More Awesome Than You!

What is an undefined transition error, and why is it destroying my family? I went to load the Curious family and got the repeat-to-paralysis cancel-retry-delete message saying there was an Undefined Transition error. The original log is attached. I don't even know where to begin to look to fix this one. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hmm, from my limited knowledge it sounds like it's trying to change his pregnancy state and failing.  Are you using custom default skins?  Did you move the Curious family from Strangetown to Pleasantview?  Are you using any hacks that affect pregnancies?

It has to be related to a non-awesome hack that deals with zombie or servo skins. The node that puked in your error log would never error in the original bhav so it has to be hack related.

I don't have any zombie or servo skins. I've switched defaults for the paradise sim skins and I've used several Allan ABQ skins as custom. That's it. Moreover, Vidcund isn't pregnant. As soon as I loaded the Curious house I deleted every telescope and razed the stupid viewing platform. He was never abducted.

Well, I'd suggest the usual debugging technique -- move your Downloads folder somewhere else (out of The Sims 2 folder) and load the game and see if you still have the same problem. If not, then start adding your hacks and skins back a bit at a time to figure out which is causing the problem.  It could be a corrupt skin file causing it, or some other hack.

Also worth using Clean Installer first to check everything for duplicates,  and the Hack Conflict Detection Utility from Paladin's Place might show up something interesting and helpful too.

This is what's causing it, a similar thing happens if you mess with the fridge in the Beaker house before Nervous pigs out. The premade families have a hidden tutorial object that scripts the first few actions, if something is missing, it pukes.

Funny though, how a lot of those things disappeared with later EPs.  If you play the Dreamers in a later install of PV, for instance, all those bills have magically disapppeared!  Not to mention Dirk and Darren have a far better relationship!

But is there any way I can fix it? I removed all my downloads and checked--the problem persists unabated. (Since virtually all the hacks I use are from, or appoved by, this site, I really didn't think it was caused by user content.) So far I've tried evicting the family and moving the other two brothers in with their sister, to isolate the culprit. That way I was able to generate a slightly different Undefined Transition error message and get a glimpse of either a fat or pregnant sim.

Try moving the last curious brother out of the house, then moving him back in again.

If it is caused by your deletion of Vidcund's abduction (and that sounds plausible to me), then all I can think of is either a move-out/in or re-install.
Move out and then in, one or more brothers. If that doesn't work, then re-install the house, the neighborhood, or (worst case) the game. That doesn't sound like fun, but it would work.

*Please note that I qualify as non-awesome in all matters not pertaining to language and grammar. Advice should only be taken in extreme desperation and only following a complete backup of all related files.*

Well, a reinstall would not be necessary at all.  If the worst happens and you can't correct the problem, all you need to do in order to have a playable Strangetown is to delete the current version, rename the Sims 2 folder to something else, such as sims 2 X, and load your game.  A complete set of Maxis hoods will be generated, and you can then move the Strangetown folder into your Sims2 X folder, delete the rest of the new set (or move it somewhere and keep it for later) and remove the X from the sims 2 folder name.  You will then have a new Strangetown to start playing. 

Now, there are alternatives to deleting the telescope, such as making it inaccessible, and maybe that would save Vidcund from the abduction scenario - but whatever you decide to do, back up the hood first!

I already had moved them all out and tried to move them back in...it didn't work. I have successfully moved Pascal and Lazlo in with Jenny, and they are functioning just fine--apparently the sim, not the house, lot or family, is corrupt. I put down a small empty lot and tried to move Vidcund in there. The problem continues. I'd rather delete the file entirely than reinstall at this point--they are my least-played family and I have invested hours into the neighborhood. I have attached the error message generated in the new lot, although to my inexperienced eyes, I don't see much difference with the first one.

You could clone Vidcund and re-establish all his relationships, but by far the easiest way would have been to let the abduction go ahead, then simply abort the pregnancy.  You could also have got rid of the memories of the abduction in SimPE if you'd wanted to. 

I take it you have something against aliens?  We're not that bad really, you know.

