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

[baratron]

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.

OK. I have done a very large number of tests now - my test Neighbourhood is filled with copies of Backdoor Lot 42, all lined up in a row! Each house with its own brand new CAS family. (I gave up on creating couples as it took too long, and now there are many Family sims with Aries personality, Turn-ons Swimwear and Underwear, Turn-off Vampirism or Stink - these being the quickest options to click ).

During the course of this afternoon:
I pulled out all my Downloads - CRASH.
I put back all Downloads that were not hacks - CRASH.
I put back the Insimenator - CRASH.
I put back the Syberspunk and TwoJeffs folders - CRASH.
I put back the Crammyboy folder - CRASH. (I was really surprised at this one - I thought his Portal Monitor might well be the saviour of the lot, but no.)
I put back the Pescado folder - NO CRASH.
I pulled out the Pescado folder & deleted groups.cache - CRASH.

I looked at the names of all of the hacks in the Pescado folder, and got it down to a shortlist of eight that I thought might be affecting the lot. These were: the Lot Debugger, Anti Watch Out, Door Jam Fix, Manual Navigation, Move Out Bug Fix, No Driveway Shuffle, No Route Fail, No Teleport Puddle.

• I doubted it would be the Lot Debugger as it's an object hack and the object wasn't installed on the lot, but it's Awesome enough that I tried it anyway.
• I wondered about Anti Watch Out, No Driveway Shuffle, No Route Fail & Manual Navigation as they're all routing fixes, and I thought perhaps the problem lay in the sims' routing through the newly-shrunk lot.
• Move Out Bug Fix should be obvious - I thought that if it fixed buggy move outs, it might also fix buggy move ins.
• Door Jam Fix is a new hack that fixes doors that are marked "in use" - again, I wondered if this had anything to do with the problem.
• Finally, I went for No Teleport Puddle on the basis I know it has something to do with portals.

Guess which one it was? Yup, noteleportpuddle.package.

So... I have pulled out all hacks except for noteleportpuddle.package and deleted groups.cache - NO CRASH. I simply cannot make the lot crash even with this as the only hack in my game (no Critical Fixes or anything). The lot is stable to the day/night toggle in Build Mode, it survives the 18:59 time event, and it survives a save straight after move-in. Even when I completely ran out of graphics memory and had the weirdest graphical glitches going on, the lot would not crash.

I have no freaking clue what noteleportpuddle.package does apart from being something to do with portals, but I would recommend that everyone who is testing the lot puts that in their game to see if it makes a difference for them too. I am using the version of the hack dated 2006/12/17, from the 2007/10/15 Pets edition of moreawesomethanyou.zip.

Now I am going to have dinner and enjoy actually playing my game rather than testing this darn house!

[pbox]

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.

Zazau, you have BV (meaning your lots have been built with BV) .. I believe this affects things.


baratron, you're a hero. 

[ebonyspiral]

Guess which one it was? Yup, noteleportpuddle.package.

"noteleportpuddle - Puddles of water don't magically teleport to weird locations, like the other side of the fence." That's all the info I have on that hack.

I'll test with and without this hack myself. Hopefully, problem solved.

[Madame Mim]

pbox: both - the other shrunken lots I've been working with/creating are 2x2's. Although I do have some 1x2's that I haven't checked yet.

noteleportpuddle.package - hmm. What info on puddles is accessed at 7pm in all game versions? I can confirm that this is not a mod I have in my basegame.

[Doc Doofus]

Pbox:

I do have BV.  All major EP's except Pets.  Twikki is one of the vacation hoods that come with BV.  A Twikki native is a new kind of "Townie."  They wear Polynesian type clothing and you only meet them when you are on vacation in Twikki.  They are more like townies than NPC's.

The Sim I used was a Twikki native that had married into a Pleasantview family, had children, was two days from Elderhood, when I moved her out of the house for posterity. 

The lot that I moved into was a used (or, as they say nowadays, "pre-owned") Backdoor 42 lot, one that had been played many days by Sim Schubert.  It had experienced a couple of crashes before everything settled down and the lot started to work.  Schubert was moved out.  Cara (the Twikkian) was moved in from the Sim bin. 

The game went to the blue BV screen with the blanking squares across the top and the Sim posing on-screen, as usual for a move-in.  However, it never finished blanking the squares and, instead, crashed to desktop.

It might not be a good example of a crash -- too many other variables are possible with this lot than with a fresh one.

[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.

Zazazu, you have BV (meaning your lots have been built with BV) .. I believe this affects things.


baratron, you're a hero. 

