More Awesome Than You!

There are new patches for both OFB and FFS, available here:  http://thesims2.ea.com/update/

And the list of OFB fixes (I don't know what's old and what's new):

Sims with final and class at the same time will no longer always miss final.
Game will no longer lock out when traveling to a community lot from home in a car.
Player is now reimbursed when using the "Move to Lots and Houses Bin" Tool on a  business lot.
Game will no longer crash when deleting half walls that were placed adjacent to a stage.
Pop up message that occurs after receiving a promotion accurately lists new job title, responsibilities, etc.
The proper number of dates are now displayed in the memory for "50 First Dates."
Tilt, Spin, and Wobble will always restock properly.
Game will not crash when entering EP2 lots after EP2 uninstalled.
Servo's Do Chores function will no longer override the Free Will off setting.
Visiting Sims will no longer get stuck after drinking lemonade.
Bug preventing player from sometimes leaving owned community lot fixed.
NPC visitors will no longer get stuck if the exit points on lot are on uneven terrain.
Wholesale Discount Difference is accurately subtracted when toggling items "Not for Sale".
Infinite OE no longer occurs when the Jacquets first visit J'Adore bakery after uninstalling EP2.
Vampires do not keep vampire abilities after EP2 uninstalled     
Players now gain creativity skill by working DJ Booth on home businesses.
Placeholder textures on vampires that results from uninstalling EP2 fixed.
Fixed exploit that allowed players to receive aspiration point refund after using aspiration rewards.
While playing the J'Adore Bakery, second Sim can now enter taxi while there is a fire.
NPC Reporter can now purchase lemonade from the lemonade stand without error.
Female Sims wearing baseball hats now have the proper colored pigtail.
Asking fifth person to join water wiggler no longer affects gameplay.
Fixed infinite Electrono Ticket Machine pop-up message that occurs when Sim buys previously owned home.
Managerial Interactions properly identified in Readme.txt file.
Social bunny can no longer be killed.
The "Under Construction" sign will no longer show up on the Electrono Ticket Machine if the users cancels the "Close Business" interaction.
Hanging objects will now display properly when placed over a stage.
Fixed a reset that could occur while groups of Sims play poker.
Prevented a crash that could occur when a Sim tried to restock an object from their shopping cart.
Former Nightlife NPCs will now have hair after uninstalling Nightlife.
Game will no longer go into triple speed upon driving onto Downtown lot.
Change text warning when moving a house to catalog bin.
Open for Business toddler hair styles now appear in Bodyshop.
The game will no longer load indefinitely on lots that contained ReNuYuSenso Orbs prior to installing Open For Business.
Removed Call Taxi option on Secret Society lots.
The "New Wave" and "Shopping" wall speakers will now retain their proper music type after transitioning between lots (instead of reverting to Techno).
Added Open for Business icon to skins uploaded to the community website.
Fixed a timing issue where saving a lot just as a Sim is about to go home could render the Sim stuck on the lot indefinitely.
Resolved an issue where the "Reach Top of Career" lifetime and power wants would fail to satisfy if strings were pulled for the top level promotion.
The proper warning message is now displayed when moving University lots to the lots and houses bin.
Fixed a rare timing issue that could cause Sims to get stuck on lots if saved after the "Go Home" interaction is cancelled.
Fixed rare object error that occurred during elevator use.
The Open for Business icon now appears on the proper content in Body Shop.
Sims will no longer get stuck on an owned community lot when traveling to lot in an owned vehicle.
Players will no longer be locked out of live mode upon returning to occupied owned community lot.
Furious setting will now decrease over time so that Sims do not stay Furious forever.
Deleting an employee work outfit and exiting lot without saving will no longer cause lots to disappear upon returning.
Families can no longer be combined when two separate families travel to the same community lot.
NPCs now immediately sit down after accepting an Offer Free Makeover.
Successful makeover for controllable customers now fixes previous failed makeovers.
Successful makeover for controllable customers now brings up the Change Appearance UI.
Ug-No-More Makeover Station can now be deleted properly while Sims are performing the "Be Stylist" interaction.
Sims can now Offer Free Makeover to members of their family after starting a business.
Offering a "Free Makeover" no longer causes Sims' buy bar to empty.
"Be Stylist" interaction will no longer drop out of queue if user performs social interactions while being the stylist.
NPC Vampires will now return home correctly when visiting an Electrono ticket machine lot.
Rooms built on half of the stage will now appear correctly.
Sims will no longer get stuck in the car when the user saves during the "Get In" interaction.
Cleanbots can now clean up baby bottles.
Selecting different aspiration using the ReNuYouSenso Orb now displays correctly.
Tombstones will no longer multiply themselves when saved on a shelf.
Employees working as Baristas now bring in Simoleons.
Making a single plate of hamburgers during breakfast hours now does not give out incorrect text notifications.
Car stereos now turn on and off correctly after changing the stations repeatedly.
"Offer Makeover To…" interaction now leads customers to browse the Salon Chair.
Crafting stations and shelving can now be seen in neighborhood view.
Employees will now quit a job correctly when quitting from a community lot.
Sims can now make drinks from the bar on a home business.
Families are now able to go to work when owning multiple cars.
Teens will no longer have the same Small Business Career Work schedule and School schedule.
Babies are no longer in the Downtownies pool for invited outings.
Family Members will no longer glow green when using "Look for mark" perk.
Puddles can now be mopped up with all wall items above them.
One of the two Adult Sims will now be able to go to work if a Toddler is left at home without a babysitter.
The oven portion of the restaurant stove cannot be used after food on it has caught on fire.
Unfinished paintings on an Owned Community Lot can now be finished if a Sim leaves the lot and returns.
Runaway teens will continue to remain on the controllable Sims skewer on the left-hand side of the screen
Munchie Bots will no longer bring back invisible, non-interactable food when playing with multiple Munchie Bots.
The Sim will now animate when using the ReNuYu Porta-Chug.
Pool of Dateable Sims will no longer include special non-playable NPC characters.
When being inducted into a Secret Society, the Sim will be taken to the Secret Society's lot, not returned home.
Hourly Wage for Sims formerly employed by user-controlled Sims is now consistent.
Deeds that are placed on a Display Shelf and set "For Sale" will now display the proper price.
Unintialized Servos will no longer cause rendering problems with Intel video cards.
Teens will no longer leave a Business lot with unpaid goods at the time of curfew.
Female Formal Dress now displays correctly in "Set Uniform" UI
Thumbnail corruption for the Mission Seating line has been fixed for affected video cards.
Baseball Cap is now removed when Sims change to Formal wear.
Sims on a date on a community lot will no longer browse the Electrono Ticket Machine for the entire date.
Single serving desserts no longer disappear from owner's inventory upon restock.
Sims will no longer vanish when traveling to non-owned community lots.
Users are no longer locked out of live mode when visiting non-owned and owned community lots.
Toddler Hairstyles now appear correctly in Bodyshop.
Nanny track schedule will now coincide with Sims' work schedule.
User will no longer acquire Secret Society Funds when traveling to Secret Society Lot.
Moveobject cheat can now be used to manipulate and place objects in out of bounds tiles.
Re-entering custom college neighborhoods will no longer cause unmodified and/or occupied lots to disappear.
Mission themed counters now have door/drawer opening animations.
All hanging objects will now display properly over stages.
Sim owned vehicles will no longer prevent fire trucks from leaving on a 3x3 Community lot.
Bag of Poo will no longer break after installing The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff.

And the FFS fixes:

Family Fun Stuff clothing assets will no longer disappear after creating a Sim with them in Create-a-Sim.
Fixed object error that occurred when both the helicopter and nanny car arrived on family lot at the same time.
Families can no longer be combined when two separate families travel to the same community lot.
NPCs now immediately sit down after accepting an "Offer Free Makeover".
Successful makeover for controllable customers now fixes previous failed makeovers.
Successful makeovers for controllable customers now brings up the "Change Appearance" UI.
Broken Muchiebot no longer have dirty dishes stuck on their arms.
Ug-No-More Makeover Station can now be deleted properly while Sims are performing the "Be Stylist" interaction.
Sims can now Offer Free Makeover to members of their family after starting a business.
Offering a "Free Makeover" no longer causes Sims' buy bar to empty.
"Be Stylist" interaction will no longer drop out of queue if user performs social interactions while being the stylist.
NPC Vampires will now return home correctly when visiting an Electrono ticket machine lot.
Rooms built on half of the stage will now appear correctly.
Sims will no longer get stuck in the car when the user saves during the "Get In" interaction.
Cleanbots can now clean up baby bottles.
Selecting different aspiration using the ReNuYouSenso Orb now displays correctly.
Tombstones will no longer multiply themselves when saved on a shelf.
Employees working as Baristas now bring in Simoleons.
Making a single plate of hamburgers during breakfast hours will not give out incorrect text notifications.
Car stereos now turn on and off correctly after changing the stations repeatedly.
"Offer Makeover To…" interaction now leads customers to browse the Salon Chair.
Employees will now quit a job correctly when quitting from a community lot.
Sims can now make drinks from the bar on a home business.
Familes are now able to go to work when owning multiple cars.
Teens will no longer have the same Small Business Career Work schedule and School schedule.
Babies are no longer in the Downtownies pool for invited outings.
Family Members will no longer glow green when using "Look for mark" perk.
Puddles can now be mopped up with all wall items above them.
One of the two Adult Sims will now be able to go to work if a Toddler is left at home without a babysitter.
The oven portion of the restaurant stove cannot be used after food on it has caught fire.
Unfinished paintings on an Owned Community Lot can now be finished if a Sim leaves the lot and returns.
Runaway teens will continue to remain on the controllable Sims skewer on the left-hand side of the screen
Munchie Bots will no longer bring back invisible, non-interactable food when playing with multiple Munchie Bots.
The Sim will now animate when using the ReNuYu Porta-Chug.
Pool of Dateable Sims will no longer include special non-playable NPC characters.
When being inducted into a Secret Society, the Sim will be taken to the Secret Society's lot, not returned home.
Hourly Wage for Sims formerly employed by user-controlled Sims is now consistent.
Deeds that are placed on a Display Shelf and set "For Sale" will now display the proper price.
Unintialized Servos will no longer cause rendering problems with Intel video cards.
Teens will no longer leave a Business lot with unpaid goods at the time of curfew.
Female Formal Dress now displays correctly in "Set Uniform" UI.
Thumbnail corruption for the Mission Seating line has been fixed for affected video cards.
Sims on a date on a community lot will no longer browse the Electrono Ticket Machine for the entire date.
Single serving desserts no longer disappear from owner's inventory upon restock.
Sims will no longer vanish when traveling to non-owned community lots.
Users are no longer locked out of live mode when visiting non-owned and owned community lots.
Nanny track schedule will now coincide with Sims' work schedule.
User will no longer acquire Secret Society Funds when traveling to Secret Society Lot.
Moveobject cheat can now be used to manipulate and place objects in out of bounds tiles.
Re-entering custom college neighborhoods will no longer cause unmodified and/or occupied lots to disappear.
All hanging objects will now display properly over stages.
Sim owned vehicles will no longer prevent fire trucks from leaving on a 3x3 Community lot.
Bag of Poo will no longer break after installing The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff.



