Problems with very weird wants

[Anne]

Okay, my first post, because this has me completely and totally freaked out.

A while back, right before installing NL, I started a new neighborhood. (I did not use DeleteAllCharacters in doing so) I set up one family, and then installed NL. Right after installing NL, this family showed up with blank want slots. Blank as in just plain blue, that is.
The problem seemed to resolve itself pretty quickly, though, so I kept on building my new neighborhood. Installed OFB after it came out, no new problems. The blank wants would pop up once in a while on members of that original family, but again, it always resolved itself.

But... the other day I opened SimPE just to nose around, and I browsed through the SWAF files. I thought I was being careful. I didn't hit anything. All I thought I did was look.
But the next time I opened the game, every sim that I had looked at (and only those who's SWAF files I had looked at) had blank want slots, and all the uni graduates had reverted to four instead of six. I used TJ's college adjuster to restore the missing slots and the new slots were also blank. Each sim had maybe one want - to go on a date, something like that - and several blank slots.
And each one of them had a completely new LTW, which I used the FFS lot debugger to reroll back to the original.
The weirdest problem, however, popped up in my oldest sim, the first one I created, who is now an elder about 6 or 7 days away from kissing simlife goodbye. Her panel included wants for a sim she has never met to become an overachiever, and three fears of townies (who are not dead) becoming zombies. I sent her to sleep for several sim hours, I had her check out her husband, I even fulfilled one of her normal wants by getting her son engaged, nothing.

So what do I do? Is this a sign that my neighborhood on it's way to becoming a BFBVFS?  Or will this weird problem resolve itself on it's own eventually?

I have no hacks, other than awesome ones (critical fixes and the lot debugger, and TJ's college adjuster) and the 'hood only has 353 sim character files in the folder.

I'm praying it's not a BFBVFS, because I am very attached to this neighborhood. And if I have to send Amelia (the elder sim with the wacky wants) to an early sim-grave, then I'll do it. She has already fulfilled two LTW's, she's permaplat, she can die happy.

[J. M. Pescado]

I think you managed to corrupt your files. That qualifies as a BFBVFS.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Are you using the latest edition of SimPE?  Or possibly an older version that had errors?  I know there was at least one edition that was corrected and replaced fairly rapidly, but if that was the one you were using before the trouble began to show, maybe that's what set it off.


Have you checked the number of SWAF files against the number of characters in your hood?  If you have 353 character files, then you should have the same number of SWAF files.  If that checks out ok, you could try deleting the SWAF for each character with the problem and hopefully they will generate a new and complete set of wants and fears when you reload the game.  If you find you have a great deal more SWAF files than character files, look for any that have no owner, not even Unknown.  Delete these.  When you have done this, check and see if the numbers correlate, which hopefully they will.

Also check in Sim Relations for any relationships of unknown towards x, x towards unknown, or unknown towards unknown, and delete these from the list.

Pescado helped me to do this, as I was really having problems all due to deleting the half-dozen townie kids, so now I'm passing on what I hope is the advice I was given by him and a couple of others and which helped me save an even newer hood from a BFBVFS!

[Anne]

I think you managed to corrupt your files. That qualifies as a BFBVFS.

Well, great. That's what I was afraid of. Good thing I made a backup several days before all this started.

Are you using the latest edition of SimPE?  Or possibly an older version that had errors?  I know there was at least one edition that was corrected and replaced fairly rapidly, but if that was the one you were using before the trouble began to show, maybe that's what set it off.


Have you checked the number of SWAF files against the number of characters in your hood?  If you have 353 character files, then you should have the same number of SWAF files.  If that checks out ok, you could try deleting the SWAF for each character with the problem and hopefully they will generate a new and complete set of wants and fears when you reload the game.  If you find you have a great deal more SWAF files than character files, look for any that have no owner, not even Unknown.  Delete these.  When you have done this, check and see if the numbers correlate, which hopefully they will.

Also check in Sim Relations for any relationships of unknown towards x, x towards unknown, or unknown towards unknown, and delete these from the list.

