The Case of the Tree Breaks and the Missing Portals

[dizzy]

I can't drive one block, it seems, without some lead-foot nearly rear-ending me on the street. They honk their horns and flash their lights as if I did something wrong by being in their way. 

So, it seems that with the Sims 2, I can't play my game unmolested with this "Tree Break" happening. What is a "Tree Break", you ask? Well, I'll tell you: If you're a C-coder, you'll probably recognize this right away (code-monkey's best friend and user's worst enemy) as the SimAntics equivalent to a dreaded "Assert Failure".

In other words, the game hits a break point that the coder put in for debugging purposes. But they hadn't yet finished debugging, is why this usually pops up.

In my case, it was on the maid's minivan. It kept nagging me until I deleted it, and the error would not go away, nor would the maid appear ever again (even if I put the sims in the sim bin and moved them back in). And not just the maid, but any NPC.

I investigated this and discovered that the fault was due to a missing Car Portal. I looked, and there is no code in the game anywhere that tries to Remove car portals, and (more importantly) no code that lets you replace them once they disappear. Solution: bulldoze the lot and play the family elsewhere in the neighborhood.

It is disturbing, however, to think that either some code somewhere in the game is deleting random objects or that the game itself is failing to load them for some mysterious reason. If anyone has a clue to "who dunnit", I would certainly like to know.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you tried reinstalling?

[dizzy]

Hahahahahaha! 

Reinstalling is just Maxis' way of telling you to fuck off. It's for suckers who believe that that will do something beneficial.

If you screw up your game so bad that you actually *need* to reinstall, then merely reinstalling is only going exasperate the real problem (i.e. virii, bad hard drives, bad memory, bad video cards).

No, seriously. What exactly is deleting random objects every now and then? I'm just curious.

[J. M. Pescado]

Reinstalling is just Maxis' way of telling you to fuck off. It's for suckers who believe that that will do something beneficial.

If you screw up your game so bad that you actually *need* to reinstall, then merely reinstalling is only going exasperate the real problem (i.e. virii, bad hard drives, bad memory, bad video cards).

Actually, there are valid reasons to reinstall things, such as if the game buggers up files and it's simply too much effort to track down which ones and find replacements Most of the time, however, reinstalling is peddled as a panacea for everything, which it isn't.

[dizzy]

Yes. Well, I keep a nifty inventory of all my files, so I know how, when, and to what degree files get bugged. If a file does get walked on, I can simply go back to the zip file on the CD and replace it myself. I don't need no stinkin' installer to do it for me.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes, but technical support won't know that, and people who call technical support tend not to be the people who have any problem-solving skills of their own.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I just don't see the point in spending x amount of time tracking down a problem if I can simply reinstall Uni in less than ten minutes, and in most cases, the problem has gone.

[dizzy]

Except that the problem isn't really gone. All you've done is replaced the old game files with files that are identical to the old ones.

I suspect 90% of tech support calls are resolved when they ask them this vital question:

"Is the machine plugged in?"

Reinstalling has yet to be shown to have any beneficial effects (other than repairing a failed installation). The only vital file I've ever seen get walked on is the "objects.package", and it doesn't change in any way that I would consider harmful.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I was only trying to help, but I don't think I'll bother again!

[dizzy]

Sorry. I guess it is kind of a rhetorical question. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I'll accept the apology, but having said that, I know that reinstalling usually works for me if nothing else does.

[gali]

"Solution: bulldoze the lot and play the family elsewhere in the neighborhood.

It is disturbing, however, to think that either some code somewhere in the game is deleting random objects or that the game itself is failing to load them for some mysterious reason. If anyone has a clue to "who dunnit", I would certainly like to know." (dizzy-two)

Well, you've got the solution, as you wrote. (play elsewhere in the neighbourhood)

Who did it? You did it! - if the minivan stood on a portal, and you deleted it with moveobjects on - you deleted the portal too. This lot is already corrupted, and even buldozing it won't help.

I remember deleting by mistake the mail box in TS1, at Goth family - If you remember, they lived on a hill, and to make easier for them, I moved the mail box near the door. Then by mistake I deleted it. Nothing helped anymore until I moved the family to another lot - the Goth's lot  remained all the time without  a mail box.

In the future, I  would use Inge's teleporter to delete cars (mainly). When some car is nagging you, just "clear all visitors" - you won't have a maid this day, because she will vanish with the car - but she will come the next day as usual. I do it many times when the nanny doesn't leave. It's much more safer that moveobjects on.

