Half of Bridgeport Sims stand around, doing nothing..

[anaelir]

I'm hesitant to say that it's my computer specs causing me problems, although I have not CFF'd any extra memory towards the game, as I was under the impression that it wasn't necessary. Just throwing it out there that it's not just stone age computers that seem to be having problems. I'll document it more thoroughly next time it happens, instead of just resetting them all. I didn't know there were other people experiencing anything like this until checking this thread, so I assumed it had been a mod conflict of some kind.

Do you have many mods installed? I've never had that problem in Bridgeport and I have very few mods besides AM.

I think the people who do have this problem should post all relevant information, maybe a link will become apparent.

Since you already have my specs, I'll only update with this info:

EPs: WA, AMB, LN
No Stuff Packs
Mods: AM + conf, MasterController, Overwatch, SolaceInSound's X5 Lifetime Happiness Elated Gain
And some CC: clothes, hair styles, furniture, etc - all merged together.

The next time I see this happen in my game, I will document it further. I'll add one of the sims to my household and see if it is a particular action they are stuck on, something I hadn't bothered to check. Unfortunately it doesn't happen very often so it might be a while before I am able to give any more information. I also haven't played any other neighborhood than Bridgeport so I can't tell you if it has happened in any other neighborhood.

Just wondering additionally, if I am the only person who has had multiple sims actually die during this error? As it only occurs on my the steps of my sims place of work, I usually notice it when my sim goes into work and pauses to mourn the many bodies. Also is there any way I can check what processes/files my game is accessing? Perhaps if there is I can check to see if my game is shitting any particular kind of brick at the time.

Hmm, I don't know if any Sims died in my game, as I didn't check. And out of the two sims I actually checked up on, only one of them was actually stuck on an action, the other was just standing there.

[Demise]

Hmm, I don't know if any Sims died in my game, as I didn't check. And out of the two sims I actually checked up on, only one of them was actually stuck on an action, the other was just standing there.

Were they standing at your active sim's place of work? Or were they stuck somewhere else? I am going to attempt to retrace my steps and see if I can force them to bug again. But mine is reliably behind city hall, which is where my sim works. If they weren't where your sim works, were they at venues that an active sim had recently visited? In your awesomemod config, do you have >NoCommunityStalkerSwarm enabled or disabled?

I have that feature disabled, so that community lots aren't derelict and empty when I go to visit them. I'm wondering if these sims aren't attempting to zergswarm my sim for some reason, and are caught standing outside his place of work even when he's not there? I'm curious now, so I'm going to see if I can test this and see if that is what could be happening.

[anaelir]

Hmm, I don't know if any Sims died in my game, as I didn't check. And out of the two sims I actually checked up on, only one of them was actually stuck on an action, the other was just standing there.

Were they standing at your active sim's place of work? Or were they stuck somewhere else? I am going to attempt to retrace my steps and see if I can force them to bug again. But mine is reliably behind city hall, which is where my sim works. If they weren't where your sim works, were they at venues that an active sim had recently visited? In your awesomemod config, do you have >NoCommunityStalkerSwarm enabled or disabled?

I have that feature disabled, so that community lots aren't derelict and empty when I go to visit them. I'm wondering if these sims aren't attempting to zergswarm my sim for some reason, and are caught standing outside his place of work even when he's not there? I'm curious now, so I'm going to see if I can test this and see if that is what could be happening.

No, they weren't hanging around their work place. As detailed in my first post (screenshots included), they all hang around Bridgeport Sports Zone. My AM enables swarms; however, I don't think my sims had ever visited that bar before - I don't think I've ever even looked inside that bar. Scratch that, I think my sim visited that bar when she was single and about 1-2 week old YA (I play with long lifespans). Anyway, after her boyfriend moved in, they usually went to Eugi's, The Grind and that bar next to the criminal workplace.

[Demise]

No, they weren't hanging around their work place. As detailed in my first post (screenshots included), they all hang around Bridgeport Sports Zone. My AM enables swarms; however, I don't think my sims had ever visited that bar before - I don't think I've ever even looked inside that bar. Scratch that, I think my sim visited that bar when she was single and about 1-2 week old YA (I play with long lifespans). Anyway, after her boyfriend moved in, they usually went to Eugi's, The Grind and that bar next to the criminal workplace.

