SimPE Weirdness - Multiple Instances of the same sim, in

[Zythe]

I'd like to think I know my way around SimPE pretty well, so this is probably something wrong with the game. In my superhero neighbourhood (just X-Men at the moment), I noticed that one of the sims (Rogue) was listed twice. I do some investigating, and SimPE decides to give me a useless alert message a bit too late.

This is just a Warning. It is supposed to keep you informed about a Problem. Most of the Time this is not a Bug!

The Sim with GUID 0xF016576E (inst=0x000B) exists more than once. This could result in  Problems during the Gameplay!

No, you think?

It's in istance 0B as well as 06, and she has no relations with anyone. This neighbourhood is also squeaky clean. I used deleteallcharacters straight away, and this family has never been played in a lot because I wanted to adjust the family trees and fix their last names first.

They're listed as being in the same family and they share a GUID. The sim has no information whatsoever, whereas all her CAS family members are fine. She was fine earlier on before I used SimPE and saved. I'm not saying it's SimPE. I went into the neighbourhood earlier on to make another CAS sim (Mystique) who I'd later set as the mother of 0xF016576E, and she happens to be the very one with a problem.

One of them is listed with "treat as male", which is probably the default for newly and randomly spawned sims outside the game. I think they might be reading the same package twice... but then, it makes no sense how they can be read separately when they're both the same package in the characters folder.

Can I just delete just this instance (since the sim is the same) (and safely?), manually give the other one some information and forget it ever happened... or is it as I fear... that the whole damn neighbourhood isn't worth playing now?  I would post on ambertation, but they're down, and quaxi and pinhead seem to focus on the object workshop more anyway - plus, I know for a fact everyone here is clever and confident enough to give me some kind of answer.

Thank you guys so much.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Are they simply sitting in the bin or are they sitting in a house in the bin?

[Karen]

The exact same thing happened to me yesterday, except that I don't want to delete this Sim unless absolutely necessary.  (In my case the problem Sim is in a family that I want to keep playing.)  Is there a way to use SimPE to delete the duplicate GUID?  If so, how exactly do you do it?

Karen

[ZephyrZodiac]

If there are two files listed at the tops of the sims pages, (2 different numbers, for example 00025 and 00237) then you can open the characters folder in the neighbourhood folder and take out one of them.  I'd back the hood up first, then stick one file on the desktop until you're sure it's working ok.  But make sure the one you keep has all the necessary info, like relationships etc.  Any problems you can then simply go back to the back up folder and try something else.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've never seen this happen, and as far as I can tell, based on what I know of how things work, this would be a VERY BAD THING. You can try to fix it by removing the offending duplicate and any references to it, but your neighborhood may simply be buggered.

[Karen]

If there are two files listed at the tops of the sims pages, (2 different numbers, for example 00025 and 00237) then you can open the characters folder in the neighbourhood folder and take out one of them.  I'd back the hood up first, then stick one file on the desktop until you're sure it's working ok.  But make sure the one you keep has all the necessary info, like relationships etc.  Any problems you can then simply go back to the back up folder and try something else.

Unfortunately in my case that won't work.  The two Sims have the same character file (00819), same GUID, but different instance values (something that you can only see by looking at the Sim Browser).  There is only one copy of the 00819 character file in the Characters folder.  I suppose I could delete it, but I don't want to do that yet because I don't really want to kill him off except as a last resort.

Karen

[gali]

Perhaps you can test "who is who", by adding to one of the 0819 - 3 neat points (with the SimPe). Then enter the game, and see how many neat points have your sim - and delete the second one.

...Just a thought..., may be it should work...

[Zythe]

I'll try that but I'm pretty sure it's going to be the new one at the bottom. What I'll do is, I'll make a backup of the neighbourhood and delete one instance, and see what happens. I think it's just SimPE reading one package twice, in that assinine way it does.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I'm not sure, but I have one character (Beau Broke) whose file is twice as big as everyone else's, and although SimPE only lists him once, I wonder if it's a related thing.  It happened after Beau got stuck at Uni and I had to use the fixes to get him back to Pleasantview, and I have a feeling that all his info is in the file twice.

