More Awesome Than You!

I got Nightlife and I installed Nightlife patch. I don't have any hacks installed except the figthclub, the noretiredjobspam, coffeecuphack, and EatMoreTalkLess v2 by Crammyboy.

So I guess I need either the deathfix or the nocorruptdeath fix...which one do I need? And do they work even after I have gotten that squigly lines?

Kestran.

When I had the squiggly lines, JM advised me to use the nocorruptdeath fix. I haven't seen the dreaded squiggles since *knock wood*.

I have.  This week.  In two separate brand new, shiny neighborhoods, post patch, all expansions, and nocorruptdeath installed. 

I used 'deleteallcharacters' and spawned new ones with debug tree.

Incidentally, since these ARE shiny new neighborhoods, there have been no deaths, either.

I do not play with RC car.

Any more ideas on where I can look for this lovely bit of corruption?

Edited to add the image.

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Funny I just saw this and lo and behold somebody else posted about the same thing.

It seems to only happen when they do the "bad mouth" interaction. Inicdentially I also have the fightclub mod in my game.

Looks like a new bug for someone to try to track down...

Can anyone else confirm that it's only with the 'Bad Mouth' interaction, or are you seeing it with others?

Mine (as evidenced by above added image) is occuring as a regular thought bubble. I've seen it in "look out window", whatever that nanny is thinking of, and as gossip so far. :(

I've seen it in the "bad mouth" interaction as well. The sim that was being badmouthed had just been teleported off the lot.

I think I've seen it once since NL in my Legacy Neighbourhood which only has 3 families in it.  I hadn't had anybody bad mouth but it was just after my first founder died.  One of the sims was thinking of... squiggly lines!

(Can't remember if I had the nocorruptdeath fix at the time though) :-\

I had the squiggly lines in thought bubbles after Mrs. CrumpleBottom was accidently bitten by the Grand Vamp (didn't see it happen, she just showed up downtown as a vamp one day). After rewriting the object file, the problem cleared up.

Hmm. Well, the nanny in the picture is complaining about an object. So it's not completely limited to memories and may be more than one bug, or as MsMaria mentioned, it may just be a hosed objects.package file.

I checked my objects.package file. Last modified ddate is sept. 30th, when I installed the patch. So mine is fine at least.

I get the squiggly lines during the bad mouthing although not all the time.  It seems like the same sims who have had this will always get it during bad mouthing while the sims that have never had the squiggly lines will only show the icon of the sim being bad mouthed and nothing else, that is, no squiggly lines.  I've tried it with or without nocorruptdeath.  Good thing is, I don't get the squiggly lines with gossiping anymore.  I've also checked my objects.package and it's set to read only so it's still the same file since I installed the patch.  
It's really driving me nuts because on the one hand, I want to keep checking each sim to figure out a pattern.  Yet on the other hand, if it was like the same problem from before, I'm afraid of spreading it around the neighborhood and might have everyone getting the "squigglies" sooner or later.   :-\

Mine is October 10, which I think is around the time I installed the patch. Did the patch modify the objects package?

Yes it did.

I think it copied the objects file off CD2, which is why it asked to insert it, and set it as read-only.  I think this is what Maxoid Tom said.  I have the corrupt death fix and I went through and got rid of all corrupt death memories that had occurred before I put in the fix.  These memories were missing the $Subject, so when they gossiped, the game didn't know whose icon to display.  I've seen some of my sims get this squiggly lines in their thought bubbles while scanning with the scanner gun.  I am not sure if it only happens when they are learning with an instructor, but the two cases that I clearly remember were with an instructor.  I saw the squiggly lines one other time, and it didn't have to do with either death memories or the scanner gun.  I forget now what the memory was, but I was able to find it when I went in SimPE and looked through the sim's memories.  I found one that was missing the $Subject, and I deleted it.  Alternatively, you can insert a valid reference to a sim, but I figured that particular memory wasn't that important.  So I think somehow the sim being referenced is invalid so you get the squiggly lines.  Maybe that will give some of our hackers some ideas where to start. :)

I've had it in normal conversations between sims as well, since installing Nightlife. It freaked me and I wonder if the code has been modified and it's a fix that needs to be updated. Hopefully, as others have said, it's coming from something else instead.

To me it looks like the nanny is complaining about not being able to get to an object.
Do you have the noroutefail hack installed? I think I read that it wasn't compatible with NL just yet.

No. Too much work to type all of them out, so here's a screen of exactly which hacks I have. 

