It definitely became problematic after that latest EA patch.  Prior to that, if I stationed the sim needing to write the thank-you notes very near an empty desk, then clicked on the mailbox and instructed them to write thank-you notes, they sat down and wrote them (pulled paper from tushes and then they just fling 'em in the air and they 'poof' and go to recipient - dontcha just wish it was really that easy?).  Now, not sure as the only couple I had married, experienced the CTD upon checking the mailbox and I assumed it was an EA problem, not Awesomemod, or I would have mentioned it over a week ago. sorry.

Edited to add:  Just in case this isn't EA caused either - continuing to occasionally have CTDs when I click on an opportunity - doesn't matter if I click accept or cancel. Latest one was a skilling one for handiness...and if I recollect correctly, most of the ones that 'cause' the CTD are skill related rather than say celebrity related.

I am currently unable to activate the "make sacred" option from the pie menu when clicking on a house. New fambly, new neighborhood (Hidden Springs). Only mod installed is latest version of AwesomeMod.

Update: Kissing toast was correct...problem has been solved.

I first noticed this upon installation of the Pets EP, so assumed since it was stupid, it was caused by EA coding.  Have also had repeated instances where I have sent teens to school early (at 7 a.m.) via their own vehicle only to have them run (as in on foot) all the way back home and get on the bus.  Also am unable to send children of any age to school via teleporter. The only method of getting to school, seems to be via the bus and it seems to be 'set in concrete'.

Edited to fix typo.

With latest build (11/24 9:34 am), I am experiencing tremendous lag and odd time jumps. Sims stand for long periods of time before engaging in next queued activity and the clock will jump anywhere from half hour to around an hour instead of progressing by minute or at most two to three minute increment jumps while in 'normal' speed.

Took out AwesomeMod (my only installed mod) and problem does not occur.

I have also noticed some slight distortions on some animations with the two pugs I have put in game - I did use EA's 'pug' as the basis, but tweaked it so they looked much more like actual pugs - very flat faces, removed almost all 'snout' length to create them.  So there is something to that as far as flat faced, broad headed small dogs are concerned. I have not played with any other breeds of dogs, so not sure if it's specific to all small dogs or just the ones we prefer.

I got a prompt to patch via the launcher when I installed Hidden Springs. I figured it was a Hidden Springs things... My game version is 9.0.73.012001  I don't know if it changed the game version or not. I do know that it hasn't affected use of Awesome Mod nor any other custom content.

I have not installed the Pets Patch nor the Pets EP and don't know that I will any time soon.

Sorry, kinda forgot that I can "say" (er, type) things here and not get 'pink-slapped' (eBay talk for what happens when we say even slightly naughty things and someone reports us - yes, there are a lot of self-appointed 'board police' over there).

So here it is:  CRAP CRAP CRAP. Just for Eeyore.

Okay, now I'm going back to lurking.

Delurking...just to say:  "Have we learned NOTHING from the two previous incarnations of PETS in Sims games? Am I the only one who remembers how utterly awful and bug-filled the Pets EPs were for both Sims1 and Sims2? And yes, I expect it to be a bug-filled exasperating piece of carp this time around, too. Hence, I've decided to avoid all things pet related until our fearless leader gives the all clear. I think I can live without directing sims to scoop pixelated poop for a really long time.

Well I just drained my Paypal account and sent $25. Sorry it can't be more...but, eBay and Etsy sales haven't been all that great lately (Maybe I should play less and sew/sell more?)...

As always, happy to contribute because the game isn't playable without Awesome Mod.

EXACTLY!  They ought to at least be able to bite/drink from whatever random stranger they encounter in order to survive...

But considering that I played one of them for only a couple days and he managed make something like 6 or 7 vampire babies, that particular instance of Bridgeport is pretty much vampire central now. I haven't been playing that fambly for a while now...just don't want to deal.

I kinda miss the 'bleh'...it was stupid in a Mel Brooks kind of stupidly funny way...or maybe that's just me?

As I am not a Twilight fan in any way, I have only hearsay to go by, but didn't the author make them sparkly in sun as opposed to burning up in sun? So operating on that assumption, one would assume a vampire could sparkle OR burn up in sunlight...not both.

And while I do follow True Blood and obviously see the similarity (the plasma juice boxes are a lame version of the bottled artificial blood in that show)...I honestly have decided that the vampires in game are just not all that fun...as Jolrei pointed out - the bloodsucking fiends version where there could be actual death from a vampire bite would be better, but I get why EA did things this way - we wouldn't want to scare the kiddies...so we get 'vampire-lite'.

Well, I finally played with one of them vampire sims...and honestly, he didn't burn up fast enough, if you ask me...I've now got little vampire babies and toddlers and children all over Bridgeport... I realize EA doesn't want the game all that macabre, but there really ought to be more than one way to kill them and they really should be able to drain and thus kill (not just drink from or turn) sims. 

