More Awesome Than You!

I'm having a problem with invisible visitors on my residential lots, both in the regular neighborhood and in the university neighborhood. I haven't seen the problem on community lots, but I may have just missed it.

I don't have any townies, so all the invisible visitors are playable characters, who are not playable at the moment.

What happens is that I will see the pool cue playing a game of pool by itself, or I will see another visitor interacting with someone who isn't there. For example, I saw a visitor receiving a backrub, but no one was there. Whenever I click on Inge's shrub I always find that one of the sims that I am allowed to clear off of the lot is nowhere to be seen. If I see a visitor interacting with an invisible sim, I make them selectable and in their queue it will say "receive backrub from 'name of sim'".  So I know that they are not interacting with the social bunny.

If I try to click on the invisible sim (because I know where they are when they are giving a backrub for example, nothing shows up just like there is really no one there.

The invisible visitor is not always the same person. It can be any visitor that I have previously greeted or just invited themselves over. When I play the lot of the invisible visitor, they are always completely normal. They are not invisible on their own lot.

Usually I use Inge's shrub to teleport them off of the lot since my controllable sims cannot interact with them although the other visitors on the lot seem to "see" them just fine. I have never had one of the invisible visitors start a conversation or otherwise engage in activities with my currently controllable sims. Later the same visitor may visit again and be completely normal.

Anyone know what could cause this? It has been happening for quite awhile. But it took me a long time before I figured out what was going on. At first I thought that I just had haunted pool tables or that the pool table had a problem as that was the most noticeable sign.

I've tried to find a common thread such as the same downloaded object on all the lots that have the problem, but I can't find anything that is common to all instances of this. I thought perhaps they became invisible after interacting with a bugged object.

Hack conflict finder doesn't show any conflicts, and I run duplicate file finder after every download session to be sure that I don't have any duplicates.

I did a search for this problem, but didn't find anything.

No answers for you.  In case it's connected, I've had invisible Sims on business lots who were leaving without paying, but turned invisible and headed back to the til instead. Shopping bag in mid air queueing at the till.....  I posted about it couple of days ago. The only reply was "I've had that too".

Yeah, I saw that thread. I don't have OFB so I'm not having that particular problem.

The only time I get this is sometimes when I replace a revolting townie with a new one and they don't have the right clothes.  Sometimes it's just a head and hands, sometimes there's nothing at all.  I've got round it by moving them in with Inge's bush, making them selectable, getting them to buy clothes, then making them a townie again.  For some reason, none of the mods that deal with clothes-buying work on visitors, which is why I have to temporarily move them in.

Doesn't sound like this is your problem, but it might be worth putting them in front of a mirror to see if they are wearing any clothes or in the buff.  Mine always appear without clothes when I do that.  If they are naked, there is possibly a problem with their clothing and you might like to try changing their outfit to see if that makes any difference. 

Well, like I said, it isn't the same visitor all the time. It is always one of my random playables and they would all be wearing a different outfit. I cannot make the invisible visitor selectable, so there is nothing that I can do with them while on that lot. When I go to where they live, everything is fine. And mine are always totally invisible. I haven't seen any body parts like hands floating around.

As far as getting townies, etc to wear different clothes. I downloaded a mod by Christianlov over at MTS2 that takes care of that quite nicely. You click on the clothes rack and tell it whose clothes you want to change. (Buy clothes for townie).  It will charge the amount of purchase to whichever sim family has the rack in their house, in other words, whoevers lot you are on. That person will then come onto the lot, walk over to the clothes rack and then the "buy clothes" popup displays. Choose the clothes that you want them to wear. As a bonus, the next screen is the makup screen and the one after that is the surgery screen so if you want to make-over those ugly townies, you can do it.

Just do a search for Christianlov on MTS2.

I had a problem with invisible Sims a while back but mine was much worse in that they lost their character data.  Luckily I back up my game a lot so I replaced their character files with backups from a time when they were fine and all was good again.  Maybe you can try that?

Now that is wonderful. None of the clothes changing mods work for me either, so I'm doomed to have my eyes bleed at the horrible outfits the townies sport. I'll definitely try that one out. I hope it works. Whoever dreamed up those outfits that the townies default to is either seriously taste-challenged, or a raging sadist. Thanks Magicmoon

This is still happening and I still can't figure out why. I find out I have an invisible visitor when I catch objects moving on their own...like this:
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/magicteeters/InvisibleVisitor2.jpg)

I use the teleporter bush to discover which visitor is on the list yet not seen on the lot to find out who the invisible sim is. When I go to the offender's lot, they are as normal as ever. "Who" the invisible sim is, is different every time. They take turns.

Ignore this post! IGNORE! IGNORE! IGNORE!

