Mailbox problems with AM installed

[idle]

This isn't caused by awesome mod, it's an EA glitch. It happens when a sim sends you a gift(omniplant) or letter(bills) then stops existing before your sim collects the mail.

Twallan's Overwatch(newest version) will stop it from happening when you collect the mail, but the game still force-shoves them in your inventory if you don't collect the mail manually before leaving a vacation world. If you forget and they spawn anyway, you can use Master Controller to shove them back in the mailbox(click mailbox>nraas) then use "get mail" on the mailbox as normal.

If you don't travel, Overwatch will fix it for you completely, it's just that obnoxious "Oh noes! You forgot to collect the mail while on holiday! Don't worry, I shoved it in your inventory anyway - You're welcome, by the way!" crap that you need to watch for.

[J. M. Pescado]

Who stops existing? The sending sim?

[Frankenbeasley]

I was given to undestand that the 'Omniplant' gift boxes were in some way related to having too many large stacks of collectibles (and some suggestion that it is specifically triggered by uncut gems and/or unsmelted ores) in your Sim's inventory. I have only got the base game and Ambitions, patched with the 1.42 patch, but the 'Omniplants' only started to appear in my mailbox after a ridiculous spate of obsessive collecting on my part. I do not have any mods or CC in my game.

[Madame Mim]

Not possible. Fambly in my game were not collectors.

[idle]

Who stops existing? The sending sim?

The sender, yes. Not existing as in a family emigrating, a homeless sim that gets cleaned up, etc. Presumably just whenever the game deletes a sim for whatever reason(dead sims are fine if they're not deleted). A long visit to China without collecting mail during the trip usually stuffs my sim's inventory with bills and omniplants when they go home, but I think that's just co-incidence as that sim receives a lot of gifts/love notes in general(maxing the charisma skill challenges seems like a bad idea now  ). I can provide an infected save if you want it, it's in barnacle bay though.

Twallan might be a better source of information to be honest, there's a few posts about it on his site, but they're a bit scattered around. This post has some information and an easy way to trigger the omniplant gifts if you want to test it yourself: https://nraas.wikispaces.com/message/view/Chatterbox/58539624#58551384

[Gwill]

This isn't caused by awesome mod, it's an EA glitch. It happens when a sim sends you a gift(omniplant) or letter(bills) then stops existing before your sim collects the mail.

I find this very hard to reconcile with the sheer number of boxes I keep getting.  Household of three adult sims receive something like two to four boxes a day.  No way are townlies evaporating at that rate.

I was given to undestand that the 'Omniplant' gift boxes were in some way related to having too many large stacks of collectibles (and some suggestion that it is specifically triggered by uncut gems and/or unsmelted ores) in your Sim's inventory.

I have an awful lot of adventure relics stored away.  I'll get rid of those and see what happens.  At the moment I don't have all that many unrefined gems, but I'll clear the dog's inventory and cut the ones I have.

On a completely unrelated note: From what I see, love letters are not delivered by the mail man; they just appear out of nowhere.

Update: No discernible difference detected.  Still getting tons of bad presents.

[reese]

I've been having the same issue. I'd had it on one family, and it irritated me so much that I started a new game. Now the freeze happens every time I check the mail and I have to end the process from Task Manager.

AwesomeMod is my only mod. My Sims don't have many collectibles stored, nor do any of them have gardening skill so no omnis. Before the glitch started happening, I was getting anywhere from 1 - 3 love letters a day for my parent Sim, who is also a celebrity so she was receiving random stalker gifts too. I did receive that creepy imaginary friend for a now-toddler and never checked the mail, so I figure that's stuck in there now. In addition, the flag is now always up on the mailbox so I can't test anything regarding the flag status - but I've never been able to check my mail with the flag down before, anyway. I have also not had any weirds happen with the Adventure Board.

[Gwill]

I've been trying to make a mod to stompinate the creepy love letters and stalker gifts, but so far I've been unable to find the correct resources.  Does anyone have any tips on what to look for?

[PolecatEZ]

I'd nearly bet my farm that it this bug has to do solely with the new stalker love letters with Seasons, interacting with...something.  Since I've installed all the KT store fixes, the problem is gone and hasn't come back however, no idea if this was voodoo or had something to do with how the stalker mail interacted with a store object somehow.

[Painkiller]

I'd nearly bet my farm that it this bug has to do solely with the new stalker love letters with Seasons, interacting with...something.  Since I've installed all the KT store fixes, the problem is gone and hasn't come back however, no idea if this was voodoo or had something to do with how the stalker mail interacted with a store object somehow.

Ditto. My sim received a "Missing obj ressource" big white box as a Christmas present, proof that store items can be chosen. I think the gift was a sun because at that time I just had installed the greenhouse set and was waiting for the CCmerge update.

[Gwill]

I used this hack to get rid of the gifts, love letters and date calls.  My game instantly became considerably more pleasant.

On an unrelated note:  Wedding gifts also appear in the mailbox as omni plant, but do not crash the game.

[Braaaaains]

I used this hack to get rid of the gifts, love letters and date calls.  My game instantly became considerably more pleasant.

I've been having the same problem and I just tried running my game with that mod and my game crashed within five seconds of starting up! I'm inches away from rage-quitting my game!

