Clothing Mesh Causes Crash When Purchasing Community Lot (confirmed)

[Ivy]

It's been confirmed here:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=182634

To sum up:

When wearing the "dress as tops" tops that have been made at MTS2, and trying to purchase a community lot, your game will crash. 

Is there anyone more awesome than me that can write a hack that can stop the game from accessing the line of code that HystericalParoxysm references in order to have these meshes fully workable in game?  "I don't think there's going to be any fix for the dress tops that will keep this from happening - dress tops are made by cloning a full body mesh, importing the 3d model for a top only, and then changing one line in the recolour file's settings to tell it that it's a top. It's really a very simple, elegant way of doing it... And in order for something to work like a dress top, that seems to be the way it has to be done. There doesn't appear to be an alternate dress top method....So the problem is really not so much with the dress tops themselves as it is with the code that runs when a sim goes to buy a community lot. For some reason, it's accessing what the buying sim is wearing when it does it... which makes exactly 0 sense."

The other workaround listed, to have the sim in question merely change clothing prior to buying a community lot, is not IMHO a good solution.

Removing all the tops created is not a good option either, as that ignores the fact that there does indeed exist this problem.

This may or may not come up again for other meshes out there, and I'd rather have a fix for it in place in order to prevent it from happening.

Thank you to anyone who may take an interest in coming up with a solution to this problem.


Ivy

[dizzy]

There is no good reason the game should *crash* altogether. This is EA and Maxis' fault. Complain to them, though I doubt they really care.

[J. M. Pescado]

I am presently conducting tests to determine what instruction triggers the crash.

[Ivy]

Thank you JM for taking the time to look into this issue.

It is much appreciated!


Ivy

[pioupiou]

In my game, this mesh also causes crash to the desktop when trying to give my sim a job (newspaper) and when she tries to give birth.... I did not try to buy a community lot.... It sad because it's a really nice mesh/idea, but for the moment I took it out of my downloads folder (my game is too long too load for my taste to let it crash every 5 minutes !!)

[J. M. Pescado]

I believe that I have identified the cause, and Pioupiou's observations corroborate the theory.

It appears that something about the way the "dress as top" mesh designed is not quite right and causes the game to barf when attempting to use it in dynamic thumbnail dialog featuring that sim. This includes, but is not limited to, the confirmation dialog of purchasing community lots, or any confirmation dialog that would ordinarily pop a presently instanced sim's dialog into the imagebox of a Yes/No, and maybe Yes/No/Cancel dialog.

The problem is believed to be largely untenable. While it can be bypassed at any individual instance it occurs at, the error itself is rooted at a low level and cannot be resolved. The way the mesh is made is fundamentally flawed and breaks the game at a low level. I recommend all such meshes be immediately recalled from download and retired from service.

[Simsbaby]

The same thing happens if you have a bodybuilder sim.

[Ivy]

Thank you Pioupiou for noticing that, I hadn't tried any of those options yet! YIKES!

Thank you JM for digging deeper into the issue, finding the root cause and letting those over at MTS2 aware of it as well.  Well said over there by the way. 

I shall take your advice and remove it from my downloads.  Random crashes that can be avoidable shall be. 


Ivy

[liegenschonheit]

I've been using the dress as top mesh for some time and have never had any problems. However, I shall take this all into consideration and when/if my game throws up I will know who to blame... Myself for ignoring the advice of Pescado.

[JenW]

I had the exact same problem with the top mesh made from the men's open shirt outfit (also on MTS2) when trying to get a job.

[J. M. Pescado]

I had the exact same problem with the top mesh made from the men's open shirt outfit (also on MTS2) when trying to get a job.

Same bug, then. If the mesh is manufactured the same way, it will share the same weakness.

[Marg]

 Did you let them know at MTS2 JenW?    I wouldn't mind getting the name of the mesh so I could at least check and see if I have it in my game.    I hate game crashes.

[Emma]

 Did you let them know at MTS2 JenW?    I wouldn't mind getting the name of the mesh so I could at least check and see if I have it in my game.    I hate game crashes.

I am pretty sure they are:
mesh_dressasatop.package
mesh_dresstopforhp.package

I have used these without any problems so far, but thanks for the heads up on these meshes

[Ivy]

I had the exact same problem with the top mesh made from the men's open shirt outfit (also on MTS2) when trying to get a job.

Do you have a link to this mesh? I'd like to know which one this one is.

Thanks!


Ivy

[JenW]

This is it here...it's also by flyingpigeon, what do you know... http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=162814

It didn't occur to me at the time to post about it, but I will now.

