No kitty, there's no saved game in progress!

[Zazazu]

This is more for poking practice than for help. I'm pretty sure I have the only solution pegged. I just want to whine.

In one of my 'hoods, I had just one residential lot with a fully-decorated home plus an owned level 7 business (a pie diner). I was using Pescado's sshack to be able to leave the brats at home and take the two adults to work at the diner. I did this for many days with no issue. Then, one night, I had them close up and the husband kept doing his whistle-dance (aka "Get the Fuck off my Lot!") though no one was there. I looked for anything funny to nuke and only saw the scenario controller. Tried nuking that to no effect, so I forced error on the guy. Whistle-dance stopped. Then I tried forcing errors on all. Turns up there was a townie "hiding" on the sidewalk who I could have sworn I'd told to bugger off at one point since she was skipping rope on the sidewalk after dinner. I couldn't interact with her, so I deleted her. I then tried to have the couple leave again, but they'd just stand there.

At this point, I pretty much knew I'd fucked the lot up. But I had no idea what else to try.

Ok then. Obvious solution is to summon them to another lot and move them in. I couldn't load their home due to it stating that the family was away at the diner. So I made a CAS sim, plopped her down, and had her summon the whole family (the couple and two kids) and move them in. I then retried loading the diner lot, but it crashed. Ok. No-go. Restarted the game and had the deed-owner sell it back to the community. The $ then disappeared from the lot, so all appeared fine. I moved the family back into their lot and refurbished. I then tried to visit the diner (unowned) but was told that there was already a save game in effect. So my lot is dead and I am sad because I now have to rebuild it as well. Grr.

[JacquiES]

Well aside from all of your other more serious issues, I had a problem with townies not being able to leave my one community lot.  They would just stand there and my owner would whistle for hours.  I figured out that I had a tree blocking the one sidewalk portal and the minute I moved it, they were gone.  For some reason they only wanted to leave in one direction even though the other one was not blocked.

Sorry for your loss of business though that sucks.

[Zazazu]

If I would have backed up (or packaged the lot early), things would have been easier. But I'd only started the 'hood Friday night. I can't really package it now*; the option is grey.

*I, uh, "tried" something on my test account. Copied the 'hood over and changed the biz to residential while it was unowned. Then packaged it. I installed with clean installer and didn't see any sims attached to the lot, which I suppose is one good thing. It's just somehow referencing a saved game and I have no knowledge of how to wipe it. More Googling for me. If I can find it before I get home, then I don't have to rebuild...damned thing required the Lot Adjuster as it's a 2x2 with a one-square buffer.

[J. M. Pescado]

This never, ever, happens in my game. Maybe if the Fuzzy Pumpkin did not make mutilated lots mangled in funny devices, this wouldn't happen.

[Zazazu]

 

It had never happened to me before, either, and I've used shrunk lots (both residentials as well as owned commercials) many a time. I've rebuilt. We'll see if it repeats (interestingly, portals were fine & dandy).