The Neverending Pause

[Painkiller]

Reading the description it's the problem I've been having for a couple of days. Sometimes it resolves itself after 5 or 10 seconds but I've already had 3 case where I had to ALT TAB and end the process. I was used to the occasional tiny lags when the families moves out but that is game breaking. The 'good' freezes resolving itself happened in Sunset, Egypt and France; the 'bad' ones needing process halt all happened in Bridgeport. I guess EA must have really screwed the lots there or something.

[Skadi]

I suspect in my LN game the neverending pause is related to mixology. Something is borked on the skill gain and for some reason when a sim is about to gain the first skill point it pauses forever. I figured that out by chance after 3 different games. I have no idea who are the sims freezing the game on my first saves but on the last one if I make my sim read a mixology book or practice on a bar it pauses forever at the skill gain. I didn't notice this before because I usually send them to a class.

The problem is I cannot prevent NPCs from practicing or learning skills. I suspect some other new skills are broken - this was reported on the BBS. On my other save games I can avoid freezing by using ResetWorld a few times, but it is getting too frequent now so it is impossible to play. I have to investigate this though, my very first game playing Late Night never paused or crashed for over 6 sim weeks. I did few interaction with celebrities and didn't try most new features.

The only mods I have installed are AwesomeMod and Twallan Master Controller. Games played with store content but no other CC, cache deleted.

Just remember, AM is not updated for LN yet.

[Bain]

Well the neverending pause is back. So far the only thing I've been able to do is take AM out, play past the point of the pause, save, put AM back in, and it will let me play for a few hours before I have to do it again. I'm almost to the point of giving up on AM and it is the only mod I'm using now.

[purplehaze]

I was having the NEP off and on since Sims 3 first came out. After LN, the pause was happening quite frequently and, on one occasion, I could duplicate it. It happened as the car pool arrived to take my Sim, who was in the Journalism career path, to work. Time: 11:59.  I then noticed that she was set to work at the Dos Peas building and there was no such building in this hood (the new LN hood). I had to switch her career location to the new building that houses Journalism and a restaurant after which the pause stopped.

 I am going to try to replicate this with AM in the game. I had AM in this hood and removed it and the pause stopped, but I got the 'go to work' queue stomp instead of a freeze. So, I cannot totally rule out a glitch with the mod. I can try to dupe this as I was playing an EAxian Sim in the new hood.

I also cannot fulfill any opportunities that take place in the new multiple purpose buildings. One example is to teach a class to the police. If you try to click on the opportunity tab (on the UI), the queue drops. If I try to manually send her to the police station, there is no opportunity available. So could a lot of this be, as mentioned before, routing problems?

Edit: I tried to replicate the freeze with and without AM and I could not. :/  The only difference between these two game plays/saves today and the game played last night was that last night a car showed up to carpool her to work. No carpool showed up with either of these two saved games.

 There is borkage with that Sim and her job. The name is King and her job is Journalism level 6. I had not remembered correctly when I said she worked in the Dos Peas towers. It does not say that in the UI. But you do get the option to have her transfer her job to Steve's Business Complex. Transfer from where? I searched the hood and couldn't find an alternative Journalism work zone. *shrug*  Anyway, this post now belongs in the LN Bugs thread since I cannot replicate the pause and had queue stompage instead.

[ElectricSimmer]

Reading the description it's the problem I've been having for a couple of days. Sometimes it resolves itself after 5 or 10 seconds but I've already had 3 case where I had to ALT TAB and end the process. I was used to the occasional tiny lags when the families moves out but that is game breaking. The 'good' freezes resolving itself happened in Sunset, Egypt and France; the 'bad' ones needing process halt all happened in Bridgeport. I guess EA must have really screwed the lots there or something.

Same problems, frequent, self fixing freezes in Sunset Valley/Twinbrook/Riverview and ALT-TAB + CTRL-ALT-DELETE ones in Bridgeport.

