Wonky Colored Question Mark Tiles

[ladycoelura]

After I went in to play my game last night I went and searched for the Goth and Wolfe houses because to be honest I didn't even know which they were. And sure enough it isn't only my art gallery which is fubarred. However where the art gallery is totally gone the two houses are only partially bad. But being in use it won't let me fix them either. And I didn't see any railing in the art gallery that weren't already in the game. ( I read that one post about ea putting railing that weren't in the build mode, which was supposed to have corrupted the lots). But I have never entered the Goth or Wolfe house so I have no clue as to what is inside them but I could see the some of the walls and floors were doing the ? multi color thing. I will probably go find homes to replace them too. I also do not have the greatest ability when it comes to building homes. I kinda suck actually. No imagination at all. So Thanks for the info it was very mostly helpful everyone.

Lady

[Writin_Reg]

I was the one who noticed the stair rail turned into balcony rails both at the Sims forum and here. Seeing I have already added those rails from MTS, I thought I should reply to this query, along with disputing all the others as a big NIL in my game.

So to answer you first, nope - it did not make a difference to have these extracted rails added to my game.

As to the one claiming a total repaint of every single wall, floor, and even roof, terrain paint, and adding paint where there was none at all (like inside the square columns and their floors - did NOT stop the riddler from reappearing. It did delay the riddler, but for only about 2 Sims weeks. I did notice that not playing one of those hoods kept the riddler wall at bay though, as I made 2 "save as...." copies of the repainted building hoods and called one -save as played and the other as - save as unused. It actually took playing the unused hood approxiamately the same amount of time I played the first hood to make the riddler reappear. One thing interesting I discovered in both - is from a distance the buildings looked fine, new paint job intact. As I slowly loomed closer the art gallery would flash back and forth between total riddler and total repainted. Before the repainting it just hung steadfast to the riddler wall, floors, and ceilings.

What I tried after that is I totally removed the Sims 3 folder from under My Documents, then started the game and let the game replace every single folder under My documents. This removed everything in my game including patches - which I thought was odd, as the game was telling me updates were availiable. I had no Riverview, no launcher downloads, nothing as if I had reinstalled the game. I left it like that and decided to test out the theory on seeing if the riddler came from use of patches or downloads, as I apparently had neither of those but I did still have all the stuff in my mods folders, so I had to remove those physically as I knew most would not work without the patches, especially awesomemod.
 I played the hood with one of the EA families from the library - the one with the most kids. Sure enough about midway into the 2nd Sims week the riddler roared to life on the art gallery on just a few walls and a few floors. By the following day the building was nothing but riddler. So far the Wolfe Mansion and Goth Mansion were showing free of the tiles.
I played 2 more Sims days and those two buildings stayed clear of the riddler, but the Art gallery was covered still. So I repainted it completely, including floors, including the foundation like walls around the building, everything and every nook and cranny. Three sims days past and I noticed that the Lone Wolfe Mansion had a few scatterings of the riddler on a few wall and the roof. The Goth Mansion I thought was okay until I actually zoomed up close to it and discovered the floor at the door entrance also was covered with riddler tiles, but the rest of the house seemed intact. I moved the Goths to the clipboard to further inspect the house and discovered that the entire foundation under the house was covered in riddler tiles but only on the inside. This was especially odd as before I had noticed the inside foundation of the Goth house in a different game was that black stone and cement look the Sims 3 foundation comes with as I cannot purposely paint a wall like that foundation, so I assume it is by design. Well I tried repainting the entire foundation with a stone pattern byt just under the house on the inside. When I did this I noticed some walls did not cover and even individually painting them caused previously colored ones to revert back to riddler. To further the disappointment some of the upperfloor interior walls and even paintings on the wall had the riddler squares scattered here and there. I went back to the under foundation and removed all the paint and found all the riddler squares inside the house had reverted back to normal.

