Crash on resized lots at 7PM -- any ideas?

[Simsample]

Mildlydisguised, your crash sounds similar to one I posted about earlier. Mine crashed on saving, too.
Rascal- that's exactly what I meant, maybe the creator's game version is significant.

More testing done- this time I entered Pbox's lot in build mode, and saved it. Then I moved in a freshly created CAS sim, and guess what? No crash. Mootilda, it seems like what you say makes sense- by saving it maybe I'm refreshing the lot information somehow. I tried this several times to make sure, and it works every time.

Doc Doofus- your test lot plays fine in my game.
Zazazu- your lots work fine in my game, as well.
Pbox- I can't find a correlation with nightfall/ dark build mode and crashing, and I only experienced the crash on saving once (as Mildlydisguised did). However, it seems that if I can save the lot successfully then there will be no crash. Maybe some other people could test Mootilda's idea of entering the house in build mode and saving before occupying the lot?

By the way, Pbox, Inge, Zazazu and Doc Doofus- these are all really great lots, I'll be using them for sure!

[baratron]

What else happens at 7pm:  The lights turn on.

A couple of other ideas to test:

1. Does the newly installed and occupied lot crash if you go into build/buy mode and change the view to nighttime view?  I hadn't thought of trying that.  In many ways, that is similar to the 7pm changeover.

2. Turn on all lights before 7pm.  Or turn off all lights before 7pm.  That might make for an interesting experiment.  it would at least eliminate the possibility that it's something related to outdoor houselights turning on and off.

3. I can't think of anyway to change the hour by force to nighttime.  Can you think of one?  If you change the hour, you can only change it to an hour during the day, if it's daytime, or night, if it's nighttime.  I recall, though, somebody had a mod that would allow you to move vampires into lots at night.  Any leads on that?  That might make an interesting experiment.

3 is possible using the Insimenator (OBJ edition). Spawn the Temporal Adjuster (or load it from the Catalog).

I'm in the process of testing Backdoor Lane 42 and it's boring me to tears! As a scientist, what I want to do is to change one variable at a time so that I'm certain what has caused the crash - but so far I haven't managed to get the fecking thing to crash!

My game environment is Sims 2 + Uni + NL + OFB + Pets. No stuff packs. Global hacks by FFS, TwoJeffs, Crammyboy, Syberspunk and the Insimenator (OBJ edition). Also a few other hacked objects.

All tests took place in N005, Clone of Strangetown - my nukeable Neighbourhood for testing & challenges. Debug mode was on.

Test 1: Moved Maxis-made sim family in from the SimBin - the Roseland family (Cyd + small dog Porthos). Went into the house, put the walls down, and looked at all three floors. Observed that the annoying bug with the Privacy windows that has bothered me since I got the game persists even now! Saved. Sim started working on Cooking skill. Missed seeing the newspaper get delivered, but it did arrive. Sim got a job and a pet job. 3 visitors came. Cooked lunch for them, everyone ate it, saved game again at ~15:00. Continued to play. Phone rang, invite Downtown - chose "Stay here". Lights came on just before 19:00, game did not crash. Continued playing until 19:30, saved and quit.

Test 2: Made another copy of the house - in a neighbouring lot, but not overlapping. Called it Backdoor Lot 43. Made a family in C-A-S: 2 adult sims, married couple. Went into the house, put the walls down, and looked at all three floors. Saved. Both sims started working on Cooking skill. Saw the newspaper get delivered, but it did arrive. Managed to greet a walkby, then 3 visitors came. Female sim got a job while male sim cooked lunch, everyone ate it. Guests decided to play fish slapping in the road (pillow fight). Saved again at 14:37. Sims skilled & socialised. Stray dog = Rover visited at 18:43. Phone rang, invite Downtown - chose "Stay here". Lights came on, game did not crash. Played until 19:40, saved & quit.

Test 3: Made another copy of the house - in a neighbouring lot, but not overlapping. Called it Backdoor Lot 44.  Played identically to Test 2, but this time RESISTED urge to save! Both sims skilled & got jobs. 2 walkbys & 3 visitors. Small dog Tucker walkby at 16:45. Still no saving, very difficult! Phone rang at 18:05, chose to "Stay here". Lights came on at 18:59, game did not crash. Played until 19:13, saved & quit.

Test 4: Placed new copy of the lot now overlapping with lot 44. (Lot 45 on the right hand side of lot 44 as you look from the road). Yet another CAS family, just like Tests 2 & 3. Again resisted urge to save like Test 3. 2 walkbys, 3 visitors, stray cat Noodle visited at 14:47. Observed graphical glitches on wall where houses meet. Phone rang 18:07, chose to "Stay here". Lights came on at 18:59, game did not crash. Played until 19:10, saved & quit.

