family lost through the cracks in the game

[Dragon Slave]

Ugh I'm an idiot for messing myself up like this   But I guess that's what happens when I screw around.

I was trying to get in to buy mode on a hotel lot and for some reason was thinking I could do that by changing the lot zoning to residential.  Nothing happened.  So I thought it would be different if I saved and went back... but then the family staying at the hotel was gone.  So I changed it back to a hotel lot, saved, left, re-entered, and my family still isn't there.  However, the little green bed is still swirling over the lot showing that it's occupied, and their house in the neighborhood says that they're on vacation as well. 

I lost a familiy like this before, and I solved the problem by making a temporary family and then using them to summon the members from the missing family to their lot. I used insim to make them part of the temporary family, then moved them out again so they were in the neighborhood bin.  They were in the process of moving between homes anyways so it didn't matter, but this time, I'm reluctant to try anything like that because there's other places where these sims are supposed to be, ie at the hotel.  I'm afraid it might complicate things even more.

What I need to do is get them back where they belong, either at the hotel, or back home, I don't care.      They're one of my favorite family's that I've been playing since '04, I'm not going to lose them. 

Now, I made a backup of my neighborhood before installing BV, so if their is no other way to save them, I'll do what I have to there, but I seem to remembert something about getting families back when things like this happen   I can't remember where I read this at...  I dunno.

Anyone know what I can do?

[Zazazu]

I have no solution for your family, however:

Don't change lot zoning while lot is occupied, dumbbutt.  "boolProp dormSpecificToolsDisabled false" is your best friend when trying to go into Buy mode on community/hotel lots. To go into Build, enter cheat, use eyedropper on a door or somesuch.

[Dragon Slave]

I tried dormspefictoolsdisabled but set it to true instead of false.  Dern double negatives confuse me   Well, at least now I know why nothing happened when I typed it in. 

To be honest, it wasn't buy mode that I wanted, I just needed to get in to my sims inventory.  I had decided I was going to take the toddler along for the vacation whether maxis created things for them to do or not, and packed the crib, changing table, toys, etc... as well as a teleporter shrub before leaving.  I figured it would be easier just to take the things along rather then redecorate all of the hotels to be toddler enabled.  but buy mode, inventory, whichever gets what I need to the lot without me having to leave, enter, save, leave change neighborhoods, god knows how many times just to get what I want where I need it.

But yeah... I'll remember next time which cheat does what.  Too bad I found out after I lost my family though.   I'm gonna have to get them back before I do anything else.

[Sleepycat]

InSIM has the option to enable buy and build mode, I forget just where it is but it is there.  I hope you get your family back soon.

[nocomment]

You may be remembering this thread on unsticking a vacationer:

http://p218.ezboard.com/fstarlightsimsfrm51.showMessage?topicID=16355.topic

Just be sure to make another backup before you play around with this.  If it doesn't work, restore and try teleporting them into another family, like you did before.  I suspect that would work just fine.

[Dragon Slave]

Well... I actually think I saw something about it here... not a step by step guide or anything, just someone mentioning something that you could do... I couldn't find the post though.  I'm not registered at neighborhood 99 so I can't see the thread right now... I'm gonna have to wait to be approved or whatever you have to do to register there.  Thanks for pointing this out though, I'm deffinity going to look in to it.

Now, as for bringing them back like I did before, I'm reluctant to do this because I'm afraid the game will still think they are on vacation, not letting me use that vacation hotel where they are supposed to be at, and not letting me access the house where they are supposed to be living..which wouldn't be a big deal except some of the family still lives there, the ones I didn't bring on the vacation.   

I'm not sure I can do that anyways, I used insim in the past, but that hasn't been updated for BV yet, has it   And Simpe is out of the question as well.  Ugh, the one thing I hate about new expansion packs, you have to give up the luxuries till the community can catch up again.  Repeat in a few months for the next one. ::)U

Returning to my back up isn't such a bad thing, I've only played with one family since installing BV, I don't want to lose what I've done with them - but I can easily package up their house just to preserve them as they are while I reinstall.  They don't have many neighborhood connections anyways, so it's no big loss overall. 

Well, I'm gonna wait till I can see the thread that you sent before doing anything else, it might be just what I'm looking for

[Zazazu]

I'm not sure I can do that anyways, I used insim in the past, but that hasn't been updated for BV yet, has it   And Simpe is out of the question as well.  Ugh, the one thing I hate about new expansion packs, you have to give up the luxuries till the community can catch up again.  Repeat in a few months for the next one. ::)U

You don't need to kill any puppies or kitties to move sims from LaLa Land into an existing family. I've never used the killers, and I do it frequently.

