Well, I found a couple of sims that were stuck.  One was out in her yard and couldn't move past the sculpting station for some reason, so I used resetsim on her. Another sim in the same household was at the hospital, (just visiting?) and when I tried to send her home, she wouldn't go.  When I zoomed in on her, she had a police cruiser (family vehicle) that kept trying to get around her.  I used resetsim on her, too, which sent her home, but the car was still trying to stick to her.  I deleted the car since there were two in that household and one of them was from a sim that had died.

Since then, I haven't had any sound problems to speak of.  Maybe once or twice for a second or two out of several hours of gameplay.

Hopefully, this fixed my sound problems.  Might be worthwhile just checking on sims in households you're not currently playing, just in case.

No shit!  That was my thought, too.

It sounds like another way of saying, "EWE NEED MOAR RAMZ!"

Or it's an excuse for their lousy programming.

Either way, no thanks.  It's probably their spyware trying to phone home that's doing it.  When it can't do its job, it fills up your CPU and cuts out the sound.

Bleah.

Tried both.  Tried the middle setting first, then the low setting.  Still have sound shutting off.

Tried a couple of things last night.  I read where someone suggested changing the speaker options.  Mine are set at 2.0 basic speaker setup.  When I got to the game select screen, I tried changing it to 4. whatever and the game actually loaded faster.  Once the game was loaded, I changed it back to 2.0.  I didn't have sound problems right away like I have been, but they did start again.  So I changed to the 4.0, and the sound came back pretty fast, but cut out again.  I'm going to play around with it a little tonight and see if I can find a setting that works halfway decent.

I've also had some problems with my mouse.  Click on something and I get an unrelated pie chart or that the item is unselectable.  So I also was checking my video card settings to see if there was anything there.  There was a setting for advance frame rendering that said if there were problems with the mouse pointer to reduce the value.  So I did that, too. (After I had loaded the above-mentioned game.)

My thinking on the advance frame rendering was that maybe it was taking too much memory, but the setting is on the GPU, not the CPU.  It did help the mouse clicking, though.

Well, I don't have any bikes for my sims and I have the sound going out.  I lowered the sound quality and it helped, but didn't stop it entirely.

I have noticed when I have the task manager open on my second monitor that when the sound goes out, the CPU usage jumps from approx. 50-55% to 100% and stays there for awhile.  When the sound starts again, the usage drops back down.  I'm beginning to suspect a memory leak somewhere.

Is the "Work on Late Homework" tone for sim kids at school no longer available?  I haven't really paid attention to this for awhile, so I don't know if it was borked with a patch or not.  I know there was a patch that kept this from being available if the "do homework" option wasn't available, so I guess I assumed that it got lost at that time.

I was trying to figure out how I could set up a default work tone for a couple of jobs, and in my poking around in awesomemod to see how the "late homework" was implemented, I noticed that the default work tones I was looking for were already set up in another function in there.  But my chosen sims don't get those default tones, whether I'm currently playing them or not.

So I decided to check on the homework at school tone for my sim kids, and none of them have it available.  They all have the default "normal effort".

Is it something I have to have set in the config?  Or do I have a conflict?  It seems that I did notice at one time, a long time ago, that my sim kids weren't getting the late homework tone any more, but I don't think I had any other mods at the time.  And I only have a couple of mods besides AM, anyway.

I couldn't find anything anywhere that discussed this.  I've been trying to figure out how to set up a default work tone for a couple of weeks so my playable but not current household sims would default to the tone I would give them if I was playing them, but my searches kept coming up short.  I finally was looking at a tutorial on core modding, which I really don't feel up to getting into at this time, when I found this function in AM.

Yeah, it seems like EA went to a lot of trouble to make this game unplayable and/or unenjoyable for most of the people who have played the sims for years.

Let's see -- CFF Explorer, vsync, something in the system that I did so long ago I don't remember what it was, having to use the framework installer so you can use helpful mods like AM, figuring out what you have to do everytime a new bull shit pack comes out so you can still have your mods and CC, being able to see store stuff in game after installing WA, more bugs than I've ever seen any software have, not being able to customize without mods -- did I miss anything?  I'm sure I did!

I saw a thread at the official Bull Shit site that talked about people selling their TS3 games and going back to TS2.  EA is killing this game.

ETA:  I forgot FPS limiter, 3Booter and having to decrapify.

No, I have 4 GB RAM and tried the CFF Explorer, but it didn't help.  I could maybe save 3 or 4 times while I was playing, but as soon as someone in the household aged up, I'd get an E12 when I tried to save - even with the CFF explorer.  I could load the last good save, play the aging up part, and save fine, but it just got to be a real hassle having to do that every time.  And there were other problems, all which started after I got WA.