I'm not much good at reading error logs either.  I imagine that you tried resetting him?

Deleting Vidcund will cause a fair number of problems which you would have to deal with in simPE, such as memories, SWAFs etc.  Before you do any of that, I would suggest that you check all his data in SimPE to see if something is odd, as for instance he is marked as unlinked when he should be linked.

You could also try moving him into a completely different empty lot and see if he still malfunctions.

Incidentally, when I played Strangetown, I didn't let the abduction go ahead, I sold the telescope and bought them a cheap on, and nothing untoward happened.  This really makes me think thatmaybe the lot itself is corrupted.

If you haven't done so already, try deleting the groups.cache file from your Sims2 folder in My Docs.  The game will then generate a new one, which may clear up the problem.

Do you know where this information is hidden?  I cloned the original Pleasantview to my fourth neighborhood slot, and it didn't have the popups or go through the usual scripted stuff that happened when I first played Pleasantview.  Of course, after installing Uni, a lot of that stuff didn't make sense anymore.

I've always been able to change the pre-made scenarios without the game throwing a wobbly - usually by not entering those houses until something has changed externally - for example, if you get Don to break it off with Cassandra before you enter the Goth house, although the wedding is still about to take place, and you still get the stupid pop-up, since they now hate each other, the wedding won't happen and nothing dreadful seems to happen.  The first time I played the Summerdreams, the premade scenario was such a total disaster I just exited without saving as I really didn't want to play such a badly designed, impossible house any longer, and played the other families.  By the time I went back there, the teens were all friends, the fights didn't happen but Oberon and Titania still couldn't get to the wedding arch together!  In the end I moved them to another lot.  I also checked out their ralationships in simPE and got rid of the family marker!

I think what I am trying to say is, these scenarios aren't set in stone, there are workarounds.

Arrrgh! Another Undefined Transition error, this time on Circe Beaker. This family has been moved, changed and played a lot--no new game code causing this one. She recently had a baby, the household now consists of her, Loki, and their newborn son; Nervous (renamed Ash) and his wife, Kirsten; and Erin, Loki's sister. They have moved into a new house, I altered the faces of Loki and Ash using the Cosmetic Surgery reward, and Circe has a cowplant so that she was able to drink Bella Goth (once of her most persistent aspirations after Bella beat the crap out of her). She and Loki are both wearing custom hair, but nothing shows up in Clean Installer as red-lined except the hacks from this site, Risky WooHoo, and LizzLoves no-privacy.

Outside of game I'm running AVG Free edition virus software. Since we're on broadband and networked, I really can't shut that down. What is corrupting my files? Where do I go to look, and what am I looking for?

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Try this. Install the attached file in you downloads folder, then get and run Paladin's conflict checker program from  here. (http://148.122.173.174/pplace/Sims_2_HCDU.htm) Whatever that program says is conflicting with the test package you installed is the problem. If it doesn't come up with anything conflicting, you've got bigger problems with that hood. It's probably going BFBVFS.

Check with the Hack conflict Detection Utility from SimWardrobe and it's my guess that one of the non awesome hacks is conflicting with the awesome, in which case I'd sling the non-awesome in the recycle bin!  For instance, I don't think you should run Risky woohoo if you have TJ's casual romance mod.

Hey, TJ. you beat me to it!

I run both, and there's no problem with them.  No conflicts show up in the hack checker, either.

Maybe it was something else, I know I read there was something that conflicted with TJ's mod.

Paladin's program detected four possible conflicts:

CBOY_nudist_naked_emitter.package
noshockforoutgoing.package

CBOY_nudist.package
poolhack.package

CBOY_nudist.package
poolhack.package

CBOY_nudist.package
poolhack.package

But I thought they wer designed to work together?

Those conflicts don't bother anything. So that's not the cause of your problems. I'm beginning to think the character files are damaged/corrupted, and there won't be a whole lot you can do other than to restart the neighborhood.

Oh, bother. And sigh. And whimper.