[Zythe]

Here's a weird update. I remove either instance, and her lot refuses to load. I return to a backup, and with the conflicting instances, she loads fine but has no character - I have to give her an aspiration and more with boolprop. I let her do things to gain memories and relations. I save and quit. The game has a NEW (3rd) instance of Rogue now, 0x0...132 (after all the townies and NPCs that were generated). This one has all the character information and memories that she was given either automatically or through gameplay. Now, weirder still, on the memories - the first Rogue, 0x2, has all the memories that 0x132 earned, the "male" Rogue - 0xB, has none, and like 0x2, the new "real" Rogue has all her memories too.

This is so weird. If the game continues to create instances, I'll either restart the neighbourhood or delete her character file.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, if she hasn't met anyone yet, you could try deleting her and see what happens, or you could try moving her out and bulldozing the lot, then try a new hous and see what happens.

[Zythe]

She has met people, that's why 0x...132 was created. It's not the lot, the bug was created before I played the family. She plays fine in game, so removing her character file to another family would serve no purpose either. What I don't want, is the game to duplicate an instance of her everytime I play. If it does, I will delete her character and all references to her, and then try create her again.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I suppose her personality, clothes, hair etc won't be too bad, but it's not always easy to recreate a face, I find.  You  can be nearly right, though, and maybe by not being exactly right, the game won't do the same thing again!

[Zythe]

Nah, she's in the sim bin but thanks for your concern

[RainbowTigress]

You could export her to Body Shop using Sim Surgery.  Then you just have to recreate her personality and memories.

[Brynne]

I had that error pop up a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't figure out which sim was listed twice. I guess I didn't read it carefully enough.

[Zythe]

I think it's SimPE now. It happened again. One moment there was one sim. I committed and it lagged. I then notice the file has been duplicated. I think it had to do with editting sims who are in the sim bin with the new SimPE.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Veilchen had problems with the new SimPE, so I never bothered with it. I use Version 0.36, and I've never had this happen. 

The only thing in that case would be to move the CAS sims to a lot BEFORE you edit them!  Annoying, as once you move them to a lot, you want to darn well play them!

[Zythe]

People are complaining it's happening to them now at TSR! I'm certain it's something Quaxi needs to fix.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I suppose all new versions get new problems.

[Brynne]

I got this error message again right after I posted earlier in this thread. I had a sim who was stuck in the default household for some reason. When I would try to move him back in with his family, he would have no relationship panel (except for the family tree, which was intact). If I exited then went back into the lot, he'd be gone, again. I was trying to fix his household instance in simpe (he was listed in the 0x0000 family, which is the default). Every time I would try to save the changes, he would turn into a 2nd instance of Troy Jitmakusol. And I would then get the duplicate sim error. The newest version of simpe let me change him to his correct family, but I'm wondering what all this duplicate sim stuff is about? What the hell? And has anyone had any problems with a Troy Jitmakusol? I've had his character duplicate itself in the place of one of my sims  in a similar problem before, a long time ago. 

[Lady Moiraine]

I'd like to think I know my way around SimPE pretty well, so this is probably something wrong with the game. In my superhero neighbourhood (just X-Men at the moment), I noticed that one of the sims (Rogue) was listed twice. I do some investigating, and SimPE decides to give me a useless alert message a bit too late.

I too had this happen only I had multiple duplicates, I posted at Quaxi's place, maybe this link will help, it was our discussion:

http://ambertation.de/simpeforum/viewtopic.php?t=1714

[ZephyrZodiac]

I've had other sims do it.

[Kristalrose]

I had this happen to my neighborhood!!!  I thought I had screwed it up, by packaging a Greek House and moving it to the new campus I had created.    About a month later, I had several dulplicates of each sims.  I thought it was my fault!!  I kept trying to use the neighborhood browser to open a back-up of the neighborhood, but it kept giving me error messages for each sim and never could open the old back ups.  I finally did a clean reinstall.     

[Zythe]

QA version away, then.