According to a post by Inge Jones over on the Sims 3 site just a couple days ago, some tool she and her husband Peter made for I believe she said TSR is responsiblie for all the blue lot problems in the game. She said they notified EA and advised the Guru's to stop wasting their time in finding a solution as they have the answer already. Apparently anything bluelotted is a total phail and must be discarded. Anything that used that tool to create any items for the game will cause bluelots - so that all that CC also apparently must be discarded.

Other than that I know nothing else about the issue and suggest you speak with Inge or Peter.

Well I discovered the 3 booter and limiter did not work when I moved them to the new stuff pack - but I see you have updated the 3 booter - so where do I put them this time? I assume it should be the sp seeing we have to use that disk to start the game, or is that wrong?
 I had to move them into WA to work with that  xp and that worked fine - but the stuff pack doesn't.  I just got the stuff pack tonight, but it did not take long for my card to start running a bit warmer than I liked it and my framerate went sky high several times.

Well I did try a brand new Sim and used the other neighborhood and sure enough got this fellow to Level 6 in fishing and level 7 in gardening and he suddenly lost his ability to fish. He only had 2 seeds in his inventory, but a lot of bait, and fruits from all 3 adventure locales. He also had completed three trips to France, 3 to China, and 1 to Egypt when he suddenly couldn't fish or use the local hometown grocery store. He got a quest from the science lab in town to go to Egypt and bring back 2 aligators - and seeing he had just returned from France when he got the opportunity, I figured I'd have him get his level up until he could travel again. Sure enough when I commanded him to fish, the command dropped from que. Even making him go stand by the water and him getting his own thought to fish, the minute he pulled out the rod, before he even could cast, it dropped out of que again.

Then I tried sending him to the store just to see if he could purchase something, and it also dropped out of que. Oh and the kicker, I made sure this guy did not have either the anglar or the green thumb traits, instead I gave him adventure, athletic, loves the outdoors, brave, and dare devil. So to me it seems to be getting worse.

Also something else to note is there is a taxi stuck in front of the science building, that I noticed has been there since his first trip and every time he comes home from a trip he enters the hood through that same taxi with the orange haired female driver. There are 2 icons next to his picture, one says sitting in taxi and the other says go home. When I checked my game in the other hood, there is likewise also a stuck taxi so I don't know if this has anything to do with the glitch or just another glitch as I can't say if the taxi was stuck there before my Sims lost the fishing and use of grocery store abilities or not.

So, I just decided to do a manual uninstall, reinstall myself as quite frankly I am tired of messing with it. It will be a few days before I can actually deal with it though as we have a lot of family coming for the holidays and I've got a ton of cooking to do. But anyway thanks for the imput. It most likely is a corrupt install if both hoods have the same silly problem and not everyone else has these problems. Like I said my game is about as vanilla as they come and there's nothing else it could be. So thanks again.

As my adventure Sim is also a collector, he does indeed have all kinds of seeds in his inventory. Also Jowe, I don't really think the destination matters after all or the quest, as i was playing last night with a different household and they have never been to China yet, but they have had 2 French trips and 3 to Egypt. It is a family of 3 - the dad, the mom, and a daughter who is now a teen. Also being an angler doesn't have any bearing on this, as  none of the members of this family are anglers, but the teen is already on her  8th level in fishing, the mom is 4th level, and the dad is also 8th level. But suddenly the teen cannot fish or go to the grocery store in their hometown, but she can fish and shop on Vacation.  The dad does not have a problem - yet anyway - but he has only bait in his inventory, no seeds whatsoever. The mom has seeds and the teen has seeds as they both have the green thumb trait. They also have special, rare seeds - but it is only the daughter who cannot fish or use the store in their town. This makes me conclude it was as i suspected that a sim has to be a specific fishing level before this affects them, as like I said my previous Sim was 6th level, but his predicessor is only 5th level. In the family group the daughter is 8th level, but the mom is only 4th level. The only other sameness in my teen and my first Sim on the other lot is they both have the green thumb trait - but then so does this teens mother. I will try and get her level up and see if she also loses the ability. I would guess this happens at level 6 in fishing - as the same Sim in my second rendention after I restarted him is still fishing and shopping, but he is only up to level 5 right now.