I'm going to see what happens if the sim decides to "Go Downtown" & see if that makes any difference, but I'm doubting that it will. What I actually think may be making the difference are people's computer specs and settings. Like, for example, you can see in that screenshot that I have Texture Detail = Medium, which is why the neighbouring house is all fuzzy. (I only turn that up to High if I need to take photos showing neighbouring houses, as it slows my machine down too much). I know that some lots lag my machine to hell & back when the lights come on, and avoid playing such lots - however, in general my computer still has a reasonably good spec. Perhaps if someone's computer is struggling to run the game, the lights all coming on together causes the crash, and this is why only some people are experiencing problems?

My settings are as follows: (I'll include all the ones that I think are relevant to a possible graphics issue)
Graphics/performance options:
Shadows is greyed out - I can't select that option.
Lighting: Medium
Graphic Effects: Medium
Sim/Object Detail: High
Texture Detail: Medium
Reflections: Off (stupid Pets - I set this to "On" last time I looked!)
Screen Size: 1024 x 768 (windowed mode)
Refresh Rate: greyed out (I'm using a laptop)
Smooth Edges: Less (slider pushed all the way to the top)
UI Transparency: On
Use Square Pixels: Off
Object Hiding: On

Game options:
Camera Rotation: Sims 1 style (not sure why that would be relevant, but it's to do with graphics, right?)
Lot View Options:
View Distance: Small
Neighbors: On
Decorations: On
Clickable Neighbors: Off
Fade Distance: Large

I am not sufficiently awesome to tell you my computer specs off the top of my head - I'll do that when my geek gets home .

[mildlydisguised]

Mildlydisguised, your crash sounds similar to one I posted about earlier. Mine crashed on saving, too.

Yes I only connected it to the saving when I read your post, I originally thought it was the 7pm crash even though it occured before.

[Simsample]

Baratron, the lights come on at 18:00 in my game, so this isn't a factor in the 18:59 crashes. And if I save the game, it doesn't crash- so surely that means specs/ lighting isn't to blame? Or is my logic wrong?! I don't have any lighting mods in currently (I clean reinstalled a few weeks back), but in case this is relevant here are my specs:

=== Application info ===
Name:            The Sims 2 EP6
Version:         1.10.0.122
=== Machine info ===
OS version:      Windows NT 5.1
CPU:             2802.800048Mhz, Name:AuthenticAMD, FPU:1, MMX:1
Memory:          1536MB
=== Graphics device info ===
Name (driver):   Radeon X1650 Series   
Vendor:          ATI
Chipset:         Vendor: 1002, Device: 71c6, Board: 0850174b, Chipset: 0000
Driver:          ati2dvag.dll, Version: 6.14.10.6698, GUID: D7B71EE2-3286-11CF-D16E-5A28A1C2CB35
Driver version:  6698
Texture memory:  512MB

I run the game with all graphics options on their highest settings. I can consistently reproduce a 7PM crash in the Pbox lots with or without hacks/ mods/ custom content, but only with CAS sims and unsaved lots.

[baratron]

Whereas I can't make the Backdoor Lot 42 crash whatever I do! I even whacked up all my options so that everything is maxed, and it still won't crash!

Test 5: Placed 3 new copies of the lot - 46, 47, 48 - overlapping with each other. Lot 47 is the middle one. Moved another CAS family into lot 47. Each time I've been making the families as identical as possible - two Family sims with Active personalities married to each other, no kids or pets. Again resisted urge to save. Played identically to Test 4. No crashes.

Test 6: Placed 3 new copies of the lot - 49, 50, 51 - overlapping with each other. Lot 50 is the middle one. Moved another new CAS family into lot 50. This time, when the phone rang at 18:06 to invite the sims Downtown, I accepted. The choosing where to go screen appeared at 18:57, I picked the Lulu Lounge, and the taxi arrived at 18:59. It drove up normally. Lights came on as the taxi arrived, still no crashes. Went to the Downtown lot - was very laggy with 8 sims in the party (dunno where they all came from) plus random others on the lot - but no crashing. Returned to the home lot, saved and quit.

Why do the lights come on at 18:00 in your game but 18:59 in mine? Do you have Seasons? Do the different seasons have darkness falling at different times of day? (I only have up to Pets).

My laptop specs:
Pentium M 2GHz (mobile version of Pentium 4)
2 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce Go 6200TC (graphics chip, shares system memory)
1280x800 display (running Sims 2 in a 1024x768 window with Opera & XChat)
Windows XP Pro SP 2

Apparently I don't have "hardware texture and lighting" (hardware T&L). My geek has looked up your graphics card, and yours does. He believes that if it's people with more recent graphics cards who are experiencing the crashing, it may be the hardware T&L to blame. Googling for your card suggests that Unreal Tournament will crash if people don't turn the hardware T&L off, although we doubt there are many similarities between UT and Sims 2.

