More Awesome Than You!

After spending the morning spewing various expletives and growling at small children requesting an ETA on lunch, I have finally decided that I must come out of an 8-month-long lurking, and ask for some assistance. I have read the FAQ, searched here and elsewhere (ya, right) for a solution, but of course still invite all to come and gawk at my idiocy.

My sim owns a community lot. She is the only sim in the family. She was at the lot and the business was closed as I was building the store. I came out of build mode at one point and received an error message. (I had boolprop testingcheatsenabled set to true at that point.) I figured it was caused by one of the C.C. items I had placed, and so I hit reset. The message returned immediately, and I hit reset again. Due to several innate character flaws, when the message immediately popped up a third time I hit the "delete" button (which I know is wrong, wrong, wrong) and figured it would simply delete the offending item. The offending item turned out to be my sim, and she vanished, along with the live mode option.

I did try quitting and returning to the lot, hoping she'd simply reappear. No such luck. I went back to her house, and was simply redirected to the lot, where again, I have build and buy modes available but no live play mode, and no sim. I know deleting sims is a VBT. I would like to salvage the lot, even more than the sim herself, but my main goal at this point is to avoid a BFBVFS.

Please let me know if any other details are required. Thank you, and if among any objects thrown you could include some food items, my neglected groveling rugrats would be appreciative.

This has happened to me. (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,13391.0.html)

Basically, you'll need to use some sort of teleporter object from another lot to summon the lost sim. Move the sim in. Then move them out and back to their own home. Sell the community lot back. Rebuild elsewhere. As far as I can recall, I was unable to delete the original business lot.


FYI, the "never delete sim" rule you are thinking of refers to deleting their character file from My Documents.

Aha. I wasn't aware the teleporter shrub could also be used to "move in" summoned sims. It worked perfectly. Many thanks and cookies, gourd-sporting bunny.

Have you tried simply using the Magic Wand? There is no need to resort to destructive operations without first trying the Magic Wand, which is specifically made to fix such cases.

Okay, first I need to retract my "It worked perfectly" statement. The only problem I have found thus far is that while I can enter the lot to continue building, I no longer have the option to "package" the lot. Seeing as how I am constantly pushing the game to places it doesn't want to go, I know I will asplode it sooner or later -- packaging lots to reincarnate in future neighbourhoods is a must.

As for the magic wand, I'm really not sure how I missed that. I'm such a hack-whore, and it looks sounds so mysterious and shiny. I backed up my game AGAIN, (ya I tend to do that a lot AFTER my stupid mistakes) and then used the back up prior to Zazazu's suggestion. (Still with me? So now I'm playing the game where my missing sim is still missing, and borkage is still borkage.) I used the wand on the lot. No change. I believe the lights turned on (literally, unfortunately not figuratively) but other than that no discernible change; no sim; no live mode enabled. I even waved the thing around, seeing as how I'd hate for someone to ask, "but did you wave it around?". I tried waving, deleting, saving to neighbourhood screen and returning. I then tried setting it gently on the rooftop, saving to the neighbourhood screen, and returning.

So I tried "simply" using the magic wand. Is there a non-simple method?

Is the lot still listed as owned by a sim? That is very weird if all it did was turn the lights on, because that can only happen if current fambly is 0. Try the new version and see if it manages to conjure the sim this time.

I went back to the original mess once more. I entered the lot, took out the NEW magic wand, and may the awesome forever reign, it worked. The live mode button lit up, as well as all the lights on the lot.

BUT IT GETS BETTER.....

After my giddiness subsided, I spun the camera around to search for my sim and found, well, THIS...

(http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww79/kamieke/th_MagicWand01.jpg) (http://s707.photobucket.com/albums/ww79/kamieke/?action=view&current=MagicWand01.jpg)

Words escape me.

And oh, yes, it gets even more "trippy". (There goes my treasured esteem for the English lexicon.)

The gaggle of elderly fashion victims answer the age-old question, of what one would do if confronted by themself (or THEMSELVES, I suppose), and start playing "Punch You-Punch Me" and "Red Hands" en masse.
(http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww79/kamieke/th_MagicWand02.jpg) (http://s707.photobucket.com/albums/ww79/kamieke/?action=view&current=MagicWand02.jpg)

I can't stop watching them. It's....surreal. Aside from my gratitude for your speedy response and assistance, thank you Pescado -- for a laugh I really needed today. That said, I look forward to your response. I'm going to go try and video capture them now. (The computer is running really slow when I let them play.)

(My apologies if I included photos in an improper manner. This is the first time I've felt compelled on a board to include screen-captured proof.)

EDIT: For interest's sake, it turns out my sim can indeed interact with her clones. Up to and including "checking them out" and "scoping the room". This is seriously messing with me.

Reload again and try new version.

This time the magic wand produced the missing sim (without clones or any other noticable defect) and only one small quirk. A cashier-NPC appeared at the cash register. She's not listed as an employee (this business has none as of yet), and deleting the register only set her free to play around the lot. My sim could not ask her to leave, and so I quit without saving. (I'm not sure if I could have driven home with the 12 wandering around or not.) I returned, deleted the register, used the magic wand, and all seems well. My sim was able to drive home.

Later today I can go back and make sure she can still travel back to the lot, or perform any other tests if you'd like. The lights did turn on again, but only after the wand was taken and placed over the lot. Simply clicking the wand's icon produced the live mode, but the lights only turned on after I'd fly the thing over the lot. Apparently waving it is productive.

Lol...if this happens again, make a video of it and put it on youtube...call it something like Being John Simovitch.

This seems like expected behavior: The cashier NPC likely appeared because it couldn't figure out the lot was owned. But your sim was able to make it home so is no longer stuck on a community lot, yes?

At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, here's an update:

Yes, my sim made it home. She then sold the lot. (This sim's sole purpose in my game is to simply set up lots that need certain items like reward items, crafted items, magazines, etc. She builds the lot, then sells it back "to the community" immediately.) I then spent yesterday simply finishing that Downtown lot and the one beside it, and haven't played any characters thus far. This morning I went back to PV to check on her and cannot find her house. It's simply gone. It's not in the bin, nor is she. I almost didn't want to post this; it sounds insane or made up. I'm going to look through one of the other back-ups, and maybe do the whole thing over again to see what happens. (My neighbourhood folder is huge, so this takes a while.) I'm not ruling out my own stupidity at this point. Is such a thing even possible, an entire house disappearing off the map?

Oh, yes indeedy!  These threads might help.  Use search - there may be other threads.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9093.0.html
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8872.0.html
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11735.0.html

OKay, now you get to perform the fun task of SimPEing together something called a "lot descriptor splice", in which you take the lot descriptor of the vanished lot from a pre-vanished version and splice it back into your current hood.

I know there was some collection files on mts2 that give you the craft items from OFB available to buy from build mode, the other stuff I'm not sure.

Wanted to note something- Lots have disappeared for me, with whole families just poof. It was always a max file issue though that only pertains to mac. (Loading with too much custom content didn't hax my terminal to allow MOAR files opening at once). I wonder if it could occur for windows if you ran out of virtual memory. But you'll know if that happens because your images for each hood at main screen will turn into green grid map looking images, and unless they were like that before (because no map image was defined for the .sc4) or you deleted the images, the game isn't loading everything. Also saving the game in that state officially borked my hoods so they had to be deleted.