[Marg]

 Thanks JenW.   That's what I needed to know.

 Marg   

[Ivy]

Thanks JenW for letting us know.  And yes, it does have the same large warning on it now as the others.



Ivy

[nectere]

Not to add fuel to the fire but wow, that was handled poorly. In my opinion all complaints should be looked into no matter how bizzare or stupid sounding. If you make something and offer it up to the masses you have an obligation to support the creation, even if you dont know why its broken when you discover it is. At the very least one should at least attempt to take the complaint seriously to investigate especially when the person who reports the issues provide enough detail to attempt to recreate the issue themselves... I realize something like this couldnt be foreseen but if someone tells you there is a problem, rather than pretending they are stupid or nuts or shift blame - just look into it.

It just reeks in my opinion, I got the feeling the person reporting the issue was being treated like a pest, and made out ot be a bad guy or some crap, not cool at all. I am all for protecting creators from needless harrassment but come on....ok whatever.   

[Ivy]

Thank you Nectere and here, have some more gasoline.  That was me that reported it.

Unfortunately, slicing and dicing over there got a lot of what was said cut out so unless you were subscribed from the very beginning, you missed the worst of it. 

I do have those emails saved to remind me never to never do that again.  I followed all the guidelines, was clear in my posting, I believe I spelled most everything correctly and even spoke in plain english.  Silly me for thinking that was the right thing to do, eh?

Ivy

[Marg]

It was the right thing to do Ivy.    I'm  sorry you were treated badly.   I think most creators do want to know when there is a problem and will try to fix it.   

[J. M. Pescado]

Need I remind you that MTS2 subscribes to the "THANKS THIS IS GREAT" culture that we here at MATY scoff at. This is why they constantly want you to thank them. We, on the other hand, don't believe in good news, so THANKS THIS IS GREAT is simply useless spam.

[Kyna]

I found it astonishing that the thread was locked when Sagana correctly pointed out that those meshes WILL end up on the exchange.

Talk about burying one's head in the sand.  Just because people aren't supposed to put those on the exchange, doesn't mean they won't end up there.

*Hugs Ivy*  I think I would have lost my temper somewhere during that discussion if it'd been me, and started insulting idiot creators who don't even bother to test something AFTER they'd received a bug report that detailed how to repeat the bug.  I note it wasn't the creator who was the first to agree it was broken, but someone else over there.

[Ivy]

Thank you Marg, I think that is what I expect out of everyone after being here for so long.  I suppose that is why I was so stunned at the responses that I received. 

JM the need for constant praise and affection in that respect is useless.  I did give some simple form of praise, I suppose because I didn't follow it with !111!!!!1ONEONENEONE it wasn't noticed.  Gosh, that must've been what I missed in the fine print over there...

Kyna, yes that is the sad, true fact, and I don't doubt they are there already.  Thanks for the **hugsbackatcha** .  I may not have lost my temper over there, but you better believe the 500+ members of the TS2 Classic Legacy Group that I co-own know about this bug all too well.  Those Legacy simmers sure can talk...and blog...word spreads real fast with them you know.  Yeah, not only did the creator not want to admit that it was broken, he passed up the first two chances to admit to it.  Better yet, he had all day to go and test it out before the second chance was even posted...

Ivy

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm uncertain why it took them so long to even admit there might be a problem, given that you could reproduce it consistently with methodical testing. I'm not really involved in the mesh scene at all, and it took precisely one attempt to verify, "Yes, there definitely is a problem.". Of course, they're not programmers. Maybe it just completely blew their minds that something like this could possibly happen, whereas the moment I saw it go wrong, I had sneaking suspicions that the mesh probably was a little dodgy to begin with. Perhaps programmers are just more likely to connect seemingly unrelated errors given that we experience some pretty outwardly crazy shit all the time.

[Kyna]

Ivy I think you identified why they didn't take you seriously.

They're so used to people that type !!!!!1111!!!OMG!!111 that they didn't differentiate between a post that said "OMG U BORKE MI GAME" and a PM detailing a clear bug report with information on reproducing the bug.  I guess they're so used to posts from sheep they assume everyone is a sheep, even though you clearly aren't.

While I was over on MTS2 reading the relevant posts I refrained from giving low ratings to the meshes in question (although I note they both had high ratings).  I never rate an item unless I've downloaded and used it in my game - and I'm not going to be that with these meshes.

And to go off-topic:  how's the FlyLady stuff going?