What the hell is this now???

[moniquinin]

In this lot, all my sims started doing the above before sitting down, and then this:



upon getting up.

Yes, I guess there is something wrong with this lot, and frankly, it is mostly CC:

I can't remember where I got it from, but I love it and if there is anything I could do to fix it I'd greatly appreciate any help to do so.  Maybe it's to do with the furniture?

The only other issue I've encountered with this lot is that the front door isn't recognised by anyone and I thought maybe it's because it's on a diagonal (but that's just me speculating out of my ass). 

I can't think of anything else that goes wrong, but more often than not, game does crash eventually after my sims do that thing with their arms upon getting up from the table.

[Zii]

The house: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=189165
I just remember it being a featured item and went rummaging. xD

As for your animation problem.. I'm not quite awesome enough to know what that is. Best I can think of is something similar to the chessboard glitch where you can cancel playing and your sim's arm will be stuck in an upwards grabby position.

[moniquinin]

This is what I've figured out - if it's just one person sitting and then getting up from this table (where they do these weird animations) the game does not crash.  I had two guests over when I first saw this happening and when they all sat and then got up, it crashed my game.  Also, it's just this table where this happens, not the outside picnic table I have, where I've had six sims simultaneously, sit, eat get up - no problem.

I do have one other thing weird happening and it's that I can't accomplish much cooking by clicking on the stove - the actions cancel out.  I always have to go through the fridge.  But I really don't know what normal behaviour is regarding this since I haven't really paid attention, but I do know that on other lots I can click on the stove, prepare group meal, and it not cancel on its own most of the time anyway.

[miramis]

Have you tried temporarily replacing the stove and dining set to see if it happens with all types?  The door thing might be because of the diagonal,sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[moniquinin]

The dining kitchen set is simaddicts99 medieval set, which goes great with this house.  I did replace the stove though trying to see if that would change anything and it's now a maxis recolour one, but it still doesn't behave properly.  I'm off now to replace the table and chairs.  I don't know much about the inner functionings of the game but is it reasonable to think that objects/furniture can have this effect on the animations?  Enough to make the game crash?

[miramis]

Honestly I have no idea about the inner workings of the game either 

Have you tried placing another version of this lot (hopefully not occupied) and testing it with another family to see if the same problems occur?  It might be a good idea to set up a temporary new neighbourhood just to test the lot out, though I don't recommend moving the Sims themselves between the neighbourhood. 

It could be the lot itself that is screwed up, or perhaps there is some sort of corruption of the neighbourhood.  Or perhaps it's mods interfering.  Did you check the lot with Clean Installer before installing for any unwanted mods?  I don't know if Clean Installer is okay for Mac users or not.

[Sagana]

Are the dining set and the stove placed on diagonols as well? That can cause all kinds of animation and useability glitches though I've not heard of crashing problems from it. I've got a couch where the sims go all broken because it's on a diagonal and ACR takes control of them and it's some *bizarre* animations

[maxon]

In a similar way, has it been placed with the snapobjectstogrid cheat turned on?  That also causes all sorts of oddities sometimes.

[Marhis]

Lol, your game is much more interesting than mine  .
It can be the custom mesh; I have a dining set I love, too, but for some unknown reasons is weird. Often the sims remain imprisoned between two chairs, when getting up, and I have to constantly turn moveobjects on to unstuck them. Sometimes the family goes for breakfast in the morning and find a stuck visitor who cries like a baby, with all its motives in the red, poor thing.

To test that lot and family in a test hood without moving the lot, and scrambling the game, you shoul try this:
- in neighborhood view, package the inhabited lot.
- quit the game, move you Downloads folder elsewere, e.g. on the desktop.
- Go to PackagedLots and install that lot the usual way
- Restart the game, without the original Downloads folder. In this way, the game should create a new Downloads folder with that lot content only.
- Create a new test hood, place the lot in there from lot bin and go ahead with the test.

To restore, delete the test hood, delete the lot from lot bin, and replace the Downloads folder it with the original.

[witch]

I'd be calling for a sim exorcist.

[Liz]

If it's only happening with that table, I'd say the most obvious first step would be to try a different table. The only time I've had the stove problem you mentioned was when I was using a dorm fridge, since the stove didn't see anything in the fridge it could have been used to cook.

I've also had houses where the guests seemed to "lose" the front door, but in those cases the door wasn't on a diagonal.

Good luck!
Liz

[moniquinin]

Yup, you guys are brilliant and my brain is in a vicodin induced stupid state and can't even think.  I believe that the two lots the stove thing is happening, the fridges are in a diagonal and that never ocurred to me to be the problem, even though I thought that's what must be going on with my front door.  And, the simplest thing is to get rid of the furniture and test some other, but I thought, oh, simple, non-hacked objects can't affect gameplay like this.