[wizard_merlin]

Well the neverending pause is back. So far the only thing I've been able to do is take AM out, play past the point of the pause, save, put AM back in, and it will let me play for a few hours before I have to do it again. I'm almost to the point of giving up on AM and it is the only mod I'm using now.

I would check that all your EP/SP's patched properly, and not just the base game and LN.  With the patch, all the games are now set to LAA, don't know if EAxis did this deliberately or accidentally, but if you haven't properly patched only the base and LN would be LAA, unless you did the others yourself, although if missing patches, that wouldn't help.  If you relied on LN or the launcher to apply the patches it only appears to do the base game.

I haven't had this problem for a long time now, knock on wood.  When I did get it, I never had to remove AM as simply restarting the game, would for whatever reason, prevent the freeze from occurring.  If you get the freeze repeatedly with AM installed, that is a reproducible freeze, I would suggest posting a save for Pes to check out, as that would seem to suggest something else is going on in your game.

[Madame Mim]

There was an automatic patcher a while back that fixed one of my EPs. I could not complete the patching because it complained of invalid files but the autopatcher could. Maybe (if anyone remembers where it was and it still works) he could try that on his game?

[Jeebus]

There was an automatic patcher a while back that fixed one of my EPs. I could not complete the patching because it complained of invalid files but the autopatcher could. Maybe (if anyone remembers where it was and it still works) he could try that on his game?

This one, perhaps? http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=409829

[Painkiller]

I've been using it since Ambitions and yeah I've got the updated one so my base game, EPS and SPs are all up-to-date. Anyway the NEP seems to only happens in Bridgeport. The route paths seems pretty broken, I even lost a maid after 2 sim weeks and I cannot hire another one nor cancel the service.

[Bain]

I've been using it since Ambitions and yeah I've got the updated one so my base game, EPS and SPs are all up-to-date. Anyway the NEP seems to only happens in Bridgeport. The route paths seems pretty broken, I even lost a maid after 2 sim weeks and I cannot hire another one nor cancel the service.

Thank you for the link. I did not even know that program existed. I was not fully patched, and I thought I was. Thanks for the help guys.

[Dark Trepie]

I'm reluctant to call this a routing issue since such a thing would be affecting everyone and not just some.  But here is something to try.

[Lludara]

I am posting this as it helped me, not sure if it's been mentioned (as I briefly read over some of the replies here).

IF you think it's possible CC issue (Mine was, i used this and it plays like an entirely different game), this is also easier then deleting all of your cc.

http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Package_File_Lag

I ran the program, deleted the .package files that were the issue. May help some of you.

[MissKitty]

Blargh, I hate this problem. I never used to have it but ever since LN I consistently get these very long pauses, and every solution I've been able to find has been pure voodoo. It's really not giving me a great desire to play when every few sim days (if it even takes that long) the game freezes for 10+ minutes.

[Pico]

I most often get a NEP/freeze when taking a screenshot which involves a lot of quick camera moves;  a fast changing and complicated background certainly adds to the probability of a freeze which, however, only occurs after I had taken the screenshot and not while I am moving the camera. (It is almost guaranteed in one of the "star" villas in Bridgeport which has big windows with great vistas of the city and the landscape.)  Sometimes I also get it, as already pointed out in this thread, with a lot of concurrent commands/events. On the other hand, I never got it with a family that does not have at least three generations.

At least in my case it seems to be a memory problem. Anyway, I hope this helps.

[Jeebus]

I most often get a NEP/freeze when taking a screenshot which involves a lot of quick camera moves;  a fast changing and complicated background certainly adds to the probability of a freeze which, however, only occurs after I had taken the screenshot and not while I am moving the camera. (It is almost guaranteed in one of the "star" villas in Bridgeport which has big windows with great vistas of the city and the landscape.)  Sometimes I also get it, as already pointed out in this thread, with a lot of concurrent commands/events. On the other hand, I never got it with a family that does not have at least three generations.