I will try the other lot - Lot 3 - but after dinner. Been trying to make the game crash since 18:57 real time, and it's 21:53 now! One of my irc friends is referring to "Heisenbug's Uncertainty Principle". Argh.

[Simsample]

My game environment is Sims 2 + Uni + NL + OFB + Pets. No stuff packs.

I wonder whether this bit is relevant? Maybe the fact that you are playing without BV/ Seasons is the reason you can't get Pbox's lots to crash (they are created without BV or Seasons, I think). As for the light time- I thought 1800 was the default time for lights on since the base game? Maybe I'm wrong on that though, as I do have Numenor's updated version of Dizzy's Smart Lights in, to change the way the lights turn on. However, I can confirm that the crashes definitely happen without any hacks too- although I can't remember if the lights come on at 6pm without the hack! I'm thinking that we really need to find someone else who can consistently reproduce the crash, just to rule out any oddities in my game/ computer.

[pbox]

Not much time to post, just quickly dropping off some lines .. might not be very coherent, I'm about to fall asleep.

* thanks muchly for your testing

* I playtested with Base / Base + NL, and I crashed. Rascal does not have BV, she said "up to Seasons" somewhere (quote + link in post #24). 

* Newness of graphics cards can't be the only reason who crashes and who doesn't .. I have a Radeon Mobility 9600, several years old (laptop is from 2004 I believe), 64MB. Not shiny.

* Default turn-on time for outdoor lights, as of Base game, is 18:00. There are several hacks that fix this -- Baratron, you might have one of them?

* Rascal says (see post 24) that she crashed when changing to Night in build mode (no matter the actual time of day)

* Theory knitted together from several other theories:

Mootilda says that when shrinking, the LE does not do any cleanup of off-lot objects -- the game does that by itself. This could explain why Base/NL lots seem to crash, and BV lots seem to not crash: different game involved. Inge just said that stuff like careers and food ("global sim objects") are stored *in the lot file* (who'd have thunk?) .. here could be a connection to CAS sims vs non-CAS sims. They might have different stuff to store, or to access?

If "stuff" formerly on the (now shrunk) lot is not handled/moved/cleaned up properly by a base/NL game, and then you expose "stuff" to a CAS sim (or: it is stuff that only a cas sim needs/has), "stuff" timebombs at 7PM .. for whatever value of "stuff" (might as well be missing stuff that the game is looking for at 7PM). And "stuff" is replaced/cleared up by a restart of the lot in *all* games (Base/NL too), hence why no crash on replay. Something like that?

I have no idea on how to prove/disprove any of this, though. Maybe baratron has an awesome fix installed that takes care of this issue? I playtested with no hacks .. don't recall what Rascal was using (if anything - she does normally use a load of hacks she said).

The question still remains why only some people crash. And why rascal crashes in Build mode. Oh, but -- she did this on an inhabited lot, with a CAS sim on it. See link in post 24 (I love post 24!).

Simsample -- was your lot inhabited?


Other stuff:

baratron, 

- you called the filled in basement windows a "privacy window bug" -- do you happen to knwo how to fix this? I hate it (I see this with all sorts of windows, but only sometimes. Would be very happy to be able to iron it out).

- what do you mean by "overlapping lots"? Do you have a screenshot? That sounds very strange.

- your "graphical glitches on wall" link points to a basement window srceenshot -- would like to know what you mean

- re. graphical issues in general: this lot is no different, apart from the fact that it's shrunk, to *a lot* of other uploads of mine. I have never heard of this crash before, nor seen it. I'm really, really, really, *really* sure that my lot isn't simply overwhelming people's computers (my lots are generally built to not overwhelm). I can play all of my nonshrunk lots just fine, day and night, even in Seasons (my playtests were NL only), and I have a rather crap computer. It may *still* be an issue related to only some graphics cards, of course, but I think attributing it to general "too-much-ness" is a dead end.


All I can think of, right now.

[Simsample]

Pbox, my crash on save was on an inhabited lot- but I haven't done enough experimenting to try to reproduce this. I was adding some (Maxis only) furniture to the lot, then I tried to save before playing... so at that point the lot had not been played at all since the CAS sim was moved in.
I tried to cause a crash on day/ night change in build mode, but I couldn't. So far I've just had the crashes at 18:59 and the crash on save. No crashes so far in build mode on uninhabited lots.

