Nasty glitch

[Zazazu]

Once you've enabled the testing cheat, shift+click on the car, "force error" and select "reset".  Your sim should pop out of the car and be standing on the sidewalk.  Then shift+click on the car, "force error" and select "delete".  If you don't get rid of her car, the other car will not be able to return.
It's a NL bug that happens when 2 cars are tyring to use the garage door at exactly the same time. 

In order for it not to happen again you're going to either need to make a side by side parking arrangement or have someone park outside the garage. 

Dude, that's what Liz just said. You're just going to confused the already thoroughly confused OP.

[fatkitty]

No, not exaclty but that's what needs to be done to fix it.
I've had it happen several times.

Doesn't matter anyways, apparently mac users can't force errors.

[Marhis]

...I could make it work. Who has a Mac and wants to find out?

That would be awesome (needless to say); I may test it in BV (no FT nor AL for us Mac paeons, probably forever).

And I see you seem to have managed to be alive. I was just about to allow your sim to die off in Awesomeland. SHOW UP MOAR!

You know, I was afraid of something like this (my bad, of course). Actually, my boss seems to realize that internet connection at work might be useful sometimes, so I hope I'll can use my spare time at work for - at last! - browsing, reading and posting. During this year I become a crossword expert, sigh.
Next issue could be having that Windows ME connect and properly display sites between a blue screen and the next one... but that's another story.

As a Mac user can you still enable the testing cheat?  Errors (in this situation) should pop up all by themselves without having to force them.

Yep, "autonomous" errors do pop up regularly in debug mode, but force error does not pop up any window, nor it creates any log file.

[Mrs Lovett]

Thanks for responses.

Pity you didn't believe me in the first place when I told you force error did not work instead of calling me all sorts of an idiot.

Problem resolved. I resorted to moving the family out.

[Yimmit]

...I could make it work. Who has a Mac and wants to find out?

That would be awesome (needless to say); I may test it in BV (no FT nor AL for us Mac paeons, probably forever).

I could test up to Seasons (no pets).

[witch]

Pity you didn't believe me in the first place when I told you force error did not work instead of calling me all sorts of an idiot.

Well, that's a very nyaah, nyaah, nyaah post. I'm sure you're so very pleased and excited to be proved right.

Basically if something sounds like an idiot, acts like an idiot and looks like an idiot, we have to make a call.

[seelindarun]

...I could make it work. Who has a Mac and wants to find out?

Oh lordy, yes please.  I have EPs up to BV.

To the OP: you were not sufficiently articulate to be believed.  When half a dozen helpful posters ask you to report exactly where force error doesn't work, you didn't.  Instead you blathered about how boolprop didn't do anything.

(Why, oh why, must mac noobs always post like doorknobs?)

I've had this glitch.  I speculate that it happens when the portals get clogged with too many carpools, gardeners, maids, whathaveyou.  At the time, I think I forced the buy/build tools (boolprop dormspecifictoolsdisabled false) and then deleted the car (moveobjects on).  I subsequently retrieved the spouse with the mailbox, but lost the car.

[Zazazu]

(Why, oh why, must mac noobs always post like doorknobs?)

Macs are specifically marketed to appeal to the computer illiterate and noobtastic. Those who do not fit that profile are the exception. Yay you!

[seelindarun]

<sigh>  It wasn't always like that.  The first computer case I cracked open was a very dusty old mac...
Computer literacy aside, there is still no reason why owning a mac should lobotomise a person's ability to use w-o-r-d-s?

[EsotericPolarBear]

Wait wait wait....

back up



Doorknobs can post?

[witch]

Wait wait wait....

back up



Doorknobs can post?

The proof is in the pudding. See above.

[Simsbaby]

...I could make it work. Who has a Mac and wants to find out?

I still have the mac copy of the game. I could give it a go later.

[professorbutters]

This doesn't make sense to me.  I have a Mac, and I've certainly done a Force Error in Debug mode (and produced an error log.)  I'll be interested to see what results come up.

The only thing that does not quite seem to work is re-rolling wants.  Whether I use something spawned in Debug (the Sim Modder?) or the Lot Debugger, re-rolling wants only results in the exact same wants being re-rolled.  Otherwise, everything works fine, as far as I know.

If Debug Mode did not work, one would not be able to shift-click on a sim, mailbox, etc., and have the usual options come up, yes?  Then this seems incorrect, because as I said, I have certainly done it in the past.

PB

[dragoness]

They're not saying debug mode doesn't work. Just that specifically "Force Error" doesn't.

[J. M. Pescado]

The only thing that does not quite seem to work is re-rolling wants.  Whether I use something spawned in Debug (the Sim Modder?) or the Lot Debugger, re-rolling wants only results in the exact same wants being re-rolled.  Otherwise, everything works fine, as far as I know.

This is normal. Rerolling wants will not produce any new results unless the conditions that caused the current wants have changed. Wants that roll are determined by a number of seed conditions, so unless your sim does something that would trigger new wants to reroll, nothing is going to change and the same wants will roll up.

[Sagana]

Macs are specifically marketed to appeal to the computer illiterate and noobtastic. Those who do not fit that profile are the exception. Yay you!

