Testers Wanted: Call Private School Phone Plug-in (Updated 11/7/2006)

[syberspunk]

Ok. I'm in the midst of testing a fix for this. It turns out that I misterpreted the use of a certain type of check, and this may be contributing to the TMI errors.

Again, I will need other people to test it with debug mode on so that you can post error logs for me.

@CuriousSpurious:

As for cousins, yes other fairly immediate relatives were supposed to count. So... if a valid student is found, but they have no siblings or no parents that are/have been in private school, it will then use the parents of that student, and check the following:

1) If the parent's brothers, sisters, or parents are/were in private school

2) If the parent has met that brother, sister, or parent

3) If the student in question has met that brother, sister, or parent.



Ok. Yet another attempt at a bug fix, this time for the one reported in FroggySim's error log.

I've cleaned up the code and hopefully this will lessen the number of iterations and prevent it. This kind of error is a bit tough to track down, but I think what I've done should fix the problem. I had a couple of extra checks, just to verify things, but they probably weren't really necessary and just overkill on my part. Again, I'm not getting this kind of error, most likely because my testing 'hood and even my regular game 'hood do not have a lot of sims yet. If you have a lot of sims, you are prone to getting 'too many iterations' because the code has to search through your 'hood when looking for sims. Therefore, the more sims you have, the more likely you might get this error.

:sorry: again for all the constant updating. However, once again, I have tried this in several different households, but my 'hoods just don't have the proper testing environment, with effects due to long term play. Since I personally am not getting these errors, I must rely on users to test and report back any further errors.

Thanks so much for your patience and cooperation.

Ste

[C.S.]

As for cousins, yes other fairly immediate relatives were supposed to count.

Oh. Well, the Bachelor kids hadn't met their cousin Catherine (Bella and Mortimer's 3rd and youngest child) who's still at the child life stage. I didn't manage to throw the birthday party in time so she left because of curfew, and I didn't get the chance to let her meet the then-newly transitioned toddlers. They met only after the Bachelor kids transitioned into children. Dang! I should've kept the error logs . I could still probably re-produce this error in the Caliente family though, since their babies are cousins to the Bachelor offsprings. Will report back.

[FroggySim]

I did a short test with this version and so far it seems like the error is gone.
Thank you for updating!

[C.S.]

Hey syberspunk, sorry it took me so long. I've tested both the old and new versions, the good news is, I couldn't re-produce the error I mentioned above and the bad news is... er, there's no bad news. Well, that's what people always say, "I've got good news and bad news" .

To make it a fair test, I added the 'got into private school' memory for Nina Caliente before I played, but nada, no errors and nothing bad happened. And I was so sure it was because I had included that fake memory for Michael Bachelor when I gave him memories that I put it down to just user error and so didn't think much of it.

The cousins part though, whether they were met or not, don't seem to count when it comes to the "Enroll Legacy" eligibility, but that's okay, I can do the HM scenario fairly well. All in all, students on other lots could quit and re-enrol without incident and the lastest version appears to be working fine too, so, no complaints at all.

[syberspunk]

Hey syberspunk, sorry it took me so long. I've tested both the old and new versions, the good news is, I couldn't re-produce the error I mentioned above and the bad news is... er, there's no bad news. Well, that's what people always say, "I've got good news and bad news" .

Heheh. I'll take that bad news anyday However I am still working on another possible update. Someone else over at MTS2 is still having issues with it. It's a tad frustrating, but I really want to make the mod as friendly and compatible as possible. I've had them testing a few other versions, since so far, they seem to be the last hold out as far as any reported problems. I'm sure it's been annoying and confusing with all the constant updating. So I decided to have them test it until I finally stomp that bug out for them, and then post a final update.

To make it a fair test, I added the 'got into private school' memory for Nina Caliente before I played, but nada, no errors and nothing bad happened. And I was so sure it was because I had included that fake memory for Michael Bachelor when I gave him memories that I put it down to just user error and so didn't think much of it.

Actually adding the memory artificially shouldn't pose a problem. The mod won't be able to tell whether it was added 'in-game' or if you did it by some other means, with a mod or SimPE, for example. What I did in my mod was to make sure it checks for that memory. That way, you can't 'cheat' in the sense of using a mod to just set a sim in private school without the memory. For example, if you use the InSimenator, you can set a sim to private school, but it does not add the memory. Besides, this is pretty much the only way (that I could think of at least) to check if someone has a legacy.