Oh, and I don't download lots, and I routinely scan my folders with Clean Installer, so there aren't any lurking in a dark corner.

[attachment deleted by admin]

I just wanted to add to what I said in my first post; the problem I had was pre-NL. Looks like this is something new, sorry for the misinformation. :-[

My objects.package file after I install the patch is date 09/30 and it was not a read-only file, I had to do it manually. I did it right after I install the patch and did not even started the game so I am sure it is the original version after the patch.  Looks like yours have been modified since you install the patch unless the date of the objects.package would be different according to the language of your game, mine is in US .

Well, I can't say for sure when I installed the patch since I was out of town for a while and didn't install it until I was back. I suppose it's possible that the package was damaged--I can try recopying it and see if that helps.  If the objects.package WAS modified by the patch and I recopy it from the disk, I would need to reinstall the patch though, yes?

FWIW, I tried the badmouth interaction and sure enough, they are doing it then as well.  The candidate she has to badmouth is the burglar who made away with her mother's car.  When the interaction began--just before this image--she popped up a picture of the burglar, so she's obviously got a valid bubble to begin with.

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You shouldn't have to reinstall the patch.  Maxoid Tom said all it did was recopy the original objects file from the CD.  I don't think it would let you install the patch again anyway, not unless you were to reinstall NL, because it would say you are already patched.

I am (was) having the same problem - and I don't have either Nightlife or University.  I posted about it a week or two ago, but unfortunately, no one seemed to know what was going on.

I can say, though, that my objects.package file was fine, not changed in any way.  It was a new neighborhood, no one had died, so it wasn't a corrupt death.  It wasn't overpopulation, because I only had 2 families moved in.  I had all the relevant hacks and fixes and patches installed.

I'm wondering if it could be caused by a hack conflict, though - because in addition to the scratchy lines, I had sims jumping out of actions, a'la the jump bug.  Again, I'm patched and have JM's fix for that.  And again, no NL or Uni.

Here's a list of my hacks:
Abductions Higher Odds (by TJ)
Aborted bed making (by JM)
Anti-Baby Lecture (JM)
Aspiration Recharge (JM)
Breakup Fix (JM)
Callover (JM)
Captain Hero (JM)
Carpool Fix (JM)
Chatbugfix v1 (JM)
Coffeecup Hack (JM)
CommSkilling (old one, that allows playable characters to skill up - by JM)
Computer Chat Fix (JM)
Continuous Paint (JM)
Daily Gardener (JM)
Deathfix (JM)
Doorbell Quieter (JM)
Encouragifactor (JM)
Faster Buy Clothes (JM)
FFS Debugger (JM)
Front Door Hack (JM)
House Party Fix (JM)
Hugging Hack (JM)
Less Whiny (JM)
Marriage Post-mortum (JM)
Mind Control Mirror (Merola)
Move in all (old hack, got it from...um...shit.  Someone.  Allows you to move in children and teens)
NMefix (JM)
No Aplus Spam (JM)
No Auto Email (JM)
No Cheering Hack (JM)
No Corrupt Death (JM)
No Drop Tired Baby (JM)
No Plagiarism (JM)
No Rabbit Spin (JM)
No Reunion Memory (JM)
No Route Fail (JM)
No Shock for Outgoing Sims (JM)
No Smart Milk Drag (JM)
No Stranger Dance (JM)
No Telepathy (JM)
Novel Progress Bar (JM)
No What's This? (JM)
NPC PiP Fix, 3 in 1 (TJ)
Outfitplanner (JM)
Pay at box (JM)
Phonehack (JM)
Preg for all Genders (TJ)
Save the Trees (JM)
Scanner Gun Hack (JM)
School Bus Bring Friend Dialog (TJ)
Smart Serve (Dizzy2)
SSHack (JM)
Stay Things Shrub (Inge)
Stay Things Global Fix (Inge)
Stereo Hack (JM)
Teleporter Painting (Inge)
The Fight Club (JM)
Wedding Party Fix (JM)

Dang.  That's a lot of hacks.  Stupid Maxis.

I am not sure that the objects.package file was not modify since the remote control car was definetely modify.  Wasn't that car part of the objects.package file or is the programming of this object in another file?  Or is it that when patch it, it added an extra file seperately which modifies the programming of the objects not the objects.package file itself?  Sorry I have no idea how it works.... but would love to learn.  Maybe twojeffs or JMPescado can answer that for me or any other awesome people here that knows how it works.  :-\

I tried it last night in Pleasantview.  I told Cassandra to badmouth to Benjamin Long - when the action was first cued up, she got a picture of the 'left at altar' in a thought bubble with the little flames, then the action dropped out.  I told her to do it again, and this time she walked up to Ben, started talking about Don, then the dreaded squiggly lines appeared.