Not necessarily as evidenced by the outrageous number of pc-using folks in the sales dept. who keep having to ask us mac-using art dept critters how to add an attachment to an email. *sigh*

The problem isn't what's on the desk, it's between the desk and the chair.

[Marhis]

This doesn't make sense to me.  I have a Mac, and I've certainly done a Force Error in Debug mode (and produced an error log.)  I'll be interested to see what results come up.

That's really interesting; I've never been able to have a Force Error spawn the window and the subsequent log. Something probably happens, though, as when I click e.g. "Force Error on all" with the batbox the game freezes or lags for a few seconds, even if no visible outcome occurs.
I didn't any extensive test with different combinations of EPs; now I have every damn EP and SP those lazy Aspyr programmers ported for Mac (I was so sick to wait that now I play in my Windows partition, to enjoy all the remaining SPs and at least FT).

Yesterday I tested the "Force Error an all" in Winzozz game... VERY bad idea.

[jsalemi]

Yesterday I tested the "Force Error an all" in Winzozz game... VERY bad idea.

Oh yea, you don't want to do that if you have the testing cheats enabled -- it'll generate thousands of errors as it errors everything in the game.  If you're going to use that one, turn the testing cheats off first, and it'll only error things associated with the lot you're currently playing.

[J. M. Pescado]

Download this and see if it enables force-error to do something on Mac.

[seelindarun]

Seems to work as advertised, and plays nicely with other Awesomeware.  I didn't really have any scenario that I could bork in a repeatable way, so it's hard to tell.  Random resets on the sim and on working objects always gave Undefined Transition errors, which aren't quite the same as the error logs that are generated from forcing Object Interaction errors off the mailbox.  Probably meaningless.

Diddling around with traffic-jammed portals, I did accidentally produce the borkage in the original post once.  In that case, forcing resets did nothing (except reset everyone else's calls to the portal!), but I was able to force error - delete.  That produced the expected results.

Without the hack, I can confirm that it's impossible to force errors at will on sims or on objects.  Using the mailbox, I can force errors if there is a suitable object that a sim is using.  The game of course does produce errors when there is a real one, but it's not possible for a user to force an error.  I double-checked on an Intel mac, but I recall that my PPC mac behaves the same way.

[Lerf]

Canceling a "go someplace" or "go to another lot" or "go home" action once it's started should cause something close to the error the original poster mentioned.  Good enough for testing purposes. 

I'd try it but I don't do Macs.  Spent years trying to ignore a Mac is the "One True Computer" evangelist who was, even without the Mac-fetish, one of the most obnoxious human beings of my acquaintance.   As a result I wouldn't touch a Mac if the only alternative was doing each calculation for the game with pen and paper. 

[seelindarun]

I didn't have any luck re-producing that one fortuitous traffic jam.  My test lot had a couple of carpools stacked with two owned cars -- all 4 sims leaving for work at the same time.  Cancelling one or more of the departing cars after the sim is inside didn't work except that one time.  Mostly, the cars just depart in spite of my cancelling the action.  I do remember that they used to be more likely to get stuck in an NL/OFB game but in my BV game; the portals seem to be better protected now, or something.

I may fiddle around a bit more with pedestrian portals on comm lots, maybe start a fire to clog up the portal...  In any case, I think the hack is at least serviceable as a secondary line of defense, for those few cases where the batbox is not available.

P.S. The One True Computer is dead.  Macs are now merely PCs with a better wardrobe, if it makes you feel any better.

[EsotericPolarBear]

My test lot had a couple of carpools stacked with two owned cars -- all 4 sims leaving for work at the same time. 

That wouldn't happen if you didn't buy cars for each member.  Or it shouldn't, unless something has changed since the last time I checked it.

And with "walk to lot" buying a car is purely aesthetic now.

But all sims that leave while a carpool exists should get into the same car.  Again, unless it's changed since the last time I tested it.  I could be talking out of my ass, though, I haven't tried that since EP2.

I'm really not sure why carpools exist.  Why can't the sims walk to work (ostensibly, to a bus stop)?

[Ruann]

Because then we'd never see all the cool crappy vehicles they made for the game, or be awed annoyed by the hellicopter. 

[Liz]

I'm really not sure why carpools exist.  Why can't the sims walk to work (ostensibly, to a bus stop)?

Before the 'Walk To' feature, I found the cars a nice, rare example of EAxis actually listening to the players for once. Throughout The Sims, players/fans kept begging and begging for drivable cars, and it was a pleasure to see them arrive early in TS2. This was an immense and welcome improvement from constantly needing to call for transportation every time you wanted to hit a different lot (with the exception of Makin' Magic's 'Hole in the Ground', which is orsum).

Having a car/carpool still can provide an actual benefit, as the more expensive cars help boost energy/fun/comfort. This can be a timely boost if you've been attempting to skillinate and/or handle other things before leaving for work. It also helps to offset some of the energy drain your sim loses on, say, a 2-game-hour jaunt to the local convenience store to grab a dog collar/water wiggler/whathaveyer. So while they're largely unnecessary, cars do still at least have their uses.

The helicopter, on the other hand, is kind of cool at first but then just becomes a nuisance, what with all the head-grabbing gnashing and wailing about the noise.