Glitch/Bug/WTF?

[KellyQ]

If this is idiotic, I apoligize in advance.
I will try to be concise....well, at least clear, in explaining the problem I'm having.
1. My own neighborhood, legacy challenge, second generation.
2. Legacy family spare to the heir, Cheyenne has a crush on George McCarthy.
3. Cheyenne grows into an adult so I have her invite George over, boolprop him into the family and age transition to an adult. I then turned off boolprop.
4. I use the FFS Debugger to upgrade their pre-uni status.
5. I have them move out.
6. I place a house from the lot bin (one of the originals from the game) and move them in...upon which the load screen "loads" for at least 5-6 minutes, at which point I exit the game because it's clear it's just spinning its wheels.
7. Restart the game and see that indeed George and Cheyenne are living in the house.
8. Enter the house, no problems loading but George and Cheyenne are just standing outside the house, frozen. I click on Cheyenne and see she only has 4 wants, not the 6 she had been upgraded to. Click on George and he has 5 (not 4, not 6, but 5) want slots that are spinning continuously so I figure that's why they are frozen.
9. Exit the lot, move them back into the family bin and then back into the house.
10. Enter the lot, they are fine, not frozen, totally plabyable.
What's the problem then? She still only has 4 wants and he still has that odd number of 5 (it is 5, not 6 with a blank want, just 5 slots)....I bought the FFS Debugger and there isn't an option to upgrade either one of them.
So I am perplexed....anyone have an idea what could have caused this or have this happen to them? Should I move them to another lot or should I just let them hobble through their little Sim lives with limited want slots?

[nectere]

Can you try deleting them in game, saving, exiting to neighborhood and then going back to their house to see if it reset them proper?

[KellyQ]

Yay! Someone answered!
*ahem*
I mean, that's a good idea. I will try that when I get home this evening. (Lurking from work at the moment  )

[J. M. Pescado]

4. I use the FFS Debugger to upgrade their pre-uni status.

You *SAVED* after doing this, right?

5. I have them move out.
6. I place a house from the lot bin (one of the originals from the game) and move them in...upon which the load screen "loads" for at least 5-6 minutes, at which point I exit the game because it's clear it's just spinning its wheels.

My theory is that "old" lots are in some way not-entirely-uni-ready, so when you install an "old" lot, one of the originals, the files have to be converted. Since by moving Uni sims into an old house, you've probably caused a bizarre discrepancy, state data may be lost. Try visiting the offending house in build mode next time, before moving anyone in, when dealing with pre-Uni buildings.

[KellyQ]

yes, I *SAVED* and actually exited the game after upgrading them and moving them out (as I was being badgered by a merciless 12 yr old wanting to use the computer i.e. my daughter).
Losing state data...sounds scary...probably because I have no idea what that means but I will (of course) take your advice and try that next time.

[veilchen]

I had to get rid of several houses myself. They were old lots, and when I attempted to enter, the game anounced that the 'application has crashed and needs to close'.  Since then I always go into houses before I attempt to move anyone else in; if it crashes, it goes into the garbage can. I have some pretty old (empty) buildings still sitting in my lot-bin, some work, some don't. I just keep them around because they have become very cheap through game-play and I can use them for my poorer sims.

G.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I don't think I've ever found a Maxis house that plays well, so I always change them before I move anyone in, just so my sims can get into the bathroom, the doors are usable, other things like that - and the main bedroom is big enough to take a double bed and has room for both sims to get in it!  (In other words it has to by at least 4x4).

[Diala]

I got that problem two times in my game, and both happening when I was moving my Sims into houses I haven't used before. However, for one of the houses, I could've sworn I visited it beforehand in build mode before moving the Sims in.

[SimsHost]

Warning about old lots:  Never install a lot that was last saved prior to the 30 Nov 2004 patch. 

If you do, you'll wipe out your neighborhood.  (More specifically, all the sims' character files will become corrupted.)  So, my advice would be that if you're not absolutely sure that the lot was saved after the 30 Nov 2004 patch, trash the file 'lest you forget.

This is a repeatable phenomenon in my game so I'm pretty sure of it.

[KellyQ]

Hmmm..interesting to know. I don't think I've ever had problems with a house in the bin before but maybe I just attributed whatever glitchiness (is that a word? can it please be a word?) to the game in general. I re-installed TS2 and Uni just about 2 months ago because I was tired of the sims I was playing, so the houses defintely weren't pre-patch saved.
By the way, I did try deleting both the sims, saving, exiting back to the neighborhood, then back to the lot again but it didn't help. I'm thinking maybe I should move them to another lot and see what happens but I'm not up to building/decorating or color-coordinating tonight.

[J. M. Pescado]

Warning about old lots:  Never install a lot that was last saved prior to the 30 Nov 2004 patch. 

Is this the bomb that wiped out Happy Valley?

[witch]

That's interesting, I have had a lot of build/load bugs in lots. One of the oddities is when I make a new sims2 folder, often there are no pre-made Maxis houses in my lot bin in my custom n'hood. I have also experienced game crashes when loading older lots. Sometimes I've had crashes when trying to get in via build mode when there are no resident sims. Sometimes I install a lot and nothing appears in the game, this happens whether I use the native Maxis installer or the clean pack installer. The stuff is in the teleport folder before the game boots, is gone after the game is exited but never appears in the lot bin.

What do you think the issue is?

[ZephyrZodiac]

You said you'd created a new folder.  Did you do this via reinstalling Uni?

[witch]

You said you'd created a new folder.  Did you do this via reinstalling Uni?

No, no reinstall necessary. If you rename your sims 2 folder, eg sims2_build, then the game creates a new sims2 folder on bootup. So I have 2 sims2 folders, sims2_build and sims2_current, I just change the name back to sims2 for whatever one I want to play. Because of hacks and terrain paints - really buggy - and huge file sizes 'cos of custom everythings, I now keep a clean folder for building lots.

Creating a new sims2 folder can also be a way of solving some game problems, maybe it resets some things? You can just paste your n'hood & downloads straight in.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I asked because whenever I've reinstalled, any problems I was having have righted themselves and I thought maybe if you were to create your new folders that way you might get rid of whatever glitch is causing your problems.  It was just a thought.

[witch]

Thanks for that thought! Unfortunately these glitches occur in a new install too. Not reliably though, somethimes they do, sometimes they don't.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Just that, if one method doesn't seem to be working, why not try the other, you never know!

[SimsHost]

Warning about old lots:  Never install a lot that was last saved prior to the 30 Nov 2004 patch. 

Is this the bomb that wiped out Happy Valley?

Yup.

[Process Denied]

I've had to trash a lot of houses lately due to crashes and no aging.  What I don't understand about this--- is this is a new reinstall.  My last install had almost 1,000 character files and was almost unplayable---but this never happened with my old game.  The aging problem and the crashing.  Something new is causing this.  I better check my downloads.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Could it be a problem with cell-phones?