[Madame Mim]

I used this hack to get rid of the gifts, love letters and date calls.  My game instantly became considerably more pleasant.

I've been having the same problem and I just tried running my game with that mod and my game crashed within five seconds of starting up! I'm inches away from rage-quitting my game!

And your point is?

[Braaaaains]

Sigh... okay, sorry, I was frustrated and I posted without saying anything helpful, I realize that.

I'm glad that the suggested mod worked for somebody else but it doesn't appear to be up to date with the most recent patch and is not working for me. Are you running a game patched up to 1.47 and this mod is still working for you?
Anyway, I did have a thought (just the one), I have twallen's error trap installed, and though I don't necessarily understand exactly what it does, I do know that I lose opportunities related to sims when errortrap mentions them. I will get a message saying that I can't complete my opportunity because the sim related to my opportunity is no longer around, which is weird because they definitely are. Is it possible that sims are being reset by error trap, and that maybe when they are reset, this mucks up the gifts they have sent out? If what Idle said is true, and this mail issue is caused by sims being deleted or leaving, maybe it could be caused by a sim being reset, too. If everyone else is using errortrap, or if perhaps there is something similar built into awesomemod, maybe this is the source of the problem and can be disabled.

Thoughts?

[Gwill]

I'm glad that the suggested mod worked for somebody else but it doesn't appear to be up to date with the most recent patch and is not working for me. Are you running a game patched up to 1.47 and this mod is still working for you?

I have been busy with other things lately, but yes, I seem to be having crashes after the patch.

I haven't really tried my hands at updating mods before, but it seems to be working.  See attachment.

[Braaaaains]

Awesome! Thanks a ton! 

[tallinn]

So what is the state now with the mailbox problem and awesome mod.

I read through all posts and would like to add my observations.

1. It does not matter much that the mailbox contents is named "Omni-plant" or whatever. You do not receive anything related to the Omni-Plant by mail. It appears to be the internal naming for mailbox contents.

2. The bug seems indeed be related to the sending sim of a mail disappearing from the world. This will happen without any mod installed. However, without any mod installed I noticed in such a case: with awesomemod installed game freeze, without sim aborting the mailbox access (I had to delete and install new mailbox using debug commands to escape from this situation). I dropped awesomemod and installed a couple of nraas mods, including overwatch, and now I notice an overwatch error every now and then when accessing the mailbox - and with overwatch I was able to reset a bugged mailbox to a proper state by accessing it.

So my conclusion is that EA poses error situations to the mailbox by sending mails and deleting sending sims afterwards, and awesomemod does not like that and freezes the game in such a case (causing it to go into an endless loop in some of its threads).

[trudy]

I am having the same problem in my freshly installed game. Is there still need of a safe game that contains no custom content?

[Gwill]

2. The bug seems indeed be related to the sending sim of a mail disappearing from the world.

Even besides the grammar, that's not right.  When my sims receive 17 boxes of crap in the mail it can't possibly all be from mysteriously vanished sims.  If so, the "vanishing issue" would be very noticeable.

[tallinn]

2. The bug seems indeed be related to the sending sim of a mail disappearing from the world.

Even besides the grammar, that's not right.  When my sims receive 17 boxes of crap in the mail it can't possibly all be from mysteriously vanished sims.  If so, the "vanishing issue" would be very noticeable.

Please excuse any error in my english, it's not my mother tongue.

The mailbox of my sims is filled twice a sim day with love letters/love presents. The average number of such mail in the box per day is 5. Mail senders include sims you never met - the only precondition seems to be that the attraction system paired them with your sim. If only one of those mails is sent by a sim that vanished afterwards your box will be broken and awesomemod will put your game into an endless loop. Overwatch will get rid of the trouble-making mail and will give you the rest into your inventory. Plain EA code will cancel the "get mail" action and reset your sim next to the mailbox, leaving the box in its broken state.

That is what I observed so far.

[unknownlUser]

the only precondition seems to be that the attraction system paired them with your sim

Doesn't this mean, the Mailbox is not the root cause, but the way this issue is manifested in a visible manner? This issue seems to start when the Attraction System comes into play. As I'm sure the modders have been able to identify and isolate. I seem to see some "turn off attraction" mods floating around or being discussed, if not here, then in other forums. I've been away and just catching up on Sims news, so ignore if this is already known; haven't read all threads on here as yet.

[Gwill]

Mailbox is not the problem.  Love letters are the problem.

[Cappuccino]

New patch released today. It (supposedly) fixes this problem.

http://www.thesims3.com/game/patches/1605572737

[eaglezero]

Ah, yes, I have had this problem too. I worked around it by not ever using the mailbox, lol. Stellar fix on my part. Whenever my sims come back from vacation they have like a dozen omni plants in their inventories that cannot be interacted with. Also if they have omni plants in their inventories, occasionally other things in their inventories will get stompinated/go missing mysteriously, which never happens to omni-plantless sims.

Seems to be successfully resolved with either the latest patch or University Life, both of which got installed earlier today.

eta: I spoke too soon... it happened again about a sim-week later.

[Gwill]

Patch did not fix it for me.  But I'm perfectly content with having blocked date calls and love letters.