Woo!!

Looks like quite a few of our concerns have been dealt with - but yet again we have to sort out out hacks folders!  Thanks for the info, though, Blue!

I wonder who they are referring to:

Pool of Dateable Sims will no longer include special non-playable NPC characters.

Grand Vampires probably. Possibly the reporters.

I can see an update which should theoretically make outdated Squinge's Small Business for Teens mod, as well as syberspunk's SS lottery fix.

And it looks like they FINALLY fixed the nanny schedule…

And the thumbnails for those sofas!  Does that mean they fixed the sofas too, I wonder, and made them the right colours to match the armchair and the lounger?

I sure hope so. I like that furniture but had been avoiding using it because it looked so odd.  :-\

Me too, but I asked Heather Castillo at SimFreaks to make some recolours of it because it was so horrible, and when she tried she said the faults had been "baked into" the coding and couldn't be fixed.  Which means they would need to  have removed them from the game files and replaced them with good ones.  Heather said she thought two different people must have worked on them, which makes sense maybe one of them was still learning and no-one thought to check their work?

Which are the mission sofas? I cannot recall right now.  :-\

They're part of the Mission set that came with OFB. There's quite a lot of it, beds, coffee tables, tables, chairs etc.

Ah, okay, I didn't look at the furniture too closely when I had it.

I wonder if they fixed those stupid Mission dining chairs that my sim kids (Tessa Ramirez comes to mind) always seem to get stuck behind?  I don't even use the Mission stuff because of that.

Trouble is, it's in the furniture store and loads of other business lots as well as houses, so you have to get rid of it, it just looks so awful!

Doesn't say they fixed those chairs - they seem to have the same problems you got with some chairs back with the base game!

Has anybody checked this out using the hackdiff tool yet?

Is it me, or does the FFS patch only have 2 FFS related things in it?

"Family Fun Stuff clothing assets will no longer disappear"—What is the second one?

For all intents and purposes, FFS *is* OFB with the business part ripped out/disabled unless OFB is also installed.

Bag of Poo will no longer break after installing The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff

Would be the second one.

A stretch I know, but still. :)

You have no idea how much I rejoiced when I discovered that sims no longer get stuck in corners after eating dinner at a table situated in the corner like they did in the Sims 1. It was SOOO frustrating designing dining rooms with enough space to let someone sit all away around the table.

If we patched, do we patch again?

I think this might refer to characters like the Social Worker & the Car Pool Drivers.

Maybe Bella and Ms. Crumplebottom?

I am pretty sure you are allowed to date the Grand Vampire and the Mr. Big and whatnot. Along with delivery personel and firemen and such.

I can see the Social Worker causing problems (if she was in the pool in the first place)

This is the second patch, came out today.  So if you haven't, you should, although you should of course remove your hacks (and backup your game).

Yes, well, does installing it cause everything to reset? And Fat Head, go send me a new objects.package to scan. Chop-chop.

Uh...kiss my ass?

I'm at work, if you don't have it by the time I get home, I'll send it to you then.  But I have FFS, so will that work?

Yes. I need both anyway, to scan both of them.

"The oven portion of the restaurant stove cannot be used after food on it has caught on fire"

What? Is this a bug that wasn't fixed or did they intentionally leave the oven broken after a fire??

I'm having a brain fart or could be because FFS' status as an EP or not EP was never clear to me --  SO, do I install both OFB & FFS if I have both?  OR just FFS?  I am SOOO not awesome.

Now that I've read all the fixes, I guess I only need FFS.  They've included everything from OFB patch.

"Single serving desserts no longer disappear from owner's inventory upon restock."

Well, does that mean we can remove Crammyboy's restock fix.  Will the patch prevent the whole meal plates from disappearing?

"Moveobject cheat can now be used to manipulate and place objects in out of bounds tiles."

Someone at MTS2 made a hack so we can place objects on the street.  Does the above feature in the patch now make it so that we can remove that hack?

Y'know, I coulda sworn they said that FFS was just a bunch of new items (clothing and objects), not any real changes to gameplay at all.

Otherwise why are we not calling it an expansion pack?

So, if it's just a bunch of clothing/genetics meshes and objects, why does it need a patch? Nevermind two patches!

Just the FFS patch..don't try installing the OFB patch or you'll get errors  ;)

Dunno. Apparently the oven did not include a "get ye food" option when it burns. So it was just permanently jammed by a burnt whatever. Dunno if they fixed it or not.

It doesn't contain any real changes to gameplay if you already have OFB, and it doesn't contain any significant changes to gameplay if you already have Nightlife, but for people who don't have either of those EPs it does contain a lot of changes that were originally introduced with a particular EP but were deemed by Maxis not to be exclusive to that EP, such as personal inventory, the attraction system, etc. (I wouldn't be surprised if it also included LTWs, but I'm not sure.)

Because it contains all that code and behaves like an EP in certain technological respects, it's capable of having more serious bugs. Most of the issues addressed in the FF patch are actually OFB codebase fixes, however, since FF contains large chunks of the OFB code, and everyone who has FF will be using the FF copy of that code, and thus the bugs need to be fixed in a patch for FF users, just like there are issues resolved in patches for other EPs that aren't specific to that EP.

I was thinking the other day, if any other item was shipped with as many problems as TS2 (et al) is, the company would be out of business, with recalls and other such nonsense.

I am as guilty as alot, because I buy the expansions when they come out, and I don't boycott or refuse to buy because it isn't perfect.  Quite a racket Maxis/EA has, their beta testers have to pay THEM.

Well, I installed the patch and have just played a house.  Yes, unfortunately, JM, it does reset everything so sims who should be going to bed are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!  I put most of my hacks back in, left out those that were definitely OFB-related, and so far I haven't noticed that any of them are broken, or that they've broken anything.  I did notice that the skillinator is not always selecting the appropriate easel, though, and is sending sims to an unused one in preference to the painting they've already begun.  Solved that by locking bedroom doors.  Also, for the first time since installing plumbingbreaksless, I had a flood in the kitchen!  But since I installed pbl at about the same time as OFB, I don't know which caused the lack of floods!

Momtogirl-- that's just it. With software, you never know f it's gonna be ok or not. And then in the US we have an opened software no return policy. irt really does give the software companies all the power and then some. It's totally wrong. Priacy or not--'everyone is not a thief, suck it up big boys' is what I think.



EDIT: YOU NEVER KNOW IF A SOFTWARE IS GOING TO  BE EITHER JUST BUGGY OR WORK ON YOUR SYSTEM UNTIL AFTER YOU OPEN IT AND LOAD IT.

Well, I think if you opened your software and found a big scratch across the disc, that should be considered a fair reason for getting an exchange, but as to being able to take a game back because it isn't faultless is another matter, and if such a policy were implemented the price would no doubt go up, and a lot of the more adventurous (programming-wise) games just wouldn't happen!

Well. depending on where you buy it, some stores will accept returns. Usually you can return things within 30 days. I think that's law for all retail stores. Along time ago, when I first got my PS2, I bought a couple of games that ended up being crappity. So, I went to the store to exchange them, thinking that I would only get partial credit since they were already open. I was happily shocked and surprised that the store not only accepted them, but gave me full credit and allowed me to exchange it for a completely different, new game.

Getting back on topic, it looks like there are a number of fixes that might affect a few hacks I have. Ugh. And just when I had gotten my game to the point where I actually wanted to play, I now have to make sure all my hacks are updated again. And then worry about any new broken stuff. :P

Ste

I felt like that, too, but I've put most of my hacks back except things I thought might be affected by the patch and I've not noticed anything wierd yet.

Retail stores will accept exchanges. I think the bigger the store is, the more problems you might have exchanging something. Moral: always buy your games at a game store, the extra hassle at other types of stores isn't worth the $1.17.

Trouble is, with a game like The Sims 2, you wouldn't probably have realised till quite a few hours of playing time, that there were so many faults in the game.  And the worst one in the base game, the Jump Bug, would have taken quite a long time to manifest itself!  It's not like you buy a book, open it, and discover on flipping through, that several pages are blank, or ripped, or otherwise unreadable.

Personally, I'm waiting for the patch for the patch.

Well, eventually I think there'll be more patches than original material!  Like a very old pair of jeans!

Very true.  I also tend to look at the entirety of TS2 as just a 6+ GB patch for the original game.

 ;D

I'm not expecting a game to be faultless, it would be unrealistic to expect that.  What would be nice is some evidence that the game was playtested, or at least the code proofread.  I am not a coder, and I won't claim that I know what goes into programming anything, but it seems that there are things that modders like JMP, TJ, Crammyboy, etc are putting out that fixes error in code.  If these talented people can fix the errors post production, then why can't Maxis do it, before it gets to mass production.

My main point, was that QA in most other industries is a bit tighter. (of course, you can't download a patch that fixes a brake problem in your car, so I guess that their testing is more rigerous out of necessity)

I would think self-interest plays a large part there too - brake failure - crash - death - lawsuits!

PC game fault - game crashes - player tears hair out when it happens for the umpteenth time - lawsuit laughed out of court!

"But Your Honor....I have the RIGHT to a bug-free game"

yeah, don't see that being a legitimate lawsuit.

"Look, your honour, I have bald patches from tearing my hair out over this game!"

"I thought you had alopecia!"

Try looking at it this way:

"Your honor, I expected the product to do what is described on the package."

I've read that in Europe, the law says software that does not work properly can be returned for a full refund.  It seems that many people returned University because of the bugs.

