Food disappearing from inventory

[Kyna]

I've had plates of food disappearing from inventories on a couple of lots.

In one lot, my CAS sim married a townie with a lousy 1 cooking point.  She got pregnant straight away (since I put in TJ's ACR it seems all my newlyweds get knocked up straight away).  With twins.  So her hubby, who has maxed out cooking, cooked up about half a dozen platters of pork chops using "Make Many ... Group Meals".  I transferred them to her inventory, stuck her on power idle once she bumped, and focussed on what he was doing for a bit.  Next thing I know I get a message that she's gained a cooking point - I check on her and she's in the kitchen cooking spaghetti and the food in her inv is nowhere to be found.

So I try again.  Hubby cooks up another half a dozen platters of pork chops.  I stick them in her inv.  Once they're in bed for the night it's time to rotate to another lot.  Today I was playing their lot again.  As soon as I get into the lot I check her inv while they're still sleeping, she has the platters of food still.  Later I check her inv while she's on the cellphone, and again after she's put the cellphone back in her inv.  Food is still there.  Then a bit later I notice she's eating spaghetti - I check her inv and there's no food in it again. 

There's nobody on the lot but her and her hubby, and one visitor that he is befriending and keeping busy using macro -> socialise.  In fact the visitor left before he'd finished socialising with her, so was never idle on the lot.  It's a downloaded lot that I installed using Clean Installer (it's Nec's entry for the contest here), this couple are the first to occupy this particular lot.

The food seems to vanish about the time I would expect her to use macro -> eat.

Anyone got any idea why the food is vanishing?  Two simdays in a row now I've had hubby cook up platters of pork chops until the fridge came up with a low food warning - that's basically two fridgefuls of food that have vanished into thin air.

I had a similar thing happen on another lot, but that situation wasn't so bad.  The pregnant spouse could cook although not as well as his partner.  I gave him platters as I like to put lots of platters of food in my pregnant sims' inventories - it's handy during the pregnancy if their hunger drops too low, plus I like to have enough food so that when the offspring transitions to child I can transfer the food to the child.

[linolino]

this is a bug in Open For Business. it is supposed to be fixed in the Family Fun Stuff patch 2.

[tIIsuggas]

So, if you are fortunate enough not to have made the mistake of owning and installing FFS, then you have to put up with disappearing food?

Or should I still install the FFS patch even though I never intend owning that piece of crap?

[kutto]

Just try this.

[linolino]

sorry. apparently the updated patch of OFB (OFBp2) also adress this issue.

i can't really tell because i have FFS. but i had a bug just like that and it didn't happened anymore after the FFS patch 2.

OFBp2 : http://thesims2.ea.com/update/getpatch.php?appVersion=1.3&languageCode=
FFSp2 : http://thesims2.ea.com/update/getpatch.php?appVersion=1.4&languageCode=

[Kyna]

I checked out that other thread Kutto, I'll be trying that.  *presses thanks button*

Interesting this should suddenly start happening though.  I've been using inventories to store food in other neighbourhoods with no problem.  I know this sounds weird, but maybe this neighbourhood is glitched somehow when my other neighbourhoods aren't.  It's a fairly new neighbourhood, these are the among the first pregnancies in it.  Usually I don't bother storing food in the inventory until a sim is pregnant.

I've had OFB patch 2 in my game for some time now, so it's not a patch issue.

ETA: I read that thread you linked to Kutto, and the thread it linked it to, and the the thread that linked to.  It appears that fix was written to fix a bug that was happening when sims tried to restock food at a business.  The thing is there are no businesses in this neighbourhood yet, so none of my affected sims were trying to restock a business.  What happened to me isn't quite the same thing, but I'll stick the fix in anyway and see if it works.

[kutto]

Hmm. I must have read your post too hastily. Either way, it probably wouldn't hurt to put it in.

[Ness]

I've had food stocked in inventories disappear also - not sure why, and it's got nothing to do with businesses either.

[Kyna]

Haven't been back in my game yet since posting this, but I think I may know why it suddenly started happening in my game.

When I installed OFB I took out my hacks and put them back in when I saw posts by the creators listing what worked and what didn't.  Only I never noticed a what works/what doesn't topic for Crammyboy's stuff, so never put back in my Crammyboy folder intending to put it back in after I'd checked for compatibility.  The other day I noticed that folder sitting in my zips folder, and couldn't remember why I hadn't dropped it back in (guess I was having a blonde moment or something).  So I dropped it back into the downloads folder without checking for compatibility with OFB.  Today I went through Crammyboy's section of the board and found there were a couple of hacks I'd had that were marked "Nightlife Only" according to Crammyboy's posts.  Those posts were last edited on the same date as others that were edited to read "Nightlife and OFB only", so I assume that the ones that say "Nightlife Only" means OFB incompatible.  So this may have been my fault for having EP-incompatible downloads.

I'll go back into the neighbourhood later today and see if the problem is fixed.

ETA: I just played my game with the Craftable Restock Fix in (and having checked my hacks are OFB compatible).  The problem is still happening. 

I was watching her this time.  The food was in her inv when I gave the macro instruction to eat.  The icon of herself came up (which is normally when she would access her inv to take the platter out), then instread of putting the platter on the floor and grabbing the plate then stuffing the platter back in her inv, she went to the kitchen and cooked spaghetti.  There was no food in her inv - when seconds before there had been 6 platters of food.

So it seems to be the macro "eat" that is wiping the food from her inv.