Hmm. Then my theory is most likely proven wrong, and I'm back to not having a clue why it's happening. I haven't been able to recreate the glitch again, it only seems to happen when I'm not expecting it so. I'll just wait until I have more information on it before bothering to theorycraft another explanation.

[anaelir]

No, they weren't hanging around their work place. As detailed in my first post (screenshots included), they all hang around Bridgeport Sports Zone. My AM enables swarms; however, I don't think my sims had ever visited that bar before - I don't think I've ever even looked inside that bar. Scratch that, I think my sim visited that bar when she was single and about 1-2 week old YA (I play with long lifespans). Anyway, after her boyfriend moved in, they usually went to Eugi's, The Grind and that bar next to the criminal workplace.

Hmm. Then my theory is most likely proven wrong, and I'm back to not having a clue why it's happening. I haven't been able to recreate the glitch again, it only seems to happen when I'm not expecting it so. I'll just wait until I have more information on it before bothering to theorycraft another explanation.

Mhmm, I had also never noticed any sims hanging around the bar before. I think I only noticed a sim hanging around there, for a really long period, about a simweek (or less) before I finally used radar all and saw how big this error was.

[Narmy]

Hmm, I don't know if any Sims died in my game, as I didn't check. And out of the two sims I actually checked up on, only one of them was actually stuck on an action, the other was just standing there.

Were they standing at your active sim's place of work? Or were they stuck somewhere else? I am going to attempt to retrace my steps and see if I can force them to bug again. But mine is reliably behind city hall, which is where my sim works. If they weren't where your sim works, were they at venues that an active sim had recently visited? In your awesomemod config, do you have >NoCommunityStalkerSwarm enabled or disabled?

I have that feature disabled, so that community lots aren't derelict and empty when I go to visit them. I'm wondering if these sims aren't attempting to zergswarm my sim for some reason, and are caught standing outside his place of work even when he's not there? I'm curious now, so I'm going to see if I can test this and see if that is what could be happening.

No, they weren't hanging around their work place. As detailed in my first post (screenshots included), they all hang around Bridgeport Sports Zone. My AM enables swarms; however, I don't think my sims had ever visited that bar before - I don't think I've ever even looked inside that bar. Scratch that, I think my sim visited that bar when she was single and about 1-2 week old YA (I play with long lifespans). Anyway, after her boyfriend moved in, they usually went to Eugi's, The Grind and that bar next to the criminal workplace.

I have that option disabled too, so I don't think that's the problem.

[Demise]

Doing Radar All revealed a numerous amount of sims doing the "Take Tour of City Hall". All of them appeared to have been doing it for a great deal of time, as they were all miserable and their motives were all pretty much 0. I'm wondering if this is related to the fact that all my standing-around/dead sims end up by city hall. Though none of them were visible as they were all in the rabbit hole. Still, weird.

[Narmy]

Doing Radar All revealed a numerous amount of sims doing the "Take Tour of City Hall". All of them appeared to have been doing it for a great deal of time, as they were all miserable and their motives were all pretty much 0. I'm wondering if this is related to the fact that all my standing-around/dead sims end up by city hall. Though none of them were visible as they were all in the rabbit hole. Still, weird.

I've had sims stuck in City Hall in Bridgeport. I dunno if they died, but occasionally I get jobs in the Investigator profession where the person I'm supposed to talk to is in the City Hall 24/7.

I don't have them congregating around the building though.

[bzrburns]

I've tried doing a clean install and the city was still bugged. So I evicted the Sims to the Bin and started a new game...no stuck Sims...so far.  Once I started resetting Sims none of the bartenders, bouncers or nightclubs worked and it would take my Sims 3 Sim hours to walk down 3 flights of stairs.  If my computer has not  just become an oversized paperweight, it may be that the city just corrupted.  

Oh here are the rest of my computers specs.