You have to consider all the people who buy a program and don't have internet access.  They can't download a patch, and they don't even know a patch is available.  If the program doesn't work out of the box, many people are stuck with a faulty product.

That's because nobody has a serious fear of console piracy. The prevailing belief is that to pirate and use pirated console games requires a level of technical proficiency that would preclude the need to *BUY* them in the first place. Of course, strictly speaking, the same is largely true of PC games as well, but that's not as well-known a fact.

Well, consumer protection laws over here are generally fairly good, although enforcing them can be another matter!  But we pay for the protection in higher prices for very nearly everything!

Soo...it keeps giving me an error and telling me uninstall/reinstall.                 


Yeah...I don't think so.

At first I was going to congratulate Maxis for finally getting off their asses and patching the game, now I'm pissed again =P

Mine patched without any problems.  Is yours the OFB or the FFS patch?  Mine's OFB and it was fine, and the game is playing  OK at present, though I'm not holding my breath.

skandelouslala:  Do you have any hacks of the core game files?

Not that I know of or ever recall downloading unless something snuck in.

I lurked around a few other boards trying to see if anybody else had problems but eventually got fed up and just did the uninstall/reinstall.  After all I figured it would take a lot less time to just back up the game and do it that way then hunt around for what the problem is.  So I did that, put in the patch in (which worked fine!) and put my files back in.

That's really strange though.  I've never had problems with patches since the very beginning...well I think I did the very first patch b/c I had the blur remover that modified the exe or whatever...but not since then.  Makes me wonder if I have something I don't know about lurking somewhere.  Probably time to do a scan!

I just found that my UI start-up messages wouldn't work while installing the patch.  Replacing the Maxis file temporarily made it work though.

I had to replace my UIText.package to make it install too, and also the B001 folder that I had replaced with SaraMK's clean template.

See, and this is why core game file hacks are bad. People who are playing with Squinge's LTW stuff are gonna have this sort of issue too.

Meh, it's a really minor mod, and once I placed the backup there, it was fine.  This is why I told people to make a backup. :)

And I can always post a backup for those who did not RTFM.  ;D

Thanks Blue for posting this otherwise I will never know... :P

Wooo! I just noticed this one:


That alone makes the patch worth the price. Although now I have the rather nice task of removing all the hacks that fixed what is supposedly now fixed by the patch...

Nothing about the half-full bladders though.....still not installing.....

Thanks for the info though Blue :-*

"Teens will no longer have the same Small Business Career Work schedule and School schedule."

Has anyone verified this one?  If this is true it should be possible to hire playable teens to work in owned businesses without having to miss school.

Karen

I thought this was the patch for the patch

Now THAT will be interesting to see. The implementation of that may prove...interesting.

OOhhh I asked for that  :-[

I'm having this same problem and I'm not sure I want to do the reinstall thing. I don't think I have any core game file hacks.
BlueSoup and AmberDiceless: What have you done to avoid it? Could you please explain it to me?

It seems to work in my game but I had to make the teen quit and then re-hire her for the change to take place. She now goes to school 9-13 and to work 15-20. I'm happy  ;D

But will it satisfy the Get a Job want, or get them the Scholarship, or satisfy the parent's Overachiever want?  If it doesn't do any of these, I'll stick to townies for employees (and maybe townie teens, since they don't go to school anyway, or at least, don't appear to learn anything!)

I got the error too but it was my globalcatbin file that it stopped at. I replaced it and the install went fine.

Didn't one of the Maxoids say there were supposed to be some Expansion announcements happening around the time the patches were going to come out?

Oh yeah, I literally cheered when I read that the Nanny's "Track Schedual" was fixed.  Now if they could fix stuck flamingos and dorm chairs I think I'd die from overjoyedness.

Give them time!  And I don't expect they expected flamingoes to get as much kicking as they do!  Poor things probably aren't stuck - but DEAD!  I mean, I tried to delete a fence next to a gnome, and I got the message "wall too close to sim - the sim child was a whole square further away!

Hmmm.  To patch or not to patch?  My cleanbots have always whisked the baby bottles away.  Think I'll wait a couple days.

There are other useful things though.  What I did, I copied my hood and downloads back in after I patched, so I have the originals still on my desktop, and if the patch really shows signs of being worse than no patch at all, I can always go back.

That's because the gnomes are little sims. Read my legacy story, and you will see.

I don't know how accurately one can trust the Coming Soon section of gamefaqs, but they have The Sims 2: Pets listed in their games and already have a message board set up for it.

*giggles*

I strongly advise you to read right from the first episode-rohina's legacy is hilarious!

draranha, if you watch the progress dialog box as it's trying to install and before you get the error, it will tell you which game files it's checking (objects.package, uitext.package, etc.)  The last one it names before it halts is the one that's causing it to choke.  If you don't have a hacked version, something else may have buggered up one of your files.  You could possibly try getting a clean copy from someone else?

I hit the same problem with a core file that was altered in OFB, though I know I never changed it.  The file is:

C:/Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Open For Business/TSData/Res/Catalog/Bins/globalcatbin.bundle.package

You can pull the original off the original OFB directory -- all the files are in a 'compressedfiles.zip' (or something to that effect) in the root of the CD.  Just drill down to that directory, and copy the original file to your hard drive.

And BlueSoups modified UIText will also bugger up the install, as noted elsewhere. You have to put the original back for the patch install to work.  Once it's patched, you can put the modified UIText back.

Before I installed the patch, I did go and make the objects.package file writeable, I don't know if that's why I never had any problems.

My ofb patch stops when it gets to this:  TSData\Res\Text\eCAS.package

What the heck is that and is there a way to fix it?

If you search the program files for OFB for CAS.package you should see three files, 2 called CAS.package and one called eCAS.package.  The files in my game were last modified as follows:

06.02.2006
24.04.2006
24.04.2006

I imagine the second and third are the install date or something like that, but apparently they should be identical.  If one is different, it would seem to me that something has happened to it, since none of these files is read only.  If you then open your CD files by clicking on the CD icon in My Computer, you should get a list of the files and you will find these three files in TSData/res/text

You can then copy them and overwrite the files in your game.

Haha..that's classic!  
...the "stuff" pack even broke the bag of poo.  :D  :D

My eCAS file was last modified on 3/13/06.  Perhaps when I added FFS?  As for copying the files over from the OFB cd, when I go into TSData there is only one folder called Control.  ???  I think I'm screwed.  I realize I don't need the OFB patch since I have the FFS patch, but it's aggravating to think something is corrupt.

Here you go.

It's from the CD so it hasn't been modified - it's the same date as the first one.  Let me know when you've downloaded it and I can remove the file.

By the way, I think you can save yourself having to reinstall if something goes radically wrong, if you make a copy of your program folder for the game somewhere.

Thanks so much for the file..got it !

Great.  Hope it works!

Since it is a good idea to take out all hacks, what happens to your sims that are employeed using custom careers, if you start the game with those downloads removed? I have the ones from djsims.

I see they still didn't fix the podium obession on restaurants.

Basically, don't enter any lots where sims have custom objects or careers etc.  If you feel the need to test the patch in a clean install, you could simply enter a house to check up on your sims, exit the game without saving, then close your game, put back all your CC, and return all the hacks and hacked objects that don't specifically deal with OFB and see what happens.  If things are very screwy, take the hacks out again (again without saving your game) and check for any updates.  The only problem I noticed with the hacks I returned was my sims can't do the call contacts thing, but I imagine JM has fixed that in the new version out an hour or so ago, and when I close my game I'll just copy that in.

Trepie, the following is quoted from MaxoidDon (whoever that is):


Since it sounds like it will contain creatures which have four legs, tails, slobber, and bad breath, I can hold out forever.

Be nice if they have the farming elements of Unleashed, though, and some of the atmosphere from the furniture and build sets.

I admit the gardening was fun.  But I hated the mice and those damn gophers!

Maybe they'll introduce a weeding-bot.

Well, no doubt someone awesome will do something about them!  But really, every EP is going to have elements that some people aren't crazy about - I don't care for the vampires etc in NL.  I don't object to a fantasy element, or an SF element, but I've never really been much of a fan of horror movies.  However, to others, the horror element is the bit they enjoy the most.  Horses for courses.

OT here but I started reading your legacy story...it's a fun read...I've been quite literally "LOL" hehe

Just wondering: does anyone still have the old FFS patch before the new one come out? Thanks.

It looks like the fix with the date ticket machine makes it so that your date doesn't pay at all, even after the date is over they remain on the lot free of charge.
I had a sim take a date to a lot with a ticket machine and the date browsed. I waited for a while to see what would happen. The date's buy bar remained pretty low for a while but when my sim bought a ticket his buy bar "popped" but he did not take a ticket. I stayed on the lot for a bit with the date then I ended it. The date ended fine but he continued to stay on the lot without being charged.

Thanks a lot AmberDiceless and jsalemi! My game is now properly patched.
I had the same problem as you, jsalemi, with the same file.
It's better to replace a single file than the whole EP, isn't it?  ;)

Not sure what went wrong with mine, but I got an error message upon installing the patch, saying there was a problem and that I would have the uninstall OFB. (I had removed the Downloads folder before patching.) I uninstalled the EP and then reinstalled it, and after that the patch installed just fine. Wonder what that was about.

There appear to be certain files (not the same for everyone) that are causing a problem.  I was lucky, it worked fine - but I didn't have the first patch installed, so maybe that altered things in some way.  People have checked where the patch install stopped, then copied the file it baulked at from the cd and that's worked.   One file in particular is the eCAS.package file, which has a february date on the CD and is about 15kb, but in your game files it will have the install date and be enormous.  Seems it's a bit like replacing groups.cache but has something to do with custom CAS stuff.

By the way, I got your curtains a little while ago, and they're great - I have had Windkeeper's loft curtains for a while, but they don't satisfy the want for fortune sims, and yours do, and it's great to have curtains that match the beds!

I believe that custom careers are ones that you don't have to remove.  I play with several and have never had to take them out with any of the expansion packs except University when they added new careers to the official pool.  True, OFB is about careers but not the same kind.  I didn't have any problems leaving mine in when I added OFB.

However, if someone has already taken everything out and patched their game, I think I'm right in what I said, that if you just want to check that everything is ok before putting stuff back, as long as you don't save anything, there shoudln't be a problem with the careers.

