Sims freezing in custom CAS

[marvine]

Sure that was fun at first! But I need to take some CAS screenshots of some new outfits, and it's not really possible with a blue sim hugging himself, making faces and falling stiff every few minutes... Well at least they don't seem to die, they just do the same freezing routine over and over.
This happened after I edited my usual custom CAS in Seasons to fix arches that didn't cut off the wall anymore after installing Pets and Seasons (no idea which one causes the glitch). Ok, that one is a collection of VBTs (formerly lived in, not properly cleaned and all) so I tried editing a fresh CAS from the global lots folder - the same thing happens.
I used Numenor's base game starter to fix the lot in OFB, no freezing this way; but this doesn't solve the arches issue, they display ok in OFB, just not in my later install.
So editing the CAS in seasons adds a winter thing regardless of the game's current seasons (adding a roof and changing the arches for proper windows don't change a thing, which i didn't expect anyway), and obviously that's on purpose since there are specific CAS animations...
Oh and I didn't find anything that seems related in the files SimPE is currently able to read.

Use the default CAS for the time being?? Well I'd rather try in-game screenshots even if I suck at that 

[J. M. Pescado]

Custom CAS lots tend to have a lot of spawned controller that are not present in a "real" CAS lot. These extra controllers must be systematically removed to avoid unusual artifacts like walkbys, freezing, etc. This is usually accomplished by doing a Force Error On All on the lot, and then mashing delete a couple hundred times on anything that says "controller" or otherwise isn't a part of the lot, and resetting everything else.

[marvine]

Thank you for the quick reply

I finally had a sim die or at last fall frozen and stay that way, and the game crash on exit.  Not familiar with the lot debugger (merely used "force error" until now), I followed your explanations the best I could, but the only controller I found was the scenario controller - by that time the welcomers were all over the lot and the resulting file wasn't precisely clean...
I finally managed to fix my arches issue in OFB only, and the resulting CAS works fine for now. But custom CAS are going to be tricky it seems...
Thanks again!

[Ambular]

Thank you for the quick reply

I finally had a sim die or at last fall frozen and stay that way, and the game crash on exit.  Not familiar with the lot debugger (merely used "force error" until now), I followed your explanations the best I could, but the only controller I found was the scenario controller - by that time the welcomers were all over the lot and the resulting file wasn't precisely clean...
I finally managed to fix my arches issue in OFB only, and the resulting CAS works fine for now. But custom CAS are going to be tricky it seems...
Thanks again!

Something else to watch out for is random pets wandering through your CAS, trashing furniture and annoying the cameraman.  XD  I followed Pes's advice about the controllers and also fenced off my CAS lot completely, which has reduced the frequency of unwelcome "visitors," but it doesn't seem to have stopped them completely...

[marvine]

Oopsie, forgot to fence the lot!! I guess strays wandering in CAS won't be fun for long either >_<

[J. M. Pescado]

Something else to watch out for is random pets wandering through your CAS, trashing furniture and annoying the cameraman.  XD  I followed Pes's advice about the controllers and also fenced off my CAS lot completely, which has reduced the frequency of unwelcome "visitors," but it doesn't seem to have stopped them completely...

You have to DELETE all the foreign controllers and NOT REVISIT THE LOT. If you do, they respawn. I am considering adding an automatic search-and-destroy feature to the Lot Debugger to auto-filter all controllers out of a lot, but it will be highly experimental and will need live testing, as I don't ever touch custom CAS lots.

[Li'l Brudder]

Pescado, how do you suggest we force error on all without any sims living there?  I don't think moving one in there would be good.

[marvine]

How do you suggest we force error on all without any sims living there?

You can alway delete the character files in SimPE (compare with the CAS from the global lots to make sure what can be deleted), but I'm not sure how effective the cleaning is since SimPE doesn't read all the files... Anyway I never had issues when doing that. Now you should probably use a copy of the lot and keep the original in game;  when I tried the welcomers arrived at once on the lot, probably best to not mess with their memories.

Now if cleaning the characters this way is safe, an automatic search-and-destroy would be great; I'm still wondering if I missed something since the only controller I found is the scenario controller.

[Ambular]

Something else to watch out for is random pets wandering through your CAS, trashing furniture and annoying the cameraman.  XD  I followed Pes's advice about the controllers and also fenced off my CAS lot completely, which has reduced the frequency of unwelcome "visitors," but it doesn't seem to have stopped them completely...

You have to DELETE all the foreign controllers and NOT REVISIT THE LOT. If you do, they respawn. I am considering adding an automatic search-and-destroy feature to the Lot Debugger to auto-filter all controllers out of a lot, but it will be highly experimental and will need live testing, as I don't ever touch custom CAS lots.

Aha, that would explain it...

[V]

Does anyone know if there is any way to force an error in the default CAS lot? There doesn't seem to be anything to click on.

[Ambular]

Does anyone know if there is any way to force an error in the default CAS lot? There doesn't seem to be anything to click on.

The way I did it was to put the lot debugger on the lot, save, move a sim in, use the sim to click, force errors and delete all the controllers, save, move the Sim out.

[Tamha]

Doesn't that usually remove all the objects from a lot? If it works fine that way, that's great, if it doesn't the other option would be to make the sim into a custom townie with the teleporter shrub (or something like it).

[Ambular]

Doesn't that usually remove all the objects from a lot? If it works fine that way, that's great, if it doesn't the other option would be to make the sim into a custom townie with the teleporter shrub (or something like it).

*Thinks*  No, I think I remember how I got around it.  I moved her in, deleted the controllers, packaged the lot, and used Clean Installer to install it without the Sim.

[cassblonde]

A friend of mine also had the freezing problem with her custom CAS. This is what she found out:  Your custom CAS will work fine if you create it in Pets, the issue only exists with customs CASs created in Seasons. So if you make it in Pets and then install Seasons, you're fine

Of course this may not be useful at all, she can do it fine because she has more than one computer with the Sims2 on it.

*sighs* Well the information may be useful to ~someone~ ... *wanders back to lurkdom*

[Ambular]

A friend of mine also had the freezing problem with her custom CAS. This is what she found out:  Your custom CAS will work fine if you create it in Pets, the issue only exists with customs CASs created in Seasons. So if you make it in Pets and then install Seasons, you're fine

Of course this may not be useful at all, she can do it fine because she has more than one computer with the Sims2 on it.

*sighs* Well the information may be useful to ~someone~ ... *wanders back to lurkdom*

It does work just fine made in Pets, except when a stray comes in and starts trashing on stuff and makes the Sim creation sequence go wonky.  Apparently when you cancel out of making a Sim, you will be returned to the Family Room if there is any other Sim in there, even an uninvited stray.  I had this happen and watched the mutt tear my armchair apart in creepy fast-forward motion a while back.  Also had a werewolf come peer through the door with his glowing eyes as I made another Sim.

I checked the neighborhood files after using my custom Pets-made CAS for a while, and I couldn't find any sign of junk data, so these things may amount to just nuisances (the chair was fine next time I loaded CAS up.)  Still, it'd be better to eliminate the issue altogether.  I need to go back and re-delete all those controllers and save it properly...except I've installed Seasons since...maybe I'll wait and put up with the strays a while longer, till someone more awesome than me has it all figured out.