I've been using the teleporter bush to take them off the lot. I'm trying to figure out what is causing it and stop it at its source.

Since I'm not the only one who has been having difficulties with invisible or partially invisible sims, I thought I would risk necromancy to reveal what I have discovered.

I noticed that the invisible sims were on Uni lots more than anywhere else. Yesterday I started a new neighborhood and dorm and almost immediately started seeing sims who were partially invisible...like ghosts...you can see who they are, but also through them. I deleted a dormie, then another, then soon another because of this invisibility. Then one dormie did it for the 2nd time. So I started following her around to see if I could find out what she is doing when she transitions.

Soon I saw her go into her dorm room. Just as the door starts to shut, I see her fade out. When she left her room later she was in the ghost looking state. I watched other dormies and found that they also were coming out of their rooms like this.

Awhile back at MTS2 I downloaded a recolor of the Myne door. It was an invisible recolor. I did it because Maxis made their dorms where the Myne doors are in the way and you can't see what is going on in the rooms behind them, where your sims actually are. This way I could see through the doors and keep an eye on the simmies.

I noticed that the sims comming out of the invisible recolored doors were in the ghost state whereas the doors that I didn't change color (because they weren't in my way) the sims were coming out normal. I recolored all the Myne doors back to the original Maxis colors and the sim invisibility problem seems to be cured. I've played an additional 3 Sim days without invisible dormies.

When I say "recolored" above, I mean from within the game using the color tool.

So am I crazy or is it really possible for someone to color a Maxis object invisible, and end up making the sims who use it invisible too? This was a Maxis recolor I downloaded, not a cloned door.

In regards to the half invisable dormies, I have those as well.  And i don't have any door recolours.  Ive barely got any hacks / objects at all to be honest.  But thats something ive noticed since I got uni, usually they just got back into their room and reapear whole again at some stage.

edited: cuz I say dumb shit  ::)

The only time I remember invisible visitors was, when I played TS2 only, at Strange Town, and all the friends General Grunt brought home were invisible. I saw the same actions as yours (moving plate and someone watching the TV).

I was told that it is a case of bugged helicopter, and since JMP posted the "carpoolfix", it dissapeared.

It is said that the patches fixed it, but I keep this hack until now, through all EPs (I play NL now).

May be OFB brought back this bug?

Thanks for the info.  Looks like those MTS2 doors have unfortunate side-effects.  They were probably designed for Uni only and messed up with added EPs.  Neither the doors nor the helicopter is my problem though.   I have carpoolfix, but there aren't too many helicopters on business lots anyway.   I don't have Uni, so I don't have Myne doors never mind their recolours.  Could be something else in my downloads though - haven't had the problem recently and I took all my downloads out to try and pin down a couple of problems.  I haven't played enough to be sure.

I have this issue also.....but I have OFB....my invisible sims are shopping or in a resturante......I can't click on them either and I can't tell who they are to try to fix them....they do however interact with other sims on that lot....maybe  it's a "feature". Tgdrysix

I had this happen to a sim that my sim brought home from work. The game said that my sim brought "so and so" home from work, but I didn't see anyone. And then later the TV turned on [by itself] and for some reason my sim wouldn't go in the bathroom... o.O I guess he was on the john. It was odd, but I eventually got him to leave by telling another guest to leave and selecting 'say goodbye to all'

Mine were about to leave the lot fully dressed, turned invisible at the boundary and went back to pay at the till.  I wondered if it was the effect of a fix for shoplifting.  They do seem to behave like normal sims though.  They aren't stuck in anyway.

Well, the dorm door fix will not fix my original problem. At least I doubt it. The dormies affected were like ghosts. I could see through them and interact with them. But the original problem, the sims were totally invisible and although they could interact with my sims, they can't be clicked on for my sims to start an interaction.

Maybe it is some sort of leftover Maxis code that is running around because the problem seems somewhat common, but yet the Boss hasn't found out the reason nor made an awesome fix for it.

I'll be installing OFB this weekend so I expect to see even more of this behavior in the future.

   I've had 2 completely invisible sims since re-installing all EP's about a month ago.   The first was a Townie Adult, he became friends with a Founder while the Founder was at College, running a Community Business.   At that point he was visible.  Once the Founder moved to start the Neighborhood, he opened up a home Venue Busn.   I first noticed the Townie was invisible when he complained to the Founder.   I was unable to click on him at all.  He stayed invisible until i eventually managed to move him in and got hime to change his clothes.
   The 2nd completely invisible sim was a playable child who was walking by my lot, i clicked on him to control him 'just' as he reached the portal and was fading out, at that point he returned under my control but was completely invisible and un-interactable.  I quit without saving on that one as he was the Heir to the King and i didn't want to mess him up.
   I have no recolection if that Townie was caught at the Comm Business for shoplifting but it's entirely possible.  I haven't run very many retail busn yet, mainly Venue, which could be why i only had the one.