Also, the genetics seem skewed - he fathered 7 children before his 'untimely demise' and all 7 are vampires. None of the mothers are - I assumed (obviously incorrectly) that there would be a 50/50 chance of vampirism in his offspring born of normal females...joke's on me. So given that the only mod I use in game is AM - will these offspring who have 50% vampire genetics, but are in fact vampires, what are the odds their children will be vampires if they mate with a 'normal' sim?  I'm suspecting that the vampiric gene is dominant.

The good news is that at least they don't sparkle. I think we may have been given the 'True Blood' version of vampires as opposed to the 'Twilight' version. yay.

Isn't Bridgestone a brand of tires?  I thought the new town was called Bridgeport?  Or is it different names in different places like EA did with stuff in Sims2 where it was differently named over in Europe, etc.?

Did EA do something to ramp up jealousy and anger re romantic interests?  Seems much more intense since installing NL?

I am having an old problem reappear with my 'neatnik' sim - she goes to bed and immediately gets up to make the bed. She apparently can't stand that her bed is unmade because she's in it sleeping. Usually, directing her to sleep once again solves the problem, but this has happened every night since she was created...and ONLY with the neatnik sim - the other sims in the household are not neat and they do not have this problem.  I do remember this happening way back when - probably with the base game.

More likely Candys has learned English as a second language.

Back to the business at hand. Just sent $20 to add to the pot.  The game's not worth playing without awesomemod.

Have had sound issues off and on since installing Ambitions...suspect it's an EA thing. Waxing poetic here - I remember the old days in the first generation of this game when the sound would shut off - it was a sure sign of imminent CTD.

Anyway, elsewhere on these boards, our fearless leader had suggested using 'alt+tab' a couple times... so far, that or going to 'edit town' and back into the current played fambly has eventually restored the sound - although it makes a horrendous ruckus when it returns.

you know, to be safe, I'd choose someone who has a career in one of the original fields that didn't get monkeyed with by Ambitions. - political, business, military, athletic are the ones that I've played that play just as before installing Ambitions.

Long awaited? Not by me. But if we must, as long as I can have my sims run the shouty voles over and the cats hunt them by night...well, all will be right in Riverview in my book.

I just added funds to the pot... say, are these contributions tax deductible?

The update has arrived. What a list of borked crap that they are fixing...notice that the list does not specifically include a fix for the inability to dig at foreign digsites - but says it fixes some invention that in some way may be related, so wonder if that's it?  Don't know. Won't be installing the patch until Pescado has an update for AM for it.

I actually haven't played all that much with Ambitions - real life has kept me quite busy of late...

But so far:
The Good:  Twinbrook is a nice addition to the game. The new hairs that came with Ambitions are pretty nice for a change. I love that you can now change the opacity of make-up!  new careers...yay.
The Bad and Ugly: I reserve judgement until I've had more time to play. But, is it my imagination or are the new traits pretty much just window dressing when they could have been so much more?

I saw some of that tape at JoAnn Fabrics the other day - so the basting tape people have figured out that it's being used for that purpose and are now marketing it for holding straps in place, etc.

Have y'all ever read the blog Apocalypsticknow? The author swears that every girl should get beauty tips from a drag queen.

And just to put that back on topic a little bit - I wouldn't mind a drag queen in my neighborhoods, but it's gotta be more than just a peggy hair slapped on a male sim...if they're gonna do drag, do it right!

Well, I literally went 'shopping' and re-downloaded only what I remembered looking good in game. Wasn't much. The one site I tended to DL a lot from was All About Style, but even a lot of her stuff doesn't have that much purpose in-game, so I left 9/10ths of that out this time around, too.

As for that particular Rose clothing item... when it was installed in my game it wound up randomly on a sim that was obese. Really obese...and since Rose doesn't believe in obese...when you put that particular clothing item on a fat sim, she gets that skinny. That made me angry (maybe from the arm in my avatar you can tell I'm not a size 0?)...and thus it had to go.

Claeric - I suspect that this mesh is somehow like that stupid doll file - it's hidden somewhere in your game and I think nukage is the only way you'll be rid of it plus anything else ugly/malfunctioning, etc.

Thank God I learned my lesson about downloading lots way back in the Sims2 days - I don't. Never will.  Not to say I don't like someone else's work and maybe use it as inspiration for a lot for my game, but I'll build my own, tyvm.

I can tell you how I got rid of that and every other yucko mesh, pattern, etc. that I had installed in my game.

I started over. From scratch. Cleaned every last bit of Sims3 that I could find from the registry, etc. after uninstalling and installed all over again, and this time, I didn't put in any custom content that I wasn't darn sure I wanted (about 1/8 what I had before). No more stupid Rose meshes, no more stupid peggy hairs for women and men when I wouldn't put them on a male sim in 10,000 years, etc.