More Awesome Than You!

Please help!

I'm starting to notice that the game is generating 2 of the same sim when I go to a community lot.
As a result if they talk to each other they get a memory of meeting themselves.
This has happened 3x already.
First with one of my sims (that wasn't in play at the time) and twice with SS members that I saw on university community lots.
The number of character files are still the same, so I don't know what is going on.
Does anyone know why this is happening all of a sudden?

I have the nosecretsocietyrespawn, notownieregen and nodormieregen hacks installed.

The only major events that occured in my game before this starting happening was, first death and first time sent sim to university.

Thanks.

Have you moved any inhabited lots into the lots bin?  This is the usual cause of this happening, the second file is an unlinked version of your sim, and you really need to use SimPE to find all these files, make sure they have no relationships, other sims have no memories of meeting them, and then note down their file numbers and delete them from your characters folder.

The handheld also gives them memories of meeting themselves, but I doubt you'd be seeing the double if this was the cause.

No, I haven't moved any lots into the lot bin and none of my sims have handhelds. In SimPE there are no duplicate files, its just that on community lots the same sim would show up, so there would be two of them. Nothing has changed with my character folder either. It doesn't seem to be having any affect on the game files, etc. other then it being annoying seeing two of the same sims on a lot.

Maybe it's due to you not having many sims in your game yet?  I've seen it happen too, but only in the base game, not in Uni or NL.

I've seen it with a downtownie, who was a fortune sim and wasn't very nice. So she met herself, starting picking on, annoying and insulting herself. I quickly had my sims hop in the car and leave the community lot. Didn't have a chance to check her memories and relationships in SimPE as I had a hard disk crash soon after and had to start over. I thought maybe it was a portal problem 'cos at the time, I was having a problem with sims spawning up and getting trapped in all kinds of weird places, i.e. public washrooms (Oresha-Sham family diner), fenced in area (that tree in Crypt 'O Nightclub) and some-dimly-lit-place-I-can't-remember-right-now but had small walled up areas. That dimly-lit place was the most comical, as it took me a while to realise those silhouettes standing stock-still behind the walls were actually sims. I had initially thought they were mannequins but wait, since when did the game have one of those ;D?

Or it could be me using crammyboy's NormalClothes without the Clothing Event fix (wasn't available at the time, and when I did have it, didn't put it in promptly as I hadn't made sure all cars and sims were home) as I was also having a problem with community lots randomly not loading when before, I had just had my sims visited without any problem. Anyway, the problem hasn't come back since. I'd like to know why this is happening too :P.

I've had that happen but only when I used Inge's teleporter.  If you teleport the same sim twice, two "copies" are created.

So a portal problem sounds about right.  I don't believe they are duplicate files, only duplicate instances of the same sims.

Well, obviously, if there are no duplicate files in the Characters folder, then they won't do any permanent harm to your game, so it shouldn't cause a bfbvfs!

I don't have Inge's teleporters on community lots. It felt like deja vu when I read this thread, as I seem to recall something like this was mentioned somewhere on this forum quite some time ago, but am too lazy at the moment to search for it, and since someone has asked about it, so... :P

The only time I've seen a duplicate file of sort, was a couple of nanny files that had a '.1' after it, e.g. user 127.1. I read about that too, then saw it happen with my game files soon after. You had to see it to believe it. Weird.

I'm not using the teleporter shrub on these lots either.
Since it was the first time I had a death and sent someone to college, I thought maybe the problem was occurring with these events, however, I went to the sims2 site and a few people have reported the same problem occurring a few times with them for no explainable reason. I will keep an eye on my character files though.