I rarely throw parties and never use the Maxis balloon centerpieces, but my daughter always does. She just uses another neighborhood in my game, so we share the Downloads folder and what affects one game affects the other. That said, every time she uses the Maxis balloons she has a problem at cleanup time.

The error occurs whenever someone tries to dispose of them in a regular Maxis trash can. The error is thrown by both Macrotastics when told to Macro>clean, and Christianlov's NPCs, if they are the ones to clean up. She is unsure whether she gets an error if a Sim is directed to throw them away.

Here is one example from her error logs. Can someone tell me what the problem is?

Yes, I predicted the layer problem back when I predicted that the EP will have a Yeti.

While I appreciate the cutbacks on redundant memories, why aren't I getting second memories of events that should be important? For example, the elevator has crashed 5 times in my hood. Unfortunately, the same Sim has been in the elevator every time. Yet he only remembers the first time it crashed.

Also 'sold a masterpiece'. I'm only getting the first one. Or maybe I'm just getting the first one if the Sim isn't a Popularity Sim, not 100% sure.  The other day a Sim caught the stove on fire for the second time. Although she remembers burning the food both times, she only remembers the first house fire. Perhaps she burned 2 different types of foods. There are a few other things, but I can't remember them all. I think freezing was one of them too.

A long time ago I tried Squinge's "No duplicate memories" mod, but immediately removed it because it suppressed some duplicate memories that I felt were important to keep. I searched my entire folder for "mem" to make sure nothing was lurking, so unless someone tells me different, I assume that Maxis made some changes in this area. These memories are not being removed with 'delete trash'. They are not being created.

Also, I just recently started a new hood so I had CAS Sims that I updated using lot debugger's "Update Pre-Uni Sim". Whenever one of these families moves to a new lot for the first time, everyone in the family receives a memory for each of the parents of "~Parent~ graduated with Honors Cum Laude".  If I delete trash, it removes the memory of the move, but not of the non-existant graduation.

I have problems with the MTS2 trash can barrel. Especially if Christianlov's NPCs try to use them. At other times I get random errors with it. So whatever they did when making it, the game sees it differently than Maxis ones.

After a recent crash, I had to redo everything over.

So started the new hood with empty templates, downloaded Bender's Field by Numenor, and plopped it into the hood.

Went into the lot. Strays were created. (I don't have nostrayrepawn).

Made a few families and moved them into lots. After the last family was moved in, I called the pet adoption agency at which time the game lags while making pets for the pound.

I Left the game and checked all the character files. All of the strays have the last name of Bender, and all of the pound puppies have the last name of the household who made the call to the pet adoption agency.

Even though the last names are associated with other families, the strays and adoptables still show correctly as townies.

Although this isn't a big issue, what should I have done differently? Is it possible that since the strays were created when there were no Sims in the hood, just a servo, that it confused something? I don't think the last hood I created had the strays and adoptables associated with family names of existing Sims.

When using Inge's teleporter, it would be much easier if the strays were in their own family name. Adoptables could be put under the same or different family name as the strays, or all could be put under the same surname that townies and NPCs get. I just don't want them associated with names of people who live in the hood. After generations of Sims it will get confusing.

Sounds like the relationship flags didn't get reset. Is that something that can be added to this mod?

If not, take the dormies and use Insim to reset all their relationship flags. Do this before letting them interact with other Sims for best results.

EDIT: This can also be done in SimPe.

I was using different patches of dirt, but not fences. I've had problems in the past with Sims not being able to get into areas to water if certain edgings or fences were used and since I couldn't remember which ones were ok to use, I just quit using them.

Thanks for the tips. I was trying for different crops and getting all cucumbers.

My favorite is this:

http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_MiscHacks.htm

Clones of the cheap desks. Each desk can be clicked on and assigned to a Sim. Also get the homework patch that goes with it. Then children will come home and put their homework on their desk no matter where it is in the house. (Always leave an empty space next to the side of the desk that has the seat or Sims sometimes have trouble placing their homework on the desk).

I've tried a bunch of different setups and can't seem to figure out the correct way to use the signs so that the macro>farmer does what I expect. Can someone tell me how to place these correctly?

Maybe ACR makes some changes in this area. But we are both using it, aren't we? I'm pretty sure my game used to work the other way.


I was kind of waiting for some hard rejections. I made one Sim bi (500/500). But later he married and I forgot all about the fact that he wasn't straight until the gay Sims kept spotting him in the crowd. But they don't spot anyone that is straight.

