Undefined Transition

[croiduire]

What is an undefined transition error, and why is it destroying my family? I went to load the Curious family and got the repeat-to-paralysis cancel-retry-delete message saying there was an Undefined Transition error. The original log is attached. I don't even know where to begin to look to fix this one. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[jsalemi]

Hmm, from my limited knowledge it sounds like it's trying to change his pregnancy state and failing.  Are you using custom default skins?  Did you move the Curious family from Strangetown to Pleasantview?  Are you using any hacks that affect pregnancies?

[twojeffs]

It has to be related to a non-awesome hack that deals with zombie or servo skins. The node that puked in your error log would never error in the original bhav so it has to be hack related.

[croiduire]

I don't have any zombie or servo skins. I've switched defaults for the paradise sim skins and I've used several Allan ABQ skins as custom. That's it. Moreover, Vidcund isn't pregnant. As soon as I loaded the Curious house I deleted every telescope and razed the stupid viewing platform. He was never abducted.

[jsalemi]

Well, I'd suggest the usual debugging technique -- move your Downloads folder somewhere else (out of The Sims 2 folder) and load the game and see if you still have the same problem. If not, then start adding your hacks and skins back a bit at a time to figure out which is causing the problem.  It could be a corrupt skin file causing it, or some other hack.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Also worth using Clean Installer first to check everything for duplicates,  and the Hack Conflict Detection Utility from Paladin's Place might show up something interesting and helpful too.

[Argon]

As soon as I loaded the Curious house I deleted every telescope and razed the stupid viewing platform. He was never abducted.

This is what's causing it, a similar thing happens if you mess with the fridge in the Beaker house before Nervous pigs out. The premade families have a hidden tutorial object that scripts the first few actions, if something is missing, it pukes.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Funny though, how a lot of those things disappeared with later EPs.  If you play the Dreamers in a later install of PV, for instance, all those bills have magically disapppeared!  Not to mention Dirk and Darren have a far better relationship!

[croiduire]

But is there any way I can fix it? I removed all my downloads and checked--the problem persists unabated. (Since virtually all the hacks I use are from, or appoved by, this site, I really didn't think it was caused by user content.) So far I've tried evicting the family and moving the other two brothers in with their sister, to isolate the culprit. That way I was able to generate a slightly different Undefined Transition error message and get a glimpse of either a fat or pregnant sim.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Try moving the last curious brother out of the house, then moving him back in again.

[ElfPuddle]

If it is caused by your deletion of Vidcund's abduction (and that sounds plausible to me), then all I can think of is either a move-out/in or re-install.
Move out and then in, one or more brothers. If that doesn't work, then re-install the house, the neighborhood, or (worst case) the game. That doesn't sound like fun, but it would work.

*Please note that I qualify as non-awesome in all matters not pertaining to language and grammar. Advice should only be taken in extreme desperation and only following a complete backup of all related files.*

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, a reinstall would not be necessary at all.  If the worst happens and you can't correct the problem, all you need to do in order to have a playable Strangetown is to delete the current version, rename the Sims 2 folder to something else, such as sims 2 X, and load your game.  A complete set of Maxis hoods will be generated, and you can then move the Strangetown folder into your Sims2 X folder, delete the rest of the new set (or move it somewhere and keep it for later) and remove the X from the sims 2 folder name.  You will then have a new Strangetown to start playing. 

Now, there are alternatives to deleting the telescope, such as making it inaccessible, and maybe that would save Vidcund from the abduction scenario - but whatever you decide to do, back up the hood first!

[croiduire]

I already had moved them all out and tried to move them back in...it didn't work. I have successfully moved Pascal and Lazlo in with Jenny, and they are functioning just fine--apparently the sim, not the house, lot or family, is corrupt. I put down a small empty lot and tried to move Vidcund in there. The problem continues. I'd rather delete the file entirely than reinstall at this point--they are my least-played family and I have invested hours into the neighborhood. I have attached the error message generated in the new lot, although to my inexperienced eyes, I don't see much difference with the first one.

[Ancient Sim]

You could clone Vidcund and re-establish all his relationships, but by far the easiest way would have been to let the abduction go ahead, then simply abort the pregnancy.  You could also have got rid of the memories of the abduction in SimPE if you'd wanted to. 

I take it you have something against aliens?  We're not that bad really, you know.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I'm not much good at reading error logs either.  I imagine that you tried resetting him?

Deleting Vidcund will cause a fair number of problems which you would have to deal with in simPE, such as memories, SWAFs etc.  Before you do any of that, I would suggest that you check all his data in SimPE to see if something is odd, as for instance he is marked as unlinked when he should be linked.