Re: the 'privacy windows bug'- I always thought this was caused by placing windows in situations that required moveobjects on. For example, if you enter the Specter lot in Strangetown, some of the archways are 'filled in' in this way- as they have curtains over them. With the Backdoor lots, the basement windows that seem to 'fill in' are placed in situations where the ground isn't level (can be remedied by flattening the squares either side of the window), or else have a smoke alarm placed above them with moveobjects. It seems that if you enter the lot with moveobjects on, the windows are sometimes okay, but entering with moveobjects off nearly always causes the windows to be filled in. That's been my experience with the Backdoor lots, anyway- I have a lot of them in game!

[ingeli]

In a building frenzy for my medieval town - but I also test played some of the new houses. One was a shrunken lot made from scratch, and 2-3 were old lots, first expanded, then rebuilt (with sims living on them) and then shrinken to original size. I testplayed these lots a couple of sim days each to see if they would crash at 7pm. No such crashes. I have all available expansions.
The only lot that I had problems with was one that got corrupted because it was too close to some other stuff when expanded. I got an error message when using LE. It was changed when I loaded the game, I could enter it but it was not a beautiful sight, lots of blue and weird stuff. I moved the family out and built them a new house, much better suited for their village bakery anyway.
Again, this is so much fun! I agree with Inge when she says this is a major breakthrough. TY again to the creators!

[pbox]

I tried to cause a crash on day/ night change in build mode, but I couldn't. So far I've just had the crashes at 18:59 and the crash on save. No crashes so far in build mode on uninhabited lots.

What I meant to ask was (not very clearly worded probably), did you *try* a crash in build mode on an *inhabited* lot?  With a CAS sim? By changing to Night? (you only said "build mode", but that could mean a completely uninhabited lot too)

I was just interested if this was consistent, or if you can disprove it, or what. Because if cas sim + nightfall = crash, even in Build mode, we wouldn't need to look at anything that happens during gameplay anymore. I think. (MInd that it's insanely late here so I may not be thinking very clearly) Then it would also be more clear that the cas factor plays a role.


Random thought re. cas sims, might work be a factor? Stuff to do with careers that's stored in the lot? (or not stored)
Because the way the game is set up, sims can't go to work on a monday (all careers start on tuesday .. one really early on monday I think) .. that would be one thing that makes them different from non-cas sims. They have never been to work.

[Quinctia]

I downloaded the lot this weekend, but I hadn't tried it yet.

I'm running Uni+NL+Seasons.  I'm going to go in game and see what I get.

ETA:  Played two sets of two CAS sims on two of the lots placed next to each other to 7pm with no problems.

I used it in a fairly newish neighborhood, one I'd placed specifically to build a beach house over water...and I have a Bachelorette challenge in that lot.  Empty otherwise.

Running a cracked exe, have loads of hacks, probably standard for MATY but unstandard elsewhere.  Oh, and 2gigs of custom content.

Comp Specs, Dell Inspiron running XP
2G Ram
Intel Core Duo 1.86Ghz
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 256MB RAM

Shadows, Lighting, Graphic Effects:  Medium
Sim/Texture Detail:  High
Reflections: On
Slight Amount of Smooth Edges
Neighbors and Deco:  On
View/Fade Distance:  Small

Can't think of anything else that would be relevant, but ask if there's something else that seems like it would be helpful to know.

[baratron]

AHA!

I have obtained crashingness!

With my Downloads folder removed and groups.cache deleted, and a fresh sim out of CAS just moved into a newly-placed copy of the lot, I obtain crashes in the following situations:
1. If I click on the Day/Night toggle in Build Mode.
2. If I allow the game to get to 7pm.

I do not obtain a crash if I save the lot prior to 7pm, and my game does not crash on saving. So the situation is not absolutely identical to everyone else's.

My belief is therefore that something in my Downloads folder "fixes" the lot and prevents it from crashing, as I could not obtain a crash with Downloads in no matter what I did - whereas it was every time without. However, I don't know what fixes it! Tomorrow I will put my Downloads back in one by one and see if I can identify the useful item. But it's 01.54 in my real-life timezone, and I need to be up in the morning.

Old stuff:

* Newness of graphics cards can't be the only reason who crashes and who doesn't .. I have a Radeon Mobility 9600, several years old (laptop is from 2004 I believe), 64MB. Not shiny.

It may not be the age of the graphics card so much as the chipset. So far, I've heard of two people using Radeon chips that have crashed (you & Simsample), and one person using NVidia who can't get a crash (me). It is not unheard of for odd graphical glitches and even crashes to be caused by differing graphics chips & drivers - remember the blood-red water? They can also be caused by the audio drivers. With Uni, I had a consistent crash to desktop problem if I had too many money trees (where "too many" was more than five). The money tree crash to desktop was fixed by downgrading my audio quality to Medium, which is what gave me the idea of it being different people's graphics specs causing the problem here.

It's obviously not the main issue, if my game won't crash at all with Downloads in - but I wonder if this is why only some people experience a crash on saving the first time?