Could any of you either confirm if your Sims also have the green thumb trait, what level are they in gardening and in fishing  when they can no longer fish or go to the store.

Also where one of you said you don't have WA yet, then I'd have to guess this problem had to have happened due to the patch for the base game, but not the newest patch as I had this happen to my Sim like 2 days after I installed the 1.7 patch and WA. I just assumed it was a fault of WA - which it can't be if one of you do not have WA.

I usually patch my game the minute a patch is announced, so I was patched to date when I installed WA.

Yeah, some people reported that mods played a part in their fishing problems too, but like I put in my post I have no mods, no CC, nothing - so this also happens - apparently - in a totally vanilla game as well. Quite weird that the same glitch can be caused with mods in one scenario and without anything in another.

I was just reporting all the things I observed from the git-go. I have yet to figure out how they are related or if the new patch prevents this from occurring again. Like I said I uninstalled/reinstalled and have started another brand new game, but using the CAS sim I created the day WA came out and not my saved game. So same sim, same set up on his lot, and I tried to follow the same pattern but the new patches are installed. Like I said I have zero third party content including no mods whatsoever - but then I didn't have any the day WA came out.  I was sort of leaning toward the problem having to do with that particular quest as 3 other people reported the same exact problem happening with them. Of the 3 only one had any CC and awesomemod; 1 had the NRass story mod, and the 3rd had no CC, no mods, in fact not even store content or Riverview. She said something about not having the net on her Sims pc, so she was as vanilla as you could get. We all had in common that the Sims with the problems had all had multiple trips already, all the Sims had the angler trait, and that apparently the sim must have reached at least 6 level in fishing before this happens. I had the lowest level at 6 as I had been concentrating my sims between trip times on the martial arts and his green thumb trait as well. He was at 8th level in gardening and about to level up to 9. Only one of those 3 had the green thumb trait besides mine. My sim was the only Sim to have the 10th level in the martial arts. But all 4 of us had recieved that quest off the jobs board for the fish for the scholar's garden and just like me we all ran out of the fruit before we could complete the quest and were sent back home. As far as I know I am the only one of the 4 who went back to China to complete it, as like I said I was able to grow the fruit at home, so not having the merchant was not a big problem - but then the quest remained uncompleted seeing the game had apparently killed off the Sim requesting the fish be brought to him at the scholar's garden. At a standstill, I just gave up and did a total reinstall after manually uninstalling and I'm trying it again with the same guy but he is in the newly created state I made him, so I'm bringing up his levels again. I was - like I stated at level 5 in fishing this go around and my Sim just arrived on his 3rd China visit when I left the game last night. I have an abundance of all the fruits so I will see if I can get that quest again. So far the merchants are where they belong. I went in and bought something off of each one.


Out of curiosity, did you happen to have that quest for the 3 fish for the scholar's garden pond, or is that not a factor in your case? Like I said all 4 of us that encountered this problem did have it. If you do not, then that makes that quest not the problem. I do know there are at least 2 other simmers on yet another site also having the problem, but both of them say they had this quest and had completed it before leaving China and had in fact began a new quest before their time was up. So it is not as I started to think that this had happened because the quest was not completed. But where they had the quest - I still wonder if that was not a trigger.

Also do you have all the patches?

Actually it is either caused by WA or the patch, as several people are posting this problem on a number of websites, and some without any game content but EA's. Pescado - from the posts and my own experience with this - it also seems to correspond with the same Sim unable to buy or sell anything from the grocery store in their hometowns once they get a problem fishing. Most report their Sim cannot fish period in their home town even with out picking a bait, yet when their Sim goes back on a Holiday/Vacation destination they can fish with no problem, but when they try to shop the merchants aren't appearing in the stores. It is indeed a strange and somewhat complex glitch if you ask me.

