More Awesome Than You!

OK, I know other people have been having problems with flashing blue accessories since the install of pets, I've seen enough topics about it, but I haven't heard the outcry I'd expect if everyone was having as much problems as me with them.
The solution is "Just go to the mirror and change appearance and the accessories will return to normal.", but that's not something I'm willing to do every fucking time I enter a lot, and it's not something I can do when I run into non-playables on community lots all covered in blue squares.
Also most people I've talked to seem to only blame Dr. Pixel's necklace mesh, but I'm having problems with all custom accessories and a few of the maxis ones (including the grand vampire's teeth).
I'm very fond of glasses, and other decorations, and I really want them back.  I have been completely unable to use anything of the sort, except for a few very basic maxis eye glasses, ever since I installed pets.  The only reason I installed the pets patch was hoping against hope that it would fix this problem, which of course it didn't; it only caused worse problems.

So my question is: Is it just in my game it's this bad, or do other people just live with it?
And: Does seasonI come with the same problem?  I'm more than willing to uninstall pets when I install seasons just to be able to give my sims horns and elf-ears again.

Haven't seen this problem in Seasons, although I have seen it once or twice in Pets, generally on lots I haven't loaded before. It probably goes away when you install Seasons. Mostly. That, or it's a purely fat, Gwilly problem.

There was a pretty big outcry at the time, if you checked different boards.  However, more serious problems soon cropped up, like the mysterious bird death (which TwoJeffs fixed.)  So the flashing accessories weren't discussed as much.

Also, the problem is extremely sporatic.  It ranges from Pescado-like "only saw it once or twice" to people who have everything flashing everywhere, up to vanilla games with vampire teeth flashing!

I have had it in varying degrees.  I have the game in two different user accounts on my computer.  After installing I played my test neighborhood, and it has lots of flashing.  My regular neighborhood, in a different user account, has very little flashing.  Don't know if that's significant, but I thought it was interesting that the first neighborhood was affected more.

I have also seen a werid thing that I never saw anyone else mention.  An accessory in my game can go from flashing to normal without any intervention.  I have a business lot, and one of the regular customers has demon wings.  One visit they will flash, the next visit they will work properly.  Then later they'll be flashing again.

I also can't go the "just change their appearance" route.  I have accessories on dozens of townies, and some townies are wearing four or five accessories.  So if they flash, I just let them flash. 

I know none of that really helps you, but you're not alone.  Lots of people have this problem.  It's not just Dr. Pixel's mesh. 

I'm one of the lucky ones then - I've seen it exactly twice and fixing in the mirror seemed to fix it permanently.  In the process of sorting it out, I did discover a free earring mesh from Peggy Sims wasn't working properly and I deleted that.  It was interfering with the appearance of other meshes in the accessories section.  Also, Dr Pixel did update his mesh though I can't remember where it was posted (I don't think it was Blarneystone Sims at first though it might be there now).  However, if you can't find it, I do have it still I think and could send it to you.

Dr. Pixel updated the mesh in a thread in the creator section on MTS2.  I have that update, and it still flashes.
I really like dressing up my townies (proffesors need glasses!), so this is a massive annoyance to me, and I seem to have a bad case of the flashies.

Anyway, my copy of seasons just arrived in the mail (like, two minutes ago).  I'm wondering whether to install it right away, or wait until I have time to do a full re-install and re-create of neigbourhoods.

I have this problem too like mad.  I have been looking for threads on it but couldn't find any.  Still happens in Seaons for me.

Yes, it still happens. Lucky for me I don't see it often. One weird instance involved a vampire's fangs flashing. Now how do you go about removing a character's teeth? ??? FeeEssen's dental surgery, I suppose.

Looking in the mirror helped. Sometimes just selecting an item (in the case of downloaded lots that had flashing areas) helped. It has become less of an issue now that I have Seasons and Vista and a bunch of new problems :'(

Same here, it's still happening like crazy for me too. I've gotten to where I don't use earrings and/or necklaces anymore. I find it too annoying to have to send sims to the mirror every few minutes of gameplay to "change appearance" to make it stop flashing or to have use cheats to select visiting sims to do the same. I used to use the glasses category as a "turn on" quite a bit but not any more because I can't be fussed to mess with this all the time.

The few custom glasses I have seem to work fine but I could be wrong because I don't really use them that often. Also I don't have any problems with facial piercings of any kind. It seems to be just the earrings and necklaces, regardless of whose mesh they are based on. Simchic earings flash blue also so it's not just Dr.Pixel's mesh.