I seem to be seeing the ghost dormies much more lately. Due to a hardware issue I reinstalled everything, all the disks, and have been playing a mostly cc free game. I used to have the ghost issue in Academie La Tour but never in Fiesta Tech. It has now spread to Fiesta Tech. I blame Glamour.....simlpy because you have to blame something  :)
The dormies do eventually correct themselves, I have given up worrying about them. In the early days of Uni I reinstalled that ep a couple of times because I thought it was a cc bug, now I know it's just a maxis 'feature'  ;D
The totally invisible sims would be a greater worry. I always select 'say goodbye to everyone' just in case though. I have had occasions where the sim is said to bring home a friend, but I just don't see them....I usually assume they are off on the swings and ignore them. Funny how they bring home friends at the most inconvenient times.

I think that one solve can be the use of Inge's teleporter, or shrub, and use "remove visitors" option, instead of searching for another visitor to "say goodbye to everyone".

Strange, but I didn't see invisible visitors, since TS2, after I installed the 'carpoolfix' and 'captainherofix'. Perhaps it's some other hack that cause this to happen.

The hacks I have, and I don't see invisible visitors:

breakupfix
calltochat
captainherofix
carpoolfix
portalfix
college adjuster
college clock
comm-skilling
daily gardener
fasterbuyclothes
hugging hack
marriage postmortum
noagediscrimination
nocheering
nohomework
nokickingtrash
norandomflirts
noretiredjobspam
novelprogress
nowhatisthis
payatbox
unsubscribe
phonehack
InSimenator (not the kittens-killer one, lol)

I never seen (if you'll pardon the pun) a truly invisible Sim, although I have gotten the half-phased dormie-ghosts.  They seem to come about when I go into build or buy mode while they're in the process of going into or out of their dorm rooms.  I suppose it's possible that there have been invisible Sims around because I've had the option of saying goodbye to everyone when there was supposedly one visitor on the lot, but I've never had a seemingly false brought-home-a-friend dialogue or noted any other odd behavior despite the insane micromanaging I tend to do so I doubt that I'd have missed it.  For the record, I have all the EPs, no stuff packs, and too many mods to list (though I lack a few popular ones so if anyone diagnosing the problem wants to know if I have something in particular, go ahead and ask).

The option "say goodbye to everyone" is not for invisible sims, but just in case you don't see some guest in the lot, when you have many guests. For instance, in wedding party, some sims go upstairs, and you don't see them.

"Say Goodbye to Everyone" will appear on a visible sim (you can't click on inviso ones), if more than one visitor is present for whatever reason, including being invisible. As for the "going upstairs so you can't see them" thing, this is exactly why "visitor containment" is part of the Awesome design specifications, to keep riffraff from wandering out of your view.

Oh, I know for sure that only one visible Sim is on the lot in these circumstances, as I don't have very many big, multi-story houses where a visitor simply wandering out of view would be a problem.  What I'm saying is that sometimes I get the option to say goodbye to all when I know for sure that there is only one visible visitor anywhere on the entire lot.  It's happened quite a few times even when I put a CAS Sim in a 6x5 lot and they're living outside because they can't afford a house and I've checked the entire lot.  It's definately not a case of me simply missing someone who wandered off into the nether regions of the house.

I get invisible vistors now and then - all the EPs plus Family Fun (no holiday, no glamour), no recolors of Myne doors. I've not been able to figure out what causes it. Seems like there's an option on the Lot Debugger that will make them go away (I usually try that before anything else) but I also use insim off and on so maybe it was on that (also works pretty well for selecting and making over townies, except one poor teen got joined to the family and immediately ran away - must have been having a hard time - so my poor family got red memories of someone they didn't even know. The MTS2 hack would be better :). I also use "say goodbye to everyone" whenever I'm getting rid of all of them and "clear offworld loiterers" if it comes up, just to make sure they all go away.

I wonder if Tom's clothing tester is to blame?  That can cause invisibility apparently...
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,3391.msg101074.html#msg101074
I know I've used it a couple of times, but I've no idea if it's connected to my invisible sims.

Personally, the townies never really bothered me. One has only to visit the local shopping centre to see that most people in this world are not particularly good-looking, nor are they particularly well-dressed. That said, I did use Christianlov's hacked clothing rack to dress all my townies in medieval clothes. The only problem is that it charges your sims per outfit, like when they go shopping, so unless your simmies are rich, this may not be the best option. I don't normally resort to using money cheats, but I must admit to using 'kaching' a few times in this instance. After all, it was for the greater good. ;)

I have this exact same problem!  There are completely invisible Sims wandering around my business lots.  (I have OFB and FFS but not Pets.)  Has anyone had any breakthroughs / revelations on this?