Windows 7 32 bit
Dell XPS 630i
Phoenix AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Intell Core 22 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00Ghz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
6144 MB Ram
1731MB used, 6578MG available
DirectX 11

[anaelir]

Doing Radar All revealed a numerous amount of sims doing the "Take Tour of City Hall". All of them appeared to have been doing it for a great deal of time, as they were all miserable and their motives were all pretty much 0. I'm wondering if this is related to the fact that all my standing-around/dead sims end up by city hall. Though none of them were visible as they were all in the rabbit hole. Still, weird.

I've had sims stuck in City Hall in Bridgeport. I dunno if they died, but occasionally I get jobs in the Investigator profession where the person I'm supposed to talk to is in the City Hall 24/7.

I don't have them congregating around the building though.

That happened to me too. They were inside the City Hall, and it became obvious they weren't dead when my sim finally visited the Sports Zone and they immediately swarmed there. And by that I mean they didn't even take a taxi, they just ran there.

[lordrichter]

In my game, I had to delete the AJV Wellness Center Gym and salt the ground it stood on because I could not stop every Sim in Bridgeport from running to the lot and standing there. 

[bzrburns]

This is just kind of out of the blue...but does anyone else remember one of the promo videos that EA had posted prior to the release of Sims 3 where the Sims were all on the phone and started  running to see some Sim dude perform in concert? This scenario with the Sims all congregating at one spot reminds me of that video.

[Rushad]

I'm suffering from this bug too in one of my saves. The townies just SWARM to the film studio, and stand there. Like they're waiting for the Rapture or something.
My pc is kinda average, enough to not have them "crucified", but they just stand there. At best, some take photos of the celebrities.

Resetworld and resetsim * clear the place out, but it fills up soon after.
From the map view they can be seen just swarming like zergling to the place, it's kinda funny to watch but still, it tends to clog up the game and if I don't step in, they just let themselves die.
I'm tempted to just destroyallhumans, but I'd like to avoid that for now if another solution is possible. Especially since I believe it will just happen all over again.

[anaelir]

Any news?

[jezzer]

If there had been news, someone would have posted it.  No one likes a thread-bumper.

[EppurSiMuove]

Ok well here is my experience. The majority of my Bridgeport townies insist upon zergswarming The Grind. I noticed it tonight, only after updating to 1.18/6.1, and downloading/installing the latest AM. I have only been playing in bridgeport for a couple days now, and it is possible this zerging was hapopening before patching/updating AM, but I only noticed it afterward, when the crowd outside grew to about 40 sims. They all just stand around outside, doing nothing except pissing themselves, which causes their hygeine to drop to 0 and begins a cascade of wailing and gnashing of teeth (okay, just wailing) about how everyone stinks. Only about 5% of the total population that arrives at The Grind actually goes in and does anything.
I loaded up a couple of different families and every single one of them had at least one motive (usually energy) at 0/near 0, and every single one of them had 3 queued actions telling them to visit the grind. Even my main sim's father, who is an elderly astronaut widower has 3 queued actions directing him to the grind when I load up his home. Everyone that I load up REALLY wants to visit The Grind.
Shouldnt sims go home when they experience some kind of motive desperation? Isn't that broken if everyone prefers to stand outside pissing themselves?
Just in case it might help - My sim's wife, an up-and-coming actress, once had an assignment to go promote a movie at the Grind by handing out flyers. I noticed when I did that that the challenge completed after I had only handed out 4 of the 6 flyers. I didn't mind it at the time, headed back in to work, and completed my day. Thing is, is a I still have the option to hand out a flyer to everyone who isn't selectable. Since the challenge is no longer active, she can hand out flyers all day long without the option ever going away. I believe this is a bug, since the last time she had gotten an assigment to hand out flyers she completed it, and the interaction went away. I wonder if this zergswarming at the Grind may have something to do with the fact that they were trying to populate the lot so I could hand them a flyer, but perhaps a glitch ended the challenge prematurely, but failed to end their zergswarming? I dunno, just a thought.
So, I saved the lot to file, deleted it from the hood, figuring, "they won't zergswarm an empty lot", but I was wrong. When I deleted it AM (I think it was AM) even told me that the lot had been set to "No visitors Allowed", but apparently the sims didn't read the sign cuz they still zergswarm the empty lot.
ResetSim and Resetworld make them go away, but they just come right back to the empty lot formerly known as the Grind. Actually, resetworld is quite comical, because afterwards neighborhood view kinda turns into Dawn of the Dead, with the lone living breathing survivor seemingly lying prostrate and bound at the Grind.
Um, in case it turns out to matter, I have the option enabled in AM that stops the town from closing in on you like the Mossad when you visit a community lot, which, I do believe is working, because they certainly aren't flocking to the grind because I'm there, cuz I have not been there in about 2 sim weeks.
Lastly, I saw in an earlier post that this may be the result of a lack of computer awesomeness, but I would think that with 2.93 Ghz processor, 8mb of RAM, an nvidia gforce 9800gt and upgraded power supply I would be able to outpower any problem Sims 3 is likely to have in that department.