I will check and hopefully this will end the problem.

[Liz]

I never underestimate the ability of this game to break itself in various and unexpected ways, even without any hacks or mods to poke it with. You never know if there's some oddity about a cc mesh that the sims' animations are forced to compensate for or maneuver around, or some bizarre alignment of the planets in which an object spills over its tiles just enough to get the family cat stuck underneath it... I once downloaded a very chic dress that looked *fantastic* in-game, but while wearing it, the sim herself became clickable from, like, across the room, and it was impossible to click on anything else within a 5- or 6-tile radius of her. So there's no telling what a simple-enough-seeming, non-hacked piece of cc is up to when you're not looking ;o)

[snowyrat]

I've wondered the same...

I once downloaded a very chic dress that looked *fantastic* in-game, but while wearing it, the sim herself became clickable from, like, across the room, and it was impossible to click on anything else within a 5- or 6-tile radius of her.

It seems that Maxis EA has used the same mesh for the fruit trees in Seasons. In my orchard, it is impossible to pick anything from thre radius of few tiles of the fruit trees - first you have to remove the tree, pick the thing, then put the tree back. Very annoying...

[moniquinin]

Well, my view is, why have an option if it doesn't work?  I mean, in terms of the diagonals.  The other day I noticed one of my cats being very perturbed because she was trying to get on a counter that I had placed at an angle and of course couldn't.  If fridges and front doors, for example,  don't work properly, why then allow for them to be placed like that?  Oh well.

[jsalemi]

If fridges and front doors, for example,  don't work properly, why then allow for them to be placed like that?  Oh well.

See, now there's your real problem -- expecting logic from MaxisEA...

[Sagana]

Yeah that one gets to me too. In one of the few houses I actually built, I had to totally redesign the kitchen twice because it was on a diagonal and wouldn't work. Putting dining cubbies and kitchen counters on diagonals is like... standard... silly EA.

[vlsullivan]

Back to the original question. The problem is the chair. I had the same thing happen with the same chair. Don't know why, ask the creator, but use a different chair and the problem goes away. Too bad, as I like that set, too.

Victoria
I may or may not be more awesome than you, but I'm quite probably OLDER than you

[moniquinin]

You're absolutely right.  I can confirm that.  I removed the table and chairs, replaced them with others, it worked.  I replaced the table with the simsaddict one and it still works, which is ok I guess because it's the table (the colour) which I was more interested in.  So, problem solved there.  As for the fridge - the stove is still acting funny with the fridge placed straight so maybe it's the damn fridge, which is also a simsaddict object.

[vlsullivan]

Maybe. Are you using one of her wooden fridges? I haven't tried that one so I can't be sure. (TSR subscription is currently lapsed so I can't check) Try replacing it with another model and see if it helps. If you are looking for a medieval option, MTS2 has a set of Noble Pantries by roseisred that look nice. If you want something less grand, try her Medieval Set 2. HTH

Victoria
I may or may not be more awesome than you, but I'm quite probably OLDER than you

[moniquinin]

Yeah I am using the wooden fridge.  Thanks for the info on the other medieval options.  I will look them up 

[amjoie]

Is that her freshly updated (within the last couple days) wood frig, or her old (made before Seasons) frig? If it was the old one, then Seasons did a lot of things to the frig -- so all of the old ones you have, regardless of modder, should be updated.

edit: Might be nice to let her know about the chair, so she can maybe fix it. I can tell you right now, though, that not everyone is having a problem with the chair. I use it in all my castle houses, all the time. I have mods, mods, and more mods. But I have never seen this glitch. Shrug.

[moniquinin]

I don't have Seasons and I got it a while ago so it's probably the older version.  It's so frustrating when there are so many vasriables and the game seems so temperamental and so hard to figure out what does what to what when you're so non-awesome.

[amjoie]

Well, you have to remember that Aspyr had a hand in your game, too. Which is on top of what MaxisEA did to it before it was given to Aspyr to port to the Mac. So you may have fewer problems on one hand, and more problems on the other hand -- all depending on what Aspyr did to the code before porting.

It really isn't so much about being awesome as being willing to read what awesome people write. You can pick up a lot of understanding and know what to avoid, etc, just from hanging around and absorbing.

I make no claims to being awesome, since I have no experience with programming. But I have some understandng of concepts about the inner workings of the game, because I have been educated through forum posts by those in the know. Keep reading, and you'll catch on.