Can't greet strays

[AnnaM]

I've installed AL, then I've been away from the Sims for a while; now I'm back and I find that I can't greet strays who come into my lots. The only options are "Shoo" and "Chase off".

I've done a bit of a search and pretty much everything here related to strays is people hating on them. Well I don't hate them, and I'd like to be able to greet and eventually adopt them like I used to, but this is now impossible. I wonder if anybody else has the same problem, or does everybody hate them so much nobody tries to pet them? :-)

(I've got the 2nd patch installed, and all my Pescaderies are updated to yesterday. Because of being away, I don't remember when the problem started, i.e. if it was immediately after installing AL or later. My pants aren't overly tight, though I've got Jeff's ACR.)

Note that something similar happens with invited friends when they arrive: you can't greet them until they've rung the bell, you can only tell them to go away -- I seem to remember this wasn't the case before AL, but see above, I may be misremembering.

[tunaisafish]

I've seen this in my game, but some sims *do* have the option to pet though.
I've assumed it was tied in to some personality trait of the sim; niceness perhaps.
Total speculation, but it appears to be standard game logic.

[jsalemi]

Note that something similar happens with invited friends when they arrive: you can't greet them until they've rung the bell, you can only tell them to go away -- I seem to remember this wasn't the case before AL, but see above, I may be misremembering.

No, I think this started with AL -- probably has something to do with apartments.  If you live on the top floor, unless you run down you'd probably pass your friend on the stairs going up.   Better to just wait for the friend to ring the bell.

[talysman]

I've seen it intermittently. Usually, right before the stray is leaving the lot, but also sometimes when the sim is doing something like sitting in a chair, performing tai chi... things with minor undocking procedures. I've seen a couple other things disappear temporarily from pie menus, the most extreme being all the social interactions other than "Greet" disappearing from walkbys if the sim trying to socialize is indoors. Moving outdoors first makes the social interactions reappear. Likewise, social interactions with strays often reappear if I make a sim leave the house first, or just walk a few steps if already outside.

[J. M. Pescado]

What you're seeing isn't actually a BUG, but an interaction of a hack with EAxis behaviors. Under core EAxis, you're not allowed to interact at *ALL* with sims post-AL unless first perform the stupid greeting. The shiny "interact without greeting" allows you to interact WITHOUT greeting them, but only with targets at close range, which is why if you move away, you can't do it anymore. If you removed this, the options would just NEVER appear.

[talysman]

I figured it was probably related to the hack in some cases, although I've seen a couple situations where it can't be just the hack/core interaction, because only a few social actions are missing instead of all, or because it's not a social (cell phone actions sometimes disappear until I have the sim move a few steps, and I'm still trying to work out what causes Tai Chi to sometimes vanish.) But definitely,the OP's issue didn't really sound like total game borkage.

[J. M. Pescado]

I figured it was probably related to the hack in some cases, although I've seen a couple situations where it can't be just the hack/core interaction, because only a few social actions are missing instead of all, or because it's not a social (cell phone actions sometimes disappear until I have the sim move a few steps, and I'm still trying to work out what causes Tai Chi to sometimes vanish.) But definitely,the OP's issue didn't really sound like total game borkage.

The phone action vanishing briefly tends to be a state issue, where the cellphone is not completely holstered yet, so the game thinks the sim simply doesn't have one.

[AnnaM]

Ohh I see! I don't have Interact w/o greeting installed, because I was ok with greeting visitors. I see now the error of my ways. I'm going to install the shiny next time I get a chance to play, and then report back. Thanks! Sorry...

[J. M. Pescado]

Interact Without Greeting helps to avoid a lot of catch-22 situations and situations where you don't WANT to GREET someone, you just want to POUND HIS FACE IN.

[Zazazu]

Well, fine. Guess I'll have to swallow that one as well. My poor knowledge sims were besides themselves with the need to play with wolves, but were only able to chase and shoo. (I have no strays).

[AnnaM]

Aaaannd... we have liftoff! The shiny solved the problem. Need to get close first, but hey, that's doable. Now my sims are happy again.

[rosesforme]

I know this thread hasn't been posted in for quite a while, but I had the same problem and finally decided to track down the source. Not being able to greet the strays anymore is not AL related. I pulled out all my hacks/mods to test and was able to again greet the strays that came by. So obviously it was one of the hacks. I played a hunch and pulled out one of the hacks leaving the others in. I was able to greet the strays no problem. So then I removed all hacks and only put the one I had a hunch about in the downloads. I couldn't greet the strays again. So my instinct was correct and have figured it out that the problem was with the "no autonomous greet" hack by Squinge. I did redownload to make sure I had the correct version installed, but still couldn't greet strays with this hack in. Not sure if he's even aware of it so I'll be posting this at Insim. But if you have the "no autonomous greet" installed in your game, that may be why you couldn't greet strays anymore.

[cwykes]

I've been able to greet some strays but not others.  Often it depended on exactly where I clicked on the animal - I'd get 2 options (shoo, chase off) on the head and 3 around the tail end (shoo, chase off & greet).  Annoying and bizarre.

I don't have interact w/o greet, because I didn't like it when I tried it years ago.  I'd interact with a sim only to have them walk off because they hadn't been greeted & I didn't like that.  Looks like I'd better review my choice now though.

[edited to fix typo]

[ScoobyDoo]

I don't think Squinge's no autonomous greet is what's causing this.  I still can't greet certain creatures even when it's disabled.

[rosesforme]

For me, it is Squinge's No Autonomous Greet hack causing this. I've removed it from my game, and have no problems greeting strays since. I've even adopted a couple, which I could not have done with that hack installed.

You say you have the hack disabled ScoobyDoo, but have you tried removing from your downloads folder? This hack may or may not be the cause of the glitch for you, but it is worth testing at least. Try setting it aside on your desktop, or somewhere else safe, and play the game. If you can greet strays, it was this hack. If the problem persists, you may have a different hack conflict.

[ScoobyDoo]

Yup, I removed it from the sims folder completely.  I noticed that if you click around the shoulders of the dogs (at least the wolves) then you can greet them.

[cwykes]

So there is something about exactly where you click on the animal.  Or your sim is nearer the head & mine is nearer the rear and it's the distance thing Pescado mentioned.