You could also try moving him into a completely different empty lot and see if he still malfunctions.

Incidentally, when I played Strangetown, I didn't let the abduction go ahead, I sold the telescope and bought them a cheap on, and nothing untoward happened.  This really makes me think thatmaybe the lot itself is corrupted.

If you haven't done so already, try deleting the groups.cache file from your Sims2 folder in My Docs.  The game will then generate a new one, which may clear up the problem.

[RainbowTigress]

As soon as I loaded the Curious house I deleted every telescope and razed the stupid viewing platform. He was never abducted.

This is what's causing it, a similar thing happens if you mess with the fridge in the Beaker house before Nervous pigs out. The premade families have a hidden tutorial object that scripts the first few actions, if something is missing, it pukes.

Do you know where this information is hidden?  I cloned the original Pleasantview to my fourth neighborhood slot, and it didn't have the popups or go through the usual scripted stuff that happened when I first played Pleasantview.  Of course, after installing Uni, a lot of that stuff didn't make sense anymore.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I've always been able to change the pre-made scenarios without the game throwing a wobbly - usually by not entering those houses until something has changed externally - for example, if you get Don to break it off with Cassandra before you enter the Goth house, although the wedding is still about to take place, and you still get the stupid pop-up, since they now hate each other, the wedding won't happen and nothing dreadful seems to happen.  The first time I played the Summerdreams, the premade scenario was such a total disaster I just exited without saving as I really didn't want to play such a badly designed, impossible house any longer, and played the other families.  By the time I went back there, the teens were all friends, the fights didn't happen but Oberon and Titania still couldn't get to the wedding arch together!  In the end I moved them to another lot.  I also checked out their ralationships in simPE and got rid of the family marker!

I think what I am trying to say is, these scenarios aren't set in stone, there are workarounds.

[croiduire]

Arrrgh! Another Undefined Transition error, this time on Circe Beaker. This family has been moved, changed and played a lot--no new game code causing this one. She recently had a baby, the household now consists of her, Loki, and their newborn son; Nervous (renamed Ash) and his wife, Kirsten; and Erin, Loki's sister. They have moved into a new house, I altered the faces of Loki and Ash using the Cosmetic Surgery reward, and Circe has a cowplant so that she was able to drink Bella Goth (once of her most persistent aspirations after Bella beat the crap out of her). She and Loki are both wearing custom hair, but nothing shows up in Clean Installer as red-lined except the hacks from this site, Risky WooHoo, and LizzLoves no-privacy.

Outside of game I'm running AVG Free edition virus software. Since we're on broadband and networked, I really can't shut that down. What is corrupting my files? Where do I go to look, and what am I looking for?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[twojeffs]

Try this. Install the attached file in you downloads folder, then get and run Paladin's conflict checker program from  here. Whatever that program says is conflicting with the test package you installed is the problem. If it doesn't come up with anything conflicting, you've got bigger problems with that hood. It's probably going BFBVFS.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Check with the Hack conflict Detection Utility from SimWardrobe and it's my guess that one of the non awesome hacks is conflicting with the awesome, in which case I'd sling the non-awesome in the recycle bin!  For instance, I don't think you should run Risky woohoo if you have TJ's casual romance mod.

Hey, TJ. you beat me to it!

[jsalemi]

For instance, I don't think you should run Risky woohoo if you have TJ's casual romance mod.

I run both, and there's no problem with them.  No conflicts show up in the hack checker, either.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Maybe it was something else, I know I read there was something that conflicted with TJ's mod.

[croiduire]

Paladin's program detected four possible conflicts:

CBOY_nudist_naked_emitter.package
noshockforoutgoing.package

CBOY_nudist.package
poolhack.package

CBOY_nudist.package
poolhack.package

CBOY_nudist.package
poolhack.package

But I thought they wer designed to work together?

[jsalemi]

Those conflicts don't bother anything. So that's not the cause of your problems. I'm beginning to think the character files are damaged/corrupted, and there won't be a whole lot you can do other than to restart the neighborhood.

[croiduire]

Oh, bother. And sigh. And whimper.

OK, how can I cut my losses? I have a couple of houses I worked very hard on that I love. Can I preserve them? How can I restart just one neighborhood without  the other neighborhoods going up in smoke? Also, how can I get rid of the obnoxious townie children before initiating? (The other ones I don't mind AS much, but those creepy ancient children and teens bother me a lot! Actually, is there a safe hack out there that forces all the townies to age and eventually die?)

I assume this will also reset my university and downtown areas?