This is a fairly new incarnation of Pleasantview (restarted after buying Nightlife) so there are only about 5 more characters than the game itself has generated.

I had a total panic when the squiggly lines turned up in my Neighbourhood with 4 playable sims who hadn't met any Townies yet. I was really stressed out.

Then I realised that what had happened was that I'd moved the laptop from the front room into the bedroom, and thus changed the resolution of Windows from 1280x800 to 1280x768 so I could play the game lying down on the TV above the bed. For some reason, changing the resolution made all the speech bubble icons fizzly. Phew :-[.

So. Should I put the nocorruptdeath fix in my hacks folder or is this some new bug?  :o

Yes and yes?  :P

I've seen this too and I have the nocorruptdeath mod.  In my game it didn't happen because of badmouthing, but was in a sim's thought bubble when he was in the haunted bedroom.  Last night, instead of the funny little ghost icon in the thought bubble it was the squiggly lines.  (I've since excorcised the house using the FFS Debugger.)

Objects.package was most definately altered by the patch. The objects.package in a patched NL game should have a last modified date of Sept 30th. I believe the patch copied the original NL file from the CD to make sure they had a good copy & then applied the patch changes. It doesn't matter what the date was that you installed the patch, the date should be Sept 30th on the file. Remember - the patch didn't even come out until Oct 12th.

If you're file is dated anything other than Sept 30th (and you've previously installed the patch of course), your objects.package file is hosed.

Here are what the stats should be on two NL Objects.package files:

Original unpatched NL Objects.package: Last modified Wed, Aug 17, 2005 3:45pm, 41,180KB
Patched NL Objects.package: Last modifed Fri, Sept 30, 6:33pm, 41,171KB

In other news...this is apparently a completely different bug from the corrupt death bug. That was related to corrupted memory tokens. This has something to do with object icons not memories. Installing the corrupt death fix is still a good idea, it just won't help with this problem.

Thanks TwoJeffs, you are definitely more awesome than I!

EDIT:  I just checked mine (patched NL), and the date and time match with what you gave, but the size of mine is 42,158,640.  What does this mean?

Thank you very much Twojeffs for this reply.  My logic was good... it is always good to know. ;)

That makes sense. When I got this (I have only seen this once in my game so far) Kaylynn was clearing dirty dishes off the table and got stuck between the 2 dining chairs and she was waving her hands at me complaining she couldn't move. The squigly lines was probably when she was complaining about the chair.

My question...should I overwrite that patched objects file with the objects file that is on the NL cd disk or should I leave well enough alone? It is write protected and is stamped 30th Sept. My date of birth ironically :P

That would be the same as 4,117 KiloBytes :P. I just didn't list the exact number of bytes. 42,158,640 bytes is what it should be so you're ok. As long as the time stamp and size match what it should be, there is no sense in messing with it.

My size is a little off, and so is the date:
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/objectspackage.jpg)
Am I looking in the right place? I don't want to sound like an idiot, but is  it in Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Nightlife/TSData/Res/Objects?

Brynne, that's where I found the one in my game with the date and file size that matches TwoJeff's.

Hate to say this, Brynne, but that looks messed up to me.  :(  Do you have the patch?

Yep, sorry Brynne, but yours looks like it's hosed.  :-\

The modified date is what we're looking at. What's weird it that yours shows that it hasn't been accessed since 10/20. Hmm, let me test something...

Edit: Ok, for some reason the objects.package doesn't show as 'accessed' when you run the game. All of the other files seem to, but not that one file. Very weird.  ???

I'm beginning to wonder if this might be a bug in Simpe that is doing something. When was the last time you ran Simpe and what did you change when you ran it?

The only thing I use SimPe for is to customize hair.  I don't touch sims or even use it to backup neighborhoods.  I'm just not that attached and routinely start neighborhoods over. 

CRAP, have we been referring to the NIGHTLIFE objects.package?  :-X I was talking about the original. Oops.

TS2: Created October 10, 2005, Modified January 22 2005 (EH??), 30354KB

TSU: Created & Modified February 14, 36367 KB

NL: Created August 17, Modified September 30, 41171 KB

Why does it think my Sims2 file was CREATED in October 2005? I didn't think that was the install date?