OK, how can I cut my losses? I have a couple of houses I worked very hard on that I love. Can I preserve them? How can I restart just one neighborhood without  the other neighborhoods going up in smoke? Also, how can I get rid of the obnoxious townie children before initiating? (The other ones I don't mind AS much, but those creepy ancient children and teens bother me a lot! Actually, is there a safe hack out there that forces all the townies to age and eventually die?)

I assume this will also reset my university and downtown areas?

Well, you can save individual lots, in the neighborhood folder there is a file for each lot. Good luck identifying which one you want to save though....

You can clone all the sims you want to save.

Cloning would be fine except what I'm worried about is reintroducing problems. I don't want to inadvertently preserve the corrupt code that's causing the meltdown. But is it safe to just send the houses to the bin?

One more thought. I tried Halle's TS2 Enhancer until the trial period expired (I was thinking about buying it--I loved his stuff in Sims 1) to change several characters. However, I didn't alter either of the characters throwing errors. Still, could that have had any impact?

And while I'm asking questions, I hate the genetics, especially how Maxis has set trait dominance and periodicity in random generation. I know the formula I'd like to implement, but have no clue how to do it: dark skin can only have black hair and brown eyes, medium skin can only have black or brown hair and brown eyes, tan skin can have any hair color, brown, grey or green eyes, light skin can have any hair or eye color. If I want a sim that diverges from real world average genetic phenotypes, I'll do it in CAS. Is there a way to change that?

Also, while I'm starting fresh, is there a way to eliminate alien skin and eyes entirely? The standard default tan skin and brown eyes would be great.

When I was teaching I taught quite a few children from Pakistan, quite a few of whom had medium/dark skin and black hair - and brilliant blue or green eyes!  One family of three boys all had blue eyes.

Get the Vanity and give them makeovers. =p

If you don't like the trait, don't breed it.

And those are the sims to generate in CAS. Do you remember the gorgeous Afghanistani girl with the incredible green eyes on the cover of the National Geographic back in the 80's? Certainly exceptions exist, but they are just that--exceptions. I think that NPCs should represent the--perhaps stereotypical--average.

You can download an Alien replacement skin or make your own.  You can also download or make replacement Alien eyes.  I like Laverwinkle Sims default replacements made by Dylan, but if you want a normal skin tone, there are tutorials on how to do that using SimPE at MTS2.

There really isn't a way that I know of to set up the kind of genetics that you are talking about because the game engine does not have the ability to genetically link hair, eye, and skin color. 

Anyway, this is getting more philosophical than practical. I'm resigned to having to reinstall my game (AGAIN!) but would like to preserve certain houses, even knowing I'll have to recreate the families. Can I just send them to the bin and then move that to the desktop while reinstalling? Where is that folder located? Do I need to do a clean uninstall/reinstall to make sure the problems are eliminated?

The flames are spreading...

You can package UNoccupied houses.  I forget the folder name, but it will usually tell you when it's finished packaging.  You can save these somewhere on your computer or the desktop.  The game will allow you to package occupied lots, but this is not recommended as it can cause problems and lead to a BFBVFS. 

I found some instructions on how to make a new copy of the default neighborhoods without affecting any of your current ones, i.e. if you just want to replace Strangetown and leave Pleasantview and Veronaville as you have them.  It's at the BBS, but it originally came from N99.  I don't usually find much useful stuff at the BBS, but this was around when the game first came out.  I've tried it myself, and it works great.

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=&threadID=464012da819ff6fe51285b1b687adffa&directoryID=44&startRow=1#6b834abb6fd0b763574b5bb8a71226e5

Checking my other neighborhoods, I realize I'm at critical meltdown. It's almost pretty...I have never before appreciated Maestro Pescado's description so much as I do right now, as I watch my game blaze up, lot but lot, and merge into a glorious conflagration while I sit here, as if from space, and try and rescue what little I can. I have reached a state of peaceful, fatalistic acceptance of the inevitable.

All I need to know now is where the house bin folder is located so I can pull it to my desktop, along with saved sims, collections, and downloads, and whether I need to uninstall and then reinstall everything just to be safe.

Oh, and if I kill off all the characters per the cheat code, does that get rid of the default families as well? Because I don't want that to happen.