1. Enter testing cheat "boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true"
2. Shift-click on a sim, any sim.
3. Choose "Spawn...Tombstone of L&D" (I miss when it was called Tombstone of Life and Death)
4. Choose "Add Neighbor to Family...X" where X is each sim you want to add. Or it could be "Get Neighbor for Family". They just changed those options around for no good reason.

[Azrael]

I suffered a similar situation, actually - the whole 'missing family apparently on vacation... for good?!" bit...  what had happened is some nonawesome hack prevented my sims from reaching their vacation home, instead going into buil/buy mode, with Live greyed out, and no sims...

as was suggested, use the tombstone and another family, move your sims out to place them in the 'bin (as well as anyone else that might still be a resident at the house), and the house should go up for sale again, ending the vacation safely. Unfortunately, all the possessions in the house will be lost as a result of this, but at least your sims, as well as any constructive elements, will remain.

[Qwiggles]

I had the same thing happen.  Mine was because I deleted the vacation van while the whole family was getting in the van to go on vacation the second time after they just got back.  That famous bug, you know...  Lesson learned -- do not delete the van, it doesn't reset the lot like it does sims!

Anyway, I teleported each missing sim using another family, moved them in, and moved out to family bin.  The whole kit and kaboodle.  I had to also teleport the dog which got left behind.  After that, the hotel worked again.

[nocomment]

I appologize, I didn't realize you had to be registered to read threads.  Here's what she did to get her sim back:

1.  Backed up her N001 folder.

2.  Used Clean Installer to browse the N001 Lots folder to locate the vaction lot her sim was on.

3.  Removed that lot to her desktop and restarted the game.

4.  Selected her sim's home, to enter it.  It loaded and the shuttle arrived and dropped him off.  She saved an exited and everything was fine.

Of course, this means you lose a vacation lot.  However, I think it would be fairly easy to get a fresh copy of that.  I hope this helps.  I've been too much of a coward to install BV!

[Sleepycat]

I used insim in the past, but that hasn't been updated for BV yet, has it  

yes, InSIM has been updated for BV 

[Dragon Slave]

yes, InSIM has been updated for BV 

Yes, I downloaded a copy yesterday, right after I posted this here.  I wasn't expecting it out so soon


Anyways, deleting the hotel worked... well, removing it.  I didn't want to delete it just in case.  After I did so though, I thought I'd go ahead and attach two lakes to pleasantveiw before trying the family's lot to see if it worked... and when I did, I found out that they were now at one of two lakes lots instead   The game had assigned it the number of the missing hotel.  So there went another lot down the drain, because they weren't at that one either.  But finally, they're back where they're supposed to be.

Now if I could only stop my sim kids from dancing with their parents every time I leave them unattended.

[Sleepycat]

Now if I could only stop my sim kids from dancing with their parents every time I leave them unattended.

monique has a no dance on toes hack over at mts2 

it's in her thread of no autonomous hacks

[Dragon Slave]

Oh, I don't mind the autonomy, and would prefer to not shut it off all together... I just want it to be more realisitc.  Kids don't run to dance with their parents every chance they get. 

I seem to remember one that shuts off dancing unless their is music playing, can't remember who makes it... or it it works for the dancing on toes interaction...   hmmm... 

[Sleepycat]

No Dancing in Silence by twojeffs 


the no dance on toes dosen't kill it totally, they'll only do it if their fun is under 50 or something like that.

[Dragon Slave]

alright thanks.  Someone sent me a link as well.  This is just what I need.

[Lady Moiraine]

I'm glad you got your family back, I know the feeling of panic when terrible things go wrong with your game.  I learned the hard with with OfB when it came out changing the lot code while a sim was on the lot, it was terrible.  Just to let you know what would have happened if you did try to "fix" the family that was in the hotel if you moved them out right away.

What I did was go to a family in a neighborhood lot, use InSim to "summon" the members of the stuck family, then use boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true to get the tombstone of L&D.  Once my sims were on the lot from being summoned, I moved them into the new family.  Once there, move them out after changing the boolprop back to boolProp testingCheatsEnabled false.  When you put your family into a new lot or even their old one, which is what I did because the old lot was not unoccupied, after the taxi leaves after dropping them off, the vacation shuttle will also come by and stop for a little bit as it dropping them off.  They won't get the vacation benefits though.  It is imperitive you delete that hotel they were in though, it won't work at all now.  I would delete it from your lot bin if I was you, just to be safe, in case you forget it's a broken hotel.

[MutantBunny]

I 'lost' a sim too. Called her on the phone from her 'best' friends house. She came. I was trying to get her back without any cheats.I got the relationship up and, if I remember right--I've slept since then, I got the move in option, only she wouldn't move in. I finally went for the tombstone and got her. She got on a PC, moved out, I moved her into her original house.

Of course, the house was empty of all belongings and had to rebuy everything. Weird: when I checked her firdge it had her fish that she had caught days before--but lost all her fruits and veggies which were in the juicer. I thought if the fish was there in the 'new' fridge, then the fandvs would be in the 'new' juicer, but nope.