* Default turn-on time for outdoor lights, as of Base game, is 18:00. There are several hacks that fix this -- Baratron, you might have one of them?

Ah! Ignore me, I was confused. I thought you were referring to all of the lights in the house. Yes, the single outdoor light comes on at 18:00, but the lights in the house all turn on at 18:59, as the game changes from day into night.

- your "graphical glitches on wall" link points to a basement window srceenshot -- would like to know what you mean

Oops! Should've been this picture. Look at the left hand wall where the lot joins the next one (I believe this is called a "party wall" - what a great name!). There are around 10 tiles of fuzzyness leaking into my playable lot.

I'll upload the other screenshots tomorrow - too tired to try to find them tonight.

[Doc Doofus]

I used to pull down some nice money doing this on ancient mainframes.  Troubleshooting intermittent problems can be rather lucrative.  You're doing a good job of collecting evidence and trying to identify suspects, Pbox.  My hat's off to you.

More testing I did last night...  I took the same CAS-made Sim (Schubert) that I had used for my previous experiences, and decided to see if he could still crash a newly plunked down instance of Backdoor 42.  First I moved Schubert to the Sims bin.  Then I quit and rebooted the system, fired up Sims 2 again (I have BV and almost all eps).  First thing, I plunked down a new Backdoor 42 lot and moved him in.  Played him just as I had before, although with the difference being that he was about ten days older.  7pm came, NO CRASH. 

WTF? eh?  Schubert crashed the identical lot the first time... but not now.  Biggest identifiable difference -- he was zero days old the first time.  "Aha!" I think to myself.  "Maybe there is something to this CAS-made Sim business," which I was skeptical of at first. 

Oh well, I move on to other things.  I have another lot that I have played for multiple generations.  One of the Sims, an adult Twikki native Sim (Cara Nanale) that had joined the family by marriage, was getting old, so I moved her out of the house.  I decided to move her into Schubert's old lot, the one he had vacated without problem before moving to the new Backdoor 42.  Moving Schubert out had reduced the price by about 7000 Simoleans.  I moved Cara Nanale from the Sim bin into the recently vacated Backdoor 42.  KEE---RASH!

I restarted the game.  Cara was still in the Sim Bin.   I moved her into a new instance of my 1x1 row house, no problem, played her past 7pm.

If you're still reading all this, you have an analytical mind and love puzzles.  This is a nice one.

[Rascal]

To answer a couple of questions, ask a couple of questions, and probably add to the general confusion:

I've managed to crash with and without my (many and varied) hacks so none of them at least play a part.  Which is not to say that something baratron has doesn't prevent crashes (that would be very handy).

The very first crash I had was on Plasticbox's Backdoor 42.  I didn't install the invisible driveway or the staircase as I have different versions of both these things already in my game.  Before I moved any sims in I entered the lot in buildmode, changed the staircase and recoloured the driveway and saved the lot.  So I have managed to get a crash on a lot that was altered and saved in buildmode prior to moving in sims.  Duh!  Nevermind - I just realised pbox meant if someone with bv had saved in buildmode prior to moving in sims.  I don't have bv.

With the eps in creator's game thing.  So far we have crashes on lots made in basegame and base+nightlife, and not crashes on lots made in games with bv.  Has anyone tried a lot made with seasons, or pets, or ofb?

If there is something different about the way the game deals with off lot objects and/or day to night change between different eps, it may be the relevant difference is present in pets, ofb or seasons as well as bv.  Does any of this make any sense?

I will try making a row house in my game (up to seasons) and see if I can make it crash.

[Madame Mim]

Running basegame I just crashed my own 1x1 lot creation (2 story building with basement, 7pm, CAS Sim + dead CAS husband & 1 new baby). I've had no problems with my other shrunken lots, but this is the first of my 1x1's I've played.

So I have some more silly questions - are all the crashing lots shrunk in the same direction? Are they all the same size? Perhaps it is the truncation of the lot to 1x1 specifically that is buggy. Or the shrinkage of the back of the lot with mult-story buildings = long shadows.

[Zazazu]

with basement

The other one that has crashed...Aelflaed's...does it also have a basement?

None of mine do, and the very few people who have tested it haven't achieved crashiness. I didn't achieve crashiness with Plasticbox's, but I also had removed the basement due to the graphical glitch annoying me.

I was trying to upload the set of four at MTS2 for more testers, but MTS2 was being a bitch to everyone last night. It's prolly fixed by now.

[baratron]

My student this afternoon cancelled, so I have 2 hours in which to play around with different hack configurations and see if I can locate the factor which makes Plasticbox's lot stable on my computer. (The other thing I could be doing is my invoices because it's the end of the month tomorrow, but... meh. I hate invoices!)