In my experience my  Angler/Adventure Sim had no problem fishing or buying/selling their goods, or merchants disappearing through 2 trips to China, then 1 trip to France, then 2 trips to Egypt -  as during this time he was building his  skills until he reached skill level 6 in fishing and skill level 10 in martial arts, then followed that levelling to go back to China and compete in 5 Tournaments. My Sim did carry bait from all the countries for all the fish including his hometown in his inventory at the time he left for his 3rd trip to China, and had been actually fishing when he got the phone call opportunity to compete in the 5 tournaments. I also sent my Sim to the adventure board on his 2nd day in China as he had a 5 day Visa and had completed 4 of the needed 5 tournaments already, so I sent him to the board. I remember his quest was a minor one, and that was to fish for 3 specific fish  and then to bring the fish to some guy over at the scholar's garden. I recall the fish required one of the Chinese crops of which my sim did have two of in his inventory, but to be sure he'd have enough to catch all 3 fish I sent him to the food market in China to buy a couple more of these fruit and discovered the shop merchant never showed up. I had him hang around that market all day and even the locals were getting angry there was no merchant as they wanted food. I also noticed no merchant showed in the book store or the store that sold the camping stuff as well. The only merchant that did show was the one for the antiques and decor. In fact I tried for the next 3 days to link up with the food merchant - as sure enough my Sim ended up with just 2 of the 3 fish he needed and ran out of fruit.

I did have some of that fruit growing in my Sims garden though, so I just figured I'd complete my tournament quest, hold on to the two fish and come back to China after the fruit was harvested from home.

It was after I got back home I also noticed that my Sim - who had actually went up another fishing level to 7 in China, had lost that level and was back to level 6. Not only that when I tried to send my Sim to the market in his hometown to sell the newly picked produce from his garden and to buy some cheese for fishing, it kept cancelling the action. In fact he couldn't buy anything or sell anything in the local store. When I tried to send him down to the ocean to fish the action kept cancelling. Even when he thought of fishing himself he'd get ready to pull out his rod and the action cancelled. After 3 days of this I sent him back to China with the fruit he needed (from his garden) to fish to complete his quest thinking perhaps the unfinished quest was creating the problem and I find out that fishing is no problem in China. I catch the third fish and head over to the scholar's garden and that's when I get the pop up that tells me that the questor was no longer availiable for my Sim to complete the quest.

Now I notice in the newest patch there is indeed a fix for the game wiping out questors - so apparently this was a problem and quite possibly the cause of the whole unable to fish/ buy produce etc thing. I don't know for sure, as at the time I was so annoyed and assumed it was my game. I did a manual uninstall/reinstall and started the whole works over with a copy of that Sim back to when I first made him in CAS. I have yet to get that particular quest again for this Sim and at present he is just at level 5 in fishing and has no problem fishing yet. So I do not know if the problem is solved with the fix in the newest patch or not.

To clarify though my game does not have any CC or mods with the exception of store stuff that were either free or that I got with the free Sim points from both the base game and WA, and recolors of EA stuff I made myself. I got tired of dancing the patch dance well before WA came out, and just did a total clean install of the base game after the 1.4 patch created trouble with the CC. So I know the problem was an EA one and not the Awesomemod or any other CC or hacks.

Draken, I spent the whole afternoon on my Sims last day in China at the Merchants with the Special merchant, and not one of those merchants ever appeared. Even the special merchant got angry she could not get any food to eat, so she finally left and went home. I did not try deleting the cash registers though, as I did not think I could.

I have an Adventure Sim who also has the Discipline trait, the athletic trait, the Angler trait, and the green thumb - he has mastered the martial arts, his Athletic is at 7, his gardening is level 8, his cooking is level 5, and his fishing skill was 6. Now he can't fish, I get no options period; and he can't buy or sell anything at the grocery store when back in the Sunset Valley home town.