'Twould most likely. But I'm back to throw a wrench into things.

I went onto my test account, which has no hacks and no cc. I plopped down two copies each of Backdoor 42 and aeflaed's (sorry, Doc Doofus, but I still can't get yours, it still says that the link leads to an XML document and saves as the same). I put in the three Maxis families I had in the bin. Immediately changed to nighttime from build mode. No crashes on any lot. Then put in three CAS sims and immediately changed to build mode. I saw my first crash on aeflaed's blue version. The other two lots did not crash.

I also do not have noteleportpuddles on my main account. Yay for more wrenches. 

[Mootilda]

noteleportpuddle.package - hmm. What info on puddles is accessed at 7pm in all game versions? I can confirm that this is not a mod I have in my basegame.

Well, if this mod is related to the portals, and if a visitor always arrives on the lot at 7pm (which is also related to portals), then I'm going to guess that this is a portal issue, not a puddle issue.

[ebonyspiral]

Another spanner... or wrench. Yes, despite having noteleportpuddle, I've had 2 crashes.

First crash - I placed Backdoor Lane 42 and made a new CAS sim. Before moving her in, I entered the lot to make a small change, but it crashed on saving.
Success! - Placed another Backdoor 42 next door and immediately moved in the CAS sim from the first attempt. Made it past 7pm and saved without problems.
Second crash - Entered the original lot again, made a small change and successfully saved and exited. Made another CAS sim but at 18.59 everything froze. Forced quit and crashed.

I have all EPs up to Seasons.

I didn't take out the rest of my downloads or delete groups.cache or a few other things... I just rushed in expecting it to work. Bah, I'll carry on testing tomorrow.

[Rascal]

Sorry to report I have noteleportpuddles too - doesn't stop the crashing for me.

[Quinctia]

I intend to test the lot without my Downloads folder, to see if that is why I don't get crashing.  However, I don't have noteleportpuddles, yet I didn't experience any crashing.

This combined with the crashing some experience WITH that hack would lead me to...being confused.   

[pbox]

Rascal,

sure it's not a hack conflict/utility?

The effect that baratron is seeing may be something that noteleportpuddles does, that other hacks *also* do .. or that is overridden by other hacks if some are present (but not in a way that you would notice in-game) .. or that only has an effect with her specific game configuration .. or something. So, I think, it would still make sense for others to test with/without hacks in general, regardless of whether or not they have this specific one.


ikbod,

thanks for your thorough (and doubtlessly, very boring) testing.


DocDoofus,

It might not be a good example of a crash -- too many other variables are possible with this lot than with a fresh one.

I think so too. Thanks for the explanation.


Rushing off ..

[baratron]

Tell you what - and this is probably going to make me the biggest heretic on the planet - I am actually starting to develop a bit of sympathy for EA here! I have honestly spent about 5 hours testing the house with every combination of Downloads imaginable, and I am certain that in my game build (Sims 2 + Uni + NL + OFB + Pets), with my graphics card, it's the noteleportpuddle.package that stops the house from crashing. With that hack alone the house is stable:
* with a CAS sim just moved in, and hit the day/night toggle.
* with a CAS sim just moved in, and save.
* with a CAS sim just moved in, play through the day, and get to 18:59.

Without that hack - the house crashes:
* with a CAS sim just moved in, and hit the day/night toggle.
* with a CAS sim just moved in, play through the day, and get to 18:59.
I couldn't get it to crash on save, even when I completely ran out of graphics memory.

But if other people, with a different game build & combination of Downloads, don't experience protection from the hack... you have to wonder what's going on!

The one thing I haven't done is tried the game with every other of my usual hacks except that one. I have to go to work once I've finished this post, but I'll try that tonight. It's possible that another of Pescado's hacks also does "something" to lot portals.

[ladykat]

I  have been reading all the different experiences people have had and thought I would add mine, see if it helps at all.

I made several different lots, but have tested only two.  One is a 1 x 2 terrace, the other is on a 2x2 lot making a semidetached house - that is I only shrunk in on one side.  There was no difference in what happened with these two designs.

I have all the EPS, including BV, but am playing with the unpatched no CD exe, in case that makes any difference.

I used, initially, new made CAS sims, and am using a custom neighbour hood for testing, and currently the only downloads are Inge's British architecture items - doors and windows etc.

The game crashes  when I toggle the day/night view in either Build or Buy.
The game crashes if I try to save the lot before trying the day/night toggle.