The hotel she waslost t, is 'open' for business in that the bed overhead is gone and it is enter-able. When you say that lot is broken and should be leveled: does that mean if I send a sim there they'll be 'lost'? Or did you mean that your hotel lot never lost the bed icon, never 'opened' up?

[Lady Moiraine]

The hotel she waslost t, is 'open' for business in that the bed overhead is gone and it is enter-able. When you say that lot is broken and should be leveled: does that mean if I send a sim there they'll be 'lost'? Or did you mean that your hotel lot never lost the bed icon, never 'opened' up?

I went into the hotel and deleted the original bed and check in desk and put in new ones, I didn't have the green "occupied bed" hanging over the hotel at all--because the shuttle came by the house after I had moved the sims back in.  But when I had a sim try to go there, it was greyed out on the list as if someone was still in it even there there wasn't and there was no green bed over the hotel.  It was just unplayable so I bulldozed it and replaced it.

I've taken all the lots from vacationland and put them in my lot catalog so it's no problem for me to delete a hotel, I have another one to replace it.

[maxon]

Lady Moiraine, I think you got your Debug mode cheat code the wrong way round.  The 'boolprop' cheats are either/or statements - if you think about what it means, it helps to get it the right way round:

boolprop testingcheatsenabled true
turns it on because it says it's true that the testing cheats are enabled.  'False' to turn it off.

[sewinglady]

Do we know what's causing the bug where the van never leaves and the sims attempt to go on vacation again upon their return from vacation only to have them lost in limbo because the vacation lot (a vacation home in this case) loads with no playable characters?

I've just experienced this one for the first time - have only managed to successfully send one family on vacation.  Figured I'd try another one this evening.  Now family is fubared - lost all their career rewards, etc. At least the tombstone trick worked  - was able to retrieve them by using tombstone of L&D and moved them into a neighbor's lot.

This is the first time I think I can heartily say that I wish I had NOT purchased an EP...I see more dead Sims in my future.

[jsalemi]

That's an acknowledged bug in the game that EAxis promises to fix in the first patch, which was supposed to be out on Wednesday, but still isn't AFAIK.

[sewinglady]

nope...no official patch.  I looked last night when this family went FUBAR...

I realize they are only 1's and 0's on my hard drive, but it's getting mighty tiresome to make 'em, play 'em, and then lose 'em on account of Maxis negligence.

[Dragon Slave]

Do we know what's causing the bug where the van never leaves and the sims attempt to go on vacation again upon their return from vacation only to have them lost in limbo because the vacation lot (a vacation home in this case) loads with no playable characters?

I was having some trouble last night, whenever a family visted a vacation lot.  Not sure what it was about the particular lots that had the problem, they were able to visit other lots fine.... just the ancient ruin themed lots on twiki island glitched.  A moment after arriving, all the sims dissapear, townies and everything.  At this point, I noticed all three mode buttons were lit (buy, build, live)  and I could click on things for interactions.  Another moment passes and even that's gone.  Live mode is greyed out, and I can still click on things, but no pie menu shows up.  I tried both ruin lots, one of them twice.  Same thing each time... then I just gave up.     It takes too long to load for me to keep trying when I keep getting the same result w.  In the end, I'm only reminded why I detest anything that involves my sim going anywhere.  Stupid load times.  Stupid bloated download folder.

 Anyways, do you think this is related to the bug you were talking about?  If not, ever heard anything about this before, or know what's causing it?

[baaaflatfit]

I don't know if this will help some of you whose families go MIA while on vacation or not, but this is what worked for me last night. I had become really bored playing a family at Three lakes, and shut down the game, only to discover when I reloaded that vacation destination last night, there were no lots showing as occupied (i.e, no spinning green bed! Arghghghgh!). 

This is what worked for me:

--Returned to regular hood, house showed with a semi-green plumbob above it (the baby had been left behind), but could not enter.

--In that same regular hood, I had another family call the 'missing', using option "invite family". They arrived, and worked on building friendships.

--Then, upon returning to TL vacation area, there was a green spinning bed (!), I entered the vacation lot and played normally until family ended vacation and safely returned home.

It's almost as if the game needed those character files regenerated on a lot, if that makes any sense at all (no, probably not!  ) But it worked!

As for the van that sends Sims back on vacation, that just happened to me for the first time, too.  And I got really worried about it, because I tried (unsuccessfully) to cancel everybody in the family from re-entering it, resulting in 2 out of 3 heading back to vacation.    Once those 2 were on a vacation lot, I had to use the option "cancel vacation and return home" TWICE before it worked, but they did get back home without any further issues. (and for once, the hugging interaction didn't bother me!  ) I was so relieved!

Max