I'm not sure, but I think I'm still using it (CFF).  Even deleting caches, including the world cache files, didn't stop it.  I just finally decided my game was hosed and started over.

It seems like every time I start playing my game I'm unable to see any of my chosen sims' map tags.  I just ctrl-click on one of the other chosen sims' lots, remove the view map tag ability, then ctrl-click them again and add it back.

As soon as I remove it, all my chosen sims' tags become visible.  When I add it back, the sims on the lot I changed become visible in map view again.

I've had to do this for quite awhile.  And I had to start my hood over (yet again, because all the crap the patches did to it finally started giving me error 12s constantly) and even with a fresh start it did it.

I actually found out just the other day that all I had to do was go into buy mode and back into live mode to fix the invisible house from map view problem.  If the walls are collapsed, I had to go to build mode, then buy mode, then back to live mode.  I didn't even have to move anything or buy/build anything.

I originally thought this was a "special" seed problem, but that wouldn't always fix it.  I realized that when a toddler aged up and I went to buy mode to buy a bed or move something, that it fixed the problem.  Then I found that going to buy mode and moving something would fix it.  So I just tried going into buy mode and back and that's when I found out that it was all I needed to do.

One of the patches took out the gender affect from cooked foods, so if you counted something like watermelon pancakes as one of your three pieces of fruit needed to get a girl, it had no effect.

I usually make sure my PG sims eat at least 4 pieces of fresh (not cooked) fruit appropriate for the sex of the baby I'm after.  And if I want a girl, and I'm having the sim eat watermelons to get one, if they eat an apple in there somewhere it can mess up the "count", so I might have to make them eat another piece of watermelon just to be sure. 

I had one sim that I wanted to be sure had a boy, and had made sure to have her eat 3 apples, but she had a girl.  I always save after they get the bump, so I went back to that save and made her eat 4 apples before she delivered, and then she had the boy I wanted her to have.

I've never had the "baby sex determined by fruit" not work if they eat 4 of the sex-determining fruit.  I rely on it, as I'm maintaining my town size by having each household I play have only two children - one of each sex.  I just recently had a case of surprise twin girls, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the extra kid.  I'm sure something will happen to help me decide what to do before I have to worry about setting up another household.

I haven't experienced  the fishing problem yet, but taking special seeds out of my sim's inventory fixed an unrelated problem.

After installing 1.7 or WA, not sure which or maybe both, some of my sims houses were invisible from map view.  It wasn't the blue lot problem - the lot was green, like the grass, but the roof of the house could not be seen.  Sometimes it was also invisible from a house across the street, though I could see the sims who lived there standing around or going about their daily tasks.  And I could see the map tags of the house and the sims who were being radar tracked.

I had tried adjusting video settings, even though they had been working fine before, but that didn't fix it.  Tried getting rid of some stuff in the inventories of the sims who lived in one of the invisible houses, but that didn't work either.

I decided to try getting any special seeds out of the inventory of a sim who lived in this one house, and now I can see the house in map view again.  So the special seeds must have some kind of "special" problem that causes other problems in the game.

Thanks, Gary!

I had one of those "can't do anything" kind of bugs show up last night.

I sent a sim to China to skill in martial arts for a job opportunity.  I sent him to the MA academy to kick the dummy for awhile.  He had the skill level meter above his head, but the level never rose above just being visible.

I tried having him read a skill book, and the same thing happened.

Also tried having him do an adventure, but he couldn't report in.  He could talk to the guy, but when I clicked on "report in", nothing happened.

His needs were also stuck.  None of them went either up or down,  Tried resetsim, refreshmotives, fixall, etc., but no go.

I wound up just sending him to see the sights and then let him go home, figuring he'd get back to normal once home.  When he got home, it was the same thing.  Everyone else in the house was fine, though.

I had had a toddler with stuck needs about a week ago, and he also could not gain any skills.  When his dad tried to potty train him, after the green bar in dad's icon got to the full point, both of them jumped.  I had tried everything I could think of - every debug command, moving out mods, going back to a previous save - you name it, I tried it.  It finally occurred to me that he acted like he was in stasis.

So I put Twallan's story progression mod in and set the household stasis to true, then back to false, saved and exited.  Took the mod back out, went back to play that house and the toddler was fixed.

I decided that maybe I needed to do that with this sim as well, so I did, and it fixed him.

Is there something in WA that's fiddling with this stasis bit and not getting it set back right?  The sim last night was okay before I sent him to China.  And I have not been using anything that changes the stasis that I know of.

I had a naked adventurer in China last night.  My guy had just arrived at base camp, and when he went inside there was a guy running around naked.  My sim stopped and looked at him, then pointed and laughed.