One thing I've been wanting to say is this: I think it is very important that the lot doesn't crash if you go into it in Build Mode before moving a sim in, and save it. Every time there is a new EP, the way the game stores data changes - which is why, if you uninstall an EP, you cannot continue to use your existing Neighbourhoods. For years, people have noticed lot crashiness when they've placed a lot created in an earlier version of the game from the LotBin, and attempted to play it. So for years, Pescado has been recommending that you must always place a lot, then go into it in Build Mode, and resave before attempting to move sims in. This updates the lot to the new file format and prevents a... big percentage of wonkiness.

The problem is that lots that are present in your Neighbourhoods get automagically updated to the new file format when you install the new EP (which is why it takes forever to go into your 'hood the first time you enter it after installation), but lots in the LotBin are suspended in time and don't get updated. This means that people have experienced crashes with even Maxis-made lots that, say, came with the base game. As these lots have been made using the base game only or base game + Nightlife, this means that anyone running a different configuration needs to update the lot before attempting to move sims in.

My recommendation is that you do the following:
1. Install the lot in the usual way from the Sims2Pack file using the Clean Installer.
2. Check your Downloads folder to make sure that any new files have proper filenames and are not called 2qwoigoi542qgkjhsrgdkljn4wroiugfd.package. If you have gibberish filenames, delete any that are 1kB or less (as these will be empty packages), and rename the others using the information you have in the Clean Installer window.
3. Load your game, go into your test Neighbourhood, place the house.
4. Go into the house in Build Mode, make one small change (can be simply putting the walls up & down again with the walls up roof on/walls up no roof/walls down toggle, you don't actually have to move or rebuild anything). Resave the lot.
5. Delete the lot from your LotBin. This is because the version in the LotBin has not been updated to the new file format.
6. Close your game. This is to make sure that when you move the resaved lot back into the LotBin, it is the resaved version that goes in, not the cached old version that's still in memory. The more paranoid should delete groups.cache, and people with Pescadoean levels of paranoia should reboot Windows too to make sure the memory is flushed out. (Personally, I wouldn't bother!)
7. Restart your game, go back into your test Neighbourhood, and move the resaved lot into the LotBin. It is now safe for use.

I hope my instructions make sense - I was writing them in my head on the bus this morning . Now to try moving my hacks back in one at a time to find out what prevents the crash occurring.

[Mootilda]

The only lot that I had problems with was one that got corrupted because it was too close to some other stuff when expanded. I got an error message when using LE. It was changed when I loaded the game, I could enter it but it was not a beautiful sight, lots of blue and weird stuff.

Can you explain what you mean by "it was too close to some other stuff when expanded"?

Do you have the text of the error message available?  I'd like to try to resolve the issue, if possible.

[Mootilda]

The problem is that lots that are present in your Neighbourhoods get automagically updated to the new file format when you install the new EP (which is why it takes forever to go into your 'hood the first time you enter it after installation), but lots in the LotBin are suspended in time and don't get updated. This means that people have experienced crashes with even Maxis-made lots that, say, came with the base game. As these lots have been made using the base game only or base game + Nightlife, this means that anyone running a different configuration needs to update the lot before attempting to move sims in.

This has not been my experience with tests done with the lot expander (which changes many, but not all, of the record types within the lot package).  Here's what I've noticed:

1) Installing a new EP doesn't update existing lots.  I have verified this by doing a bitwise comparison of lots within neighborhoods with various EPs installed.   However, I believe that installing a new EP updates the neighborhood package.
2) When a lot is added to a neighborhood from the lot bin, the game "marks" the lot with the newest EP, but doesn't change anything else in the lot package internal structure.
3) When you modify a lot and then save, the actual internal structure of the lot is changed to the latest EP.

[baratron]

What else happens at 7pm:  The lights turn on.

A couple of other ideas to test:

1. Does the newly installed and occupied lot crash if you go into build/buy mode and change the view to nighttime view?  I hadn't thought of trying that.  In many ways, that is similar to the 7pm changeover.

2. Turn on all lights before 7pm.  Or turn off all lights before 7pm.  That might make for an interesting experiment.  it would at least eliminate the possibility that it's something related to outdoor houselights turning on and off.

3. I can't think of anyway to change the hour by force to nighttime.  Can you think of one?  If you change the hour, you can only change it to an hour during the day, if it's daytime, or night, if it's nighttime.  I recall, though, somebody had a mod that would allow you to move vampires into lots at night.  Any leads on that?  That might make an interesting experiment.

3 is possible using the Insimenator (OBJ edition). Spawn the Temporal Adjuster (or load it from the Catalog).

Right. I have confirmed that it's possible to make the lot crash using Insim's Temporal Adjuster to change the time. This should speed up the testing process considerably!