This is exactly what happens. After you quit the game, there will be 2 items in downloads. One is the car and the other the recolors. If, like me, you have a well organized downloads folder, they will be easy to spot. They have horrible number names.

Things to try:

Using Insim, first try right clicking on the lawn and choose "extinguish all fires". Occasionally invisible fires happen and they just lag the crap out of any lot.

Go ahead and say goodbye to everyone. It won't hurt.

You can use Inge's teleport to clear off visitors. The worst that it will do is make a Sim get off the phone if talking. Sometimes, if they are on a cell phone, you will have to issue another one.

If that doesn't work, then spawn the selector. Choose 'select all visitors. That should make all the visitors controllable, invisible or not.

With testingcheats off, force an error on everything. Forcing an error on the object an invisible Sim is using sometimes makes them visible. It worked for me yesterday, but I saw the object using itself and knew there was an invisible Sim using it and forced the error on just the one object.

It's probably the invisible fire thing though with the lot lag. Even invisible visitors tend to go home around 2am and usually won't cause lag. I've also never run into anyone with invisible visitors that don't have Uni, although I'm sure anything is possible with Maxis.

Come to think of it, I don't think it used to work like this. 

It won't install with clean installer. I had to use the default Maxis installer, but it said that it installed ok.

Thanks for the link.

If you have marriagetraditional installed, the female will always take the male's last name.

But using that method with the female proposing, or changing their last names now, both results in one problem; the family name does not change.

Ann Jones proposes to John Smith. He accepts, marries and moves in with her. With married traditional both last names will be Smith. But when you go to the neighborhood screen, the family name will still be Jones. Moving them to different lots does not help and it takes changes in SimPe to fix the situation if you don't like it. Renaming them now has the same effect.

No, the Sims DO have gaydar.

I'm on a 2nd generation hood so there are few Sims in the game at this point. I had twin sisters both roll gay. But they are the only ones in the hood with that gender pref as the bi's all happen to be male. They get nothing when they scope room. I have 3 gay males in the hood and 4 bi males. The gay males will see both gay and bi, but not the straight ones. I noticed this when a particular Sim's attributes exactly matched the gay Sim's turn ons. But when he checks out that Sim no bolts show for him because he is straight.

One bi male Sim (2/2) was showing both males and females in the crowd upon scope room. Then a female started making passes at him and this went on for a few Sim hours. When she left the lot I had him scope again and only females showed up on his bolts panel. I checked and his gender prefs were now 6/-2.

I got that same error when I paused the game, then started moving the camera around to get just the right camera shot. I thought to myself. "Now there are rules as to how much I can look at my Sim?" Anyway, were you zooming in to see the players or did the error just randomly pop up?

I'm back to the junkyard dogs house in my cycle. I was hoping Pes would implement the dropping plate thing in the meantime, but since he hasn't, I tried other ways to cope with these dogs.

I guess I didn't think about it before because I usually don't run restaurants, but I decided to make many single plates so they would go into the inventory and I could just drop them from there. I had been having Sims go to the fridge to retrieve leftovers whenever dogs were hungry and Sims weren't. 

But when I dropped these on the floor for the dogs, they never touched them. I realized this when I got the 'dogs are starving' message. I have 'control pets on' so I selected the dogs and none of them could eat from any of those plates. But if I had a Sim make a single plate which is placed on the counter instead of in the inventory, I was able to make the dogs eat from it.

Maxis really didn't think this one through.

It sounds like a couple of your LTWs aren't working right. What do you have installed for LTW mods? Did you install any of the mods that change the want trees?

I don't understand why the lot debugger won't work as far as making them perma-plat. I've never had it fail before. But then I think I've only had about a half dozen situations that ever required me to have to use it.

Have you tried any of the other items that enable perma-plat? I know several items in my game do, although I've never used any of them except InSim and lot debugger to achieve it.

Let us know if you find something better. I quit using Inge's version because although it worked, you couldn't clean up dishes on Secret Society lots. If it disabled the autonomous clearing but left in manual cleaning, it would have been ok. But as it is, you can't even direct a Sim to clean up the plates on the SS lots.

Every once in awhile I post something then say to myself, "That was dumb, everyone knows that already." Later I am relieved when someone posts back that it helped them.

I've got a real life couple in my game and carefully worked on their personalities so that they matched the people I know. The only problem was that it created a 1 bolt couple even though I specifically made their turn ons/offs to match the other Sim rather than to reflect real life. The problem is that the couple is a 3 bolt couple in real life, in the way that Sims with 3 bolts always have to be up each other's asses whenever they are together.