You mean "deleteallcharacters"?  Yeah, it does, actually, delete "all" characters.  Including the ones in the bin. 

I think the folder LotCatalog in your "My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\" folder is the one that contains the houses in your houses bin.  However, I would recommend packaging them up if you can.  These are found in "Packaged Lots."  All the other folders you are looking for are here too, "Collections," "Downloads," and "SavedSims."  The "Neighborhoods" folder is the one that actually holds all your game files.  I back up this entire folder on a semi-regular basis.

I am very sorry for your loss.   :'(

Thanks. Silly, I suppose, but I was looking forward to seeing how the new babies would turn out.

Is there a "delete obnoxious townies" option anywhere that can be implemented before starting play?

I know what you mean about wanting to see what the babies would look like.  I don't think it's silly.  :)

Unfortunately, there isn't such a command.  You have to either do some editing in SimPE making sure you delete them entirely including all existing relationships and memories (which is a lot easier now with the new Memory editor, thanks to Theo), or do what others have done, engage in Townie-killing via cowplant and other methods. 

I think someone wrote a tutorial on how to use 'deleteallcharacters' to start a fresh hood.  If you were so inclined, you could clone all of the characters in the hood of your choice, back up all the houses, then start a fresh custom hood with deleteallcharacters, then recreate all the sims using CAS and recreate their relationships.  This would require SimPE to set family ties and such.  I know others have done it.  It takes a bit of work, but the advantage would be not having any townies to deal with or the scripted scenarios Maxis set up in the beginning, or worse, the messed up DNA (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1423.0).

Ah, I just found this in the Peasantry.  Maybe it will help:

Tutorial: Deleting, Creating, and Generating Townies OFB and pre-OFB (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4090.0)

Well, that blasted squeamish cowplant WON'T EAT CHILDREN!!! Believe me, I have tried. Stupid plant! Doesn't it realize that veal or lamb or caviar or sprouts or the young of any species is considered a delicacy? *grumble*

I developed a severe aversion to townie children back when I was playing Sims 2 for the first time (no expansions--this was before my computer fried and I was sim-less for a year). The grandchildren of my first sims were bringing home the same "children" that their elders had played with. "Puck Everlasting" is only fun for a little while. I want a clock to start ticking the first time a child sim is initialized (i.e., appears on a lot anywhere and interacts with a playable sim) and every game day of play with that known sim ages the NPC an equal amount. I suppose that's another thing the game engine isn't capable of doing, but it sure would be a lovely hack if anyone can manage it.

Well, there are hacks you can use to move in townie children and grow them up.  You can make them teens and send them to Uni or move them in with one of your playables.  Pinhead's hack at MTS2 lets you ask all ages to move in, including children.  You could then make them townies again or you could have your playables adopt them or just let them be part of the household.  I successfully grew up Marsha Bruenig, and she is quite pretty.  I have notownieregen, and I think I am down to about 3 children left.  I think there are only 5 townie children by default.  At least I was down to 5, but now with NL and OFB, I think some more snuck in there somewhere, but at least they are new faces and not the same ol' same ol'.  I don't make a habit of killing townies myself, and I have only fed two sims to the cowplant, so I forgot that it wouldn't eat children, hehe.  That's Maxis for you. 

Yeah, dammit. Shouldn't cowplants go for the equivalent of veal, the taste of ultimate suffering?

There was a buyable cowplant on MTS2 that would eat all ages. I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: My bad, it was on simslice and is a pay object.  :(

http://www.simslice.com/thesims2/ts2objects-pg7.htm

Hmm...I thought I'd found that for free somewhere. Oh well.

Nope. Most assuredly not free. But is was released when I still had my sub there.
It's quite fun in-game....I once had an evil little scientist who drank Marsha and then promptly got the flu and died. Coincidence? I think not.

Might have been on MTS2 at one time.  Oh well, would have been a nice addition.  Maxis gave us evil toys, they should have given us exploding kicky bags for the sheer entertainment value, but I presume that would empty a neighborhood fairly quickly.