The cousins part though, whether they were met or not, don't seem to count when it comes to the "Enroll Legacy" eligibility, but that's okay, I can do the HM scenario fairly well. All in all, students on other lots could quit and re-enrol without incident and the lastest version appears to be working fine too, so, no complaints at all.

I misunderstood what you meant by cousins. I thought you meant a cousin of the parent (which would therefore actually be the uncle or aunt of the sim in question). What I did was iterate through siblings first, parents next, and then siblings or parents of the parent (i.e. aunts/uncles or grandparents). I could theoretically include cousins, but I thought that might be stretching it. Also, iterating through too many sims ends up causing those 'too many iterations' problems.

But now that you mention it, I might think about going back and including relatives, but only requiring that they have met if the relative does not live in the same house. As soon as I find out whether the latest version in testing definitely stomps that other bug, then I'll look into the expanded relatives thing. The only reason why I didn't do this from the get-go was because I was having trouble with it earlier. When I finally got it to work, I ended up breaking it up to tests for siblings and parents. But now that I understand things better, I should be able to do this for immediate relatives at least (ones that are in the current or only one generation apart).

Ste

[C.S.]

I don't know about others, but I don't mind the "constant updating" nor find it "annoying and confusing". In any case, at least it shows you are commited to making sure it works and works well. Plus, I do like what this mod does (well, duh, why else would I download it in the first place) and don't want it yanked.

Um, to be honest, I don't really care about the cousins part, I was just being... lazy and "cheaty". I thought the time windows could be better though. Say, perhaps in your next update, maybe from 8am (the time the school bus comes) to 3pm (when the school bus brings the little sims home) the option is not available but any timeline outside that we could have the option to switch. I found myself hovering the pointer over the phone almost every hour, afraid to miss it or remembering it wrong (which I did, so I just concentrated on the window before the school bus came ) and having to wait another day... ok, that's really just me being lazy and "cheaty" again . I'll still be happy with the way it is though.

[Mike]

SYBERSPUNK! Explain this please. Im getting object errors whenever I highlight the phone with a teen between 6-8 AM and 2-4 PM. Check out the log.

Edit: And yes, im using the most recent version.

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[syberspunk]

SYBERSPUNK! Explain this please. Im getting object errors whenever I highlight the phone with a teen between 6-8 AM and 2-4 PM. Check out the log.

Edit: And yes, im using the most recent version.

MIKE! Ack!  Well... I was hoping to hold off on releasing an update since I have a person who is still sorta testing it for me. I didn't want to bother releasing it since other people may still experience the 'too many iterations' problem.

Basically, at least from my limited understanding, the problem may possibly be due to neighborhoods with a significant number of sims. The error comes from the Test BHAV which checks to see if these phone options should be available to you. The game dynamically builds the options when you hover over the phone, and makes them appear when you click on it. The reason why it happens only during those times is because I made the options only available during those times. My reasoning was that you should be able to switch on a school day, but only before or after the school day is over.

Anyway, the error comes from 'too many iterations.' The Test needs to first find out if there are any sims on the lot who are eligible for private school. They must be a teen or child, who is currently in public school, has a grade of C or higher, and does NOT have a memory of having gotten into private school already. This probably eats up a few iterations already. Then, after that, the code iterates through 'neighbors' or other sims who have a non-zero relationship with the sim in question. Once it finds a sim, it should check if they are a parent or sibling. Then it checks if that sim has a memory of having gotten into private school. This eats up a lot more interations. If it fails to find a parent, it searches for a sibling, and if it fails to find a sibling, it then searches for the parents and siblings (grandparents or aunts and uncles) instead, with the requirement that the potential student has met them (or at least their parent has met them). As a result, these are even more iterations.  Oh... incidentally, I also added cousins to that list.

However... I did find some other bugs that I never noticed before. I'm hoping that these fixes will solve the problem, but again I don't have a 'proper' testing environment. My current testing environment is pretty much a clean/fresh install of the game. My current 'game' environment hasn't been played much (surprise, surprise  ) and I chucked my old 'hood in favor of starting over from scratch. So... even in my real 'game' I don't have a lot of sims, and I don't have any huge families to really test this out. In my 'test' environment, it has worked with the Goth and Pleasant family, but obviously those families are very small.