At least in my case it seems to be a memory problem. Anyway, I hope this helps.

Somehow, I doubt people are still checking this thread after a full three months.  Didn't you see the scary necromancer guy when you posted?

[Torrasque]

I have a similar problem, that I feel is in no way related to AM, but this seems to be the best place to put it. For some reason, after about 5 minutes(RL time) my game freezes and I can't do anything. I have had to resort to forcing a reset to get out of the game. Any ideas as to why this happens to me? If it helps, I just installed Ambitions last night. Worked fine up until this morning.

[wizard_merlin]

I have a similar problem, that I feel is in no way related to AM, but this seems to be the best place to put it. For some reason, after about 5 minutes(RL time) my game freezes and I can't do anything. I have had to resort to forcing a reset to get out of the game. Any ideas as to why this happens to me? If it helps, I just installed Ambitions last night. Worked fine up until this morning.

Do you mean YOU specifically as opposed to everyone else?  Sure, we all know why it happens, the exact cause, etc., but decided to keep it to ourselves instead of sharing so we can watch people resurrect old threads and ask if there is a solution yet.  Give me a break.

[mildlydisguised]

As an update, I upgraded my graphics card from an ATI X1950 to an HD7550 and that seems to have solved the problem for me.  My current card has more video RAM so I think that is what helped, although I would still see both cards as overkill for a sims game.

[Anach]

First off, I've noticed two types of pausing. One where the game hangs permanently due to bad content or corrupt town. The mouse cursor still works, but the game doesn't. The second type is processing lag, where the CPU is over-worked and is taking too long to process all the stuff the game needs.

I've run Sims 3 on several different PCs, from the a single core Athlon - 2gig RAM - x1950 Pro, dual core Athlon x64 - 4Gig - x1950xtx, Core2 Quad - 8Gig - HD3750x2 and finally the i7 3ghz - 12Gig - 6970. What I have found, with mods installed, this game can use up to 4gig of RAM just for itself, Windows likes to keep around 1gig itself, GPU power doesn't make much difference to performance, and most all performance comes from Memory availability and CPU power. The never-ending pause was an issue on anything under a quad core. With a quad, that pause only lasted a few seconds and with the i7 it was barely there at all.

Taking out mods is the first way of getting speed back and this is a problem in any game that makes heavy use of mods. I know using awesome seems to require a little more CPU than normal, mixing that with other script mods like Twallan's will increase that, especially if you like lots of new features and options. The more CC you have installed, the more RAM is required to load housing and Sims into memory, due to the amount of models. Also a lot of CC will duplicate existing models rather than linking to original models, which again creates overhead, not to mention the bad content which will lag your game up a LOT.

Honestly, anyone trying to play this game on less than a quad core, with 6Gig of RAM and a 4000 series ATI is asking for lag. Unfortunately for almost everyone, the idea of removing mods to increase performance is something they are unwilling to do, so at the end of the day, its a matter of putting up with it.

[J. M. Pescado]

I suspect some of this is caused by Backlog Runaway, where the game generates work for the computer to do faster than the computer can actually do the work, resuting in the game never catching up.

[spockblock]

The never-ending pause was an issue on anything under a quad core. With a quad, that pause only lasted a few seconds and with the i7 it was barely there at all.

[snip]

Honestly, anyone trying to play this game on less than a quad core, with 6Gig of RAM and a 4000 series ATI is asking for lag.

I've got a Core2 Duo, 4Gb RAM and a low-to-mid-range nVIDIA (9400m) and a fuckton of mods and lots of CC and I never get this pausing.

