yeah... I broke it. Apartments are FUBAR.

[lurklurklurk]

Hello. This is my first post; I have read the FAQ. I've been lurking for a couple of weeks.

What happens is this:
I move in one of my cute little families into an apartment, rent one, play for a while, then save and quit. When I come back later, all of their furniture disappears and the door says "vacant". They are still doing what ever they were doing when they left, sitting on invisible chairs, playing with invisible xylophones, ect. So I exit without saving.

I dragged my downloads folder to the desktop and tried playing. I moved someone in, rented an apartment, saved and went to the neighborhood, and when I came back behold! They still had their stuff. Hallelujah.

So I decided that maybe I had some outdated hacks or something. So I went to ffs/al/hacks/ and picked out some of my favorites, put them in a new downloads folder.  Now my only hacks are ffs.
I tried to play my favorite family and they were "evicted" again.

I figure that one of these things is going on:
1) One of the ffs hacks is messing it up (please don't hurt me)
2) something to do with exiting the game and reentering it mess things up, because when I got it to work, I only went to the neighoboorhood screen.
3) My game is fucked because I am stupid, I've done stupid things before I new better like deleting people from the sim bin and other things the EvilAxis lets you believe is ok but really isn't...


What should I do? Thank you for your help.

[dragoness]

Just to clarify...

You took out everything and tried a different family to see if it worked? Did you try the broken family with no downloads in?

[kutto]

If you're concerned that the neighborhood is causing the problem, try setting up an apartment in a fresh custom hood.

[J. M. Pescado]

Alll of these issues involving "sims that vanish" and stuff like this sound like "incomplete save" issues, where for some reason the game is not able to properly write part of your save data, resulting in dangling character files and failure to save lot state. Make sure you are not doing anything dumb, like trying to play the game with SimPE holding your neighborhood open. For some reason SimPE is stupid and locks all the files.

[SJActress]

Alll of these issues involving "sims that vanish" and stuff like this sound like "incomplete save" issues, where for some reason the game is not able to properly write part of your save data, resulting in dangling character files and failure to save lot state.

I haven't had this happen...yet...but is there a way to know if the save is complete or not?  I usually Save and then Exit, as opposed to Exit and Save on prompt.  Is there anything one should be looking for during this process, or do we just have to hope and pray that it saved properly?

[lurklurklurk]

 

Alll of these issues involving "sims that vanish" and stuff like this sound like "incomplete save" issues, where for some reason the game is not able to properly write part of your save data, resulting in dangling character files and failure to save lot state. Make sure you are not doing anything dumb, like trying to play the game with SimPE holding your neighborhood open. For some reason SimPE is stupid and locks all the files.

No, i don't have simpe open.

Could it be that I move this family into this neighborhood from another neighborhood by moving their lot to occupied lots bin? *hangs head in shame* I just didn't know better at the time. This was before AL, and I've been playing with them for a while no problem before that.

Is the whole neighborhood going to burst into flames eventually? can they be saved?

Just to clarify...

You took out everything and tried a different family to see if it worked? Did you try the broken family with no downloads in?

I think that when i got it to work it was with a different family.

If you're concerned that the neighborhood is causing the problem, try setting up an apartment in a fresh custom hood.

 I'll try it. I'm going to try a whole different neighborhood with a fresh family and see if apts work there.

[jolrei]

Could it be that I move this family into this neighborhood from another neighborhood by moving their lot to occupied lots bin? *hangs head in shame* I just didn't know better at the time. This was before AL, and I've been playing with them for a while no problem before that.

This could be it, yes.  Problems do not necessarily manifest themselves immediately after such a "move", but it is a good way to bork your hood.

Is the whole neighborhood going to burst into flames eventually? can they be saved?

Quite likely.  You can nurse it along, but it's likely DOOMED!  You could spend a lot of time in SimPE trying to remove memories, SWAFs, etc, nursing your hood along, but you might still not prevent DOOM.

I'll try it. I'm going to try a whole different neighborhood with a fresh family and see if apts work there.

Likely the best course of action.  If you really like those sims, you could clone them and rebuild them for the new hood.  There's a tutorial on that if you search.

[J. M. Pescado]

Could it be that I move this family into this neighborhood from another neighborhood by moving their lot to occupied lots bin? *hangs head in shame* I just didn't know better at the time. This was before AL, and I've been playing with them for a while no problem before that.

[lurklurklurk]

Update:
I made a fresh hood, plopped an EA-made apt lot in it and moved the Picasos in or whatever, gave them some furniture, saved and exited. When I came back, everything was fine. So at least it is possible for me to play AL, even if it's not with my current sims.
I guess it's goodbye to my neighborhood, Vandalia.

I seriously hate EA for allowing me to blow up my game with regular game play. If there is a feature such as moving an occupied lot to the bin, the average non-awesome person like me thinks its ok.
I'd like to thank you all for helping me out. I guess I shall clone my favorite sims. I'll begin looking for a tutorial but if anyone feels like giving me a link that would be much appreciated.

[J. M. Pescado]

I seriously hate EA for allowing me to blow up my game with regular game play. If there is a feature such as moving an occupied lot to the bin, the average non-awesome person like me thinks its ok.

Well, sure. That's a reasonable belief that a reasonable person could believe, and that is how it SHOULD be. It is NOT, however, how it actually is.

[BastDawn]

I'll begin looking for a tutorial but if anyone feels like giving me a link that would be much appreciated.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8407.0.html

[chobeegal]

  You can't move occupied lots to the bin and then to another neighborhood? Gee, I've been doing that with no problem from the  base game on up. I guess now that I know it can't work, my game will now probably explode into a flaming ball of fire and obliterate me from the face of the earth. LOL