Edit: So I loaded up the other families now since I have deleted the grind, to check their action queues, and they are all still 30 seconds from passing out when loaded up, and now instead of 3 queued actions to go to the grind they have like 12 "go to Lot" actions queued, which seems interesting, because you can only assign them like 7-8 actions normally. After a couple hours playing around with this I have realized that as is, my game is pretty much unplayable. I mean, my family is fine, they are doing everything normally, its just that I can't do anything involving other sims. My law enforcement sim cant do any reports, because I cant work people into a friendly mood because the interaction string keeps getting interupted by them passing out, pissing themselves, or having some motive desperation, screaming about an adjacent smelly sim, or them trying to move to a new spot within the lot. My celebrity wife was able to attain 5 stars, but it is useless now because no one goes to any bars (they are all on the grind lot), and people still have parties but I go to them and no one is there. Even the host/hostess of a party will drop queue and sprint to the grind before the party even starts. This is to say nothing of the fact that the entire town is a ghost town, and only consists of people heading to the grind, or going home because they are about to die. And immersion is a thing of the past. Every celebrity just stands there like a zombie smelling and pissing themselves and passing out all day long. Some people still go to work, but most dont. They just hang out on the empty lot. If I let it the crowd will grow to over 50, and get to the point that each sim's model is loading one by one cuz there are too many sims on the lot. I tried turning the empty lot into a residential lot - still they come in droves. I get 10-15 townies passed out at a time, all in afore-made piss puddles. Ah well, back to Fallout for now. I know this will be fixed at some point, whether it is a problem with EA (most likely) or AM, it'll eventually be fixed.

[lordrichter]

I deleted the empty lot and it stopped the swarm.   However, the game would not allow me to put a lot there after that.

[Rushad]

I just tried removing the lot, and it seems to have worked. I placed a new one on the same spot (maybe not exactly the same, it's a bit further from the road than it was, but it's the same area) and now the zergswarm stopped.
Just to be clear, it's necessary to remove the whole lot, even the empty square. Then a new one can be placed. If the lot in question isn't present in the list of pre-made ones, back it up before obviously.

Of course this isn't a true solution, just cures the effects. The Rapture Effect might just come back at any time.

[ElectricSimmer]

I got one Sim doing it. Bianca Rubble or whatever her name is. She goes to any lot and instantly gets stuck. I always have to ResetSim her.

[EppurSiMuove]

Okay, yeah, so when I said I had deleted the lot before, what I meant was that I had bulldozed the building...the lot was still there, and they were still swarming it. After reading Rushad's post I realized that that wasn't really deleting the lot, and that I further had to delete the actual plot of ground it was on. After using the bulldozer tool on the lot 3 times and completely killing it, the swarming has stopped.
I definately will not miss the grind, Im just glad it didn't happen to another building like Town Hall, as has reportedly happened to some. All I really care is that my townies are acting like townies again, and not being drawn to the Grind like jackals to a fat wounded gazelle, only to get there, see there is no gazelle, then just stand around pissing themselves and passing out. YAY! Thanks Rushad, even though I was just dumb to begin with for not trying to use the bulldozer more than once.
Oh yeah, and I cannot place anything else on that lot at all...it is forever an open plot of land just sticking out into the harbor, but I far prefer that over the asshattery that was going on before...

[Engram]

I'm also experiencing this and will try the method of backing up the community lot, then bulldozing and placing a copy.