Yet again, I get the error message that installing the patch has failed and I need to reinstall. *grump*.   >:(

Oh, I'm sorry you're having problems, but maybe it's the best thing to do.  You only have to reinstall one CD after all, so it won't take long!  Just remember to remove your important game files first!

I patched with no problems.  I just removed my hacks and it patched smoothly.  I played for about two hours last night and everything seems to be right and proper.  I haven't tested to see if it specifically fixed what it was supposed to fix.  I should qualify all this by saying that I have never had any of the major problems some people were having with OFB and FFS.  I've been very fortunate so far.   

Nice...(sarcasm here)...an update to the patch issue...

here ya go (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=cac89624d55a21a892f60585456a062b&directoryID=21&startRow=1&openItemID=item.21,root.1,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.23#cad7a5e6415554134637573aa8e81280l)

If you have both FFS & OFB, you need both patches.

Nice of them to say that upfront, eh?

And if people are having trouble with their installatiion, it's probably their fault!  Wouldn't you know!

Of course...it is always the user's fault.  Maxis never puts out a faulty patch ever.  (gag/choke/hurl)

 :o
Ivy

I am so freakin' confused! ???

Okay, so I have OFB and FFS, both of them with their appropriate patches from the last time they "fixed everything."  I read that little post from MaxiodMel that says I need both of the new patches.  I can also read, and I see that the FFS patch mainly fixes OFB issues.    I've also seen that if we remove whatever file is fouling up the install, we can do the install.   Squinge says here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1266101#post1266101
that it's the object.package for OFB, well, what about those of us with FFS?   I don't know what to do.  What's been the easiest way to do it?  I really don't have time to deal with a reinstall today.

I watched both patches install, and I can see why you need to install both if you have both OFB and FFS -- the OFB patch replaces most of the files in the bluewater village template, which the FFS patch doesn't do.  Of course, if you already have a Bluewater Village up and running, the changes to the template don't do much for you....

Probably Bella, for one.  She always pops-up if the criteria is right.  I downloaded this patch yesterday and totally forgot that it would reset everybody, which meant it played havoc with the Dreamer house.  Darren was at work, 18 hours after he was supposed to have died, subsequently he appeared standing by the driveway looking most bemused.  Tried to get him to carpool straight back to work with Dirk, but he died instead.  I managed to get everyone else back to work, then when Cassandra came home she walked into the house to put some groceries away, then promptly went dolally in front of the fridge.  Once she'd recovered, she went and kissed Darren's teenaged grandson.  Not sure what sort of kiss, because he isn't shown as family and she doesn't have the option to give him a family kiss, but I won't dwell on it.  Maybe she had the option before and it went with Darren's death.  Anyway, once she'd done that, Dirk went over to her and apologised for nothing whatsoever, then both Dirk & Cassandra started crying in unison.  A VERY PECULIAR HOUSEHOLD.

Oh, and I didn't remove custom content before patching, I never do.  Always forget, but luckily it doesn't seem to make any difference to anything.  The only mod I've removed since patching is the one that made the movebobjects work on out of bounds tiles, but there are probably others I should take out.

Some have been updated, mostly OFB related ones, but other than that, the ones in the Maty zip appear to be about the same.  I wouldn't worry too much, just get the updates.  Of course, there may be a few that I never used anyway that have gone, but it would be fairly easy to check, I would think.  As to all my othr hacks, they've gone back in for now.

I don't somehow think Bella would be affected, as when you check her stats in SimPE she has a job (in my game it was the criminal career!) whereas NPCs are shown as unemployed.  I think it's more the social workers and the repo men, at least, I hope so!

I have only OFB and didn't install the first patch and didn't have any problems installing this new one.
The only hacks I removed were the ones that were made obsolete by the patch and the ones that modders said may not be compatible.
I've played and haven't had any problems so far, except the one posted above which is just another Maxian "bug".
It seems from the BBS and other boards that alot of people are having problems if they have OFB & FFS and/or they patched OFB before.
See link Ivy posted above.

I tend to agree with you, Play Lives.  I never installed the first patch and I had no problems with this one.  We need a poll to find out how many people with the first patch had the problem and how many didn't, etc.  then maybe we could post the results over at the BBS!

I patched both times, and had no problems whatsoever with the installation. I clicked it, it did its thing, done. I've been very lucky though, other than nightlife eating my neighborhoods, I've never had any problems with an install/patch install, nor any of the major bugs reported.

*edit* I should probably say that I do not have the FFP.

I had previously installed the first OFB patch, and had no problems installing the new one.  I have UNI, NL, and OFB, but not FF.  I did remove my entire downloads folder while installing, but I put it right back in afterwards. 

Most of my hacks are Awesome, but I have a few that aren't.  The only hack I removed was the one for making moveobjects work out of bounds.

I've played two households since installing the patch.  One was just a quick in-and-out, but I played the other for several sim days.  Everything seems to be working so far.

I had trouble w/ the OFB patch and I had installed the previous one.  Blaming the users on these errors is ridiculous considering the fact I run the most boring game in the world...NO hacks or custom content.  Grrr.

Ha, they blame EVERYTHING on the users.
I was helping a friend try to fix a problem in her game, and we finally contacted tech support.
I said "We have removed all custom content and reinstalled, and the problem persists"
The reply: "Remove all custom content and reinstall."

Later we figured out the problem on our own (drivers), but EA/Maxis is of no help whatsoever.

Ha!  Sounds like a typical answer..at least they didn't charge you $3.95 per minute for their expertise.   ::)

I didn't have a problem installing the second patch either. I did install the first patch back when it came out as well.

I guess I should note I do not have FFS either.

Well, I don't know if it's the patch what done it, but Cassandra went too far in my game.  As I said earlier, she was kissing Darren's grandson (but nothing came of it), then later that evening (and this is only a day after Darren died) I heard a familiar sound ... I don't know who initiated it, but Cassandra and Darren's grandson are now in love.  Cassandra is still an adult, but she's like 62, because in my game they don't become elders until 64.  Darren's grandson is 4 years into teen.  I suppose she went for him because Dirk is married, because they've had 3 bolts since he went to Uni but never done anything about it.  Well, she wanted to fall in love again within seconds of Darren's death, so she got her wish.  As for getting married again ... well, I suppose once Dane comes back from Uni they could (would be a good storyline) ... she'll be dead 3 days later anyway.  Bearing in mind that before this sort of thing never happened with step-relationships, it seems as if the patch might have altered something.  Bit yukky really - I mean, she changed his nappies when he was a baby.

Anyway, it's official. CASSANDRA IS A TART.  Zephyr alwas knew this, of course.

Ever since she ran after Daniel Pleasant like she was a desperate 45-yr-old spinster family sim wanting to get pregnant before it was to late!  In fron of her husband (Beau) and daughter too!  Guess she's forgotten it was Beau's day off and didn't expect him to be trimming hedges - knowledge sims should be indoors studying!

I have Family Fun installed so I thought that as that was the latest expansion pack that was the only patch I needed. Apparently not. MaxoidMel has posted that you need to install both the OFB and FF patch. In a few moments I will go and try, but at least I'm forewarned about the error messages...so thanks guys.
The interesting patch related problem I have had from the FF patch is a missing object, a mission counter. I have an icon that says no pic and there is nothing on the tool tip to place. It's one in the $750 price range. I had thought it was a custom content issue as I have just downloaded the featured Tuscany kitchen at MTS2....and it is just lovely  :) but others are reporting the same bug.
It's always fun when the patches break stuff  ;D

If you install the OFB patch after the FFS patch, your counter will be there again.

And hopefully your Mission sofas will be the same colour as the armchairs and recliners!  But they were supposed to have fixed the thumbnails, and the one in my game (the one that shows when you change from one texture to another) is still a big black blob!

You will need to refresh your thumbnails, I don't think they update automatically (unless the patch is specifically supposed to do that). Try deleting the packages in the Thumbnails folder in the Sims 2 folder under My Documents (leave the folder, just empty). Then start up the game and go to the catalog to see if the thumbnail is now fixed.

I suppose I'll  have to do that, but I was hoping to avoid it, for some reason when I try that I get some thumbnails back and lose others!

Thanks Nova, my counter is indeed back. I haven't looked at the sofa\armchairs yet to see if they match now. I do like them, they remind me of Simzalabins style from TS1, but my sims are too poor to buy them yet  :)

What problems have you had with this new patch(s) AFTER you got it installed? Any biggies?

I saw on another bbs that some foks have had lot freeze ups....?

Some folks say the moveobjects cheat ISN'T fixed...?

The Mission furniture may not be fixed....?

If a family owns two cars--only one gets credit for work, that bug, isn't fixed....?

Hm...am I missing any.....?

The moveobjects cheat is fixed - I removed the Windkeeper hack I had and it works great.

Cannot say about the rest, I haven't tried them.

That's good news! Thanks BS....hm maybe I better spell that oneout BlueSoup. :P

To refresh thumbnails in the game, you can hold down the CTRL key while right-clicking on a thumbnail, and it will refresh.  I believe you may have to have testing cheats enabled to do this.  Someone shared this tip on this board, and it worked great for some clothing and hairstyles that weren't showing up properly in the game, and now I use it all the time.  :D

Great tip!  I'll have to give that one a go.

Hey, thanks rainbow!  A lot quicker and easier than deleting all those thumbnails files!

I just patched OFB and FFS in that order - I'm not missing any mission counters.

My mission furniture is all the same colour, too, but then it always was.  I guess I don't have one of the effected video cards with that bug.

I just installed OFB P2 with no problems.  I had previously installed OFB P1, and I didn't remove any hacks beforehand.  I did backup my neighborhoods and updated my hacks with the new ones posted by JM and TJ here.  I haven't had time to play much, but I went to Club Dante where I last saved Malcolm and Marcia, and for the life of me, I can't find the open and close sign!  The club is open and customers are browsing the ticket machine, but I scoured the walls inside and out especially by the door, and it's not there.  I bought them a new one.  Does anyone remember where it was in their game?  Did the patch make it go bye-bye?   ???

As I recall, none of the pre-owned businesses had open/closed signs  I'm pretty sure I had to add them to all of the existing businesses. 

(And of course, I added Inge's automatic sign as well -- great for closing the business at a certain time when you're not watching the clock closely. :) )

The Bakery definitely had one, because initially I couldn't find one and added another, only to find the original.  I'm pretty sure the Ramirez' store did too.