[J. M. Pescado]

Macro Eat may wipe the food if for some reason the food is corrupted. Sometimes for some strange reason, Make One/Many will generate only corrupted, inedible food. Also, putting spoiled food in the inventory will result in a discard.

[Kyna]

What could be causing the food corruption?  It's not just this lot, it's happened on at least one other lot in this neighbourhood that I've noticed.

This sim in particular has had 3 separate loads of food in her inv.  It's happened with every single load as soon as she tries to macro eat.  It's not just one bad batch of food - it's every batch is bad (unless there is an element of sadorandomness at work here).

I'd like to solve this before her twin toddlers become children because I like to put food in their invs.  While she can easily get to 5 cooking and be able to cook her own food, the kids can't cook for themselves until they become teens.

[J. M. Pescado]

Can the food be taken out of the inventory and eaten manually? If not, it's definitely corrupted.

[Sagana]

I've had food that thinks it needs to be "prepared" or "served" or something after it's taken out of inv and before it's eaten. It's already cooked and they don't do anything to it, but it takes an extra step before they'll eat it. Sometimes that food won't ever be edible (dunno why). Usually those are deserts, and especially single-serving deserts that my sim bought at a bakery. I did notice that the pizza that's already at the Curious house required the same thing before they could eat it. I wonder if it didn't get all the way "served" (cut into sections or something) before I stuck it in inv. Anyway just randomly thinking.

[J. M. Pescado]

Platters from Make Many usually need to be Served before anything can be done with them, but Macrotastics already knows how to handle that. Platters that break when served are corrupt and thus discarded.

[Ness]

I'm fairly sure there is some corruption happening.  I've taken a platter out of inventory and found the only option available was to clean up - no serve, no take a plate, just clean up.

It's something that has only started recently - could there be a wonkyness in one of the updates?  I've not added anything new, just updated my hacks.

[J. M. Pescado]

Food has been known to be corrupted when you install patches. I've made an attempt at something to prevent it, but I won't know if it really works properly until the next patch or expansion.

[Kyna]

It's something that has only started recently - could there be a wonkyness in one of the updates?  I've not added anything new, just updated my hacks.

This is what I'm finding too.  My game has been patched with p2 for a while now, and the platter thing was working for me post-patch until recently - clearly the second patch didn't break it in my game.  Since this last worked for me the only downloading I've done has consisted of keeping up to date with MATY.zip and TJ's stuff, and one house that I installed via Clean Installer.

[J. M. Pescado]

The food routines and anything that they touch haven't been changed in awhile, though. And I can't reproduce your results in testing.

[Ness]

And there's no helpful error logs being produced!   

Would it help in any way to force errors on something?

[Kyna]

I've been trying the "remove a few downloads at a time and test the game" method.  Slow, tedious process.  *sigh* I wish it were possible to update downloads while the game was running ... the startup each time takes so long.

So far I've taken out everything I've downloaded this month except ACR (that's next on my testing) and the version of macrotastics released on the 6th of this month (since I clearly can't test macro eat without it, and I don't have an older version of macrotastics).  Still not working for me, every single time the platters disappear when she tries to macro eat.  I've also run Paladin's HCDU to check for hack conflicts in case an older version of a hack was elsewhere in my downloads folder.

Things I have taken out :
- My Crammyboy folder (since I only put it back in recently)
- a couple of mods by TJ that had a date stamp from this month
- the Pescado version of Windkeeper's mailbox shelf.  Once in the game I replaced the mailbox cover as part of testing this one.
- everything in my MATY folder that had a date stamp of this month, except macrotastics since I don't have an older recent version of macrotastics and I can't test macro eat without it

Next on my testing list:
- ACR (I'll uninstall the tokens, then take it out of my folder)
- move family to another lot, even though this is happening in more than one lot
- testing another neighbourhood where I know this was working the last time I played that 'hood.

I'm restricting my testing to mods from this month as I'm fairly sure this problem has only developed in the last couple of weeks, and that macro - eat was working with platters at the beginning of the month.

BTW, I've taken the platters out of the inv and put them on the ground and the option to serve was available, as well as call to meal.  So I don't think the meals are corrupted.

[dizzy]

To speed things up, you might use the "half" method. Take out one half, then the other. If taking out one works and the other doesn't, take a look at the one and divide it in half, and so on.

[Kyna]

Next on my testing list:
- ACR (I'll uninstall the tokens, then take it out of my folder)
- move family to another lot, even though this is happening in more than one lot
- testing another neighbourhood where I know this was working the last time I played that 'hood.

I tested by removing ACR and I also tested a lot in another 'hood where I know it was working the last time I played that family a couple of weeks ago.  Still no dice.  So I've tested this all I can.  I didn't do the move out/move in test because if it's also not working in a lot where it was previously working, it's not a lot problem.

I don't know how to reproduce it in anyone else's game.  In mine I get food to vanish from the inventory as soon as I click "macro --> eat".

The only thing I haven't tried is using an older version of macrotastics than the 6th of August one in the MATY zip, but I don't have an older version of it.

I give up on this.  I'll go back to the way I managed meals for non-cooks pre-OFB.

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't know how to reproduce it in anyone else's game.  In mine I get food to vanish from the inventory as soon as I click "macro --> eat".

This would be easier to resolve if you showed up in chat so we could try test builds real-time.

[Ness]

Some time next weekend I should have the time to show up in chat and test for you.  Of course, this time I will carefully check before hand for any cases of stupid Ness syndrome.

[Lythdan]

We wouldn't want that to happen again, would we.