So far, of the people who are experiencing this and have listed the mods they have, the only things in common that I can see between all of us is Awesomemod and no mosaic. And we allow the stalker swarm. My only other mods are HP's LN camera fix, default skintones and eyes and CMAR's pointed ears sliders. I have a friend who doesn't use any mods or CC at all and she has been playing Bridgeport for 3 generations with no ill effects at all. Would be interesting to hear from someone experiencing this who DOESN'T use AM or no mosaic.

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 2.53GHz
RAM: 4GB
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 (512MB)
OS: Win7 64-bit

I have all EPs and SPs.

For me, it started after I downloaded the version that was available on 30 Nov. This was BEFORE patching. I did not play between then and 2nd Dec. When I started playing 2nd Dec I noticed that there was noticeable lag which had not been present before. My game usually runs smoothly on high settings.

ETA: I also have DisableTouristSims enabled in my config and I have a tourist from China in Bridgeport. So AM is definitely not playing nicely with Bridgeport. Not saying that AM is at fault, but there is definitely something funky going on because she should not be there. This hood has never been played without AM so it's not like she had a chance to generate and then AM was installed afterwards. She should not have generated in the first place.

[EppurSiMuove]

Well, I do not use the mod that is entitled "No Mosaic" over at MTS, because that mod says that it is base game only.
If we are loosely referring to any mod that removes the censor blur, such as the one included in AM, then I do use a no mosaic mod. I just use the one included in AM. I have the setting in AM that disables the community lot stalker effect.
I am almost certain that this problem was happening prior to the most recent patch, though I did not observe it happening until after I had patched. But before I had noticed the swarm and before I had patched, I did notice that there was some lag. I have a decently powerful rig, so I guess it didn't pile up enough for the lag to compel me to investigate before, but after I would use resetworld, for a short time, the lag would subside, and after bulldozing the building and the lot, the lag is completely gone. Moral being, that I noticed the lag before I patched, which turned out to be the result of everyone in my hood having 8-12 queud actions to head to the grind. Of course, the cascading pissing of pants and wailing passing out in puddles of piss that followed didn't help...
I don't use HPs camera fix, but jeez, if I wasn't about to move out of a penthouse I would totally get it. I DID use Nraas master controller at the time of the asshattery, though it continued even after I took that mod out. Since I have fixed it I have put the controller back in and no problems have resurfaced.
I'll say though, I haven't been able to figure out how to get a playable lot back onto the plot of land where the grind was, but I haven't really tried very hard to make it happen either (moveobjects maybe?) I dunno, but even if I never get a lot back there I don't care, my game is fixed as far as I'm concerned.

[brownlustgirl]

I have been under the spell of the Dell Corporation for a number of years, would like advise for purchasing a new computer. Being dense about building a computer, I must make a purchase. Would love to know what kind of computer to shop for with $2k USD, and the computer will be useful four years from now.

[Sarafina]

Same here as EppurSiMouve, I only have awesomemod and no mosiac from anywhere else.  I did notice the night to the Grind swarm it was the venue mentioned in the paper as being the place to go, so maybe that had something to do with it?  As amusing as it is to see the whole down walk zombie style to the Grind over and over, I was tired of it after a day.  The funny part was that once the club closed that first night, one by one people would leave by taxi, only to get home and immediately walk back to The Grind.  As for the lag, it didn't seem any different to me.

[kiki]

Same here as EppurSiMouve, I only have awesomemod and no mosiac from anywhere else.  I did notice the night to the Grind swarm it was the venue mentioned in the paper as being the place to go, so maybe that had something to do with it?  As amusing as it is to see the whole down walk zombie style to the Grind over and over, I was tired of it after a day.  The funny part was that once the club closed that first night, one by one people would leave by taxi, only to get home and immediately walk back to The Grind.  As for the lag, it didn't seem any different to me.

Can I suggest using AwesomeConfig then and removing your No-Mosaic? It's redundant to have them both, because you can use the AwesomeConfig page to configure a config file for awesomemod that by default removes the mosaic for you as part of AwesomeMod. No Mosaic has been known in the past to mess with other mods and files and I'm not experiencing any issues using the No Mosaic part of AwesomeMod.