Yea, maybe you're right.  I don't recall if the Ramirez store had one, and I don't play the Jaquet bakery much because I'm spending too much time trying to kill them off -- I think they're the worst pre-made Maxis sims ever. :)

On a separate note, I've found in my game that Lisa Ramirez has taken over for the now deceased Cassie Goth as the randiest Family sim in the game.  She's always walking past the houses of my romance sims, or showing up at community lots when they're there, and attracting them like files, so she currently has 4 loves besides Chico.  And every time I play their lot she rolls woohoo wants, usually with a fear of having another baby. :)

I don't have that problem now - I changed their aspirations over, so Checo is now knowledge and she is fortune, and she's really good at it!  Demolished the original store and built a new one, and every time she walks through the main showroom she makes appreciative gestures - but they don't sell ANY cheap stuff!  Tessa is now a teen - she grew up far better than I'd expected, she was such a wierd-looking kid!

If you want a copy of Ramirez Interiors let me know!  I think I saved it to a file.

Thanks, but I've not had any of the problems folks here have reported with the original store.  In fact, it's up to a level 7 business now, with Chico mostly doing sales (BRY macro), the original cashier, and another employee just doing restocking.  Lisa has a job in the medical career, but she helps out when she's not working, usually restocking (she's not up to gold sales level yet).  And I haven't played them enough for Tessa to transition yet -- I think she's about a day away right now, so she'll probably age to teen next time I play their lot.

You're reading too much into it. The walkby algorithm is random, and not very well randomized.

Probably, but she seems to turn up more than other sims, in any neighborhood.  She seems to be the resident wanderer. :)

That's probably "The One" effect.

Why do you think they are the worst? I tend to think its Vidcund and Nervous Subject!  ;)

The Jacquets aren't so bad. The mother is active and can easily whip the lazy out of the slacker son. The Ramirez family is probably among the worst, what with the lot of them being complete and utter slackers. They usually do rather badly due to their inability to get anywhere in less than 3 hours. I am presently at a loss for what to do with them.

Well, as I reported before, swapping over their aspirations helps, Lisa is far better suited to fortune, and works quite hard as long as you don't let her sit down!  As a knowledge sim, Checo can spend loads of time sitting down, so he's happy!  And the way Tessa has taken over from Marsha Bruenig in my game as the midnight telephone stalker,  Popularity with the Have 20 Best Friends could have her in platinum before she goes to college!

But I did demolish the Furniture store and rebuild it!  Couldn't stand the original lot, and there were so many places for Lisa to hide!

I don't really think any of them do that well, mostly because they're LAZY BASTARDS. By the time they arrive at where-ever they were going 3 hours later, it's probably too late.

Well, I only recently started playing Strangetown again, and I haven't played it much, but I'm starting to agree on Nervous Subject.  Though he's making a decent 'nanny' for the Beaker's new baby.

But the Jaquet's are just boring to me.  Can't really say why, but they just bother me.  I guess one thing is the mother being a fortune sim and always wanting stuff when they barely have any money.  They're unplayable without cheating to get  their skills up to reasonable levels for sims of their age (which is true for just about all the Bluewater pre-mades, I guess). And Gilbert just doesn't seem to fit the romance mold -- if he lives long enough :), I'm going to change his aspiration to something else at the first opportunity.

"The One" effect?  I'm not familiar with that...

Interesting, because I have the exact opposite experience with them.  Their business is up to level 7 (and close to 8 ), Lisa has a job and is doing quite well, and helps out in the store when she's not working.  Tessa is skilling away, and about a day away from transitioning to teen. 

I think so much depends on what you want from a family.  I found the Jacquets a pain mainly, I think, because the house and the business kept getting problems, so I sold the business and moved them to another house.  But he's definitely a stalker.

The One is where, due to lazy coding practices and cutting corners, sims and objects of a given class acquire undue significance over their peers. An example of "The One" is "The One Desk", where all sim children must drop their homework around on a given lot. It doesn't matter if there are a half-dozen other empty desks, all of which are closer. The One Desk rules them all. The Slapper is another example of The One.

Except for the minor problem that it takes them 3 hours to get anywhere, and they're constantly out of energy, so the net effect is that it takes them a minimum of twice as long, on average 5 times as long, to do anything as one of my regular sims. Thus, they're doing poorly. The cumulative effect of being an anemic sluggard is counterproductive and annoys me greatly. I despise laziness.

I somewhat despise activity! Sims only need about 4 or 5. Those others points are wasted. Most of mine are very outgoing or very playful. Activity is only good for those in a career where body is essential.

Maxis sims are at such a disadvantage, even more so than adult sims you would create in CAS.  I use TJ's college adjuster to randomize skills, so they get a random amount of skills that I feel they might have acquired already by the time they were adults.  Of course, they would have much more if I had been playing them from birth, but at least they don't start out with no skills and it doesn't feel like cheating so much because I didn't decide which skills and how much.  You can select max skills up to 5 if you don't want them to have too much or max out any certain skill.  I also adjust their Active level to at least 6 so they can run, because I can't stand to see them drag around like molasses.  If they were my sims, they would have been encouraged to be active as children, so I think it's only fair.  I don't like to kill sims over stuff like that which can be easily fixed.

You NEED at least 6. Otherwise the sim can't move! A sim without 6 active is like a one-legged sim, hobbling from place to place at a furlong per fortnight. And constantly out of energy. There's no real benefit to NOT being active at all!

Unless you like your sim to have the 'run here' option...which is great for a home businesss.

I don't like to kill CAS or born-in-game sims for stuff that can be fixed.  I have no such reserveration with Maxis sims that I have no investment in, and can't see gaining one. :)

I try to avoid having "dead weight" in my neighborhood files as much as possible. 

The moveobjects fix (the patch should have fixed it, right?) doesn't work for me. I added my whole Sims2folder back in after I patched, because I had to reinstall from scratch. Maybe this is the problem I'm gonna make the game generate a new sims2 folder and try again tomorrow.

It worked for me no problem...

Are you sure you don't have anything conflicting with it?

Nope, I just tried it in  a newly generated sims2 folder's Clean Pleasantville. No hacks, no downloads. Funny though, I could've sworn I placed a car on the street yesterday... Hmm. (I can pick up the mailbox, but can't place it back where it was) Maybe I'll put back windkeeper's hack for locked tiles and try again tomorrow.

Well, I've been able to move mailboxes when they were in a daft place - once loaded a new empty lot and the mailbox was on the wrong wide of the road, so I moved it back where it should be.  However, if you have moveobjects off, you can't do it.

I read someplace that if youi had the hack to make the cheat work again that it is disabling the Maxis fix and then moveobjects won'yt work. Did you have it and have you taken it out?

I think blubug said it was a clean neighbourhood.

I didn't have it before but I had the version of numenor's objects on custom shelves (with that fix included). I took my whole game folder out, put it in another directory. Uninstalled everything, installed everything, patches too, then put my game folder back in (because I forgot to do that before I patched, I thought it was the problem).

So just now, I made the game regenerate a Sims 2 folder, put no hacks in (not even CEP), ran the game, entered a lot in pleasantville, entered the cheat, picked up the mailbox, but wasn't able to put it back in place. I haven't modified any of the core game files (except for an added line in the modular stairs text). So vanilla game, cheat works, but I can't place anything on the road or by the road. (But I can recolor the sidewalk) :D

Perhaps yesterday I placed that car on the sidewalk, never paid much attention.

It does seem odd, and although I can't see how an added line in the modular stairs could cause it, it might be worth changing it back to the original.

Stupid question, but does moveobjects work for items within the lot?

Yes, it does, it works fine. Anyways, I'm off to bed now but put my backups in for the scripts (don2t think that has anything to do with it) if nothing works, I'll do a reinstall and check this feature immediately. Man, this is turning into Sims1 when I had to reinstall almost every week. >:( I want to place stuff on the side of the road. Period.
Thanks for your suggestions guys :)

One suggestion comes to mind - when you get a copy of the game that works, copy the program files to another location, then if anything goes wrong again, all you need to do is put those files in instead of the used ones.  As long as you have registry entries for the game, you can do this - worked in sim1 too.

Like in the Program files/EA Games folder? I can back that up too? If that's true, I'll back all those up for sure next time I reinstall :D

Yes, if you have a copy you can overwrite the original if it starts to act up - because the registry entry is already there.  But if you uninstall, the registry entry goes too, and then you would have to do a complete reinstall.

And make sure that you make your objects.package file readonly after you reinstall and install the patch.

Oh, okay. I'll be back to let you know if the reinstall worked. One last question: when I get the new expansion, or if I have a new patch, I will have to make the objects.package non-read only (writable) again before I install them, right? (for future muck-ups)

Yes, the new install needs to be able to access it, but then afterwards you can make it read only again, plus, of course, the new one.

Actually, each expansion comes with a new objects.package that it installs in the new directory for the new EP, and according to Pescado, it never accesses the old ones again.  So you have to go into the directory for the newest EP and make that objects.package read-only.

Why do we need to make it readonly? I thought it was only neccessary for the vampire problems that were fixed in the nightlife patch?

There were problems with the remote control car as well.  I don't know if that's been fixed, but I avoid using the RC car.  Maxoid Tom said it wouldn't hurt to make your objects.package file read-only, and that would help prevent it getting corrupted, as the game should never make changes to that file in normal gameplay.

I wasn't thinking!  It's when you patch you need to make it writeable again!

Yes, that's what I thought.

Today I solved the problem without doing a reinstall. I was walking home from work when I remembered that after patching the game I put in my no-cd exe which I had downloaded by fear of scratching the game, putting it in every time and hearing the roar of the cd-rom had really put me off. Well that was a pre-patch exe, so I put my backed up original exe back in, and the cheat works! (I patched my game with the original exe, to avoid any confusion). I'm sooo sorry to have puzzled everyone and taken up your time.

But I did learn to make my objects.package read-only and that I can back up my installed game folder, so it wasn't a total waste. :D Sorry again. I usually keep track of every thing I keep in my games folder, or on my pc, this was just so obvious, no wonder I missed it! *shame on me*


I have another question. I read in the fixed stuff list that the speakers would now work properly. How do you do that? I mean I realise it's not techno anymore, but I have classical music playing in my bar, how do I change that? I admit I've only used the speakers in supermarkets before :D Do I get a stereo and change the channel there with the speakers present? Because I can't click on the speakers when I'm visiting a lot.

