The only thing I added between when I didn't get the bug and when I did was the FFS collection.  So to double-check that it is indeed the FFS hacks and not some other CC, I took out *everything* CC, hacks, collections, clothing, floors, etc.  Then I put in only the FFS hacks--the AL set, as I'm hearing that M&G requires AL-compatible hacks due to using that game's engine.  (I put in most, left out a couple I knew I didn't want to play with--let me know if I need to list the ones I *didn't* use.)  I restarted the game with only those hacks and got the same error.  (I double-checked when it started and scrolled down the list of the content with warning flags to make sure that the FFS hacks were the only things listed, which they were.)  Forcing it to debug tells me that there's a problem executing the "SocialTestConstants" script.  It complains about sending a bad GUID, and the error always happens with the object being whoever I'm trying to direct to do something.

To the best of my knowledge, my game is fully patched, and I know it doesn't have any issues when I remove all CC and hacks.  Any ideas on this one?  More testing I should do?

[GelatinousSubstance]

I use all FFS, and all EPs and SPs with no problems. I'm curious as to whether you actually have AL though. Regardless of what engine M&G uses, I highly suspect that you should not use hacks for an EP that you don't actually have.

[Mootilda]

You are correct that M&G uses the AL game engine and that the AL hacks should be the correct versions.  However...

Pescado does not recommend using M&G without AL, since there is no way for hacks to identify this situation:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,16846.0.html

Note that some of the hacks may work correctly, but this configuration is unsupported.

Yeah, you appear to be running a peculiar corner-case install. By "all SPs", you mean you are also running MGS, yet lack AL, yes? Unfortunately, MGS is actually a more advanced engine than OFB, so overrides the object code, but the detection for engine requires AL to be able to detect the engine properly. Unfortunately, MGS has no detectable symptoms without AL installed, so it does not appear to be possible to catch this particular corner case and the configuration you are running is therefore cannot be supported.

Here are the possible solutions, in approximate order of recommendation:
1. Install AL, avoiding all the engine-detection corner cases.
2. Remove MGS.
3. Handpatch this particular hack by deleting Node 5 in the 0x04E1 BHAV using the "Pescado's Delete" button in SimPE to bypass the problem in this particular hack.

If you use option 3, be warned that other hacks may similarly misbehave because it appears to be entirely impossible to detect an MGS install independently of AL without blowing up in other games, because MGS and AL are expansion that basically should never have happened, exceeding bit-16 of all the expansion-bit fields, so EAxis opened an entirely new bitfield that doesn't exist in any older games. It is impossible to probe this bitfield because any attempt to access it will error in any game that doesn't have it, and therefore, the solution used is to probe for the existence of a global controller, which came with AL. Then to be annoying, EAxis released MGS, which has no real code changes, so all the hacks involved were written in AL, but this is a completely undetectable expansion that will foul the works if run without AL.

[Doranwen]

I see.  *sigh*  I don't want to install AL because of the magic/witchcraft stuff.  I am not comfortable even playing with it (or not) on a fake level, and have gotten the impression that it's rather intrusive to the expansion.  Short of a hack that keeps all of that stuff locked up/not used in regular play, I don't know that I really want to install AL.  Otoh, I was looking forward to experimenting with the M&G stuff, but doesn't sound like that will work (and it's not so extensive that I can't live without it--I was enjoying my FT install).  I guess the easiest thing would be to uninstall, since I still have the whole set of hacks I had from before (and they didn't have any weird bugs that I can remember), and I think I backed up my old game data OK as well.

Thanks for the explanation of how the M&G code works and all--that's the first real concise explanation of why you might (and might not) want to use AL-compatible hacks with M&G, and all the complicatedness involved in that.

[Tarlia]

If the witches really bother you that much (it's completely cartoony and has very, very little to do with... "real magic", but whatever), use TwoJeff's Visitor Controller, ban the head witches from the community lots, thus never see any witches or warlocks or magic of any kind, and problem is solved.

[J. M. Pescado]

I see.  *sigh*  I don't want to install AL because of the magic/witchcraft stuff.  I am not comfortable even playing with it (or not) on a fake level, and have gotten the impression that it's rather intrusive to the expansion.

That sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier.

[Doranwen]

[That sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier.

That it is.  But I'm happy with the configuration up to FT, and appreciate the help sorting out how M&G works and all.  I am glad to get back to playing with Awesome hacks--the constant "What's this?" and bed-making were such annoyances that it reminded me just how much I rely on the sanity-maintaining qualities of the Awesome hacks.  Again, thanks for the help.

[Mootilda]

I made the opposite decision: to install all of the EPs and find ways to disable the worst annoyances.

[J. M. Pescado]

Banishing the spawning of the chief witches through various methods, or simply ignoring them, effectively renders magic a nonfactor in your game. Even if you don't, magic is still a nonfactor in your game, because it's mostly useless.

[invisiblegenius]

Sorry to bump, but I'm having this exact same problem and the OP described it so nicely. One minor difference: I don't use any hacks. I took out all the custom content and installed every patch I could find but it didn't help. It's only a problem with the mom and dad; their kids aren't affected. I had to spawn the entire family after they got stuck in BV limbo but they were fine until these issues started recently. I have every EP and SP installed, but I didn't install them in order (does that matter as much as people seem to think?). Any suggestions?

[jezzer]

I think the OP was offensive to Wiccans.

[invisiblegenius]

Here are the possible solutions, in approximate order of recommendation:
1. Install AL, avoiding all the engine-detection corner cases.
2. Remove MGS.
3. Handpatch this particular hack by deleting Node 5 in the 0x04E1 BHAV using the "Pescado's Delete" button in SimPE to bypass the problem in this particular hack.

Re Step 3: I now have the SimPE but I can't find this mysteriously quoted button. Also, where is the thing I need to delete? I understand how it works, and saw some other BHAV thingies in the program files, but I don't even know where to start looking in the thousands of files. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Mootilda]

Find the BHAV with the number specified.  Edit it  Choose node 5.  The Pescado Delete button is on the right side; hover over the icons until you find it.

Be aware that this can cause problems if you don't do it correctly.

Install order doesn't matter.  If you have both AL and M&G, then this is not the correct solution to your problem.  This is only a solution if you have M&G without AL.

[invisiblegenius]

Install order doesn't matter.  If you have both AL and M&G, then this is not the correct solution to your problem.  This is only a solution if you have M&G without AL.

So is this just a game bug? I will try to get an error code when I'm home later. I'm resigned to not playing that family but I would prefer fixing it, especially since it might happen somewhere else.

[Mootilda]

Install order doesn't matter.  If you have both AL and M&G, then this is not the correct solution to your problem.  This is only a solution if you have M&G without AL.

So is this just a game bug?

No, that's incorrect.  The original issue was not a game bug, but an issue with the mod.  You posted in someone else's thread, assuming that their problem was your problem.  However, their problem was an issue with a mod which only occurs if someone has M&G and not AL.  If you have both AL and M&G, your problem cannot possibly be the same problem.  Because of this, it doesn't make sense to implement the solution to their problem.

Similar symptoms don't necessarily mean that you have the same problem.

[invisiblegenius]

Okay, since it's a different problem I started a new thread here.