I wish someone could figure out what's causing this and make it STOP! >:(

Well, Seasons is now installed, and accessories are flashing just like before.
I'm uninstalling pets this moment to see if that helps.  If not, I'm going to be very fucking pissed.

I really haven't noticed this flashy accessory business. Is this only with custom accessories in Seasons, and does it persist AFTER you correct it with a mirror? Otherwise the flashiness could just be a holdover from ZOMGPETZ!!!111oneoneone.

Hey Gwill, there's a note in the list for the new Pets patch that mentions ... hang on:

Extra erroneous panes in the "Glasses" category have been removed.

Do you think that has anything to do with your problem?

http://thesims2.ea.com/update/getpatch.php?appVersion=1.6&variation=cd&languageCode=

Aren't a lot of earrings and necklaces made from glasses? That might be it. Personally I couldn't be bothered dressing sims to that extent, I'm not usually zoomed in that close to see tiny decorations.

It happened with at least one pair of custom glasses, added to the sim after seasons.  It does correct when using a mirror, but flashiness comes back randomly after a while; typically when changing clothes (or otherwise taking glasses on/off).  Except for the vampire teeth I haven't had much problems with maxis stuff, and it's inconsistant so it takes forever to test.  I'll try summoning a cobble of vampires later and see how they are doing.
So far I haven't had any flashing since I uninstalled pets (except for the glasses one sim was wearing at the time of the uninstall), but I'm still testing.


That was in the first pets patch, and it did nothing to help.


All of them are in some way.

A 'cobble' of vampires? Cool!

This started happening for me after I installed Pets and has continued through installing Seasons. I haven't installed either patch for Pets yet. The flashing blue accessories happens upon first entering a lot, after my sims return home from work, after showering or when visiting a community lot. When they invite other sims over, the visiting sims have flashing blue accessories.

I don't have any vampires so I've never seen the flashing teeth thing.

I saw this when it happened the first time I installed, but after removing and then replacing the accessories, it was banished and hasn't been seen since.

Hmmm...interesting. That didn't work for me. My downloads file on my home computer got deleted due to my stupidity when I installed Seasons, so I had to start all over from scratch. I have downloaded only a couple of necklaces that use a mesh from Simchic but didn't bother tracking down any other accessories due to the flashiness issue.

I just want to say I'm now officially fucking pissed.

To maximize the effectiveness of testing, I opened a business and gave makeovers to anyone who came by, covering them with as many different accessories as possible.  They all walk away looking perfect (or as perfect as you can get with horns, elf ears and two sets of glasses), and come back later in various degrees of this:
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/000569cy)
She's got blue flashies on two out of four accessories.  For the record, that's necklace by Dr. Pixel (not flashing), earrings by rose (flashing), Glasses by XMsims (flashing) and elf ears by louis (not flashing).

Just as an off-the-wall query - it's nothing to do with CEP is is?

I thought I had the latest version of CEP but I just MTS2 and see a new one was released on Friday; I will give that a shot.

CEP only deals with objects, not body shop items of any kind.

My sims can't wear glasses anymore.  Ever time I start the game back up, the glasses that were working fine when I quit the game are flashing blue again.

I just installed the new part 3 or 6 or whatever pets patch is out now, I hope that helps.

 But I installed the patch and did not take out my download folder or any thing else so when I start the game up again,  the whole blasted thing might explode.    ;D

When I give a sim accessories, they show up fine; then usually the next time I enter the lot, they go breaky.  Sometimes it also happens when someone just changes clothes.


Glasses by XMsims, necklace by Dr. Pixel:
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/00057w66)
Both flashing.

Mama flashies in the foreground, daughter flashies in the background.
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/0005a61z)

Daddy with flashing chain necklace and flashing horns.
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/0005b648)
It's hard to tell from the picture, but there are also some "sparklies" by HP, not flashing.  In fact those are the only accessory I have yet to see flash.

Vampire, notice blue teeth in the back of the head?
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/0005cst7)

In fact; two vampires at the lot, at the same time; one flashing one not flashing.
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/0005e3p9)


Let's see how many accessories we can pile onto a sim at a time!  (Had to do a quick raid of the booty, I don't have all that many accessories in my downloads.)

Ears, horns, glasses, and necklace all flashing, some stuff by rose not flashing:
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/0005891f)

Got something like three pairs of earrings and two necklaces on her, in addition to the glasses, horns and ears and that weird hair thing.
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/00059ga1)

Ears seem to be the only things flashing...  Neither of his monocles, his glasses nor his charming anthlers are affected at the moment.
(http://pics.livejournal.com/gwillewyn/pic/0005d4x4)

I had the same problem with one of Peggy's accessories, but I thought it was a problem with the object, since I rarely use accessories outside of glasses.

