Game crashing when I try to build a basement

[Rainne]

I absolutely can not figure out what the problem is.  For CC, I have AM, NRaas's career and school mods, one custom career and one that makes the martial arts and nectar-making skill books available for purchase.

I haven't played in awhile, so when I loaded up today, I upgraded AM and also my patches.  I know the patches are right (finally) because I'm not getting the core mismatch error any more.

The problem is, I'm trying to build a basement onto the house I'm playing.  I go to Build Mode, I click the Basements icon, and the game crashes to desktop.  Every single time.

I can't find any information about this and I have no idea what the problem may be.  Can anyone help?

Thanks.

[brownlustgirl]

I don't see if you have default replacement skins, but when I had CTD problem with the basement/pool tool, I had HP adult default replacement skins in my game. When I removed them, the game didn't crash anymore.  Tried alot of the other default replacement skins that were created before WA EP came out, they crashed too. This may not be the case for you, but removing these skins stopped the crashing for my game.

I suggest removing any other default replacements (tops, bottoms, accessories) one at a time and testing to see if they cause the CTD. I stop using defaults after my problems with the basement/pool tool.

[Rainne]

To my knowledge I do not have any default replacement anythings.  I'll double check though.  Thanks for the suggestion.  

Edit: It is definitely not CC.  I removed all my CC except the mods noted above and am still having the same problem.

[Jeeves]

Does the house have a pool? I can't remember the specifics of the problem, but I've had an issue like this as well. It was something like plopping down a house with a pool or basement causes basement and pool building tools to break. Only solution I've seen to this is sledgehammer-ing the pool/basement, moving the house to the bin, and re-plopping it. I've had to do this to several houses and haven't had problems with them since.

If it is an existing house, it couldn't hurt to try, but I've never had this happen to one that wasn't yanked from the bin.

[Rainne]

Aha.  Yes, this house did come from the bin and yes, it does have a pool.  That answers that question.  Thank you very much.

[Dienvae]

Interesting. Thanks, Jeeves. I had downloaded a house from MTS that crashed every time I clicked on the swimming pool tool to delete it and it bothered me not knowing what the hell was wrong. Mystery solved.

[Miao]

I've been having the same problem as Rainne, and I tried the method that Jeeves suggested, but without success. It's only happening with one of the existing houses in the custom-made neighborhood I'd downloaded. On one other houses I'd plopped in the neighborhood from the Library, I can successfully build basements even though it had a pool when it was saved to the Library; the only possible difference between this house and the problematic one is that I had built the pool in the former before saving it to the Library. Both houses have basements built in the traditional, pre-WA way (inside the foundation).

I'm going to delete all the objects in the -1 level and try Jeeves' method again to see if it works. It's puzzling...maybe the problem lies in the -1 level itself.

[The_Goddess]

You can have difficulty laying basements if the lot has a lot of variation in the ground level around the area that you want the basement.  Ponds can also affect the ability to lay a basement.     

[Miao]

You can have difficulty laying basements if the lot has a lot of variation in the ground level around the area that you want the basement.  Ponds can also affect the ability to lay a basement.    

The problem lot has no ponds, and I've had no problems laying down basements in houses with ponds because I leave a good distance between the ponds and the basement. The lot I mentioned previously on which I could successfully lay down a basement also had quite a bit of variation in the ground level under the foundation, and other lots on which I have successfully built basements had uneven ground elevation as well (and even came with pools).

Thankfully, I can now place basements without crashing on the problematic lot. I moved all of the objects that appeared in -1 to the ground level and deleted the staircase that also appeared in -1. I then saved a copy of the lot to the Library, bulldozed the existing lot, and put a copy back on the plot.

So, if anyone with the crashing issue still encounters it after they followed Jeeves' directions, they should go back onto the lots to move or delete everything that appears in the -1 (or basement) levels, and then follow Jeeves' solution again. If you did it correctly, when you go back into the lot after replacing it, you shouldn't be able to go down to the -1 level.

[haifen]

offtopic: your sig makes you seem like a horrible bore. 

[Tangie]

Just wanted to add that when I had the basement tool crashing problem, I deleted the pool, went back into edit town to save it, then went back to the lot in buy/build mode to add my basement and re-add the pool. Since I had sims living there at the time, I moved them out temporarily while I fixed this. This method worked, and I did not have to save the lot to the library as part of the fix - as it turns out I did save it, but only after I added the basement and put the pool back in.

[J. M. Pescado]

I have encountered this issue with one of Ugly Jailbird's lots. It doesn't seem like there's any identifiable cause or fix, except to burninate the corrupted lot.