The problem was that some of the speakers were reverting to one particular type of music (hip hop, or techno, I think) but each different speaker is supposedly for one particular kind of music.  If you want to be able to have different kinds of music in your bar, don't use the speakers, get a juke box.

Oh, I just assumed they were recolors of one speaker but that maxis had messed up and not put them as recolors. I feel really stoopid now :lol Thanks, I'm gonna pay more attention to the hideous maxis stuff, maybe I'll find something I haven't found before! :D

I think there is one speaker (the one available at home) that plays whatever is on your stereo in another room, but the others each have their own music!

Thanks for the heads up on that one too :) But I'm still angry the patch hasn't looked at the issue of misplaced restocking signs. But that's another issue for another day, or yet again, another patch. This game is getting to be too frustrating for me. I'll go back to building houses. No gameplay bugs then :D Teehee

I just wonder everyone if everyone who bitched and whined about bugs here, actually submitted bug reports, where we'd be then.

I submitted my beef with the moveobjects cheat and it got corrected.  Now, I'm not saying everything would be, but I am thinking for the most part the type of feedback they get is not exactly helpful. (OMGZZ!!11! MAXIS ROX!!!)  Perhaps if some of the articulate Simmers did submit these kinds of things, they'd get fixed sooner.

You're probably right, Blue, and when they have a thread for articulate simmers, maybe I'll post there - but I spent 20 years reading the illegible and inarticulate, I feel I've reached the stage when I don't want to have to mentally correct everything so that I can make some sort of sense of it!

I remember a while back, though, they had a sort of post-box where you could report problems you found in your game, which didn't involve starting a thread, or posting in an existing one, and must surely have been a lot easier for Maxis people to go through for useful information too.  I did contribute to that, and if it was available again, I'd probably tell them of future glitches.

They do still have one of those, but it's not open all the time.  It's opened after EP's are released, and then closed after a couple of months.

And of course, so often you only really notice a bug after you've been playing a while.  (I thought it had gone for good as it's never been around when I've been there.)

And no doubt, from what I've seen of the teenies clamouring for the PETZ asap, they'll get even less time to test it themselves before release!

As I have found...complaing to EA/Maxis..does work eventually.
To their credit they do address things that people complain about...eventually.

I believe the people that design and work on the game are extreamly overworked by EA that they really do not realize how buggy the game is.  I doubt they actually play the game other than to test it using Boolprop.

So I agree with Blue..people have to speak up and let EA/Maxis know what is going on.

I think it's really EA that need to realise that rushing games out before they are ready not only causes dissatisfied customers but creates more work for their own people in the long run.  Also, if they were to accept that most of us would willingly pay more than we do now for a product that was, if not trouble-free, far less so than it is now.  The people at Maxis do their best, I think, but they are working under constant pressure - and people don't do their best work if they feel rushed!

I am not willing to attribute that to anything other than simple coincidence. With so many bugs, both major and minor, if they fix ANYTHING, it will seem like they listened. That's like saying if you fire into a crowd, hit someone in the head, and kill him, that you aimed well.

The whole course of World History could have been totally different if Harold hadn't looked up at the wrong moment!

I'm sure, too, that more than one assassin has had his perfect shot foiled when the target suddenly bent over to pick up a penny just as he pulled the trigger.

Serendipity!

Is that a movie? If so, I've never heard of it. Or was that just a random ZZ outburst?

Serendipity is a movie, yes, but it's also a word that means, "fortunate accident."

Yes, but I fail to see how standard definition has any connection. What's the movie about? Does it answer life's deeper questions, like why your head is so fat?

Or why little fat men are frequently bald?

Well, it's pretty damn fortunate that the target bent down accidentally at the same time someone wanted to take a shot, now isn't it?

(Maybe not for the assassin...)

Especially if he killed someone else and then got caught - he'd be the laughing stock of any high-security gaol-block!

I hate the BBS. I can't find any solutions for my problems, the search option is terrible, and almost all the posts give me a major headache. I just figured out last month that I could make the signatures not appear, even that wasn't enough. I realised the posts were as bad as the siggies. And god forbid I should write anything in that forum. I couldn't find my own post to track it ever again. And my eyes go all watery looking at that layout... *shudders*

So maybe if the maxoids came here more and saw what everyone was whining about, they would think of looking into it. After all, most of the fixes come from here, and more people here know how to put up a log of errors and whatnot (probably not me) at least they would be led into the problem without going through insufferable posts like O my god!!11! The game broke! My sim was just standing there and now it's standing over there when I thought it was standing over here all the time! And how do we get Bella Goth!!!1!! (I'd do that in leet but that's equally agonizing to me :))

Why should they come here?  They don't even have enough time to properly test the game beforehand, let alone troll fan sites afterwards to see what people say.

I'm not talking about posting your problems on the forum, that is painful for someone who hasn't been immunized.  I'm talking about filling out their bug report they release every time a new EP comes out.  No BBS required.

But hey, if ya'll want to keep bitching here and whine when Maxis doesn't fix anything you wanted, don't be too surprised.

I actually think they do fix issues which are important to the functioning of the game.  However, why should they change things that are basically a matter of personal likes and dislikes?  A lot of mods only fix globally what you can fix in game by using testing Cheats etc., so in those cases there is really nothing that Maxis needs to fix anyway.  Sometimes, too, they make a fix for something (the NANNY immediately comes to mind!) but they don't get it quite right, but to give them their due, if they are told it still isn't right, they try again to fix it.

To be perfectly honest, since I patched the game, I've been reasonably satisfied with the way it's working for me and my only complaints really are to do with things that are not fundamental to game performance, but as I said, just a matter of personal choice.

Bluesoup, you're right about them having no time to come here or elsewhere for bug-searching, but at least they could keep that bug box all the time, I'd be willing to fill out the bug reports. Though I usually get the game late about a month or two, and by the time I start getting issues, I usually find a fix here. And I want to report the misplaced restocking signs, as they have no fix.
I don't want to whine and bitch all the time (well, maybe sometimes) but I also am happy when maxis releases a patch and fixes some of my problems. But I still hate the BBS.--> that's the bitching now.
Is it the writing not showing the emotions or did I come off as mean? Sorry if I have, I'm overly tense and a crybaby today. Bluesoup, :( Are you mad at me for saying all that?

I don't think Bluesoup is mad at YOU, just mad at everyone!

And you can fix the restocking signs with boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true - at least I did, so basically, if I can do it, anyone can!

Yes, but that's a temporary fix, you mean to delete them right? I do that but I have to load the shelves again, and I can't remember what I put where :) I'd like them to stop appearing in weird places completely, and I can't figure out what causes it, it happens randomly with different stuff. Maxis and non-maxis. I don't use move-objects cheat for placing stuff on shelves either.
Anyway, thanks for ALL you said. I feel better now. All the same I think I'll stay away for a bit until my emotions settle down :)

Blubug, you mustn't take things to heart so! 

And maybe the problem with the restocking signs has been fixed by someone, somewhere.  If I notice anything to that effect, I'll let you know.

I'm not mad at you or anyone, just generally tired of the constant Maxis-bashing that doesn't really solve anything at all.  But when you ask a person when the last time they actually said anything officially, the answer is invariably "never."

Yes, we're really lucky so far that we have awesome modders who fix the things that come up but that's not going to be that way forever.

What makes you say that, Blue?  I mean, even if our present modders decide they've had enough, there'll always be others to take their places - not as awesome, maybe, but they'll learn. 

And even if all the critical errors were fixed by Maxis, there'd still be a demand for mods to change gameplay, hacked objects etc., just as there was with sims1.

I don't trust a lot of other modders.

We've already had Inge quit, Pescado will quit with the next EP if SimPE doesn't improve...

Well, yes, I agree that a lot of other modders are just not in the same league as JM, but I honestly can't see that even if everyone informed the maxoids about errors that they have the necessary staff and time to fix them all.  The people who need to understand the problems are the people at the top, and they just don't appear to be interested in individual games and their related problems.  They just want to get the EPs out as quickly and as cheaply as possible.  When you think that in real terms, EPs now are cheaper than they were for Sims1, and the game is twice as complex, how can the Maxis staff be expected to a) get things right first time, and b) on the occasions when they don't, find the time to fix them all?

Let's just hope and pray that SimPE improves!

......Many surgeries are now done faster and cheater than ever--how can we expect thre doctors to get them  right the first time? And on the occasions when they don't, find the time to fix them all?

Meh.

Here's a dumb question I don't know if someone's asked or not (I'll beg off and say "TL;DR!" for this three-page-long thread)

If I were to uninstall The Sims 2 and all its EPs (I have the three full EPs, not FFS) and reinstall them (or if I were to install them on a new machine) would I need BOTH Patches for OFB or just the second one?

There is only one currently available on the site, the second one.  I think they amalgamate them.

I just wanted to say, I have reported things a few times. And I have actually submitted error logs as well. I don't remember off the top of my heads the things I have reported, but I do remember getting the nagging feeling that it seemed pointless because they don't fix all the problems. Now I realize that it's most likely because some bugs are far too minor for them to bother with a fix, some bugs they don't consider bugs, and some bugs they just don't have the time or budget to cover because they need to fix other major bugs. :P

As a result and since I'm just far too impatient to wait for a patch, I just look for fixes from other modders, and if I don't find one, I try and make one myself. It will be a sad, sad day that Pescado stops modding for the Sims because he seems to stamp out a lot of the bugs before I even notice any of them. Let's hope that day is far far away.  :-\

Ste

The first OFB patch is no more.  Like Blue said, they rolled them together so unless you kept the first patch, there isn't any way to download it from the site even if you wanted to.  It was the same way with the two patches for NL.

BTW, what is "TL;DR"?

TL;DR = Too Long; Didn't Read

I still have a copy of the first patch, don't know why!  In fact, I have all of them, I think!

Just tried to install patch 2....I was having this same problem....

jsalemi.....you deserve a medal

Hits thanks button....baaaaaaaaaaaaa  ;D

So other than some simple install problems:

Wow!! Is it real??  Haven't read ANY complaints anywhere that Patch2 has fucked up anyones game, that it's glitched out any functions, is this for real?? Has anyone read of any big problems?

I noticed that some robots my sim had made on one of my lots were gone after I installed the patch.  I'm not sure what happened.  They had a sentry bot and a clean bot, and they were both gone when I entered their lot again after the patch.  Anyone else notice this?