 Before a third trip to China apparently triggered this, he had been to China twice, then to France once, then to Egypt twice (In that precise order), and everything was fine after each return home. I started getting opportunities to do some tournaments in China, 10  to be exact, so I had him return to China. In between Tournies he got the small quests like fishing for certain fish, which took bait  grown in China, so he bought a bunch of the fruits he needed and extra's to bring home to grow his own trees. He completed everything he had to do and got some mega rewards, plus he was up to level 10 now in fishing and athletics, and for some odd reason gardening went up to 9 and cooking went to 7 even though he only cooked a couple of things at base camp, and he harvested crops just twice he came across in China. I thought it was odd, but shrugged my shoulders to it. Then I find out the real truth - when he gets home finally. As not only can't he fish now or go shopping, all his skills are back to exactly what they were before he left for China this time. He does have credit for the tournament successes, but that is all.

Finally I sent him back to China to see what the skills and everything would be, and discovered he can fish and shop in China - the skills did not go back up like I had hoped they would. Even more interesting is I decided to send him to the book store before he left China again and get the 2 last books he didn't already have from there to discovered he couldn't - the shop keeper was gone. So he went to the grocer to get a meal, and that merchant was gone too. In fact the only merchant in their store was the one that sold tents, as the antique dealer guy is also missing. The special merchant was around, as she is also his teacher and best friend, and she could sell him stuff that she had, but he can't buy anything else in China. Then he gets home and he still has no fishing option in SV nor can he buy from the grocer. The skills appear stuck now too as well. This is super freaky.

Just wanted to add- I had patched my game up to date as soon as the patches came out, but I did not have WA the day it came out. In fact I didn't get WA until the following week on Wednesday evening. I also have a 99 percent vanilla game, with the only things in my game ibesides what came with it is some of the EA store stuff; the 3 booter and fps limiter from here, and HP's enhanced EA skin default. That is it. No mods, no CC, no hacks - and this is a brand new hood and I made the Sim in CAS just for the game. The only sims in this hood is the Sims EA put there besides my Sim and a family of 3 Sims I also made in CAS that lives across the street.

I wanted to check out WA with a single male YA with mostly WA traits and all WA clothes and hair; and then a family - mom, dad, and child age girl with just basegame traits, and their clothing is a mix between WA, basegame, and store. Both live on empty lots that I built a pond and put a garden spot for. Both my male Sim and the family went to China right off the bat, and I bought the cabin tents there for them to live in on their home lots so they would have plenty of money for exploring.

The family I admit have only been to China once and France, as I was not particularly fond of playing with the kid in tow. They seem fine after just having had 2 - 3day adventures. They are fishing, shopping, skilling, and skilling with no problem. So obviously something I did with just my YA triggered the problem. I keep wondering if it may have something to do with the Fish and fruits my Sims brought back from his next to the last trip to China. The only thing he had brought back before from any of his travels was just books and the new equipment in each country - like the martial arts equipment, the fortune cookie machine, the juice machine, the scooter, and things like that and the treasures of course. But when he came back from China he had a bunch of the fish left over from his quests and lots of the fruits, so I had him put them in the fridge to keep them. He also planted several of the fruits he had in his garden.

I never have had any problem with my sims fridge nor the lots in town like others report, nor have I had any problem going over to my other families lots and playing with them several times, so I also apparently do not have those problems. At least not yet. It did take me a while to get these problems I do have. I did try resetSim and it did not work. I did also change to the other household and then came back a few sims days later, and still no change. Any clues anyone?

Pescado,

I have a Question here?

After I installed WA, I had to move my limiter and 3 booter to the WA folder and make the start up short cut to that in order for it to run, as they no longer were running installed as originally directed - in the base game folder.

