90% of Sunset Valley lots gone after returning from vacation.

[nanacake]

I had not experienced any blue lots using store custom content only and WA. Just opened my game now to find most residential lots are blue. The last two residential lots I had edited before my last save and quit -were visible, unoccupied and can edit them found everything intact. They both had custom store content. So I want to know is anyone having the blue lots on a lot that is not an occupied residential lot? All my community lots and empty ones still remain visible.

Can not think of what I have done differently, only thing I did was update Awesomemod 6 hours ago.  There is a .sims3 folder of the save, as well as a .sims3.backup folder. I will try deleting the backup one and see what happens.

EDIT: No that did not do anything.

[Inge]

nanacake, your post confused me in one respect.  You use the phrase "custom store content".   Store content is EA-created, and not custom content.  Did you mean "Exchange" content?  That is made by players to share.

[nanacake]

You use the phrase "custom store content"

I meant just EA's store items. I considered it as custom even though it is created by EA because it has to be installed separately. I also feel like there's more of a possibility (of blue lots) with any downloaded content because they use up more memory. My theory is it could be a lack of RAM/a memory leak, failure to load the lots, then the save becomes corrupted. I ended up starting a new neighborhood.

[brownlustgirl]

Well Inge and the rest at Custom Sims are doing better than the programmers at EA. The reply from EA's Support Forum has me thinking that our only hope are the modders in the community.

The reply from the EA support forum appears to be to endlessly redirect in circles without ever actually displaying a reply. Which, I guess, makes a lot of sense. I approve of this new efficiency upgrade. Why bother having a PERSON redirect you in circles when the computer can do the same thing?

Out of curiosity, were you one of the 4 out of 23 people who found that answer to be helpful?

Haha, no! I didn't click the poll cause I know about the social interaction problems, but the blue lot issue, that answer made me think they are not trying to figure it out. Blame it on users downloading 3rd party CC, that's not T$R. Guess we have to wait on modders to come up with the solution.

[Krib]

Hey Nanacake, did you perchance use a pre-WA (and patch of death) save to get the blue lots? If so, it would match my experience (posted it a couple of pages back).

On another note, game performance with .packages and the framework installed still blows chunks, at least for me. MTS is down right now, but over there in the help forum, someone hit on the idea of using Process Explorer to see what the game is doing. Turns out that for me, within a 2 minute playtime, it called one plant by Mutske from TSR (cactus04, converted to .package format) over a million times. I yanked out that plant, and gained back 7 fps.

I don't necessarily know what I *should* be seeing in Process Explorer, but maybe some of you might. Worth a look (and a run) when MTS comes back up.

[Sigmund]

On another note, game performance with .packages and the framework installed still blows chunks, at least for me. MTS is down right now, but over there in the help forum, someone hit on the idea of using Process Explorer to see what the game is doing. Turns out that for me, within a 2 minute playtime, it called one plant by Mutske from TSR (cactus04, converted to .package format) over a million times. I yanked out that plant, and gained back 7 fps.

My own experience has been pretty consistent with the discussion over at MTS, which is that only certain .package files seem to cause lag. With one Newsea hair downloaded (and nothing else), my game took 5+ minutes to load. With all of my other downloads (currently around 200 mb total), the game takes less than a minute to load. If you're having lagging problems, it's most likely due to certain .packages rather than all of them. Assuming that your computer was able to run the same amount of CC fine prior to WA, that is.

[nanacake]

Hey Nanacake, did you perchance use a pre-WA (and patch of death) save to get the blue lots? If so, it would match my experience (posted it a couple of pages back).

Yes, it was an old save, which immediately upon first loading had used Save As and given it a new name. That save lasted a week before viewing blue lots. I had just updated AM when the blue lots appeared. Then my new save made right after I deleted the broken one became blue lots too. I'm on my third save now, I'm kind of expecting this current one to load blue lots when I open up next.

If you're having lagging problems, it's most likely due to certain .packages rather than all of them. Assuming that your computer was able to run the same amount of CC fine prior to WA, that is.