Hi, guys. I am having a problem with the new OFB patch (surprise, surprise). I've searched the official BBS as well as this forum and can't seem to find a solution that works. When I install the OFB patch, it stops at the TSData\Res\Objects part. The solution I found was to copy the objects.package from the OFB disk and replace the file on my hard drive. That did not work. I've also replaced the other files that people mentioned were causing problems (globalcatbin.bundle, for example). All to no avail. By the way, the FFS patch installed just fine.

I then proceeded to actually reinstall OFB, which also didn't work. Then, I reinstalled everything (what a pain in the rear that was), and STILL nothing. I did take out all hacks/custom content. In fact, I moved the Sims 2 folder from My Documents folder to another drive while I tried to patch. I am at a loss at this point. If anyone can help me, I'd appreciate it very much.

Umm...taking a wild shot in the dark here, so I don't know if it'll work.  Is your objects.package set to read-only?  Maybe it would work if it wasn't for the purpose of installing the patch?

Thanks for the suggestion, Blue Soup. I checked the objects.package file, and it was not set to Read Only. I tried to set it to read-only, and that didn't work either. One thing I forgot to mention is that it attempts to patch objects.package twice. Once it goes through just fine, but by the end of the second process it gives me the error.

Not necessarily gone, but I had one (so far) that had been a sentry bot and when I went in to play post-patch, it was a munchie bot.  I know it was a sentry bot because I had placed it outside.  I put my munchie bots inside the house.

Also had one that I think was a clean bot that suddenly became a hydro bot (or vice-versa, I don't remember which it was), so I had two of the one kind instead of one of each.

This has been a most fascinating thread: missing robots, prompts to reinstall, buggered cars, crashed games, etc., etc.

I had not installed the second OFB patch because I was trying to get everyone where I wanted them and not have to deal with the muckety-muck of a reset game. 

Now it sounds like the cure is worse than the ailment.  Think I'll put off patching until I encounter a screw-up big enough to make me want to dance to the Maxis tune.

My thanks to the canaries in the Sims2 coal mine.

I installed the patch and then put my neighborhood in. Don't know if I mucked anything up, but I don't remember any of my households resetting. But then again, I play one family every few days, so maybe I forgot whether they were at work or home, but I'm absolutely sure none of them ended up near the mailbox like when they first moved in (if that's what you mean by resetting) and none of them ended up unemployed or lost their businesses or anything. Maybe they needed to be patched, but didn't get patched, so something may go wrong later, that I don't know. But you could always test that  if you have the time. :) (and make backups, I have 2!)
Or you could play your households, and the minute everybody's home, save and do it to another household. Then backup and patch, them getting reset shouldn't mess up as much.  :D

I finally got around to installing the patch about a week ago, and finally played it yesterday.  Except for the fact that all my robots were missing everything in the game works.

Oddly enough, the first time I installed it I got the same error as many of your are getting, about reinstalling OFB and such.  When I removed the modified loading text it worked fine though, although something else could have happened during that time that is completely unrelated.

Most of my sims don't end up by the mailbox when they get reset.  Usually they are standing beside the bed if they were sleeping, standing upright in the default position.  Sims who were at work or school usually are standing in the yard in front of the house, like to the left of the front door, but not next to the mailbox.  Toddlers are on all fours, and babies were were in the crib are laying on the floor beside it.  The baby controller usually takes care of those.  All sims have full motives except for bladder, which is halfway, and hunger which isn't quite full.  Usually the bathroom controller will grab them and send everyone to the toilet.  Lizz Love's bed gets reset, so if you have special settings, you have to redo them all.  I have to be careful in about that because the bed gets reset with Maximum attraction, and all older sims make a beeline for it, and some houses I don't want that.  Also, scanner guns and thinking caps that were sitting on a table or other surface will now be sitting on the floor.  Since installing OFB, plates of food that were sitting out now have to be cleaned up because they can't be eaten.  Only options are to resume cooking, call to meal, or clean up.  And any open boxes of pizza mysteriously now have to be "served" before they can be eaten again.  *sigh* 

I've had a lot of experience with this in the last month, with installing OFB, then patch 1, and now patch 2.  Before the second patch, I tried to load all my houses in my current neighborhood and make sure everyone was home and that it was around the time they would get up.  But I'd only played a few houses since installing OFB, and since the others were already reset, I didn't worry about them.  In the houses that I hadn't played that had sims wide-awake at midnight and such, I adjusted their motives accordingly and sent them to bed, mainly bladder and energy.  Since learning about how the "fix work state" on the lot debugger works, I've been using that for sims who were sent home prematurely.  It's a bit of a chore getting everyone back to where they were pre-EP/patch.  :-\

Hmm. That's quite a lot I never paid any attention to. Good to know anyway, for the next patch.
As you've all probably understood, I don't care much how I left my sims the last time I played. (or don't remember, as I play only every 4-5 days) I have a fish-like memory so I get surprised every time I load a family, I even forgot one had a baby! And they lead pretty chaotic lives, I never have a set bedtime (very much like me) So it's not surprising to me that a sim is standing next to a bed, or a baby on the floor. I just assume I left them that way :D

Installed patch over OFB patch 1.  Ran the game with a full downloads folder.  Besides the usual reseting Sims, everything was fine.  No re-installs, nothing.  Fortunately, I have no globals that are overridden by it.

This is the only reference I see that is relevant to a problem I just noticed:


I was playtesting at the Sugar Cube Bowling lot, and I found that sims who are assigned to 'Be Bartender' will magically rake in 16$ simoleons at random times. I vaguely recall reading about this elsewhere... but I'm too lazy to search for it. Jorenne And notovny said that it should have been fixed with the Patch. I have both OFB and FFS 2nd patches, and it apparently has not been fixed (or fixed properly :P). Jorenne even confirmed this in her game.

Sims who are tending bar will magically rake in $16 simoleons, that goes to the business owner lots' funds. The sim does get properly paid their hourly wage. But in addition to that wage, they also automagically earn money out of thin air, regardless of whether they are actually serving drinks to anyone or not.

Has anyone else noticed this in their game? I suppose I can try selling and rebuying the bar, to see if it fixes it. But I'm just wondering if this has always been a problem, and if the problem has not been fixed correctly.

Thanks.

Ste

I noticed this with the bartender at Club Dante.  I haven't played that lot since OFBp2.  I had p1 at the time.  I'll try playing it again when I get the chance to see if it still happens.

It's not a new problem.  If you recall, in the first EP you could work as barista or tend bar on a community lot.  The code that pays a Sim on a non-owned community lot is still alive on owned community lots.  However to my knowledge this only happens to employees, not controllables (owner and owner's family).

Yeah. I didn't think it was new. I recall reading about it somewhere (probably here even @MATY) and was told that it was supposedly resolved. It's quite apparent that it hasn't been. :P I think, in the short time that I was playtesting, it did not happen to the owner when I made him tend bar. However, it did happen with the two employees that I assigned. The thing is... I checked the code (albeit briefly) and it appears that it does check if the sim is an employee, and thus theoretically treat them in the same manner as an owner or family member. ??? I think twojeffs said he was looking into the bar/barista code... I kinda gave up because it was giving me a headache. :P Hopefully twojeffs can make heads or tails of it eventually. But I'm sure he's preoccupied with the Casual Romance upgrade.

Ste

I had this happen before the patch too, but I think it's related to anything that causes a reset.  Pre-patch, I had it happen when I disabled the kitten killer, which causes a reset. And again when I patched with the latest patches.  Bot's in inventories were fine, but any that were active disappeared.

If the Bot-NPC disappears, you can respawn a new one at the stand by shift-clicking on it.

The problem is that the whole thing is gone, including the base.

Well, then, buy another one. Wasn't there a hacked collection for that? That's just a natural side effect of things being reset while in use. Next time, return all trays and seats to the upright position before landing.

Losing Robots is not good, but it's no big deal either. Buy a replacement.

A big deal would be losing a sim or if the ability to make a robot was broken by the patch or something along those lines--something pescado would have to fix. :)

But, as I read it, the patch actually worked for everyone, aside from install problems. And as such, really, the Maxiods did good. What a nice change!

I will keep that in mind for next time.  :P

Is anyone else having a problem with carpool notifications?  It may just be a coincidence, but it seems that none of my female sims are getting the notification an hour before the carpool arrives, but my male sims are.  And this is happening in more than one neighborhood.

(I mean it may be a coincidence that it seems like it's just female sims.)

I noticed this especially in a household that only had one female sim living there.  No notification that the carpool was going to arrive in an hour.  Male sims always get the notification.  And if both are leaving at the same time, I only get the message for the male.

Oops my bad: thought the lock doors wasn't working. Thought I had gotten rid of all Inge's tokens. But I had one hidden and it screwed up the locks.

Yes!  I thought I was going crazy.  When she was in the science career, my legacy founder rarely got her carpool notice while her wife regularly did. After the founder retired she started an elder job and now she's been getting the reminders while her wife isn't. 

I'm sure I've seen this mentioned somewhere, but if it was on here I can't find it.  I've noticed that since putting in the second OFB patch, if my Sims go to their final exam while they're at the Secret Society, they come back with the exam still "in progress" and the game produces an error.  I have to reset them, at which point their grade meter jumps to the very top and they're no longer at their exam.  I also hear a "kaching" noise, so presumably they're getting the money but not the credit.  This is a pain if they're abducted close to their final (one was taken an hour before and sent straight home again "to study") because I can't let them stay long and I usually leave them there 2 or 3 days to get a few sikills without the distraction of 3-bolt paramours or whatever.

Should it help, I'm attaching one of the error logs.

This might be due to my hack fix for finals while at the sslot.

'Bad gosub tree number' IIRC usually is due to using NL/OFB format in earlier games. My main computer/desktop is offline atm. I probably won't be able to bring it up for a few hours. But I'll check this asap, once I get it back up and online.

If you want to check it out yourself... open up the hack in SimPE, and click on the BHAV and check if the format is 8007. 8009 is a format that was introduced in NL, and you should be able to use it in NL and later... If you do have NL or OFB... then it could be something else. I can't be sure until I actually look at the code myself.