I could go on and on about things I've tried, including installing hoods that were totally remade, and the art gallery had been repainted, the Goth house was the Goth house from Sims 1, and the Wolfe Mansion was another Ultra modern house. I do not know if these creators bulldozed the lots before placing these buildings, but the design of the business area was reworked and the Art Gallery was even in a different spot than it had been, yet yesterday my new Art Gallery suddenly is covered in riddler walls. I have now been playing this particular hood about 5 real time days, which is about 15 Sims weeks.
  So far I have tried every suggestion made to no avail. None of the fixes last longer than 3 Sims weeks, but absolutely replacing the building period with none EA buildings, because the new Goth house and the New Lone Wolfe are staying riddler free. I have a sneaking suspicion the problem is the building itself, as I have not yet tried a totally new building on that lot. Also adding patches finally after the fact did nothing but make the building look normal from a distance, but flash back and forth between normal and riddler up close. Now it seems the angle at which you view the Art gallery can make it look normal or riddler just by changing the camera view. This has to be the oddest glitch I have ever experienced.
Just wanted to add - I have never had a save 13 error or save 12 error in any of these hoods, in fact I have only had one of each ever since the game came out and those were both in the first month. So apparently the corruption doesn't go deep enough to cause either error. I also do not crash, lag, have any speed problems, or anything. I use the fps limiter and the 3 booter to start and play my game. Also it does not matter whether or not I play with Awesomemod either. I have played the game both with and without - so awesomemod is NOT a factor period. It's definitely an EA problem because I also have the problem in a strictly vanilla game with NO CC at all.

[Luna Doll]

Just now I made a new Sunset Valley and selected the Goth household and the game crashed while it was loading their house.   

[ShortyBoo]

I just got these in my game last night, but only at the Goth mansion so far. The first time I noticed the question mark tiles, they were only on a few sections on the wall closest to the graveyard. The next day, there were more along the side as well as lots in the bottom of the pool. Now the entire house is covered in them. I was planning on replacing the mansion with a new one anyway, so I might just do that. Actually, the Goth house was the only original house I kept. The rest were bulldozed and replaced with lots I built or downloaded.

[aspinL]

I got the riddler tiles on the front entrance of my art gallery a few days ago for the first time. I've been playing sims 3 since it came out and this is the first time I've seen these, except for when I read this thread once before. I noticed with the tiles at the art gallery, when you use the eyedropper tool and click the riddler tile it pulls up the actual tile it is and lets you add more riddler tiles anywhere. It's as if you were using the eyedropper tool for any other copy and paste jobs. I just repainted over my tiles hoping to fix it, as I read in here that no one seems to have figured any way to stop them.
Then I went to the Goth mansion. And as ShortyBoo said, mine were on the wall closest to the mansion, then more scattered all the way up towards the tower, and some on the pool bottom. I don't play with the Goth mansion so I just repaint if I notice some.

[PhantomNeko]

I got these on the paintings my artist sim did. I just deleted all of the paintings and made him start over.

[Druscylla]

I also am having Riddler infestation and as for EA tech claiming those of us with 4800 series Radeon cards are out of luck, that's bull. My case says right there, ATI Radeon 4870. My game runs utterly flawlessly beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that when the riddler pops up, its completely eye-bleaching. I first noticed that the entire museum was corrupted in one save. It showed up and I figured it was some CC I downloaded and I forgot about it to be honest. Then it went away again and didn't show back up till a week later. I made a new save where I have been playing the Goths, and it seems to be the pool and Mortimer's room that were the most infested. I have no idea what is causing it, but I am noticing a lot of people having problems have ATI cards...not sure if this is really the case though. And I am extremely doubtful about it being a memory leak issue since it starts the second I start my computer and game up.

Here is an interesting piece of information however. It was NOT displaying riddler tiles on my notebook. My notebook is slower and also uses an ATI card, and did not have riddler tiles when opening the same save (I have the game synced over 3 computers). So I am really baffled as to what is causing this.

