More Awesome Than You!

I was playing my Legacy family, around 4.00 Sim-time, and randomly a limo drove by. It stopped for about three seconds halfway to the mailbox, and then just continued driving. No Sim was sent to work or coming home at this time. I'm really not sure what happened. All I know is it's never happened to me before, and I've never even heard of it happening at all (but then again, knowing me, it probably has happened to others and I never found out).
Did something get borked?

Edit: This is a separate question/annoyance. I keep hearing picture snapshots, like there's a Sim reporter hiding in my bushes. It's happened quite a few times, and only on my Legacy lot. I've checked the lot every time, but only the family is on lot. I don't have the camera career reward, so it's not that. And I'm not taking pictures then, either. I'm confused.

Sounds like you have the Obsessed Fan hiding out in your yard! :D

   I did hear that Donald Trump was looking to buy a new Mansion, so he's having your lot appraised.

It reminds me of way back when no sims would be home and I would constantly hear whistling.

ooh, wasn't that guy the worst? I had trained dogs and everything but he just didn't give up!

I've had the occasional carpool show up when there was nobody in the house set to go to work (or even in that particular carpool type) most recently, the yellow sports car.
I was a little worried because it was a house full of vampires who were all sleeping in their coffins, but it wasn't for any of them.
Just pulled up, waited about 4 seconds then drove off...

*shrugs

Seems hard to believe that after all this time it's something entirely new that nobody's noticed.  Can sims interact with the limo?

Could it be caused by a hack conflict?

Probably. :)

I was too amused by this random limo that I didn't check to see if they could interact with it. It didn't stop long enough for them to have anyway.

As far as hack conflicts, unless it's one that I can't easily see using the Hack Detection Utility then I have no idea. Or, you know, using a bit of common sense.

The HCDU won't tell you about hacks that conflict with game updates, though, only hacks that conflict with each other. So the hack conflict could be caused by an older version of a hack lurking in your downloads somewhere.

Do you have BV installed?  Could be a hack not compatible with BV yet.  If you don't have BV, it's possible for older versions of hacks to sneak into your downloads with downloaded lots, especially if you use the EAxis installer instead of the clean installer.

Also, terribly easy to miss one hack when you update your hacks, and there's one left in the folder that hasn't been updated because it's now obsolete.

Oh it's much worse than that. Drew Carey is stalking the neighborhood, just WAITING for a party to crash! RUN!!

In any case in game probably must be not only walkbys,but traffic too. :)

No, I don't have BV, and I also just cleaned out my hacks and updated them all recently. I also don't download lots, and I use clean installer every time I install something. I haven't seen the Maxis installer in a long, long time. *RK sighs*

Your hood may be on the verge of turning into a BFBVFS, I'm afraid...

Could just be the Clown......or the Mime..... ;D......or even a cake dancer looking for a party!

As to the camera noises... do you, by any chance, have the radio on and set to the pop station?

One of the songs has camera noises as part of the "music".

It is possible for sounds to go buggy and get stuck.  On one lot I had the screetchy sound the base guitar makes as a sim stops playing it get stuck.  It was terribly annoying, and the only way I found to get rid of it was to move the family out.

Oh, purplebunny, I do have the pop music always on! That might be it. I'll check the next time I hear it.

I've had the sound of garage doors get stuck too.  Very annoying.

I've had this happen quite frequently. For me it stops if I exit the house and go back in.

The Music career reward seems to be the worst for it so I rarely place that anymore.

Oh, I know how to fix the sounds issue, I used to get it all the time with the gardener's truck and the drum kit. Go to your music options, change the settings from 'stereo' to the next option along (4.0 I think, but not sure) go back to live mode, play for a couple of seconds, then change back to 'stereo'. The looping sounds should be gone.

Emma, that's useful to know!  Will it also cure the stereo that goes silent on you - sometimes telling a sim to play "next song" only lasts until that song is over, then it goes silent again.

I don't know, I've never had that problem. Worth a try though!

I'll certainly do that!  I get the problem a lot, don't know why, but I always have done.  Maybe if my sims were allowed to turn the things off it wouldn't happen, but of course, they're not......

In my case it was truly stuck.  I endured it for weeks because I had invested quite a lot of time to that lot and it contained generations of diplomas and date rewards.  I deleted the guitars, demolished the room they had been in, I think I even went over the whole area with stuck object removers; no luck.

For me it's always the plumbing. Toilets flush permanently and sinks with tap turned on full. Very distracting. Exiting the lot works usually.

Does deleting groups.cache help?

In one house of mine it was the SSX3 sounds playing randomly. Never was able to get rid of it, but no one lives in that house anymore, so it's probably cleared out by now. I also had the "music stops playing on the stereo" thing, and eventually I ended up muting the music and just playing Winamp in the background, heh. Though I do miss some of the songs, I'll have to look into extracting them so I can put them in with the MP3s...

Didn't there used to be somewhere you could download the sims music, or was that just Sims1?

I've found that when my stereo stops playing music, it's usually after I've been playing for a long time without saving. I think it has something to do with memory or RAM usage. When I remember to save frequently, this doesn't happen.

You're probably right, NVA, and the trouble is, even after you've saved, the bad behaviour of the stereos seems to have become repetitive.  But saving is something I tend to do when I finish playing a lot, as I only play a couple of days at a time, and I still get the problem.  But I've also had a funny thing where, after patching, the stereo seems to be playing (ie you can hear the music) but the stero is, in fact, turned off.  Getting a sim to turn it on and then off solves it, but it's yet another annoyance of post-patch resetting!

I never have the problem of the stereo sound continuing after turning off the stereo, but any outdoor speakers continue to show the little notes floating, even when the stereo is off.  Have never been able to get them to stop.  This appears to enable dancing interactions without the stereo on (or can sims dance without music anyway?).

As far as I'm aware, the only dancing that does not require music is (a) dance on toes and (b) slow dance.

I've never had a problem with the speakers that you mention, but I never use speakers in conjunction with a stereo (at least, not since the base game).  Since speakers can function without the existence of a stereo, you appear to me to have the problem of sound ceasing on stereos which are on, only you get it applied to speakers instead.  Since speakers cannot be turned off/on, I don't know of a way to get rid of the musical notes.....