[Ancient Sim]

I've had this tree error thing a few times.  The only thing that gets rid of it when the box pops-up is "delete", it just keeps coming back if I hit reset or cancel.  I went into a lot today oddly enough and got an error then about the maid's van which I think was one of these.  It was a lot I hadn't played since I reinstalled some time ago and as it was 10.30 the maid had obviously just arrived.  In the end I clicked delete (the car wasn't actually on the lot, but the maid was) and after wondering what was going on for a while, the maid walked off the lot without working. 

As for this:

I suspect 90% of tech support calls are resolved when they ask them this vital question: "Is the machine plugged in?"

This reminds me of when I was first married and just moved into my first marital home.  My (then) husband had gone to work and I had the day off.  I spent ages trying to get the tv to work, but in the end had to walk for about 10 mins to the nearest phonebox to call him at work.  He said he would ring the tv repair people, so I went home to wait.  I then discovered the problem and legged it back to the phonebox.  When he came home from work he told me that the repair place was used to calls from idiots who didn't bother to check whether their tv was actually plugged into the wall socket before reporting it broken and apparently they were "all women".  HMPH.

[dizzy]

Who did it? You did it! - if the minivan stood on a portal, and you deleted it with moveobjects on - you deleted the portal too. This lot is already corrupted, and even buldozing it won't help.

The fact is, I only received this error because the portal was not there in the first place. The delete only resolved the issue of the car not appearing.

Actually, you may be partly correct. I may have accidentally deleted the portal at some point. As for bulldozing, that always works. Bulldozing has cured every single problem I've ever had with my lots.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, obviously it would, since you then have to put in a new, uncorrupted lot.

[crammyboy]

Thought you would like to know.  The portals are being deleted from badly written code in the book globals.

Fix here ->http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=698928

[gali]

Thank you, cramm - you wrote it? Very useful fix....

[cabelle]

Reinstalling is just Maxis' way of telling you to fuck off. It's for suckers who believe that that will do something beneficial.

I wish I could use that on the BBS.  I know sometimes it's useful but that only accounts for no more than 5% of the time. As for the other 95%, "reinstall" is a code word for "I don't know how to help you, go away."

[ZephyrZodiac]

I would still argue, if nothing else has worked, and the problem has appeared after playing for some time, and especially if the problem appears in more than one neighbourhood, that reinstalling will at least buy you a renovated game and you won't have that problem again for a while, if at all.  No doubt you will get other problems........

[cabelle]

I would still argue, if nothing else has worked, and the problem has appeared after playing for some time, and especially if the problem appears in more than one neighbourhood, that reinstalling will at least buy you a renovated game and you won't have that problem again for a while, if at all.  No doubt you will get other problems........

Very true, you do have a point there.  It just rubs me the wrong way over at the BBS how they fanatically peddle reinstallation like the 19th century "doctors" pushing their quack medicines. It's not the magic pill for all problems, and like you said for some the problem eventually comes back. Reinstallation should be one possibility in a whole arsenal of options (including a comprehensive patch) to help us resolve all the buggy issues. But I should remember that EA wouldn't know good customer support if it crawled up their legs, attached itself to their nether regions and bit hard. 

[dizzy]

Thought you would like to know.  The portals are being deleted from badly written code in the book globals.

Fix here ->http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=698928

Awesome, CBoy! Hopefully, this is the one and only portal bandit.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I like the idea of installing this as a preventative measure, but there being another file for people who already have the problem!  In other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, just stop it from happening in the first place!

[pet_peeve]

If you're seeing debug breakpoints, it's because you have the testing cheat turned on. You should play with that turned off most of the time, so that such problems as yours mainfest themselves as jump bugs or missing objects, as god intended. Some interactions are so full of breaks as to be completely unusable when testing cheats is turned on.

Disappearing portals have been an annoyance since there was just the Sims, with no expansion packs. The solution given on that MTS2 thread is the usual one - put the portals back with hacked catalog items.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well I for one never have testing cheats turned on, I've never been able to get it to work anyway!

[miramis]

Just to add my two cents, reinstalling only puts the problem off for an undetermined period of time.  In my case the npc/slowdown bug which gives a treebreak error when testingcheats is enabled, this can happen at any time.  There was one time when it occurred in a 2nd gen family only the day after a fresh installation - reinstalling does nothing to fix the problem, it will happen when it wants to no matter how fresh the installation.  Thanks to the topic starter for creating this thread, the link that crammerboy provided is the help I need to get rid of this frustrating bug hopefully. 

By installing that fix, not only will it prevent the slowdown bug happening, but in doing so will keep all those extra npc's generated by it from filling the neighbourhood character file - which as we know isn't a good thing.

Perhaps now I can actually enjoy playing again without fear of losing yet another lot to this stupid bug.