Later, after my sim had done some stuff and came back to base camp, the naked guy was there and dancing with another guy.

No, I do not have any naked mods, either.  I thought it was funny.

That's why I figured it was probably just my game.  Good ol' EA, at it again!

I'm having carpool problems, too.  Just since the AM of 12/7, I think.  I don't get any carpool or work notice of any kind.  About 30 minutes before they're supposed to be at work, the "Go to work" icon appears, and if they're not doing anything else, they automatically go.  But no carpool shows up at all.  I do get bus notifications, though.  And I'm not using any other story mode mods.

I have WA, patched.  I also can't seem to complete some opportunities, because they don't show up on the map tag for whatever building the sim is supposed to report to.  I've tried taking out other mods, deleting caches, etc.  I just figured my town was borked, beacause I didn't see anyone else report either of these, either. 

It's an old town, I've played it for quite awhile.  I don't really want to start over.  And if I do start over, I'll wait until the world creator is out and bug-free - or as bug-free as it can get - then start a whole new town.

The problems I've had with carpools only seem to show up after I've played a town for awhile.  I never seem to have them with a new game.

I was having the "clenched hand" problem, too.  Don't know why, but I tried going into edit town mode and then back into the game and I haven't seen it happen again.  That doesn't mean it WON'T happen again, or that switching to edit town mode will help, but it did that time.  You might want to try it.

@jolrei

Are you playing with TS2 style aging on?  Only the active household will age if you do.  I was getting disappointed that none of the other households in town were aging, also, so I switched that off and started using Buzzler's Aging Manager (found in the TS3 Pudding Facory) to manage the aging of my playable households.

Right.  Play table and oven for children, books, xylophone and peg box for toddlers.  I'm still testing a child on athletic, also.  Haven't read kuronue's thread yet, though.

They already get cooking skill from the oven and mechanical from the play table.  Like the xylophone and peg box for toddlers, they can only get up to level 3 in those skills.  They don't show up as learned skills until they become a teen and actually cook or unclog a toilet for the first time.

I miss the charisma bunny, too, but in TS3 the charisma skill also requires friends and acquaintences after a certain level, so I guess they figured it wouldn't really do much good until a sim hits teen.

I haven't done enough with a child and athletic yet, but they can work out to the TV.  I also noticed that a teen playing catch was gaining athletic skill, so it may be that a child does, too, but it's "hidden" until they become a teen.

Someone else may know the answer to that better than I do.

I haven't been doing much programming for awhile and am just starting to get back into it.  How did you find out that the code was released and where did you get it from?  Or am I reading this wrong?  I've been searching for sims 2 source code.  Or perhaps you just mean that it can be edited better in something like SimPE?  Or do I need to get a disassembler?

I know this isn't TS3 related, but I figured a look at the TS2 code might help with something I've been working on.

There's a tutorial here http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15936.0.html

This is what I did quite awhile back and it's pretty easy, even for a non-programmer.  I have 25 years of programming experience, but even my husband, who knows diddly about it, could follow this.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing.  I just didn't want to have to worry about maybe needing to update it every time I update AM.

Would it be possible to make the MaxOfficeHolders function optional?  According to the career list, the medical maxes don't start until level 9, but in the code, they start at level 7.

I couldn't give a shit less about how many sims are in a particular office, but I can understand why some people want this kind of realism.

I don't have any intention of having 5 governors or 10 astronauts, but I would like to not have to worry about having 2 or 3 when the max is set to 1.

I made an override file like shown in Facts and Strategery, but I'm worried it could cause problems if I don't continually update it.

I upgraded my graphics card and RAM last spring, long before TS3 came out.  And my system is 4 years old, but it was designed for gaming at the time, and I have no problems running other games that are graphics intensive. 

I still run XP, though.  Maybe it's the OS that's slowing things down.  I'm sure switching from a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system would have a significant effect, especially for things that the GPU doesn't handle.

I need to get a look at Windows 7.  Didn't like the look of Vista and it had too many problems.  I had Windows ME at one time, so I didn't want to have to use another glitchy system.

I tried the work pusher mod and didn't see that it made any real difference in sending sims to work.  I was having another problem with inactive chosen sims advancing by 2 or 3 job levels in a matter of a day or two and I took that mod out, which seemed to stop it.  May have just been my game, though.  I don't have many mods and it didn't start until after I put the work pusher in.

And yes, my parents who don't go and need to be pushed are always standing by the garden with the toddler.  Is this an EAxis thing?  Does the game send everyone to the garden when they're inactive at home?   Sims will gad about town like I'd expect, but it seems like when they're at home they spend a lot of time hanging around the garden.  Sometimes they just stand there, other times I can see them playing with the sprinkler.