Bleah, my objects package is hosed? That's no good. So what do I need to do, replace it with a copy of the one on the cd, then?
I can't remember the last time I used SimPe. Maybe 4 or 5 days ago. I was adjusting relationships-creating some family ties.

Brynne, I would I love to send it to you through this board but the file is too big.  Is there a place I can send that file to you, I can rar it before if it helps.

From what I understand, it can be replaced with the version on the CD... no need for email or posting on a website  :)

But the cd file as been modified so it is not the same one as the cd.  Look above at twojeffs' post about that.

I've never tried replacing the patched objects.package from the CD. I'd assume that it would let you rerun the patch to update it, but we won't know for sure until someone tries it? Anyone want to be the guinea pig? Obviously back up the current file first.

If you get it back, you should set the entire /program files/EA Games/ to read-only.  I do that every time now, since I lost all my wallpaper and floors way back.

Just taken a look at the objects.package file for me, let me see if I can attach the image.

(I just added the Read-Only thing myself as it seems the patch didn't do it... let me know if I've done something very wrong!)

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I don't mind.  I'm rather fond of starting over, anyway.  ;) Off to try it.

Ok, replaced object files off the various disks as follows:

Ts2: August 17 2004, 30345 KB

TSU: February 14 2005, 30367 KB

NL: August 17 2005, 41180 KB

Edit:  Just tried to run patch and "Sims 2 Nightlife is already up to date."

*Sigh*

I think the size of the file is ok but I am not sure,  but it is the hour of the last change that troubles me the most, it should show like this:

Patched NL Objects.package: Last modifed Fri, Sept 30, 6:33pm, 41,171KB

So the patch was supposed to set it to "read only"? Why was mine not? Ack. What do I do?

Though MaxoidTom mention he look to it it was not done, he never confirmed it was either.  Right after I install the patch it was the 1st thing I check before I even started the game and notice it was not a read-only file.

EDIT:  My offer to send you a correct objects.package file through e-mail is still an option.  Simply tell me where to send that file, I am at work so I cannot send it right now but will when I come back home unless someone else does it before I do.

The patch doesn't set it to read only, but you should.
That way it will never get overwritten.

Okay, thanks! I think I'll take you up on your offer, then. My email is brynne614@fastmail.us.   

No problem, it is the 1st thing I will do when I come back home (that is in about 6 hours), do you have winrar?  If in the meantime someone else send it to you please let me know  :)

Okay, thanks! Yes I have winrar.

i had the squiggly line once too. that was when Loki Beaker died and his daughter was standing in front of his tombstone and they appeared in her speech bubbles. but other than that they're no where to be found. i don't have the nocorruptdeath hack, i'm gonna search for it now

Sorry to say, I tried to send the file but it is too big, I cannot send the file by e-mail... sigh, sorry but I tried.

Well, thanks for trying...
So, what is the verdict on copying the file off the cd and reapplying the patch. Would that work?

No, I tried that earlier--see above post.  ;)  It will not reapply the patch--just tells me that NL is in fact up to date.  I wound up just reinstalling my game.  No big deal to me, but I know that's a last resort for most people, especially legacy players.

No, that's not the answer you were supposed to give.  :-X
Damn. Reinstalling, then.

OMG I just essentially told you to fix it by a reinstall.  :-X  It was WOOLPROP wasn't it?

I suppose it was, dammit. Woolprop is evil.

If you haven't reinstalled yet Brynne, hang on a minute. Let me try something first.

Ok, here's what you have to do to avoid a complete reinstall if you're objects.package file becomes hosed:

1) Copy objects.package from the NL CD2
2) Copy Sims2Ep2.exe from NL CD1 (it's in, and goes into the TSBin folder)

Now youl'll be able to apply the patch. The patch will not set objects.package to read only, do that by right clicking the file and selecting the tick box next to read-only at the bottom.

Also note, that due to DST ending here in the US, the time modified will on objects.package will show as 7:33pm instead of 6:33pm. Don't panic. :)

Even Daylight Saving affects it?  Wow.  And we just started Daylight Saving here  8)

*phew*

aww,man! I wish I'd read that earlier. No biggie, though. I did do a complete reinstall, but I'm done, now. I marked the file "read only", so I should be good to go. I did panic (just a tiny bit) when I saw the time stamp was different, but I figured it must have been a daylight savings issue. Relieved that you've confirmed that.
Thanks, all you guys, for your help. You're awesome, every one of you!