Hmm... after Pets all accessories were flashing, but one necklace. Changing appereance in the mirror solved the issue, in all cases. I haven't put attention on vampires, though. My version is Mac, i.e. not patched.

I've had this problem as well since the first day of OMGPetz, with Dr. Pixel's mesh and otherwise. And after the Pets-patch and with Dr. Pixel's "fixed" mesh too. Mirror fixes have been temporary at best - any changing of lots borks all baubles back to blue. Haven't noticed it with vamps, but I don't spend that much time Downtown. Like you, I'm irritated at the loss of a good "turn-on" category, since it's essentially useless to me now. Haven't bothered with accessories since Seasons install (gave up on them altogether a couple weeks after Pets came out), but I'll give it a shot the next time I play and see if the new EP makes any difference for me.

How strange is this!  :o I recall seeing one incident of flashing after getting pets. That was with a vampire and at the time I had somebody's mesh alter for vampire teeth.. made them smaller and I can't recall who they were by but it was off MTS2. Anyway I figured they weren't updated for pets, removed them and have never seen another flash since.

Maybe I just don't use enough accessories?

What kind of graphics card are you using, Gwill? I've got a Nvidia Geforce 5200....maybe it's another nvidia issue?

i got a radeon card, not nvidia. so i dont think its that... Heck i even changed drivers from the catalyst to the omega ones, and im still getting blue flashes. Have been getting them since pets, and still have them in seasons. And changing in the mirror is only a temp solution. Next reload or walkby its blue again.

Radeon X700 here.

x1950 here

I got that problem after Pets, too, so much so that I mostly gave up on using any accessories like that. I was having the same deal of a sim crouching down, but the blue accessories staying at standing level. I know I'm only using an integrated Raedon Xpress M200, but come on! I haven't tried any necklaces or such since installing Seasons, so I haven't seen if it's still persisting for me.

I don't have flashing blue, but a steady blue. Not all accessories, just some. In BodyShop and CAS. Once I put it in game, however, the blue disappears. Nvidia 6600GT.

Yes, I get that too.  I've pretty much gone through all of my sims and just removed accessories.  I've noticed it happens a lot with accessories that are wearable with other accessories or glasses.  I have yet to come across a regular cloned pair of glasses that this happens with, even if it's a new mesh.

It happens pretty consistently, I'd say 80-90% of the time, when I make this one sim I have saved in bodyshop- I make a lot of movies with him, and he has stay-on horns from MTS2, and the horns almost always flash no matter what age I make him at.

I saw this today for the first time. It's a flashing blue, deformed version of generalzoi's trench coat accessory. He was not wearing the trench before the installation of Seasons.

(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b8/ms_grandpa/snapshot_d2313f33_5315429a.jpg)

I can confirm that with the installation of Pets and subsequent installation of Pets patch(es) I also continued to have this random blue glasses/earrings problem.

Of course, with Seasons, somehow my whole neighborhood got borked and I deleted ALL my custom content and started over, purposely NOT downloading or installing any custom glasses or earring files (much to my dismay, as even in 'rl' I am a jewelry freak)...

So today, SimChic came out with some fabulous new earrings.  I have downloaded them but am afraid to install because I've actually liked NOT having all my female sims have flashing blue squares.

But, just for the sake of discovering if installing Seasons and removing around 10,000 files from my downloads folder has somehow fixed this problem, I'll install these files and see how it goes.  Will report back, but I suspect it won't be good news.

Oh yeah, my video card is a Radeon.

And re Katie's post of the deformed trench coat - just before installing seasons, I had several townies show up at commercial lots looking like that except they were red from the head down.

Try this:

Move your downloads folder out of your game folder
Start up Bodyshop.
Close Bodyshop.
Delete the DL folder that BS created in your game folder.
Move your DL folder back into your game folder.

I have TS2 on a second account the kids use and they had lots of blue flashing content last night (they don't care).  I followed the above instructions tonight and when I opened the game, the blue flashes had disappeared.

I did this on my own account after installing Seasons and it worked.  Why, I have no idea.

Are solid blue pool walls/floors related to this issue? I made a pool on a new lot the other day and when I went to try out some pool walls, I couldn't see any of them- it was just solid blue. I tried useshaders, nothing. But on my legacy lot where they've had a pool for ever, I was able to put in the new walls/floors just fine.

Okies, Im going to try this as well, because blue floating squares, where the lovliest earrings used to be, is driving me up and down the walls.
Ill let you know if it works out for me as well.
Baaaaaaaah.