Maybe I missed some post here that stated we needed to move them - but I just want to know if the Limiter and 3 booter is supposed to be move to each EP and sp as they come out or not? They both began functioning normally once they were moved - but it bothers me that there is now nothing in regard to them in the base game folder. Is this right?

Actually a few nights ago an actual EA Guru stuck his nose into my posts with a noob regarding the Riddler. This noob thought her mom's pc  was on the fritz, so I was in the midst of explaining what little we have figured out about these 3 buildings, and in pop the Guru - to confirm it was not the mothers pc, and that EA engineers were looking into the problem as he spoke. He said it was an EA texture that was just used in those 3 buildings (that is not availiable to us) that had corrupted and they were trying to find out why.

In my head it now makes sense why we can recolor these buildings and the riddler will just return as it would be akin to us trying to recolor the rabbithole buildings. We couldn't. What I can't figure is why EA bothered to use any texture on buildings we are all higher apt to alter to start with. This also solves the riddle why even the sledge hammer could not delete a few areas on these buildings. So back to my first statement on the riddler about Voodoo. EA's got to stop doing things it apparently knows nothing about - just like Voodoo.

I was the one who noticed the stair rail turned into balcony rails both at the Sims forum and here. Seeing I have already added those rails from MTS, I thought I should reply to this query, along with disputing all the others as a big NIL in my game.

So to answer you first, nope - it did not make a difference to have these extracted rails added to my game.

As to the one claiming a total repaint of every single wall, floor, and even roof, terrain paint, and adding paint where there was none at all (like inside the square columns and their floors - did NOT stop the riddler from reappearing. It did delay the riddler, but for only about 2 Sims weeks. I did notice that not playing one of those hoods kept the riddler wall at bay though, as I made 2 "save as...." copies of the repainted building hoods and called one -save as played and the other as - save as unused. It actually took playing the unused hood approxiamately the same amount of time I played the first hood to make the riddler reappear. One thing interesting I discovered in both - is from a distance the buildings looked fine, new paint job intact. As I slowly loomed closer the art gallery would flash back and forth between total riddler and total repainted. Before the repainting it just hung steadfast to the riddler wall, floors, and ceilings.

What I tried after that is I totally removed the Sims 3 folder from under My Documents, then started the game and let the game replace every single folder under My documents. This removed everything in my game including patches - which I thought was odd, as the game was telling me updates were availiable. I had no Riverview, no launcher downloads, nothing as if I had reinstalled the game. I left it like that and decided to test out the theory on seeing if the riddler came from use of patches or downloads, as I apparently had neither of those but I did still have all the stuff in my mods folders, so I had to remove those physically as I knew most would not work without the patches, especially awesomemod.
 I played the hood with one of the EA families from the library - the one with the most kids. Sure enough about midway into the 2nd Sims week the riddler roared to life on the art gallery on just a few walls and a few floors. By the following day the building was nothing but riddler. So far the Wolfe Mansion and Goth Mansion were showing free of the tiles.
I played 2 more Sims days and those two buildings stayed clear of the riddler, but the Art gallery was covered still. So I repainted it completely, including floors, including the foundation like walls around the building, everything and every nook and cranny. Three sims days past and I noticed that the Lone Wolfe Mansion had a few scatterings of the riddler on a few wall and the roof. The Goth Mansion I thought was okay until I actually zoomed up close to it and discovered the floor at the door entrance also was covered with riddler tiles, but the rest of the house seemed intact. I moved the Goths to the clipboard to further inspect the house and discovered that the entire foundation under the house was covered in riddler tiles but only on the inside. This was especially odd as before I had noticed the inside foundation of the Goth house in a different game was that black stone and cement look the Sims 3 foundation comes with as I cannot purposely paint a wall like that foundation, so I assume it is by design. Well I tried repainting the entire foundation with a stone pattern byt just under the house on the inside. When I did this I noticed some walls did not cover and even individually painting them caused previously colored ones to revert back to riddler. To further the disappointment some of the upperfloor interior walls and even paintings on the wall had the riddler squares scattered here and there. I went back to the under foundation and removed all the paint and found all the riddler squares inside the house had reverted back to normal.