I did install most of the store items to my mods framework folder as .package instead of letting 3viewer install it to the default directories. It can become laggy moving the camera around. From desktop to neighborhood view takes about 4 minutes to startup. Saving takes about 1 minute and 30 seconds to up to 3 minutes if I haven't saved recently.

[Inge]

I suspect the blue lots to be caused by a problem with the way s3oc decides which resources to include in the package, and therefore to renumber.   This is probably a material or texture definition we have not understood the significance of and cannot just be given any old number.  TSRW programmers may not understand the problem any better, their tool may be creating non blue-lotting objects simply because TSRW only pulls in those resources that are going to be edited.   TSRW may well make blue-lotting objects if the user decided to edit one of the more obscure resources. 

We're still investigating but there has been no breakthrough yet.  If anyone else feels like doing a bit of analysis, the more hands on deck the better

In the meantime, please be guided by Amjoie's list of "bad" content and don't clone certain objects using s3oc.

[Krib]

My own experience has been pretty consistent with the discussion over at MTS, which is that only certain .package files seem to cause lag. With one Newsea hair downloaded (and nothing else), my game took 5+ minutes to load. With all of my other downloads (currently around 200 mb total), the game takes less than a minute to load. If you're having lagging problems, it's most likely due to certain .packages rather than all of them. Assuming that your computer was able to run the same amount of CC fine prior to WA, that is.

Yes to all of that. I clearly still have something in there that is slowing me down, but not anything that's being called repeatedly to the point that it would be noticeable in Process Explorer. I mean, the stuff in the house I'm playing gets called about a hundred times each on load, but that's probably normal (being hundreds, not thousands or millions). I was hoping that Process Explorer would ease the sorting process, but it's clear that I'll have to do it manually, as I did for the blue lot issue.

On the bright side, I've gone from blue lots and 3 fps to no blue lots and 22 fps. Not how it was pre-patch, but they only owe me another 10fps. And a cookie. I would like a cookie.

[thealienamongus]

On the bright side, I've gone from blue lots and 3 fps to no blue lots and 22 fps. Not how it was pre-patch, but they only owe me another 10fps. And a cookie. I would like a cookie.

  Yes I also demand a cookie, let us all demand cookies 

Actually I'm just about to start going though my CC with the Process Explorer, but I have gone though Amjoie's list of "bad" content and removed any I have (and a few suspect one's). So maybe a cookie in a few days

[HugeLunatic]

From what I've seen so far it's the orchid vase and foosball table which seem to cause an issue.  I've got someone saying that my Lack shelves are causing blue lots, and I cloned them from the knick knack shelf.  I don't have WA or the latest patch, anyone up to verifying this for me?

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=379735

Edit:  I just found the knick knack shelf as a possible issue on Amjoie's list, so I suppose I answered my own question. :/

[Tangie]

I suspect the blue lots to be caused by a problem with the way s3oc decides which resources to include in the package, and therefore to renumber.   This is probably a material or texture definition we have not understood the significance of and cannot just be given any old number.  TSRW programmers may not understand the problem any better, their tool may be creating non blue-lotting objects simply because TSRW only pulls in those resources that are going to be edited.   TSRW may well make blue-lotting objects if the user decided to edit one of the more obscure resources. 

We're still investigating but there has been no breakthrough yet.  If anyone else feels like doing a bit of analysis, the more hands on deck the better

In the meantime, please be guided by Amjoie's list of "bad" content and don't clone certain objects using s3oc.

This is likely insignificant, but if you place a house from the bin on a lot and then cancel it, the entire lot turns blue. At least this has been my experience since the original game was released. It never stayed blue though; once back in neighborhood view everything looked normal.

[Lindsey]

I honestly think that it has nothing to do with cc's. I installed WA and sent a family in Riverview to France. When they got back I found that all 4 of my families that I had created in Riverview had lost all fruit, vegetables and fish from their inventories, all skills and all harvestable plants. I spent some time retrieving their skills so their jobs wouldn't suffer and next day went back to find out that every lot except for two on the neighbourhood were blue and couldn't gain access to them. I had approximately six cc files including the updated Awsome mod and the super computer at the time. ( I had taken everything out to install the patch and ep and then put in those I knew were safe)

I have since gone to Sunset Valley and played some families there. I have not sent them away anywhere and everything seems to be fine. Fron this, I think it definitely is a glitch with the ep. I don't think I'll be buying any other new ep until it has been around for at least 3 months, if then.