[Tingeling]

As are we all, Druscylla. I am currently enjoying my Geforce 3700 LE, and has been ever since Sims 3 came out. No riddler tiles until a few weeks ago, which says to me it has nothing to do with the graphics card itself. The tiles have sprung up on new saved games I started. The first one shows no signs of the riddler tiles, which I think it should have if it was the card that was the problem. I bet it is just EA trying to place the blame somewhere else, as usual. And yes, the graphics card is enough for Sims 3 since the graphics are wonderful apart from those pesky riddler tiles.

[Anonym]

I started with a clean town of all but the community/job buildings, so the Riddler only struck the art museum for me.

I found it pretty easy to just bulldoze the art museum and build another.  It's a pretty easy thing to build; all you need are lights and decorative objects.  People don't go upstairs in the museum anymore even though I put the best art upstairs, but that's pretty minor.

If you have fambly homes being infested by the Riddler, as apparently happens with default Sunset Valley, doing the same would be somewhat more tedious (assuming you're like me and dislike building homes you don't intend to play much), but I expect it to be a permanent fix.

[Druscylla]

I am reluctant to start bulldozing as the problem comes and goes. EA keeps blaming me for the problem saying I got a bad download or my computer isn't up to playing the game.

[PhantomNeko]

I am reluctant to start bulldozing as the problem comes and goes. EA keeps blaming me for the problem saying I got a bad download or my computer isn't up to playing the game.

They gave me the same bullshit until I slowly explained that my computer is very much up to playing the game and it was EAxis content that was borking, not just custom. Then all I got was silence.

[ShortyBoo]

I bulldozed the Goth hoouse and replaced it with another home I downloaded and so far, I haven't seen any other riddler tiles.

[Druscylla]

I went to EA again with this and was directed to the AMD website to download a hotfix. http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Hotfixfor3DGames.aspx I am installing it now and going to try it, but since it isn't just AMD card users, I have doubts this will fix anything. It specifically claims it fixes graphical corruptions in Sims 3 for ATI Radeon 2000, 3000 and 4000 series cards.

Edit:
The fix is a lie.

[ShortyBoo]

That's the same fix they told me to try to stop the game from freezing in CAS with my Radeon HD 4850. It didn't work, so I had to go back to my x1900. My graphics look horrible, but at least there's no crashing. I have had that fix for awhile and I got the riddler tiles anyway, so, no, it's not a fix for it.

[aussiegirl]

i also got the same reply from EA I'm guessing they just don't want to own up to their stupidity and their inept programing skills. They tried to say that my AMD 4850 was not a supported card and that it was too fast for this game (absolute B**l Sh*t) I ended up bulldozing all of the offending lots. I replaced them with downloads from MTS I replaced the Art Gallery with "Wrensday Art Gallery by calisims"  the Goth House with "The Sims 2 To The Sims 3 Series-The Goth Mansion by Hraklis943" and the Lone Wolfe with a nice house called"Felicity by romagi". That was several Sims weeks ago and so far I haven't had any more ridler tiles show up (touch wood). I am  so ticked off with EA they have totally ripped us off with Sims 3. I have even contemplated going back to playing Sims 2 again. It really pisses my off when EA blames the user for their errors, especially when I went out and brought a high end gaming computer so that I could play their game. Shame on you EA.

[Heli]

But I don´t have Radeon. I have Nvidia Geforce 9800GT.

[Tingeling]

But I don´t have Radeon. I have Nvidia Geforce 9800GT.

I think that what he/she is saying is that it doesn't really matter what sort of video card you have, since EA is still full of bullshit and will do whatever it takes to put the blame somewhere else. I have a Nvidia Geforce 7300 LE and I also have the riddler tiles. I bet that if I would go to EA and ask for a solution they would encourage me to update my drivers. At this point in time I'm not able to do that though, since "Bertha" kicked the bucket a week ago and I'm currently waiting for a new OS so I can give the old hag a facelift. I highly doubt it that all of our videocards, all different from eachother, would all of a sudden become obsolete because of some new drivers. The fact still stands: The base game came out several months ago, most of us has played the game during this time and it wasn't until about a month ago the riddler tiles started to show up. How is that an indication of a graphics card not being up to date? I would understand it if it had happened AFTER we installed the new expansion pack, or if it happened simultaneously for all just after the last patch. I r disappoint and confuzzled.