I could go on and on about things I've tried, including installing hoods that were totally remade, and the art gallery had been repainted, the Goth house was the Goth house from Sims 1, and the Wolfe Mansion was another Ultra modern house. I do not know if these creators bulldozed the lots before placing these buildings, but the design of the business area was reworked and the Art Gallery was even in a different spot than it had been, yet yesterday my new Art Gallery suddenly is covered in riddler walls. I have now been playing this particular hood about 5 real time days, which is about 15 Sims weeks.
  So far I have tried every suggestion made to no avail. None of the fixes last longer than 3 Sims weeks, but absolutely replacing the building period with none EA buildings, because the new Goth house and the New Lone Wolfe are staying riddler free. I have a sneaking suspicion the problem is the building itself, as I have not yet tried a totally new building on that lot. Also adding patches finally after the fact did nothing but make the building look normal from a distance, but flash back and forth between normal and riddler up close. Now it seems the angle at which you view the Art gallery can make it look normal or riddler just by changing the camera view. This has to be the oddest glitch I have ever experienced.
Just wanted to add - I have never had a save 13 error or save 12 error in any of these hoods, in fact I have only had one of each ever since the game came out and those were both in the first month. So apparently the corruption doesn't go deep enough to cause either error. I also do not crash, lag, have any speed problems, or anything. I use the fps limiter and the 3 booter to start and play my game. Also it does not matter whether or not I play with Awesomemod either. I have played the game both with and without - so awesomemod is NOT a factor period. It's definitely an EA problem because I also have the problem in a strictly vanilla game with NO CC at all.

Question here - do the windows automatically download with the building or not. I no longer buy subscriptions from TSR because of the debacle last year, and that page says subscribers only.

Just thought I'd let you know I've been playing the Empty of all Sims version myself for several days now - I actually added the Theater and Spa in myself around the corner from the Town hall and grouping them together on one lot like in the small town I live in - here in NH which actually has a small 32 seat theater (mainly used for kiddie matinees all summer in my town) with a beautyshop next door - I guess so moms can drop off their kids and then go get their hair and nails done - I don't know as I've never been inside of either place. But I found the theater very necessary as it seems every Sim I put in this hood instantly roll the wants to take a guitar class and see a movie. Figures. Seems they wouldn't get the want if the buildings didn't exist, but they did and it was annoying. That aside, I have - so far - had absolutely no problem with the hood. I have moved in 14 households, a few with their own farms and I did convert several of the community woodsy lots to residential. My fish are jumping in the several fishing spots I've sent Sims to fish in and so far they seem to be finding enough bugs, metals, and gems. Not sure if all are represented yet, but so far - so good.

That's about it for now.

Hmmm, I didn't think to name them Goth or Wolfe - perhaps that helps.

I have noticed that once just one of those 3 building mess up, it seems to affect the other two. Like I said I have not touched any of them in my former empty hood, just moved breeder families in there, only to have them vanish by the next play session. It has happened repeatedly when I have retested and even used a completely new install of my empty hood. But on the other hand I have no riddler tiles on any of them. A few times I have had my Sims visit the houses to get to know the occupants - for all the good it does. I am getting the riddler sims painted pictures though in almost all occupied houses.

Here's a bit more you can add to the confusion - by trial and error I have just decided not to play the Goth or Wolfe houses, and without playing them have had no further riddler walls, floors etc appear. I do notice though a lot of the Sims painted pictures and photographs in other houses become the riddler pictures the minute either are placed in a frame and hung on the wall.