After re-entering the lot I can save and toggle at will, and the one house I tried played past 7pm and on to 9am with no problems at all.

I can move one of these new sims from his house post crash, and put him into another new house, with no problems, just as I can place, eg, the Ramaswamis, so it seems only brand new CAS sims are involved.

What I can't do is place a new CAS sim in the house that previously crashed, the game crashes while trying to load the house.  Post crash I can put him in it - I assume he's no longer new.

I added the noteleportpuddle hack.

I was able to place a new CAS sim in a new house, save, and toggle the day/night mode.
I was still unable to place a new CAS sim in a house previously occupied.  Possibly entering the house in Build mode and resaving it would fix that, I haven't tried it as I only just thought of it.

I don't know if that hack will help in my normal game - I shall put it in but it isn't good for testing, takes so long to load!

kat

[pbox]

Thank you, ladykatsim. Just to make sure I understand this correctly:

* you built a house using BV, and it crashed at 7PM - right? (There is a theory atm that BV houses don't crash .. which you would have disproved if this is the case -- unless there is a difference between patched and unpatched BV and all other builders were patched?)

What I can't do is place a new CAS sim in the house that previously crashed, the game crashes while trying to load the house.  Post crash I can put him in it - I assume he's no longer new.

With "post crash", you mean the *sim* involved (not the lot) had experienced a crash before -- yes?

I added the noteleportpuddle hack.

I was able to place a new CAS sim in a new house, save, and toggle the day/night mode.
I was still unable to place a new CAS sim in a house previously occupied. 

What exactly do you mean by "unable" in your last sentence: crash on load? 7PM crash? Lot never loading? Something else?

I am actually starting to develop a bit of sympathy for EA here!

Oh, me too. Developing for Windows must be a nightmare.

The one thing I haven't done is tried the game with every other of my usual hacks except that one. I have to go to work once I've finished this post, but I'll try that tonight.

I think that could be helpful. Thank you. I hope I'll finally get around to doing some testing myself tomorrow.

[Simsample]

D'oh, this is all getting very confusing! I downloaded the noteleportpuddles hack- the version from moreawesomethanyou-bv. I took all of my other custom content/ hacks out of the game and tested just with noteleportpuddles in. My CAS sims still consistently crashed PBox's lots at 18:59, and I managed to cause crashing on CAS sim inhabited (but unsaved) lots by toggling day/ night in build mode. As before, the following were true: saving the lot at any time prevented crashing; crashing did not occur with Maxis bin families; the build mode night toggle crash was intermittent; I couldn't recreate the crash on save.
I conclude that noteleportpuddles had no effect for my game.

[ladykat]

Thank you, ladykatsim. Just to make sure I understand this correctly:

* you built a house using BV, and it crashed at 7PM - right? (There is a theory atm that BV houses don't crash .. which you would have disproved if this is the case -- unless there is a difference between patched and unpatched BV and all other builders were patched?) 

That's right, I built a house using BV, unpatched, no CD version.  I didn't wait until 7pm, it crashed when I toggled the Day/Night view , first time in Build mode, other times in Buy, or when I tried to save the game first.

What I can't do is place a new CAS sim in the house that previously crashed, the game crashes while trying to load the house.  Post crash I can put him in it - I assume he's no longer new.

With "post crash", you mean the *sim* involved (not the lot) had experienced a crash before -- yes?

The lot had experienced a crash wih Sim A, whom I then moved out.  Trying to move in Sim B meant the game crashed trying to load the lot.  Subsequently I was able to move him in, load the lot and all was well.

I added the noteleportpuddle hack.

I was able to place a new CAS sim in a new house, save, and toggle the day/night mode.
I was still unable to place a new CAS sim in a house previously occupied. 

What exactly do you mean by "unable" in your last sentence: crash on load? 7PM crash? Lot never loading? Something else? 

The game crashes when I try to load the lot when moving the sim in.

Since I posted i tried playing with the noteleportpuddle hack aded to my normal game, with all downloads and hacks.  It made no diference, the lots crashed the game in the same ways.


kat

[Zazazu]

FYI, if anyone else with all EPs wants to be a tester monkey, click on the "MTS2 crap" link on my signature. I put the set of my first townhouses up there for testing. I'm not sure anymore if I tested those with CAS sims. I know I did with Maxis bin sims. My unreleased brownstones I tested last night with CAS sims and couldn't get to crash. I've got another set of adobes in my head that I'll try to crash once they are done and ready, most likely tonight. Then the three more sets I have in my head go through crash-testing.