/edit:
And the answer is, that doing the dl folder swaparound does not work on my sims. They still have blue flashing squares, where their earrings ought to be. :(

I'll try anything.


That sounds more like a Nvidia issue, or a just plain underpowered graphics card.

Drat. I played for a bit last night, and to experiment, made a vampirized Sephiroth. He's asleep in his closed basement coffin, and his fangs are hovering above it, flashing like his last mortal meal was a radioactive blueberry pie. Not exactly the best way to instill terror into the neighborhood.

Okay.  I played last night and installed earrings and glasses on several female sims. 

Started the game up this morning and sent a business owner to his lot where I knew all the females including the manager would show up sporting their new accessories.

Here's what I got:

The manager wearing glasses based on an XMSims mesh:
(http://www.ditzyprints.com/sims/manager2.jpg)

customer Octavia wearing earrings from Sim Chic (mesh from Sim Chic):
(http://www.ditzyprints.com/sims/octavia.jpg)

customer Tara who should be wearing Sim Chic earrings, but she's preggers, so maybe that's why they aren't there:
(http://www.ditzyprints.com/sims/tara.jpg)

and another customer wearing earrings from TSR based on a mesh by Lianna at TSR:
(http://www.ditzyprints.com/sims/wayburn.jpg)

And I asked my personal computer geek (husband) since I never get this stuff right and he says I have a Radeon 9600 video card, 2 gig of RAM and an AMD 2.1 gig processor.

So now I'm wondering if it's a conflict with the video card?

All I know for sure is that the glasses are all going.  No sense letting them clutter up the downloads folder if their gonna go blue...


edited because I used html not BB code.

I have blue flashing accessories since pets. My computer has the intel graphic (the one that was ok'd for the sims 2) and my son also has blue flashing accessories he has  Nivida  GeForce.  Some things work some do not. Simchic necklaces are ok.

That sounds more like a Nvidia issue, or a just plain underpowered graphics card.
[/quote]

I'm on a laptop, so it might be that my graphics card has finally failed to be powerful enough, but why does it show on one lot- the lot with more sims and more stuff- and not the other?

Different sized lots?  A large lot with lots of objects sucks more power out of the card.
Don't know, sorry.

I've seen this problem on my sims too, so far with one necklace and a pair of earrings. They turn blue and start hovering as the sim moves around, and changing them in the mirror doesn't seem to help. It's only accessories that I downloaded a while ago that are flashing blue though, newer ones from places like SimChic don't seem to suffer from the same problem.

The lots are the same sized- my legacy fam and my boyfriend's legacy fam- and since mine is several generations ahead of his, mine has way more objects on the lot as well as more sims, as I said... twice now.

Just wanted to add...almost ALL my blue accessories were based on XMSims meshes.  So they were removed from my game.

But before I did so, I did install both the recently updated Pets patch and the Seasons patch.  I figured this would not fix anything, especially after reading Pescado's explanation of how patches 'work'.  But, on the outside chance, I tried it anyway.  Nope. Still had blue eyewear based on XMSims meshes.  So they are gone.

So far, I am not experiencing problems with earrings based on Sim Chic mesh or Lianaa's TSR mesh. I have also not had problems with earrings based on Dr. Pixel's mesh downloaded from All About Style.

I have a cat eye glasses from Lianaa at TSR that I have yet to try out in the game - I am hoping that mesh is not going to cause the 'blue' problem, but I'm not holding my breath.

i had the problem with flashing accessories but it didn't fix until i reinstalled the entire game.   


now i'd like to figure out why the hell the snow groundcover in seasons causes the flashing blue screen of death.  everything else works fine  until it starts to "snow".

i really don't want to have to reinstall the game again, i think 4 times is plenty. :'(

Lately I put a bit more attention on flashing blue accessories, and I think I've spotted a sort of pattern. Apparently, my sims with flashing blue stuff (earrings and necklaces) have one or more of:
- custom hair
- custom eyebrows
- maxis eyebrows but with different genetic color (e.g. black eyebrows on genetically blond sim)

All the sims with binned hair and maxis eyebrows genetically matching, if they have blu stuff at start, a simple makeover with no other changes seems to fix the issue forever; on the other hand, sims with custom hair and/or eyebrows may retain the flash crap, or it will return later.

So far, the only exception were 3 drow sims, who have custom hair, custom eyebrows and custom skintone (genetic 0): they didn't have the "flashing blue 2: the return" issue.
All my other sims have no custom skintones, but only default replacements.

I don't know if all this makes sense, and I have not yet deepened the tests, but it might be a possibility.