Limbo between business and home

[Vanan]

Hi, I really screwed my game.

My main Sim was at his business and had just promoted a manager, he told her to mind the business and used walk off lot to go home (same way he got there), this put me in control of the manager peon, I then saved and went to play the house. Once I reached neighborhood view their house told me he was still visiting his business when I clicked it, and clicking the business (which has an occupied spinning simoleon spinning over it) brings me in in build mode with sim mode darkened out, as if I was building the lot. This happens even if I accept the dialog box that pops up telling me he's at the business and if I'd like to play there instead of the house.

Are my sims borked?

Also, no content other than awesome content from the BV directory, I have all the expansion packs and stuff packs.

[Vanan]

Hey look I learned how to use the search tool!

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9573.0.html

[Vanan]

Actually, waving the "magic wand" (crowbar box thingy) around the lot does not seem to solve the problem.

[J. M. Pescado]

The crowbar did not manage to respawn the missing sim? I will look into this.

[J. M. Pescado]

Does the game still recognize who owns the lot? Can you see the owner physically present on the lot anywhere? If not, try the new version.

[Vanan]

The owner is not present, neither are the employees.

Trying the new version once I'm home.

EDIT: Nothing happens upon waving the new wand, is there any more detail I can provide for awesome purposes?

[notveryawesome]

Hmmm, doesn't the lot debugger include an option to retrieve missing sim? Perhaps you can try using this function from the home lot.

[J. M. Pescado]

This is an owned community lot, that correctly lists its owners, and yet has no sims present on the lot?

[Vanan]

Yes, that's correct. It's all properly linked up on the Neighborhood screen and the owning sim is shown as in possession of the lot. No sims are visible on the lot but weather effects are present and frozen in build/buy mode (rain). I'm pretty sure this came about because I saved and quit right as my owner sim walked off the lot (he disappeared as part of the walk to.../home action) and control was given over to the manager npc (as in she was the only one selectable). My guess (and I have no hackery knowledge and thus this is probably wildly inaccurate) is that the owner sim had been successfully sent home at the level of this community lot, but this information had not yet been sent onward to the neighborhood and the home lot.

[J. M. Pescado]

That is weird, then, because waving the magic wand around on the lot should have conjured up the owner somewhere on the lot near the phone or trashcan and made it selectable.

[Vanan]

I'm confused by it as well, perhaps the manager is being considered the owner while I am at the lot, being that she is my only controllable sim there and is "in charge" of the business?

Also let me make sure I'm applying this tool correctly: go to the collection for it, click on it, wave it out over the lot like I'm placing it, and just wiggle my mouse pointlessly for a few minutes praying to the volcano gods. Let me know if I'm just doing it wrong.

[Vanan]

After having the problem occur a few more times with other families and successfully fixing them with the magic wand, I think I passed some point where it was retrievable, and nuked the whole neighborhood from orbit, just to be safe (and to get back the vacation homes they had ownership of!)

[Madame Mim]

Rather than starting a new thread on nearly the same topic I think I'll co-opt this one. And I'll tell the whole sorry story just in case some obscure part of it is relevant - so I'll apologise in advance for the rambing.

Trent Moore owns a business called Market. He stayed home with the toddlers while his wife went off to work it. Lillian worked a full day (gaining a silver sales badge, acheiving her LTW - §100,000 - and raising the business level to 9). When it came time for her to go hime she generated an erro and I, by a slip of the finger (or maybe mind), deleted rather than reset her. I then compounded the error by saving on exit.

So she was stuck in limbo and I resorted to Ingelogical shrub trickery to het her back. This worked, but I could not add her back into her house because the game thought she was still at the business and refused. So I used trickery again to get the rest of the family onto a vacant lot with her and moved them back into their house (which had managed to loose all the furniture just as if I had simply moved them out of the house) - which of course I could not do because I could not get into the house because the game thought that she was at the business lot. . .

But still nobody could go to the business because the game thought she was there already. So I tried the magic wand. I waved it. I placed it. I saved the lot. I removed it. I saved the lot. Nobody appeared anywhere, and now I again cannot enter the home lot because the game thinks that they are at the business.

Does anyone have any idea how I can rescue the business? I'd rather not loose one I worked so hard to get to level 9 if I don't have to.

[J. M. Pescado]

I will look at it again and see if I can't reproduce why your sim refuses to appear when summoned.

[J. M. Pescado]

I am still attempting to reproduce this test case, as I've never managed to get a lot to do this before.

[J. M. Pescado]

I still cannot reproduce this error. Anytime I've waved the Wand on such a lot, even after I deleted all the playable sims, the business owner has successfully respawned and been made selectable.