Disappearing Gravestones

[Maria]

Gravestones keep disappearing from my game.  This is from a residential lot, with an Addams Family type couple and 9 graves, in my own neighborhood.  The character data remains, so I can use the modthesims assignable gravestone to give the sim a new tombstone, then resurrect him/her and kill them again to get their own gravestone.  I do that with one grave though, play for a half hour, and then glance over at the graveyard and notice that another one is gone. 

I have University and Nightlife, and the Nightlife patch.  I saw the post here about the tombstones of ghosts who are out when the patch is applied disappearing, but the most recent tombstones disappeared today, while I was playing, a week after patching.  I also don't have the disappearing character data mentioned in that post and it's not in Pleasantville.  I installed the deathfix after the first grave disappeared yesterday, but two more went after that.  My neighborhood only has 474 people in it, and the notownieregen fix is installed.  I don't transfer in anyone from other neighborhoods and I only have 47 downloads (all from here or Maxis, except the swinger's bed, teenwoohoo, and the mts buyable tombstone).  I hope that's enough info and that I'm not asking a stupid question.  Please help me keep my ghosties.

[radiophonic]

You're not alone. I've got a brand new hood with some pre-made ghosts (OK, yes, I killed them) made for my knowledge sims. One of them took a gravestone home and when I came back to the game the next day his car was missing and so was the urn.

Maybe a little more research will dig something up (no pun intended).

[Ancient Sim]

I had a problem like this before Nightlife.  Mortimer's grave was constantly vanishing from the Goth cemetery and everytime it went, his relationships went with it and I had to keep putting them back.  I think maybe the Goth women ghosts were responsible, because they were forever jumping in and out of both his grave and Bella's and as they were the only platinum ones, I think they were jealous.  I took a look at their files in SimPE and they all wanted to turn Mortimer into a zombie.

One word of advice - if you resurrect someone so you can kill them again to get a gravestone (incidentally, you can do that even if they have no gravestone, as long as they have character data.  You don't need to use an assignable one to resurrect them) make sure you make them Linked in SimPE before you bring them back.  If not, they will act as if they are new Sims from that point on and won't recognise their family members, thereby being very noisy ghosts instead of quiet ones.  I accidentally deleted Cornelia Goth's tombstone along with some weeds and even though she was only alive for a few seconds before I killed her again, she no longer accepted Alexander's sons and kept screaming that they weren't part of the family.

[skandelouslala]

Had this happen lots before Nightlife.  Since NL I haven't kept graves on residential lots.  Ghosts would jump in tombstones ect and by the time morning arrived some graves would be destroyed.  This happened plenty in my legacy lot especially when I started getting up there in the # of graves on the lots.  I lost probably half my tombstones by the time I quite playing the lot. 

I have however found that if you don't place graves right next to each other it seems less likely to occur.

[Maria]

Yup, you're right, I just watched the ghosts jumping into each other's graves and the gravestones hopping around and then disappearing.  I never thought I'd play a video game to stare at headstones for half an hour, blah.  I worry that even on a community lot they might jump around like that, the loss would probably just be slower because there wouldn't be sims living there 24-7.  I think the only safe place for gravestones might be the inventory 

[radiophonic]

What a drag.

Aren't there supposed to be ghosts on community lots? I'd be much happier having my sims hang out at a cemetery than having them being grave robbers.

I've seen ghosts once and only once on a community lot. I wonder what the prerequisites are.

[Renatus]

Maria, I don't think it would happen on a community lot because community lots aren't saved when you exit them with a sim. The states of the sims are saved, but I don't know if it would apply to ghosts since they're tied to the objects, and the objects are set back to the state they were in when you last saved the lot in build mode when you have your controllable sims exit the lot for another or home.

[AllenABQ]

What a drag.

Aren't there supposed to be ghosts on community lots? I'd be much happier having my sims hang out at a cemetery than having them being grave robbers.

I've seen ghosts once and only once on a community lot. I wonder what the prerequisites are.

You have to have Nightlife.  You can click on Tombstones and have them moved to any community lot of your choice.

[jrd]

Twojeffs' ghost hack prevented the ghosts from haunting other ghosts' graves. Apparently this is (a|the) cause of disappearing graves.

It has not been updated for NL, though.

[radiophonic]

You have to have Nightlife.  You can click on Tombstones and have them moved to any community lot of your choice.

Thanks Allen, I have Nightlife, I just never see them when I send my sims to the cemetary. Is it possible that you have to know one of the dead in order to see a ghost? I haven't been able to figure it out yet. 

[bluecatvon]

i have disappearing tombstones too! on the Specter house. i thought i lost them when i was saving the game and some error occurred. now Olive is gone forever!! sob!!

[Kestran]

Isn't it possible that a living Sim could have kicked a tombstone or broken an urn. I haven't seen it happen but I am pretty sure it is a a probable autonomous action on behalf of the Sims. Maybe the game, when these other ghosts visit not their graves, it translates the visiting as a kicking?

[Simlover]

Ok this may be totally unrelated but, not so long ago I had a mailbox dissapearing off my lot.  I never saved and when I restarted the game the mailbox was there.  I continued getting my sim to do the same things as the previous occasions with my eyes on the letterbox so I could define what was causing it to dissapear.  It didn't take long and was reproducable several times over.  Everytime my sim sat down and started to read a book from the cinderblocks bookcase (the cherapo one with planks and blocks) the mailbox dissapeared.  Deleted said bookcase and replaced it with a more expensive one and no more problems. 
If you are finding its happening again and again keep tabs on what your sims are doing at the exact time your gravestone dissapears, could be it's the same sort of glitch.

[jsalemi]

Sounds like a portal problem -- doesn't Crammyboy have a patch that fixes the problem with bookcases bugging portals?

[kacidama]

Isn't it possible that a living Sim could have kicked a tombstone or broken an urn. I haven't seen it happen but I am pretty sure it is a a probable autonomous action on behalf of the Sims. Maybe the game, when these other ghosts visit not their graves, it translates the visiting as a kicking?

One of my sims had a fear that his grandfather's tombstone would be kicked/destroyed.  I haven't had this problem but I have noticed that the headstones sometimes revolve180^o

[DrBeast]

Sounds like a portal problem -- doesn't Crammyboy have a patch that fixes the problem with bookcases bugging portals?

Yes, sounds suspiciously like it. It's discussed over here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2333.0

And a fix for this is found here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2171.0