[Phnx]

I had freezes as well but they seem to have been resolved after following the instructions on one of these links.

http://geekmontage.com/texts/the-sims-3-late-night-expansion-pack-crashes-freezes-errors-glitches/

http://ezinearticles.com/?Sims-3-Late-Night-Freezes---Sims-3-Late-Night-Keeps-Freezing,-How-Do-I-Fix-It?&id=5574362

[bongart]

Yes, I am kicking a topic that has been left alone.  I think it is important to the issue as people still are having it AND I have a couple of interesting points to add to the mix.

I am playing Vanilla S3.  No expansion packs.  No mods.  The only world I have added is Riverview.  I have less than 20 pieces of custom content added, and all from the Sims 3 store at EA (the free stuff that did not cost any Simpoints, but not the pile of free decor).  I am patched up to 1.33, and was patched up to that point before the pauses started.

I played the game on and off for more than a year before playing more frequently this past month.  I never had any issues with it pausing.  I have changed motherboards (Biostar to Asus... same base chipset), video cards (9600gt to 9800gt... Evga replaced it), the processor (AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400+ to AMD Phenom II x6 1100t) AND the brand of Ram (G.Skill F2-6400 to Kingston 2G-UDIMM)  since I first installed the game, and never experienced this pause (the hardware change occurred at Christmas... I treated myself).  By choosing my hardware carefully, I did not have to reinstall Windows XP MCE, and I have had No issues with any software installed before the hardware change.

So hardware is not causing the issue for me.  Mods are not causing the issue for me.  Custom Content is not causing the issue for me.

One thing I can comment on is that I can clearly remember (last night) when this problem first started, and what occurred in the game.

Male teen guest was visiting at the home of a female teen.  He had been "invited over" by her, and they are boyfriend/girlfriend.  The visit was considered to be (automatically turned into) a date, but they never left the front step of the home.  When it was time to ask him to leave, the only option given was "Ask to leave date".  I chose this.  The game appeared to pause, but all the animations continued (the spinning hearts over their heads, the girl's plumb-bob, etc.)  After the pause stopped, he ran home (across the street) and she went in to eat before bed.

Ever since then, the game has been freezing like that every few minutes.  Saved it, shut down, came back to it today, it is still doing it.

Now.  I've seen references through this thread to "fixall" and "resetworld" but I can find no reference as to where to download these tools in the thread itself, nor another thread which indicates where to download.  I also did not see anywhere in this thread anyone mentioning when they first noticed the pauses, or what happened in the game when they first started.  I shall change to another family, and see if the pauses continue.

[Starler]

Wow, you necro'd a thread because you didn't RTFM for Awesomemod? Even worse, you wrote all that just to tell us you didn't RTFM in the last paragraph?

Here's a hint: PEBCAK

Also, just because you bought better RAM doesn't mean you have enough. If you are using a 32-bit OS, your RAM is capped regardless of how much is installed, so the problem could still be insufficient RAM.

[wizard_merlin]

Wow, you necro'd a thread because you didn't RTFM for Awesomemod? Even worse, you wrote all that just to tell us you didn't RTFM in the last paragraph?

I am playing Vanilla S3.  No expansion packs.  No mods.  The only world I have added is Riverview.  I have less than 20 pieces of custom content added, and all from the Sims 3 store at EA (the free stuff that did not cost any Simpoints, but not the pile of free decor).  I am patched up to 1.33, and was patched up to that point before the pauses started.

Now.  I've seen references through this thread to "fixall" and "resetworld" but I can find no reference as to where to download these tools in the thread itself, nor another thread which indicates where to download.

If I understand it properly, the fucknut doesn't even have AM installed and wants to know where to download the commands from.

Also, just because you bought better RAM doesn't mean you have enough. If you are using a 32-bit OS, your RAM is capped regardless of how much is installed, so the problem could still be insufficient RAM.

Also, remember that the FOJ has stated several times, that the game is only a 32-bit game, so even with a 64-bit OS to see all available RAM, I doubt the game would see it all.  You would be relying on the OS to move all other tasks away from the RAM the game can see, thus allowing the game to use the maximum amount of RAM possible, which I doubt happens.