Also, I was initially using Sims Age checks that use Verify calls, which I assume adds to the iterations. Now I'm just using direct persondata checks, so hopefully this should reduce the number of iterations that the game runs through. I tried to strip down the code as much as possible, replacing any checks that redundantly verify the data. The odd thing is, when I tried to collapse the search into one BHAV rather than breaking them up into a couple of calls based on parameters, I ended up getting the TMI errors with 0 iterations. And when I tried sticking an Idle call, I got a check tree blocked error instead. So I had to stick with the original code with a few changes that I hope does the trick.

Probably a much longer (and long-windyier ) than you wanted, but you did ask for an explanation. So... since I still need testing, please get the newer version and let me know if you still have the same problems. I've changed a lot of the code to be a bit cleaner. If people are still having problems, I still have an idea of something else I could try. But for now, give this a test and let me know if it works.

Ste

[Mike]

OK, I hear ya. I will test the newer version out now to see if I am still getting errors.

Probably a much longer (and long-windyier ) than you wanted, but you did ask for an explanation.

Yeah, I did ask for an explaination, which I regret. About half way through the post I had brain failure.  Just kidding, it wasn't too long for me. 

[Meska]

any idea if this is second patch compatible or not? I have to admit to being lazy with this question. I didn't do much more than have a teen currently enrolled in private school check to see if I had the option to call the school and quit. I didn't seem to have that choice but I may have just missed it.

[BlueSoup]

Syberspunk posted a complete compatibility list here.

[Meska]

ha. silly me not looking for a thread like that and going to the specific hack I was interested in.

[redmachine]

I seem to be having a problem with this mod (which I love btw)

I have all EPs and I'm patched up to date (also, Christmas/Holiday Pack).

I'm getting random teens and children dropping out of private school (seems to be teens more often than children). The said children or teens always have the option to re-enroll on the phone, so it's not a massive problem, but their grade always drops to a C.

The only vague link I can make (amongst the teens) is romantically interacting with adults, but even that's probably coincidental. Also, this only happens when I re-enter a lot.

I play with *testingCheatsEnabled* and I'm getting no error logs.

Most of the hacks I use are Awesome. The other hacks that COULD be a problem (but are probably not): Kitten Killer, Insim and Moniques homeworkfasterfun.

[syberspunk]

sometimeshomeworkfasterfun (or something like that) I think was done by JenFlower. At least that's what I have, and that definitely does not conflict with my phone plug-in. Unless Monique has a similar hack? I think there is an auto-do homework, but I don't know much about her other hacks. In either case, I don't imagine that they would conflict, unless it does something to force sims to drop out.

Have you read the RTFM for the Kitten Killer? I think that, for sims that are close to the end stage of teen, they are 'graduated' from high school while they are on the verge of either becoming an adult or going to Uni. I'm fairly certain this is a feature of InTeen.

When they 'dropping out' do they end up in public school or are they not in school at all? If they are not in school at all... then it is probably InTeen. I think there is a flavorpak to change this.

However... if you find that your sims are 'dropping out' and end up in public school, this might be due to Pescado's private school bill fix, or whatever it's called. It makes private school more expensive, and if you can't afford it, then your sim gets booted.

These are the only things I can imagine that might be causing your issue, especially since you aren't getting error logs.

Ste

[redmachine]

Have you read the RTFM for the Kitten Killer? I think that, for sims that are close to the end stage of teen, they are 'graduated' from high school while they are on the verge of either becoming an adult or going to Uni. I'm fairly certain this is a feature of InTeen.

When they 'dropping out' do they end up in public school or are they not in school at all? If they are not in school at all... then it is probably InTeen. I think there is a flavorpak to change this.

They drop back into public school, and their grade is ruduced to a C. Also, I do have that flavor pak installed. I think it's called No Adult Teens.

However... if you find that your sims are 'dropping out' and end up in public school, this might be due to Pescado's private school bill fix, or whatever
it's called. It makes private school more expensive, and if you can't afford it, then your sim gets booted.

I don't use Pescasdo's private school bill fix 'cos it conflicts with something (inteen?) .

I spent a few hours yesterday trying to find a link as to why it's happening, anyway, here's a scenario (bare with me, I'm useless at explaining things):

I Enter Uncle Leo's lot. Leo's brother, Clive has 3 children Tom(teen), Dick(child) and Harry(child) in private school. Leo calls Harry on the phone and invites him over. Once there Leo feeds him some delicious mac&cheese and then says bye-bye. Leo then calls Tom on the phone, to chat for an hour or so. Now I exit Uncle Leo lot and enter Clive' lot. Harry and Tom have both dropped into public school and dropped to a C grade, while Dick, who doesn't care for Uncle Leo and has had no contact with him is still in private school.