Another thing I notice is in the 'empty of all Sims' hoods I added to my game that when ever I place any families in the Goth House or the Wolfe house, by the next game session I find either the families vanished from the game or at least vanished from their homes and listed as homeless. I first assumed it was due to a lack of family funds to handle their bills, but this fact is not the case when I installed some really wealthy families into these houses.

Not sure how this exactly coinsides with the riddler walls other than I edge closer to the belief these houses are so corrupt under the surface that even the game cannot support their use even if they are never played with a controlled family. I would be interested to know if anyone else experience the abrupt vanishment of families placed in these homes who are not played or other wise "protected" by being made sacred. I have repopulated my empty hoods with as many as 14 families on now my 7th attempt and it is always these two houses families vanish from. While families who by all rights should be vanished from the hood (like placing 6 people in a 1 bedroom house with a mimimum amount of money) - they are not vanished.

They may work perfect, but they may also conflict with the Awesomemod - which also works perfect by itself. What's more the Awesomemod makes your game work perfect - where the clothes mods and other mods just give you more unnecessary STUFF in a not so perfect working game. Sims 3 CC is not like Sims 2 CC. Sims 3 CC is for the most part made like a mod because of the lack of meshes. Anything that goes into the packages - mods folder IS A MOD and every single item in that folder offers a bigger potential to conflict with each other. I have seen two different creators hairs conflict and cause the game to crash.

So when the people here tell you what to do to get Awesomemod to work and you instead give argument then the ball is in your court - but don't expect anyone to make your game run the Awesomemod with all your CC  - of which some of it is apparently conflicting with Awesomemod.

What more do you need to know? If something resides in the mods folder with Awesomemod and you crash, regardless of how much YOU WANT that dress or hair style - you need to make a choice - the hair or clothing on an unstable game - or a few less outfits and the AWESOME working game.

I find this hilarious that the OP posted this here as they had posted the same exact thing on the Sims 3 forum to which I replied precisely the same as folks here - but apparently the poster was not satisfied with my reply to repost the entire scenario here. I too first said they had an illegal copy; and likewise got the same explanation, replying for them to examine their pc for the plumb bob flash drive - to check every port. Glad to see you guys came to the same conclusions I did.  It's just a shame the poster didn't take the first response and act on it instead of wasting a day and getting told the same exact thing.

So I feel justified - with all you awesome peoples permission - to laugh loud and hard at said poster - followed by a loud "I already told you this yesterday". Thank you.

Anyone ever see the Tragic Clown yet? I had a Sim fishing there every single night, as he had a half dozen Ghost kids that needed reanimated to life, so I wanted lots of perfect death fish, but never once saw that stupid clown. I just about matched up a ghost to every single grave - but that one.

Over on the EA Sims 3 site in Technical they have a hotfix for ATI cards. I didn't really look at the post as I run Nvidia, but it supposed to fix a problem pertaining to ATI and the Sims 3 specifically. Just thought I'd mention it if any of you were interested.

Hey guys, save yourself the hassle of worrying if this is something you did or something you put in the game, as  it also happens in Vanilla games with no CC, and it does not seem to matter whether you have patches or not, or how great your pc and video card is. So far it seems to affect just EA made houses and buildings in which they used VOODOO to use the stair banisters as fence and deck rails. So if you go to use an ea house and you see rails, fences, etc that perfectly match the stair rails, yet none of us have them in our game except as stair rails - this can happen. Absolutely don't try altering the house anywhere near those rails, above the rails, or below the rails, as the rainbow hued questionmark pattern tends to spread to some floor and flat roof tiles as well.

In other words EA was too lazy to make the appropiate matching rails to their stairs - even though they obviously saw a need for it and instead warped their buildings by making the stair rails as fencing and the game obviously is not liking it. I also tried deleting all those rails and discovered some of them absolutely will not delete.

How to fix, I have no clue - but it makes those houses useless if you want your sims to use them and actually see the second floors as more than useable as having several bedrooms instead of sleeping for just 2 Sims. The minute you go messing with the walls out comes those freaky walls.