I have all patches but the BV one and am cracked.

[baratron]

Um... either I'm missing something really obvious, or we've all been missing something really obvious .

If we know that the house can randomly crash the first time you move a CAS sim in - at 7pm, when hitting the day/night toggle, or on the first save - but after that it's perfectly stable... why not have the lot creator move a sim in and save, then move the sim out again? If the crash is due to some artifact of the lot shrinking process which gets fixed on the first save, wouldn't that fix whatever the problem is?

I know that moving the sim out would cause all the furnishings to be lost, but if that process would "stabilise" the house, the lot creator could then simply add furniture afterwards - and then package the "fixed" version of the house.

[pbox]

To me it looks like roofs are part of the equation. I tested the following in the base game:


Round 1:

Made a bunch of minimal lots, all of them 3x3, and built/put the following in the middle 10 tiles:
- Lot 1: Fence
- Lot 2: Walls (I haven't tested that one yet)
- Lot 3: Foundation (I haven't tested that one yet)
- Lot 4: One fridge
- Lot 5: One bed
- Lot 6: Long gable roof (walls left and right -- which is what I have in the Backdoor Lane lot)

* Shrunk all lots by 1 unit left and right, using 1.2.7.8
* Went into all lots and added one piece of wall, one piece of fence, etc (whichever was on the lot before); on the fridge/bed lots I added 1 floortile
* Moved a new CAS sim in each lot

* All lots except one survived Build mode night toggle and 7PM fine (no crashing), except for the roof lot -- it crashed when I clicked the day/night toggle in Build mode.


Round 2:

Made four new 3x3 lots, with 10 tile wide roofs in the middle of each: one long gable, one shed gable, one hipped, and one short gable roof respectively (short gable= wider than deep, so the walls are in front+back; the shed gable had its walls in front, right, and back). I put the long gable roof lot in the bin and back after this in order to rename it, the other ones remained where they were.

* Shrunk all of those lots as before; went back in and added one floortile each: the long gable lot crashed when exiting during the neighbourhood load screen. The other lots didn't.

* Moved a new CAS sim in each of the other 3 lots; all of them survived night toggle and 7PM. No crashes.


No idea at this point whether it was the move-to-lotbin-and-back, the renaming, or the type of roof that made the lot go wonky. Will hopefully test more tomorrow. I'll also need to pay attention in which direction I draw the roof .. haven't done that so far.

For those who don't remember the base game era anymore: in the base game, and in NL too, it was necessary to move a lot to the bin+back in order to rename it. Since I don't remember whether or not I moved any of the lots from round 1 during testing, I can't tell whether this played a role.

Roof code must have changed with NL, with OfB, with Seasons, and with BV (new roof types and cheats were added for each of those). I don't know about Pets and Uni.


Now how in the world is there a connection between CAS sims, roof types, nightfall, and puddle moving hacks? Borken rain code in the Base game? Borken plant sim code?

[pbox]

If we know that the house can randomly crash the first time you move a CAS sim in - at 7pm, when hitting the day/night toggle, or on the first save - but after that it's perfectly stable...

The problem I see is that if we don't know what causes this, we've no way of knowing how "perfectly stable" it actually is. No crash doesn't prove anything .. only a crash does. Also, we don't know whether it's a bug in the game or in the lot expander -- if it's the latter, it's possible that it can be fixed.

What you say is making total sense for everybody's *own* game -- if I had a month off to build myself a city to play with, this is exactly what I would do (or even simpler, save every new lot at 18:50 and let it crash while I go make a coffee or something). But we can't really *redistribute* lots that are known to crash people's games for unknown reasons .. if it crashes like that, who knows what else is wrong with the lot?

[ebonyspiral]

To me it looks like roofs are part of the equation. I tested the following in the base game:

Now that you mention it, I did notice that the roofs on my terrace of BackDoor Lane 42s don't all quite look the same. Nothing much, just some are slightly higher than others and I think the piece of wall under the roof slope wasn't showing. This is all just in neighbourhood view however and with my graphics card everything tends to look a bit lopsided.

If roofs are involved though, would the flat roof (is it just flooring?) be able to cause a problem, as I've still had crashes with BlueTerrace?



Okay, just done quite a bit more testing. To be honest, it's only getting me more confused, especially after reading so much other feedback!
However, here's what I experienced.

I removed all downloads and deleted groups.cache to start with. I did leave in noteleportpuddles though. Just incase.  