Also, It doesn't seem to matter if the sim, a child/teen interacts with is a relative. I should also add, as my neighbourhood is new and pretty puny in size it's hard to test this extensively, as I only have about 10 children or teens in private school. But the ones who are, seemingly drop down whenever they are called or invited over by an adult (only if I'm playing the adults lot).

I hope that makes some sense

[syberspunk]

Hrm. That is a very strange issue. I will try to look into this when I have some time and see if I can reproduce this.

Some questions:

1) Just to be sure I understand what you are saying, your scenario is as follows:

Child/Teen A is in public school
Child/Teen A is invited to adult sim B as visitor
After exiting lot of sim B, when you go to lot for Child/Teen A, they drop back into public school

I hope I understood that correctly.

I assume the child/teen had a grade better than a C.

2) Does the problem still happen if you remove the private school plug in?

3) Does this problem only happen when you invite the child/teen to a lot?

4) Does this only happen when the inviter is an adult? Or no matter what, if they ever visit someone else's lot, when you go back to their lot, they always drop back to public school?

You also said it happens when they talk to someone on the phone, but it only happens when that person is an adult? In other words, can they talk to children or other teens and nothing bad happens?


To be honest, I haven't looked at the code in a long while... but I can't imagine what would cause a change just from having children/teens talking to an adult. And I don't know yet why entering the lot of the child/teen causes them to reset to public school... I could be wrong... but the bhavs in this hack should theoretically be run when you actually click on a phone. If that is right... then I am still not sure why they would be reset, or why this hack would cause the reseting...

Do you notice if this is time dependent? Or it doesnt matter what time the lot is. No matter what time it is, or what the sims are doing on the lot, when you check their school panel, it shows up as public school? Does the child/teen that is changed seemed reset? Meaning, are they not doing the same thing they were when you last saved that lot? For example, maybe you saved the lot when they were sleeping, and when you come back to it, they are standing up next to the bed, or possibly standing by the mailbox as if they had been deleted?

Just hoping to acquire as much info as possible so I try and set up a similar scenario to try and reproduce the error and know what exactly to look for.

Ste

[redmachine]

2) Does the problem still happen if you remove the private school plug in?

Yep, it does. It's also still happening atfer I removed  all my hacks & CC . So it looks like it's just my game.

I'm thinking it's either the second OFB patch or the fact that my base game and the first 2 EPs are the UK versions and that my OFB is the US version. Other than that, It might be re-install time.

Cheers for listening, anyway.

[jrd]

I don't use Pescasdo's private school bill fix 'cos it conflicts with something (inteen?) .

I have made a compatible version. It's lurking around somewhere.

[moonluck]

Jordi, you want to upload that/share a link because I really want that and would really appreciate it.

[jrd]

Should be this one: http://members.chello.nl/b.kroonspecker/games/mod-privateschoolbillfix.zip

Make sure it loads after the inteen: I suggest placing it in the same folder.

[moonluck]

Thanks!

I've been wanting that hack for a long time but I just couldn't part with the kitten killer.

[redmachine]

I don't use Pescasdo's private school bill fix 'cos it conflicts with something (inteen?) .

I have made a compatible version. It's lurking around somewhere.

Thanks Jordi, It works great. Finally, my Sims are being charged for the privilege of private school. I, like moonluck, have wanted this for a long time but couldn't part with the kitten killer.

[syberspunk]

Due to significant code changes in the way the game handles phones, the phone call options have now moved to the sim pie menu i.e. you must click on the sim in order for the Call... options to show up. These options will show up on the sim regardless of whether they have a cellphone or not. If they do not have a cell phone, they will attempt to use a landline.

The ZOMGPETS!!!111oneoneone version should theoretically be backwards compatible as well. You don't have to update if you have OFB or older, but it should theoretically work regardless of what EP(s) you have. Still, just to be safe, I am keeping the older version available.

Please test it out. And let me know if you have any problems.

Ste

[KevinTMC]

Since y'all were talking about this up-thread anyway...does the privateschoolbillfix need updating or should it (Pescado's and/or Jordi's versions) work just fine in Pets? And is there any reason either version wouldn't play nicely with this plug-in?

Ooops. Just noticed that privateschoolbillfix has been rolled into the new Pets Director's Cut. Stoopid me.

[V]

Since installing Free Time, I am no longer getting the option for enrolling  younger siblings. I know it has been a while, are you still supporting this hack?