Motoki,

When I played the Brokes she was a young adult living with her parents and some other family members in three trailors on one lot. Granted that whole game is long gone, as I did a complete (manual) uninstall/reinstall about 2 weeks later when I could actually "SEE" the game. I had eye surgery on the 3rd of June, so I couldn't do much but install the game Vanilla and let it do it's own thing. Once I was able to see well enough to "fix" my game (thanks to Pes) I started the whole thing anew.

I just remember that Ruby and her mother just about drove me nuts dancing all the time. Even deleting all the radios in all 3 trailers and the ones EA had decided these Sims needed in their inventories (like the 3 on the lot were not enough) did not stop the dancing marathon nor the "enjoying the music" moodlet they both seemed to have - as there was no music or any other music source as I had deleted the one tv too to try and make these pixels LEARN something. I do know Ruby had a guitar but she was not very skilled at using it, as did her Uncle who was barely much better until I started getting him to work on the skill. But no matter what I told Ruby or her mother to do, if i clicked on other Sims on the lot to do things, I always found the mother and Ruby not doing what I left them doing and just dancing together.

On a funny note, now that I think about it I decided to move Ruby out and into a male Sims house that she apparently considered her boyfriend, to try and stop the endless dancing, I recall the mom suddenly decided she hated Ruby and kept refusing to talk to her on the phone or even on a community lot. When i reinstalled the game I did not save any of my previous games and I really don't have any idea what's going on with Ruby or even if she is still in the game. My Sim has ran into her younger brother Skip a great deal and the little girl - her cousin I believe who are both adults in my present game, but I haven't seen any of the others from that lot that I can recall.

Just wondering with the new build for AM today, do I have to do anything else besides remove the old AM and replace with the new one now that I'm using it with Indie stone? Like do I need to remove any scriptcache or take out IS - then replace it or anything?

I'm a she - at least the last I looked anyway.

Yeah, I knew AM wouldn't - someone else mentioned I shouldn't try it, which is why I use the Indiestone/cell phone Edit feature as I didn't see a warning on that - unless I missed it in reading the info. Anything is possible around here when the hubby has his band mates over for a jam session. I'm lucky to hear myself think.

That's good to know about the ingame phail as well, as this Sim really stinks at building up her happiness points which was why I was aiming for the "learn faster" and then maybe i can do something with her. I guess I am lucky I only have one (so far) that I can't seem to get to finish anything in a respectable amount of time. I don't know what propells her to keep going out of que every five minutes - but if I take my eyes off of her a minute she's off dancing to the stereo or radio. Actually there is an EA Sim with the same traits and the same kind of behavior, that Ruby... Broke I think it was. When the game first came out I played an EA family from each hood to learn the hood and the game, and I'm quite sure I played the Brokes. What a disaster that family is.
 This couple I downloaded from a friend of mine, she said they were fourth generation newlyweds from her two legacy families and had good genes.
But anyway, thanks for the heads up and I will try again.

What I see is a tool with a EA Sims 3 Hair in it that CLEARLy says CLONE - so right there nullifies it being hers "firstly" and "secondly" she admits using a plug in which Maya requires - which is also not her own nor does she state who the plug in belongs to - so how the heck can she call this hers?

It would be the equivalent of me writing a story by using another story and just changing the names, the pictures, and colors of the pictures then signing my name to it.

She fails to get that something is not hers exclusively unless she alone creates all the parts including the original mesh - as a clone of the mesh is not an originally created mesh, it's still a copy to make useable for your own purpose. The only way she could call those hairs hers was to create an original mesh first in Maya, so no plug in is even necessary, or to pay the original creator (EA) for the right to use said mesh to clone, and then finally make her own tool to use the Maya program with her clone.

Legally she has just hung her ownself out to dry as she plainly shows and states that the items used in her designs are not her own. She's blowing smoke and hopes readers are not smart enough to see through it.