[aussiegirl]

My point exactly, EA kept telling me it was my ATI card that was causing the problem even though I had pointed out to them that people with other cards were having the same error. They are so full of sh*t. they need to own up to their mistake and fix it.

[Steele]

I occasionally encounter these riddler tiles. These are my observations on what's causing it during my gameplay.

Most of them on my custom paintings (portraits, memorized shots, still life, sim painted paintings not CCs). From what I noticed from the paintings, there is a link from the image library within your save game that gets broken which causes. Mostly when the painter or the subject (for portraits) sim description gets bugged the ownership tags gets broken. Also moving portraits to another neighborhood via the bin also removes the links even if the related sim is present with the move.

Also unplayed lots with custom paintings does get broken links a lot more often than active lots. It's my guess that inactive lots tend to have less or no refresh sessions to manage and maintain link stability.

For walls and floors tiles, usually it happens when I load patterns over default floorings and wallpapers, somehow the custom pattern overlaid does not save and during the next texture refresh session of the game the unsaved pattern is replaced by these riddler tiles. In rare instances default patterns in my game also gets these tiles when my cache is full (during Error 13 instances).

[Druscylla]

I am now getting a new type of riddler tile. Specifically in the Goth house again, the riddler tiles will show up lightly underneath the texture and colour of the walls or floors. For example, in the bathroom closest to Mortimer's room, I noticed that the tiles on the wall which used to be grey have turned an odd shade of pink with a faint green ? in the middle. This also happened to the wall paneling. The shade became more pink and the ? showed thru faintly.
What I tried to do was to go to another save game and save ALL the textures of every surface and wall of an untainted Goth house and then repaint my Goth house with those same paints. The riddler tiles still returned the next time I loaded the game. I experimentally changed several rooms with my own combination of paints and flooring. These rooms have remained fine without ridder tiles.

The only way to remove it completely is bulldoze it seems, repainting is working for me but I doubt it will be a permanent solution. $5 says this will not be fixed in the EP.

[coconnor]

Along with all the other problems that have occurred with this game, I finally got tired of putting up with the "riddler" tile infestation, and bulldozed Goth Manor, Lone Wolff Manor and the Art Gallery and replaced them with custom buildings.  No problems with riddler tiles since then.  So, that seems to be a "permanent" (I hope) solution.

@Jordi:  I'm still getting Error Code 12 even with a virtually new game (a few days old).  It's the most annoying thing.  I've been using Pescado's fixes (fixall, towderelicts, etc.) and Twallen's Supercomputer to try to play past them.

[Simsample]

Jordi, any theories as to why it affects just those three lots?
Edit: Hey, where did Jordi go?

[snowbawl]

He threw a hissy fit, deleted all his posts from this year, and souped.

[Sigmund]

Interestingly, I just had this problem pop up in a more or less blank-slate version of Sunset Valley-- meaning that all the EAxian community lots were there, but the houses were all built from the ground up. The only place I have seen this happen in so far was the art gallery, but apparently Goth or Wolff manors aren't needed to develop this problem. I'm off to bulldoze the art gallery and hope for the best.

[coconnor]

Interestingly, I just had this problem pop up in a more or less blank-slate version of Sunset Valley-- meaning that all the EAxian community lots were there, but the houses were all built from the ground up. The only place I have seen this happen in so far was the art gallery, but apparently Goth or Wolff manors aren't needed to develop this problem. I'm off to bulldoze the art gallery and hope for the best.

I bulldozed all three lots.  I replaced the Art Gallery with one from MTS2, which only came with a few paintings (you need to hang your own in the rest of the space). Strangely enough, one of the existing paintings was a "riddler" tile, but I just deleted it.  I attributed this to the fact this it was probably a custom painting which I don't have installed.  No other riddler tiles have appeared on the replacement art gallery.