My first attempt ended up with a crash straight away - BlueTerrace lot.
>Place lot >CAS >Enter empty lot and attempt to save = crash.

Restarted...
This time I tried several lots - BlueTerrace, DocDoofus lot and BackDoor Lane 42. I tried different combinations to placing lots and using CAS because I thought the order might be a factor (CAS sims seem to be involved in more crashes than Maxis/pre existing sims do, from what I've gathered. Even just using CAS itself).
>Place lot >Open/save while empty >CAS >Move in/Play
>Place lot >CAS >Open and save while empty >Move in/Play
>CAS >Place lot >Open and save while empty >Move in/Play

But none of these produced crashes. I tried a lot but could do no wrong.
Sooo... the only thing I can think that was different, was that on my first attempt I had only just installed BlueTerrace and there were some files in the teleport folder. I couldn't remember if I ought to remove them myself. After the crash and before I reloaded however the folder was empty.

I quit and reloaded after removing nopuddleteleport (determined not to completely give up on the bugger) and successfully managed 2 crashes in a row.
BackDoor 42 >Place >CAS >Open/save while empty = crash
Then...
BackDoor 42 >Place >Open/save while empty >CAS >Move in/play >7pm = crash

However, after restarting again, I could not get another crash. Even doing exactly the same which triggered the last 2 crashes.

My head hurts and I don't know what significance this feedback is...  
What I will do next, is try out my own lots. Crash or no crash, I love what Lot Expander can do and the terrace houses look so fantastic! I hope everyone still enjoys these lots regardless.  

Um... either I'm missing something really obvious, or we've all been missing something really obvious

I'd love it if we all had to have a big "D'OH" moment. 

[pbox]

Now that you mention it, I did notice that the roofs on my terrace of BackDoor Lane 42s don't all quite look the same. Nothing much, just some are slightly higher than others and I think the piece of wall under the roof slope wasn't showing.
This is all just in neighbourhood view however and with my graphics card everything tends to look a bit lopsided.

Yes, roofs often look a bit odd in neighbourhood view. The game makes low-resolution models of every lot (the "lot impostors") that are shown in hood view and from neighbouring houses, so that it doesn't have to actually render of all those houses .. these impostors look less than perfect in many respects.

>Place lot >CAS >Enter empty lot and attempt to save = crash.

Not sure what you mean with "CAS" here .. you went to make a sim, but didn't move them in (left them in the bin instead)?

(CAS sims seem to be involved in more crashes than Maxis/pre existing sims do, from what I've gathered. Even just using CAS itself).

So far, *only* lots with freshly moved in CAS sims have been crashing.

[Doc Doofus]

Here is another shrunk 1x1 BV-created house for you to test. 

Two bedrooms, furnished, a basement, one custom ladder by Targa.  Price = Cheap.

http://webpages.charter.net/ronunderwood/Doof%201x1%202-bed%20basement.Sims2Pack

And from the same website (mine), here's some classical music to test your speakers with.  A short segment from Mahler's 8th Symphony,  (my daughter's favorite). 

http://webpages.charter.net/ronunderwood/Mahler,%20Sym%208%20in%20Eb%20-%20209%20Blicket%20auf%20zum%20Retterblick.mp3

Also, a USEFUL OBSERVATION:

You can place windows on the OUTSIDE of your lot, facing the shrunken sides, and they will look right, as long as you place them with the green placement-arrow pointing INSIDE, not OUTSIDE.  If the placement arrow is pointing outside, when you place it, you will only have a blank hole in the wall  after it's shrunk, and even the neighborhood view (imposters) will look funny.  Place the arrow pointing INSIDE and the neighborhood view will be totally fine.

[ebonyspiral]

>Place lot >CAS >Enter empty lot and attempt to save = crash.

Not sure what you mean with "CAS" here .. you went to make a sim, but didn't move them in (left them in the bin instead)?

I left them in the bin temporarily while I entered the still empty lot and checked to see if I could alter and save it. Quite often it would crash when I attempted this save and that was without the day/night change.
I thought that the order in which I was placing a lot, entering it while empty and using CAS might have some significance. I've only ever had an empty lot crash on saving when I used CAS between placing the lot and entering it while still empty.

So far, *only* lots with freshly moved in CAS sims have been crashing.

I've been reading through so many posts here and on MTS2, I'd lost track. 

[Quinctia]

So I took out my downloads...crashing.  Put back in just the MATY hacks...crashing.  Put back in the other hack folder...crashing.

I have no idea.  Nothing else I have should affect game behaviors.