Pescado helped me to do this, as I was really having problems all due to deleting the half-dozen townie kids, so now I'm passing on what I hope is the advice I was given by him and a couple of others and which helped me save an even newer hood from a BFBVFS!

Well, I took a look, and there were only 343 SWAF files listed, which is really odd. I went through all those relations, deleted the unknowns,  and I tried deleting Amelia's SWAF file, but when I started the game up, nothing had changed. Which either means I did it wrong (entirely possible) or I managed to create one big huge ugly BFBVFS.
I created a backup before all this started happening, at least, which means that the neighborhood isn't a total loss. I was just hoping to avoid that, as several of my sims have had weddings and babies since I made that backup.
Oh, well.

[J. M. Pescado]

Life is like a sandwich. Some days you eat the sandwich, other days the sandwich eats you.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Helpful cuss, isn't he!

Have you tried deleting your groups.cache file?

[Anne]

Have you tried deleting your groups.cache file?

Tried that, and it worked! - for all the other sims, anyway. They now have their wants panels nicely filled. Still didn't fix poor old Amelia, though. I don't so much mind her being a little bugged, as she is only a few days away from the end. I'm just hoping whatever is bugging her won't spread to the rest of the neighborhood.

If it does, well, that's what we make backups for, right?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Right, back-ups are good (but too many ar a pain!)!  As for Amelia, try deleting her again, saving and exiting, then reloading her house - maybe now that all the others are fixed, this will fix her!  If not, just keep her in permaplat until the end!

And I'd just add that it will probably be a good thing if you delete groups.cache after each play session.

[cwykes]

I asked about blank wants recently, cos I've got them too.  You've got most of the info in here already, but it might be worth a read of that thread.

Sometimes your sim gets no wants because of "want tree depletion" i.e. the game can't work out what to put there.
Wants re-rolll when your sim sleeps or you have them leave the lot.
Changing the aspiration can net you some achievable wants - change it back and the problem might have gone away.
Sometimes you can hover the mouse over the want and see what the want is.  This is a blank icon problem which I don't think is the same as missing wants.
I'm getting more blank want icons and missing wants since OFB.  Could be co-incidence....
I don't think the number of SWAF files should match exactly provided you can explain the difference.  Mrs C and the pollination tech don't have SWAF files in my hood.

Quaxi did a list of exactly what needs cleaning up.  There's a longstanding request for SimPE to do it all.
 http://ambertation.de/simpeforum/forum/viewthread/1731/0:

1. Note down intsnce and SimID of the Sim you want to delete (Instance of Sim Description, Sim Id is displayed within the Sim Description.

2. Delete all relationships of the Sim in question

3. Delete all Relationships towards the Sim in any other Sim

4. Delete all Family ties of the Sim

5. Check each memory of each Sim in the Neighborhood. If it is about the Sim in question (same GUID or Instance) delete it in the Memory Editor.

6. Go to the Family Information File the Sim is stored in (you can do so from the Sim Description), and remove it from the List.

7. Delete the wants&Fear and Sim DNA resource that has the same Instance as the SDSC of the Sim

8. Find the Filename of the character File for that Sim, and delete that package.

9. Finally delete the SimDescription of that Sim.

[DrBeast]

Hmm...I wonder though, can you actually delete the .package while SimPE is still running?

[cwykes]

well I can't.  I did try, but windows said the package was in use.  I did wonder if you needed to do it in that order for some reason.  If so you'd have to quit SimPE, delete the package and then go back into SimPE to delete the simdescription.  Being lazy and unable to think of a reason why it would matter, I deleted the sim description, then quit and deleted the package afterwards.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I don't think it's a matter of laziness - simPE is so slow at firing up and getting where you want to go!  I think in a way, it's a case of a program that does so much that it has a heck of a lot of data to load up each time. 

I think in the past when I've wanted to deal with a lot of character files without constantly reloading simPE I've made a copy of the characters folder and deleted from there, and then swopped it for the original. Not sure if it worked though, it would be some time ago.

And since you're going to delete the file anyway, I too can't see why you would need to delete the character file BEFORE the sim description!

[cwykes]

nor me, but assuming there isn't a reason doesn't seem quite safe.....