Merging family's … problems or buggy?

[JeanMaas]

Did a search on merging to find out if merging family's is known to be buggy, but could not find such a thing so maybe it has something to do with my game. So, I'll just tell you what happened.

Two lots, two sims each. Moved one household into the simbin and moved them into the other lot. Result: one lot, four sims. Clicked on the lot to look at the picture expecting to see four sims … Sam is missing. Loaded the lot to see what was going on. Four sims in the list at the left side of the screen, but Sam is nowhere to be seen on the lot. Paused the game, selected Sam and then there is a plumpbob above the ground near the mailbox.

Tried to let him walk, teleport or whatever. No face in the middle of the menu and he can't do anything. Tried to move him out by letting Binker taking him with him. Binker goes in the taxi, Sam can't. Game in an impasse. Rebooted pc and restarted game. All four are still on the lot, same situation. Moved all four of them to another lot. Same situation, except Sam now also lost his plumpbob. If I double click on his icon, the focus goes to the mailbox.

Left things for a while to figure out what to do. Tried to age Sam, no effect. Eventually I moved Jared and Justin out, coz those are the two I don't want to lose. Before all this Sam was extracted and cloned, so I can get him back. Binker I wanted to get rid of anyway. Tried to merge Jared and Justin into another household with four other sims … game crached while merging!

Deleted some new mods, deleted groups.cache and empyed thumpnail-folder. Game is running again, did have a hard time opening the simbin of the hood, but eventually it managed. Jared and Justin are ‘back' in the simbin. So now I don't know what to do, I don't want to make things worse. So now I have some questions, hopefully someone can give some advise.

1.   Can I thrust merging households, or can I better not use it anymore.
2.   Or is there something else wrong in my game, a symptom of something worse.
3.   Can Sam be saved or can I better move him and Binker to the simbin and then in the trash.
4.   Can I safely try to move Jared and Justin into a (empty) lot, or can I better extract and clone them before that.

Well, that's it … I think. Thank you in advance.

Jean

[Skaven]

It happend to me once at University - when I joined a new sim into a house one of the two original sims was just gone, though his picture appeared, at least at first.   I tried to save and return to the lot, but then he was gone without a trace.

[cyperangel]

perhaps Inges teleporter can bring him back to the family, or JM´s debugger....

[skandelouslala]

I haven't had any problems with merging families and do it quite often so I think you trust it for the most part, it sounds like something else is wrong.

The only thing I can think up, it try opening up the corrupted sim's character file in SimPe and see if by any chance there is that bug going on where sometimes sims of different age groups get reverted back to the game thinking they are a toddler or baby.  I've had that happen to children, toddlers and even elders nonetheless and cleaned it up by ticking their right age group in SimPe and then restarting the game.

That might not be your issue at all but it's all that I can come up with at the moment.

[JeanMaas]

Thanks for your reply's.

Well, so far he isn't vanished.

Tried to teleport him with insim. Hmmm, the debugger might be something, haven't used it before.

Yeah, wouldn't want to lose merging families. Basically they are all new sims, made in bodyshop and CAS. I'm filling up several lots with some good looking sims to meet and greet the families I play with. The lots are empty except for the new simmies. I made them one or two at the time put them into one of those lots and only checked them how they look in game.

It sure is a good idea to take a look at him in SimPE, then I an check out the others too. That is if I can recognize it when there is something wrong. But it sure is a good thing to do, although I haven't seen anything happen trying to age him, he might be aged anyway.

Thanks again.

[JeanMaas]

hmmm, according to SimPE Sam has no character file ... several townies have that too, but then there is also stated that they are unlinked.

what does this mean? is he sort of dead, but not completely?

 

[J. M. Pescado]

If a character has no character data, that means he's "All Dead". If a character has character data, then he is only "Mostly Dead". If he happens to be flagged as "unlinked" for some reason, weirdness will happen unless you remove the "unlinked" bit, after which he SHOULD function normally. I would advise against molesting the Maxian pre-made dead, though.

[RainbowTigress]

I do know that Skip Broke, Bella Goth, Michael Bachelor, and Darleen Dreamer in Pleasantview can all be resurrected safely.  I have done so in my game, and they function fine.  This is because they have all of their character data still intact.  Darleen can usually be resurrected with the Resurrect-O-Nomitron even, if her grave is still intact.  I don't know about any of the other neighborhoods.

[JeanMaas]

oops, sorta forgot about this thread. sorry for the bump, but i thought i come back to let you know what has prop caused it, witch i found out later.

thank you for your replys.

so, Sam is all dead, as he has no character file, but he is still linked, i figured that that is the reason why i can still see him in the lot's control panel. so i guess, i have to unlink him to let him be a normal dead sim.

i have prop killed him myself. as a true beginner of extracting sims, i didn't changed the file-name when i started doing this, and sam might be a victem of that. so it is possible that when i merged him with another family there where two Sam's (one in the hood and an extracted one in savedsims-folder). i can imagene that this was too confusing for the game.

resurect him, might be a good idea, but i'm afrait that i don't trust sam anymore after finding this out, what has left of him might be messed up as well. luckally i packaged him so i think it's better to install him to get him back.

but even that plan was partially changed, coz i now have a new HD and dicided that i better start fresh (with only the ones i want to keep) as it has become a messy and weird hood after my beginners experiments i did in there.

I would advise against molesting the Maxian pre-made dead, though.

thank you especially for this one, i've read more about this here, and that is what mainly helped me decide to start fresh. coz basically, if there was a clean way to get rid of sims, then i didn't have to start fresh. my hood would be healthy again if i could get rid of two corruped sims and it wouldn't be messy if i could get rid of a few others.

thank you again
Jean

[ZephyrZodiac]

I had a similar thing happen with Beau Broke (the child) when the Brokes all moved to a new house.  (He really is a problematical sim!)  The lot wouldn't load and I had to do an emergency shutdown and then tried to reload the house after I'd reloaded the game.  However, I still couldn't, and the same thing happened.  A look in simPe showed that Beau was both unlinked and had no character data.  I cheated, though, and managed to relink him and then copy all his character data from another edition of the Pleasantview saga.  When I loaded the game, he was all on his own in the family bin, so I just loaded him into the house with his family, and it worked!  But I don't think I'd recommend it - I wouldn't have even tried if the neighbourhood wasn't already showing some very nasty signs, and eventually I just cloned everyone and started them again!

[JeanMaas]

ooh, that's a pity, played that family breefly, quiet a while ago, he was grown in a very handsome teen (in the same house), good to know though. indeed, i am not that handy with SimPE, i do only some very simple things with it.

thanks