A couple days ago, I posted the issue on Sims2Forum and someone replied that I had a "corrupted objects package," something like that.  (You know, the one that goes kablooey if Mrs. C. gets vamped?)  Unfortuntaely the mods locked my thread before I could reply to get more information... :-S


Here's my attempt at a work-around: First of all (and most importantly), none of the "Change Townie" mods / items I have work reliably.  So I used the Insiminator instead.  First I made the invisi-Sim "selectable," then changed their age to "Elder."  Voila!  They became visible wearing a new, randomly-generated outfit.  Then I changed their age back to "Adult," and they remained visible.

I saved and let that Sim exit the lot.  Yay, I thought. I've solved the problem!

...Two days later, that same Sim comes back to shop.  You guessed it; she's invisible again!


I very highly suspect this is an issue related to clothing changes on non-played characters.  I would say "Townies," except that someone else has problems with non-Townies behaving this way.

I'm going to keep working on this, and trying to narrow down what's causing it.  It's just a minor annoyance but... on the other hand, if I have a "corrupted" whatever... that could be really bad news.  The BFFOS kind of bad news, maybe? :(

I had an invisible sim once. It was a townie that I aged from Teen to Adult and tried to change her outfit. I obviously did something wrong, because her thumbnail made it look like she was naked, and after that whenever she'd show up, she'd be invisible. I had a playable sim invite her over on a date and then had him get into the hot tub. This made her get into her swimsuit which made her visible. Once I had her visible, I had the playable sim invite her to move in and just made her a playable sim.

Probalby not the response you or anyone else is looking for, but... It worked for me. ;)

My old post in this thread is stupid, thus because I'm stupid.


Back before any of the expansion packs, I had invisible sims constanlty. Kids coming home from school with playables, adults from work with playable; I even had a damn headmaster become invisible a few times.

It completely stopped once I installed Uni. I've seen the dormies become partly invisible, but know it's because they escaped their myne door before it could pull them into the void that is a dormies room.

has anyone had non myne door invisibility happen since they installed NL or OFB?


edit: I think a invisible sim occurs when the game forgets to properly load the sim animations when they arrive at a lot, which would explain the dormy and customers also. The dormy goes into the myne and the code starts to make them vanish, but they cancel fast enough to escape and are now in a partly loaded state. The same happens when a customer is leaving the lot without paying and comes back invisible; the part that loads their animation never turned back on, because they never exactly left.

Your theory sounds plausible as I've seen the Myne door invisibility happen. But those tended to have a ghost appearance in my game. It is possible that some of the complete invisibility also came from those though.

But I've also had an occasional visitor turn invisible while visiting a residential lot. These visitors are playables, but were visitors at the moment because it wasn't their lot. I greeted them and they were normal. Later I couldn't locate them until I saw the pool table with hovering pool cues like the game was playing itself. Since no Myne doors were on these lots, it can't explain all of the invisibility problems.

I haven't seen the invisibility problems since installing OFB and Pets, but then maybe it comes in "runs" like so much other sadorandomness that occurs in this game.

Thyguy, I like your theory about partly-loaded Sims entering business lots.  I wonder if that could be a problem with the portal?  The only thing that makes me question the possibility is that the invisibility seems to happen again and again with the same handful of Townies.

I don't use Myne doors so I'm pretty sure those aren't causing the problem.

Maybe the problem will resolve itself when I install Pets.  *tries to look hopeful*

Interesting enough, I just had a invisible dormy that was fighting wwith another dormy. He had just come back from class.

My first post in this thread was totally wrong, don't do anything I said. and...

DO NOT BURNATE THEM! DO-NOT-BURNATE-THEM!

I decided to see if I really could burnate them, and it crashed the entire game.

Forcing a error doesn't work, they reset, but are still invisible.

Catching them on fire also causes a instant crash. XD

Compare:

(http://www.hrwiki.org/images/thumb/f/f6/sbemail58picture2a.PNG/180px-sbemail58picture2a.PNG) (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Image:sbemail58picture2a.PNG) and (http://www.hrwiki.org/images/thumb/c/cd/sketchbook_031005.png/210px-sketchbook_031005.png) (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Image:sketchbook_031005.png)

(click on the images for bigger versions).

(http://www.geocities.com/thyphlosion/SpellingNazi.jpg)
Damn you spell nazi! I shall simply say -burn- when speaking of that term!!

LOL!

Okay I won't burn, burnate, OR burninate them!  I'll just glower at them and say "damn you, invisii-Sims!"