As the Temporal Adjuster only has the options of Set Hour from 01:00 to 12:00, what you do first is Set Hour to 12:00. This makes it 12 noon. If you then choose 06:00, this is 6pm / 18:00 not 6am as would be expected! Therefore, you must play the lot for a mere sim hour on high speed.

Mootilda says that when shrinking, the LE does not do any cleanup of off-lot objects -- the game does that by itself. This could explain why Base/NL lots seem to crash, and BV lots seem to not crash: different game involved. Inge just said that stuff like careers and food ("global sim objects") are stored *in the lot file* (who'd have thunk?) .. here could be a connection to CAS sims vs non-CAS sims. They might have different stuff to store, or to access?

If "stuff" formerly on the (now shrunk) lot is not handled/moved/cleaned up properly by a base/NL game, and then you expose "stuff" to a CAS sim (or: it is stuff that only a cas sim needs/has), "stuff" timebombs at 7PM .. for whatever value of "stuff" (might as well be missing stuff that the game is looking for at 7PM). And "stuff" is replaced/cleared up by a restart of the lot in *all* games (Base/NL too), hence why no crash on replay. Something like that?

Your idea is rather vague due to the whole middle-of-the-night-ness of it , but I do think it's related to the longstanding lots in the LotBin don't get updated to the new environment problem. Hmm.

baratron, 

- you called the filled in basement windows a "privacy window bug" -- do you happen to knwo how to fix this? I hate it (I see this with all sorts of windows, but only sometimes. Would be very happy to be able to iron it out).

Sorry . You'll see from my post on MTS2 that I have little idea about this either. All I know is that I have experienced it since the base game, and it persists even with no Downloads. It seems to be related to houses on foundations. If I'm trying to place those windows in a basement, they position correctly less than half the time - and I have now given up on them, because that the game doesn't use them properly for calculating the amount of light in the basement. (The light level is entirely unaffected by the presence of those windows.) If I'm building a lot with a foundation and put those windows on the ground floor (first floor for North Americans), I experience the bug sporadically - between 10 and 25% of the time.

There also exist two different versions of the bug - one where the "hole" for the glass is cut through on one side but not the other, and a second where neither side has a "hole". The first version can happen on any wall placed above a foundation on any type of lot (house, community, dorm), but the second is unique to basements in my experience. I don't believe I've ever seen this happen without a foundation present - on the occasions when I've made a basement by terrain work alone, the windows will place correctly and have holes to let the light through as long as the square of ground outside the window is flat and at the same height as the floor of the basement. I hope this makes sense?

I always figured this was some sort of unique-to-me problem, because Maxis keep using those damn windows in their houses, and I've never seen anyone else complain about it .

- what do you mean by "overlapping lots"? Do you have a screenshot? That sounds very strange.

By "overlapping" I simply meant "terraced" - the left-hand wall of the house joins directly to & overlaps with the right-hand wall of the next house along. As opposed to placing the lots separately.

[Simsample]

Baratron- is your problem with the 'filled in' windows different to what I described with the Specter house? I must say I've only ever encountered this with some obstruction to normal window placement. Interesting!
Pbox: More testing, I found I can sometimes make the game crash (inhabited) by going into night mode in build or buy mode, however this is inconsistent. I've managed to ascertain that the only times I have made this crash occur is when I've hit build mode (or buy) and then the day/night toggle immediately- if I browse the catalogs first then it doesn't seem to happen. I wonder if my previous crash on saving was actually caused by the transition back to day mode that occurs when hitting the (...) button? Just to clarify, because I got all muddled up last time, this is on your lots, inhabited under the following conditions: not saved and with CAS sims (I haven't made it happen with Maxis bin sims yet). It still remains that the only consistent crash I can cause is at 18:59 with CAS sims, and that if I save the game, or save the lot uninhabited before moving the sim in, no crash occurs. I hope this makes sense, I'm not good at explaining!
Mootilda, the work you've done on the lot expander is excellent! What you are saying about the lot information being changed to the correct game version upon save would definitely fit with what people are finding here.

[pbox]

Hello again

I have 2 hours in which to play around with different hack configurations and see if I can locate the factor which makes Plasticbox's lot stable on my computer.

Congrats on your newfound crashingness. Waiting with bated breath on test results regarding your hacks. It would be so cool if it turned out that there already *is* a fix for this mess. Wish I could do some playtesting myself (I've a bit of a bad conscience actually, everyone else is doing all the work and I just come here and read stuff) -- maybe on Thursday, then we've a holiday here.

If anyone who doesn't crash and has hacks in their game, could test once again with no hacks, that might yield some interesting results. I'll try the opposite on Thursday (I use a ton of hacks normally, but not for playtesting lots) unless things change/clear up in the meantime.

