"Instant Meal" bug?

[Zeljka]

Maybe your actual Maxis fridge has become corrupted, in which case, what I personally would do is to remove the Sims2 folder to the desktop, uninstall/reinstall Uni, then move the sims2 folder back into EAGames. I'm sure someone else has a simpler method, but this always works for me.

ooh, you're right, but it's such a pain... Delete default neighbourhoods and the 186 pictures it adds, I usually forget something (start-up, cameras, collections, lot bin, downloads...) and then I have to remember to disable the PiP, events camera, reset snapshot size... and I really don't care for having that tutorial come up each time.  Still better than a reinstall, maybe I should do that again and see.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I never delete anything, never move anything separately, just take the complete folder and bung it all on the desktop and play a game of Spider while it's doing it!  then I just move the whole thing back into EA Games, where it just overwrites all the new folders.  (If you want, you can takes them out first so you have some new copies of the neighbourhoods so you can "Play it again, Sam!")

[Hairfish]

I don't know if this is related to the "Instant Meal" bug or not, but it's certainly related to refrigerators.

Last night, I had a fridge go bad for no reason. No Sims of any kind could do anything with it. I'd tell them to go cook something, or get a snack, but the icon would generate from them and just fade out on its way up to the queue. Clicked stove and microwave to tell them to eat, and the same thing happened as soon as they headed for the refrigerator.

I tried buying a new fridge, but that didn't help. 

FINALLY, I moved the damned thing over one space ~ just swapped it with a counter, and suddenly everything was fine.

Now...I've had this happen when there's a baby in the house, and a bottle is left in front of the fridge. Why Sims can't just step over a bottle, I don't know. But there is no baby in this house (two Adults, two Elders, and a Child), so no bottles. No puddles on the floor. No dropped newspapers or cups. Nuthin'.

Weird.

[RainbowTigress]

If it's not a stucky kicky bag, you might try the Lot Debugger.  JM's added an option to unstick blocked fridge tiles.

[Hairfish]

Thanks, I'll do that. The Debugger is one of the few things I haven't yet downloaded... 

[schmoopee]

I had this happen again last night - a house I've been playing for 2 generations with no problems. Neither of them are really neat sims. Two adults now live there, and three kids, and it happened to both adults simultaneously. 

Luckily that "check food supplies" thing seems to do the trick, it's worked for me so far every time. I can live with it if that's all it takes to fix - keeps my pregnant sims from starving to death anyway!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I've found the Endless Buffet hack from SnootySims really useful when sims are pregnant - it means there's always food to eat, you never need to restock the fridge and the food never goes off!  I don't use it now, since most of my sims have high cooking skills and no fridge probs (yet), but it would be useful if you are having problems with the fridge!

[SciBirg]

I had this problem last night too.
I had a Maxis fridge, no diagonal walls and both sims got it.
No counters needed cleaning.
I fixed whatever could be fixed with the lot debugger, nothing changed.
On the stove I can sometimes choose serve/have dinner but this disappears from the queue immediately.
Check food levels does not help at all.
I sold the fridge, bought another different one, problem solved for only a short time.

Now it is the same again.

I have TwoJeff's hack and I will try tonight to take it out...

[ZephyrZodiac]

I had a similar problem with toilets and showers.  Two adult sims were using mobile phones when the kid couldn't go to the loo, so I think they have some kind of wierd effect like that.  Were any of your sims using mobile phones when the problem began?

[SciBirg]

They don't even have any mobile phones although they keep wishing for them.
I strongly suspect that the hack is the culprit as I didn 't have this problem before the hack and now I have it in several families although I only thoroughly tested the one family in the previous post.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you tried moving the family out, then back in again?

I've had similar problems where the game tells me the fridge is empty when it isn't, but buying more food has solved that, so you could always try ordering food, then hopefully when the sim puts the food in the fridge this will unblock whatever is causing the problem.  If the food doesn't get put in the fridge, then I think you are in trouble.

[SciBirg]

No, I want to try the hack first. If that doesn't work I will move them out then in again.
They just moved into the house anyway, and it was like that very quickly after. (New lot, noone had lived there before them).

[ZephyrZodiac]

Is it a house you built, or a Maxis one?

[SciBirg]

Er....Maxis. The Craftsman.
But I do have the same problem in houses that I built too.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I must admit I've never had a problem with that particular house, but I do usually remodel the kitchen as it is so small.  In fact, I tend not to use separate kitchens except when the house is big enough to have a really large kitchen, abd I find houses that big don't play well, so I usually only put sims I've finished with for the time being into such a house.  Can I suggest that you get rid of the walls and make a kitchen diner at the back of the house? If you only have the kitchen on two walls, it might just solve your problem..

If not, thre is a "mini fridge" as part of 4ESF's kitchen4, which is actually the expensive fridge revamped.  Worth trying it to see if it works for you.

[SciBirg]

Thx!   Will try that after finishing the communal cleaning chore tonight.
Ah...the joys of living in a socialist country!

[ZephyrZodiac]

It's actually a gorgeous kitchen, very modern, with a cooker that is out in the middle of the room.  The cooker hood is amazing, you don't seem to need any other lights for the room to have a perfect roomscore!

[notovny]

I had this happen recently with Leo Depiesse in a house that, admittedly, has a couple diagonal doors. I made him study Cooking for a very brief period, and the menu items came back.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I tend to think that anything related to food, like, as you say, studying cooking, can clear the blockage somehow.

[SciBirg]

Sure enough, I took out the SmartServe hack and everything is back to normal...
I'll have to pop over and tell twojeffs about this in case he is not aware.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I took the smart-serve out as well, partly because of sims other than kids not being able to get snacks, which are useful if they are late getting up and need something quick before they go to work.  Also I found the food server was not cooking food for themselves.  I've now got the serve everyone hack in instead.  (I thought smart-serve was dizzy's.)

[dizzy]

Are you using the latest version of smart-serve? It's up to 2e, you know.

[ZephyrZodiac]

No, I got 2d only a couple of days ago, from a link at VS, I think.  I'll try the new version, as I did like the way kids could get some cereal in the morning, or make lunch-meat sandwiches.  Thanks, dizzy.