I've seen the InSim option to change their Zodiac sign, as well as the one available on the lot debugger, but was always afraid that it would change their personalities and I wouldn't be able to get them back exactly the same way they were. So thanks for posting that. I'm going to fix things as soon as I get back into the game.

Monique at MTS2 has a relationship gnome. You make a Sim active, click on it, and you can remove as many Sims from your list of known Sims that you want. Once a Sim is removed from your list, your Sim will no longer roll up any wants to deal with that Sim. I don't even receive phone calls from those idiots any more after that.

If you interact with a Sim later in the game that you removed, that Sim is placed back into your known Sims panel, with the same exact relationship you had with them when you removed them. For example, if you remove the headmaster with whom you had a relationship of 32/15 he won't call your Sims and your Sims won't roll wants to call him or be his friend. Later when you call him back to your house for another child and greet him again, he shows back up in your panel with the same 32/15 plus any points you just gained from talking to him. He can be removed again after he leaves the lot.

I use it all the time to remove the maids, delivery boys, the headmaster, and customers met at owned businesses.

Since it was cloned from the gnome, Sims do tend to steal it. So I went into SimPe and removed the theft option. Her gnome can be kicked, but it won't be used by macrotastics. So I keep the gnome around to remove irritating Sims from the relationship panels, and keep a regular gnome, kick the cheat, or other object for macrotastics to use.

It can be used to remove pets as well as Sims, and also has a function to "find" Sims whom you would like to call but haven't met yet. They are added to the relationship panel with a score of 0/0.

No, it's the same. Some Sims will roll nothing but date wants the entire time, others will roll a few date wants then start wanting to gain skills, interact with relatives (the generic wants, not play with specific Sim unless they are on the lot), go to work, stay home from work, get promoted, buy a pet, qualify for scholarships, etc. until their entire wants panel is filled up with wants that are impossible to fill on the lot they are on or in the time allowed. Sometimes you can get around it by fulfilling the wants of the date, but sometimes the date starts rolling these stupid wants too. At that point you are guaranteed that the date cannot possibly be a dream date.

I could understand if they were dating a one bolt Sim. Perhaps they just aren't that interested. But this happens even with 3 bolt couples with high str/ltr as well as couples just getting to know each other.

I haven't found anything in common for this behavior either. I can take one Sim on a date and get all the crappy wants, then take the same Sim on another date with the same partner and get all date wants that time. The only thing I have noticed is that it appears that Knowledge Sims are slightly more guilty about filling their slots with skill gain wants, but it doesn't always hold true.

I can't test this theory in my game as I currently have no dormies at all, but what would happen if right before you moved a Sim into an empty (but previously used) dorm, you run the randomizer on the lot debugger? Is it possible that it would cause a different (not newly made) pool of dormies to show up to claim the myne doors?

I love playing with dormies with nouniprotect in place. But I got tired of the same old idiots being there every generation. And with fight club and ACR in the game, that means the dormies get an advantage because they have generations of fights under their belts compared to your young Sim. And as mentioned earlier, the same ones woohooing over and over again. That is why I finally went to no dormies at all.

Just thought of something. Is there a way to make a mod where dormies are reset?

What I mean is, it seems we would rather have new dormies each generation, but yet we don't want the bloat that new characters would add. If we could reset the dormies so that they lost all their memories, fight experience, loves, etc. then they would be like new Sims. Their names could be changed to another random name, and if renaming isn't possible, we could do it manually with the lot debugger after they moved in, give them fresh clothes, and then we would have new dormies without adding a single character file. It would be even better if we could also re-roll their aspirations and and personalities. Most of this we can do in game already, except for the amnesia part. When moving out your last playable, a pop-up window could go through each dormie asking if you want that one reset so that if there was a particular dormie you wanted to keep to marry, or whatever, then that one wouldn't get the reset.

I have to thank you, syberspunk, for continuing to make mods to improve the playability of Uni. It seems most modders have given up on Uni because they personally don't play that sub-hood.

I actually like the break Uni gives me from playing the same Old 'go to work, have a kid, teach kid, get promotion, pop out another kid, routine that the regular neighborhood offers. I depend on Uni to keep the game interesting.

All the cheat does is SHOW you errors that are already occuring in the game. It doesn't produce them. Read the FAQ sticky on this site and learn how to capture an error log. Basically, at this point, you already have captured the errors and they are in your logs folder inside TheSims2 folder.

Also, just because a custom item isn't present on THIS lot, does not mean that it isn't the source of your errors. Some custom content just have to be in the game to cause problems.

After reading FAQ, you can post your errors for someone to look at. Most likely it is the same error popping up over and over again.