Ste

Has anyone had trouble with having one sim join another sim in the car?  I noticed this problem on a date when my sim wanted to woohoo in the car with his date.  But when he went to sit in the vehicle and invited the other sim to join.  The other sim came to stand next to the car and froze.  The other sim in this case was a townie.  I tried with another sim who lived on the lot, and she was able to join.  This was a new neighborhood.  I tried with my older neighborhood to see if it was just the lot, and I had the same problem.  On two separate lots, another sim living on the same lot couldn't "Sit in vehicle."  I took out all my downloads and still had the same problem.  I don't think I've tried since I installed the second patch.  Anyone else?

AS--Gosh....sims not getting the advancement part of exams happened before didn't  it? I seem to remember it was a bug. I had it happen only once and that may have been right after installing OFB. Untll that time, I kinda thought those experiencing it might be a little crazy :)

However, I had it happen much like you did a day ago: Only the sims went downtown an hour before his exam, left from the restaurant, came back to the restaurant,  got the kaching noise and the money but NO advancement. 
 

Actually that particular error Ancient Sim mentioned was due to my hack, which specifically addresses going to finals from the sslot. I fixed it (well... hopefully :P) and posted an update here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4298.0). Grab the latest version, overwrite, test, and report back if you still have problems.

As for your particular issue, from a Downtown lot... I don't think my hack would affect that. I pretty much left the rest of the BHAV alone. I only added some extra checks and code to handle things differently if you playing from an sslot. I think I have had a sim go to finals only once from a comm lot, but they returned fine and both received their grant and advanced properly. *shrugs*

@rainbow - I have had issues with trying to get sims to join others in cars. I'm not sure if this would solve your problem, but with my sims, I found that if I made the sim the Owner of the car, they could then have another sim (playable Or visiting) join them. When someone else was the owner, I had silly dancing issues of trying to get other sims to join them, and even when they eventually did, either sim (the one I was playing or the other one invited) would often get out of the car before I could get them to even try and Woohoo.

Of course, this presumes that your sim already isn't the owner. If s/he was the owner already... then I don't know what the problem is. :( I haven't toyed with this in a whiles tho... but I'll try and keep an eye out for this. I'm also guessing you didn't get any error logs?

Ste

I didn't know they could go to exams from Downtown, I thought the Uni clock stopped?  It always has before.  Anyway, my problem has been sorted now, as Ste has reported, so hopefully it won't happen again.

As for the cars, I have always had terrible problems getting them to interact romantically in them.  They can get in OK, but once they're in there the only options tend to be to turn on the lights and stereo, or tell the other Sim to get out.  Very occasionally I get the options to kiss, make-out and woo-hoo, but most of the time I don't.  And if I try to drive home so they can woo-hoo there (when they have the want to do it in the car), I can't because I'm told that would end the date and, of course, I need the "Woo-hoo with Whoever in Car" points to get it up to Dream status, so I can't win either way.  I know other people have had this problem, but I've never come across anyone solving it.  Whether it's related to your problem or not, I don't know.  Cars have always been buggy anyway.

Thanks Syberspunk and Ancient Sim.  I have experienced the situations you both describe with the romantic options not being available sometimes, and with the sim invited to join popping out of the car as soon as they get in.  But usually I can get them to get back in by pausing, clicking ask to join again, and they'll get in and stay.  I've been frustrated by the lack of make out and woohoo options in the car as well.  Sometimes getting out and getting back in will work, but most of the time that doesn't fix it.  This problem is different.  I've never seen this before.  I'm not getting any errors at all, so no log.   I tell my sim to sit in vehicle, and he goes and gets into the driver's side.  The other sim who is invited to join goes to the passenger side and just stands there, frozen in place.  I can make them selectable and cancel the action from there queue to unfreeze them.  I was on a community lot once, and they were able to get into the car, but then the woohoo option wasn't available.  So I invited the other sim "back to my place," and then they couldn't even get into the car, so they had to make do with the bed or hot tub.  It was still a dream date, and it's annoying messing with the car most of the time anyway.  I like them having the car so they don't have to mess with the carpool and they don't have to leave right on time.  But when they have a car, all they want to do on dates is woohoo in it.  :P  But now this problem is driving me crazy!

Hm. Sorry, I didn't really mean DT. I meant a comm lot at Uni. In fact, I was hoping it would stop the clock and I'd have time to green up, that's why I went in the first place. Next time, I 'll try the DT lot.

@MutantBunny - Afaik, the uni clock still flies while you are visiting a comm lot in a Uni 'hood. I'm actually testing a hack right now, if I remember, I'll try to send a YA to a final while at a comm lot (on Uni) and see if I get the same problem.

@rainbow and Ancient Sim - In your experience, was the sim the actual Owner of the car? When I set my sim to the actual Owner, this appeared to solve the problem. But I did not do an extensive thorough test on multiple lots. *shrugs* This was just a short play/testing session that I noticed this. In my real game, I haven't even used cars much. I have one playable  house that I've been actively playing lately, and they have a car. Despite the supposed fixes that the patches included for visiting comm lots with cars, I still refuse to use them. I take the Taxi instead. :P

Ste

Ste:  I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I'd tried with and without the sim set as the owner.  It didn't seem to make a difference.  I know people have reported bugs with cars on community lots, but I haven't experienced those (knock wood).  Other than the lack of woohoo options at times, that is.  Still, I love the element the cars add to the game.  If they could just work out all the bugs, we'd be set, LOL.  It's just strange that this new problem just started happening, yet it doesn't seem affected by removing all hacks.

Ahh... ok, I was just curious if it made a difference. Perhaps it was just a fluke for me then? :P And I was testing in my hack testing environment, which I essentially often keep hack free save the ones that I am actually testing. Although, lately, I keep a lot of hacks in now, just to test if there are any potential conflicts with other hacks I use.

Oh well. I was just holdin onto a string hopin that might have been something people overlooked, and maybe I just happily happened to have discovered something as a work around. Apparently not.  :-\ Heh. But I also like cars, and I also find the whole woohoo thing pretty amusing. I guess we'll just have to live with it for now.

Ste

I am wondering if all you guys patch your games fully loaded? In otherwords do you just install the patch onto your game without doing  any maintenance first? Do you remove all your downloads? Return all script files to their Maxis state? Remove all your game play files including hoods, lots etc to a safe location? Then install and playtest the game before returning your game to a modded state with and including all your game files? I have noticed that whenever I install anything on a fully loaded game I have issues, but when I remove everything and return everything else to a Maxis state it seems to be ok. I playtest the Maxis hoods or have them respawned and let the game run while I check a few houses in each Maxis hood, once I am statisfied nothing has blown up I save, quit and start the process of restoring my game the way I like it, including but not limited to hunting down all updated hacks/dls, editing script files and putting back all my created hoods etc. Sometimes I have to go without dls/hacks for a few days just to get everything caught up. I am not very attached to any of my hoods though so it doesnt bother me to start over with my game files. But basically I treat a patch the same as an EP for installation. Anyway I am just curious as to what the majority do when they install a patch.

I have not however installed the latest patch and I do not forsee doing so any time soon.

nectere, I do it exactly the way you do, I even check a few maxis lots before putting my stuff back in. But the last time I did it, I forgot to change back some of the scripts (and something else I can't quite remember), so had to start over.

But I've just noticed something, in Uni, when you have people living in a greek house, only one of my sims in that house got the want to ask someone to pledge, none of the others can ask any sims to pledge. Is this normal, or is it after-patch. I never played a greek house properly before and with a household greater than 1 sim. I'm wondering... And my pools aren't blue in my custom college neighborhood (from the nieghborhood view), they appear white. I haven't created any houses in the normal neighborhood with pools, I guess it's just a glitch with that lot. Or isn't it- still don't have too much confidence in the patch, waiting for something to go wrong. :D

I pull all downloads out. I don't ever change any script so that's fine. I would not recommed pulling hoods out to install anything EP or patch because EPs/patchs can potentially change the hood coging --look at NL.  However BACKUP EVERYTHING in my owner folder YES!

And to test, I always create a test hood with the full allotment of satellites (DT, UNi) then go in and play around in there, build, CAS, the whole thing. Delete the test hood from th eoutside, THEN I'll put my downloads back in and enter my permanent test hood (Dirt Hole aka Stangeville)and play in there for a few days to see what happens--THEN play my real hood if all goes well. I get attached to my simmies....

See, this is one very good reason for Maxis to get the game right BEFORE releasing it so they don't have to release all these patches.  It's all well and good to run through a test neighborhood and see if anything immediately blows up, but a lot of things wouldn't appear just from a cursory run through.  What about taking sims to college and the final exam?  Graduation?  Community lots?  Dates?  Having a top level business?  How long would it take to play through all that?  I know Maxis can't find every single bug, but they could find a lot by extensive play-testing which we are paying them to do, but we end up doing it for them.   >:(

I have a feeling that when I installed the second patch I didn't remove anything and I know I was supposed to put the Wants Trees and stuff back to normal (I have Squinge's LTW mods in that alter them).  That won't have caused the issue with the cars though, because I've had that from the time I first installed Nightlife and the majority of the cars I take Sims out on dates with belong to them.  In any case, if they don't they automatically get sent a taxi, even though there's a spare car sitting on the lot.  When I purposely send them out on a date, I send them in their own car. 

Oh, and in case anyone hasn't noticed, you can now buy food in other neighbourhoods and take it home successfully.  I just did that with one of mine without realising I'd gone to another neighbourhood, but it turned out it was OK.  She put the food away as soon as she got out of her car.  Dunno if it's the patch what done it, but I know it wasn't possible before.

I'm surprised that it let you install the patch with that file altered.  I had to reinstate my UI text thingie before it would install properly.

I don't get to play often (and when I do, I rarely play a family a lot before starting all over again, if you know what I mean), so I don't notice a lot of the problems that other people report.

I toss a backup of the game on a DVD and run a few disk maintenance utilities.  In the past I've not moved out my download folder.  In those days my download folder was small.  No longer.

In the case of the OFB patch, still haven't installed it.  I've encountered no game problems so I just may wait until the next EP comes out and take care of things in one fell swoop. 

Or I may wait until the patch is issued for the next EP before I even buy the EP.  Whatever, it is going to have to contain much more than four-legged furry annoyances that pee, poop and make noise before I hand over any $$$.

As I lack any self control over the act of 'buying' the sims, I'm glad it comes to where I live almost 2 months late! So I download the patches before I get the game. Guess that makes me lucky, in a way, as all mods are updated by that time too. :D