[Sigmund]

I honestly think that it has nothing to do with cc's. I installed WA and sent a family in Riverview to France. When they got back I found that all 4 of my families that I had created in Riverview had lost all fruit, vegetables and fish from their inventories, all skills and all harvestable plants.

This sounds like a completely different issue, unrelated to the blue lot problem. I can confirm that the blue lots I've experienced so far have been directly related to CC. My testing hood has one lone guy living on an empty lot. I put a piece of CC down, then save, exit, and reenter. I tried out HugeLunatic's shelves with this method, and they definitely caused blue lots for me.

[Inge]

Can I just point out that the blue lots are not actually blue.  They are cut-outs.   The blue you can see is the underneath of the sky.  If you get close up to a blue lot on high ground you can look through it obliquely and see the land lower down the hill.

[Lindsey]

All I can say is every lot except for two were blue lots (or cut outs, thank you Inge ) and that this happened with virtually no ccs installed

[Tingeling]

I managed to track down a piece of cc that caused the cutout in the ground. The problem is I haven't been able to make any cc install tools to work so I have no idea what the cc actually was, as I took it out of the DCBackup folder. I'll try and get the launcher or 3viewer working to see what the faulty piece of custom content there was. None of my sims had any problems with things going awol in the inventories after returning from vacation.

[Sigmund]

I honestly think that it has nothing to do with cc's.

All I can say is every lot except for two were blue lots (or cut outs, thank you Inge ) and that this happened with virtually no ccs installed

Yes, but virtually is the significant word in your sentence. It's misleading to say that CC doesn't have anything to do with it if you do have some in your game. In order to cause a blue lot (or a cutout), you have to place that specific download on your lot, save and exit, then reenter the lot. A lot of people don't make the connection because it doesn't show up immediately. You don't need to have a huge mods folder, all you need is one "bad" download.

[Slymenstra]

Just wanted to add another step to finding blue/cut out lots, click Map View too.  Your lot that you are viewing may actually be fine, misleading you to believe the CC is okay, only to have you hit map view and see the corrupted lots in the rest of the neighborhood. 

I forgot this step and believed the CC was okay and began to play..only to notice later when I hit Map View that the world had imploded!

[Inge]

It's simpler than that.   Start a new hood. Get one item of the bad cc, and place it in one lot - any lot.   Take any sim, from any lot, on vacation and back again.  Most of your lots will be cut out.
  Repeat with another new hood, putting the bad cc on a different lot.  The same lots will be cut out as before.   So it doens't bear any relationship to exactly where you put that CC, there is something particular about the lots that get cut out that is different from the ones that do not.

I believe this is an EA bug, and it is simply triggered by the CC.

[Lindsey]

Yes, but virtually is the significant word in your sentence. It's misleading to say that CC doesn't have anything to do with it if you do have some in your game. In order to cause a blue lot (or a cutout), you have to place that specific download on your lot, save and exit, then reenter the lot. A lot of people don't make the connection because it doesn't show up immediately. You don't need to have a huge mods folder, all you need is one "bad" download.



When my Sims family went to France and returned for me to find all their (and 3 other families) skills, plants and inventories los,t I had no downloads whatsoever. I subsequently downloaded the updated AM, Supercomputer and bluegenjutsu's Gain Instant Skillwhidden Toddlers - Elder. Nothing else.

[Lion]

It's simpler than that.   Start a new hood. Get one item of the bad cc, and place it in one lot - any lot.   Take any sim, from any lot, on vacation and back again.  Most of your lots will be cut out.
 

How come I don't need to go to vacation to have blue lots? Just place the cc, save, exit to main menu, and re-load the hood, and you get blue lots.

[Inge]

Simpler still - lol!  I didn't try that.

[shadow]

You not only don't have to go on vacation, you don't even need WA to have blue (cut-out) lots.

[Inge]

Aha!  A clue