I found I can sometimes make the game crash (inhabited) by going into night mode in build or buy mode, however this is inconsistent. I've managed to ascertain that the only times I have made this crash occur is when I've hit build mode (or buy) and then the day/night toggle immediately- if I browse the catalogs first then it doesn't seem to happen.

This could be interesting .. in particular the catalogue browsing part. Although it's only "black box" kind of interesting to me right now ..  no idea what this means, but it might mean something.

The other one that has crashed...Aelflaed's...does it also have a basement?

No. No foundation either.

Running basegame I just crashed my own 1x1 lot creation. I've had no problems with my other shrunken lots, but this is the first of my 1x1's I've played.

With "my other shrunken lots", you mean lots larger than 1x1 .. correct? Are they wider, or longer? Or both?

So I have some more silly questions - are all the crashing lots shrunk in the same direction?

One of my lots has sun from back left, the other two from front right. -> No.

Are they all the same size? Perhaps it is the truncation of the lot to 1x1 specifically that is buggy. Or the shrinkage of the back of the lot with mult-story buildings = long shadows.

Not same size. My lots are only shrunk left and right, not back.

I have another lot that I have played for multiple generations.  One of the Sims, an adult Twikki native Sim (Cara Nanale) that had joined the family by marriage, was getting old, so I moved her out of the house.  I decided to move her into Schubert's old lot, the one he had vacated without problem before moving to the new Backdoor 42.  Moving Schubert out had reduced the price by about 7000 Simoleans.  I moved Cara Nanale from the Sim bin into the recently vacated Backdoor 42.  KEE---RASH!

I restarted the game.  Cara was still in the Sim Bin.   I moved her into a new instance of my 1x1 row house, no problem, played her past 7pm.

Not sure if I can follow. Can you doublecheck please?

* You are using BV
* You used a former BV NPC (not sure what "Twikki native" is -- I know that there is a vacation subhood called Twiiki Island or somehting, is "native" some type of NPC? Or new kind of townie? I don't know much about this, non-BV user here)
* You moved that former NPC (now a playable) into a copy of the Backdoor Lane lot that had previously been used, yes? Had it crashed? Or did you just move the previous occupant in and out again? Did you change anything about the lot on that occasion?
* Then what happened -- immediate crash? Were you able to enter the lot and then it crashed? Or was this a regular 7PM crash? Or some other crash?
* After that crash, the moved-in sim was still in the bin? So that lot never auto-saved?


I'm not even going to try and catch up on the basement windows issue right now (need sleep, and coffee, and then go back to work) .. will keep your posts bookmarked and write a novel about it on the weekend =). Thank you for your input -- interesting to hear how it looks like for others.

[Zazazu]

Well, I haven't tried your lot on my hack-free account, but I did test both my own sets (the one I've posted a bit of around here and the unreleased one I just finished last night) on my hack-free account. Neither crashed with the no-save, CAS sim combo. I'll try yours on that account tonight.

[ebonyspiral]

3. I can't think of anyway to change the hour by force to nighttime.  Can you think of one?  If you change the hour, you can only change it to an hour during the day, if it's daytime, or night, if it's nighttime.  I recall, though, somebody had a mod that would allow you to move vampires into lots at night.  Any leads on that?  That might make an interesting experiment.

Does the 'setHour (0-23)' cheat not work to allow jumping to 19:00, or just beforehand?

I've not tested these lots yet myself, but I've used this cheat in game before.

[maxon]

Maybe there is something to the ep thing?  I don't have BV either so of course this means I can't test Inge's lot (after saying I would - sorry  ).

What else happens at 7pm:  The lights turn on.

A couple of other ideas to test:

1. Does the newly installed and occupied lot crash if you go into build/buy mode and change the view to nighttime view?  I hadn't thought of trying that.  In many ways, that is similar to the 7pm changeover.

2. Turn on all lights before 7pm.  Or turn off all lights before 7pm.  That might make for an interesting experiment.  it would at least eliminate the possibility that it's something related to outdoor houselights turning on and off.

1. In a different neighbourhood with another brand new CAS sim I tried changing to night view in buildmode pretty much as soon as the lot loaded.  It crashed straight away.  For me at least this proves it has something to do with the change of lighting from day to night.

Well, that didn't happen for me.  I have only been playing my own lots but everything is working as advertised (so to speak). 

In the two lots I played today, I moved in two sets of existing sims.  Because I like my neighbourhood synchronised, the first thing I did was change the day with Pescado's time warp.  Then I changed the time with the 'sethour' cheat to 6am and then I realised, damn it, I need to do some building bits and pieces and it would be easier to do this if I could see properly.  So I went into build mode and toggled the day/night lighting - it went back again once I exited build mode.  No problems.  Played the lot, saved several times and then noticed it was 8pm.  No crash obviously.  I do have all EPs up to BV though - I suspect platicbox is right that it's something to do with that.