Dude, what happened to the food in my inventory?

[C.S.]

Everything edible vanished from my playables' inventories while they were manning the shop. That's not supposed to happen, is it? I've never played an owned community lot prior to this incident.

I allowed a sim who already owns a home business to fulfill his 'Purchase a community lot' want. He bought the Maple Springs Pool & Spa and I took him there early in the morning to do some renovation and setting up before opening for business. The 'customerselector' thingy was set to allow only NPCs, the electrono ticket machine was activated then I had him call and invite his NPC friends. I had checked his inventory a few times throughout the day and the food was still there when he left at the end of the first day.

Second time he went back to the business, I had the whole family follow. Well, except the pets. They were too busy barking and didn't manage to get into the car. The same five NPC friends were invited to visit when they opened for business at 7am. The teen in the family got hungry with all that dazzling, but his needs weren't all low enough for a trip to the energizer. There was one plate of grilled cheese sandwich in his inventory so I pulled it manually from his inventory for him to eat. This was before noon, and nobody's missing food from their inventories still. After the teen ate, I decided to buy a grill and have him make hotdogs and hamburgers for the customers on the lot so they stay a little longer. I dunno when it happened - before the grill or after - but the next time I looked, everything edible in my playables' inventories were gone.

My sims had been on Macro>Be Salesperson. The macro set one of my playables on macro>eat. I caught the action and cancelled it out before she could make any food because I wanted her to use a platter from her inventory. That's when I found out all the food in their inventories had been wiped clean. (See, I have my sims max out their skills, then spend about a day and a half cooking everything available on the menu usually before they go to college). All the group meals my 2 elders, 2 adults and 1 teen 'made many', they are all gone, not even a lousy bowl of cup o' ramen left. Where did the food go? No error logs had been generated, except for the ones I forced. But it was on the clothing racks and only because they were stuck in use after the customers decided to leave with a buy bar still hovering over their heads. I have all EPs except Seasons. Every EP is patched except Pets.

Anyone know what's going on?

[J. M. Pescado]

Someone shot the food!

All food tends to become corrupted whenever you patch to a new patch or expansion pack. An experimental "Don't Shoot Food" is included as part of the Director's Cut to prevent this food-shooting, but food that has already been shot is obviously toast. If you had Macrotastics in your game, Macrotastics already detected and destroyed the shot food. Shot food can be recognized by the only options for it being "resume cooking" (which doesn't work), or "clean up". If you see this, someone shot the food!

Remember, don't shoot food!

[C.S.]

I read about the patches issue, but the thing is, I had installed all patches before restarting the neighbourhood. The only patch I installed after I had started playing was the Bodyshop one. And then my sims was able to pull serving platters/bowls with the macro without any problem before the owned comm lot incident. Grrr. I hope it's a one time glitch.

[J. M. Pescado]

A current theory not firmly substantiated is that the core Pets or Seasons code by default shoots any food removed from the inventory, resulting in any food stored in the inventory becoming shot. This would upgrade Don't Shoot Food to a Yellow. Verify this behavior without Don't Shoot Food, and then see if it goes away when Don't Shoot Food is enabled. If so, inform us so I can put it as a standalone Yellow Alert hack.

Remember, don't shoot food!

[jsalemi]

I have don't shoot food installed (and have for a while) and it doesn't work 100% reliably with Seasons.  Every sim I've played so far that had food in the inventory before I installed Seasons can't use some or all of it. In one case last night, a sim had two platters of pork chops that were both bad, and a platter of omlettes that were ok. In most cases, the food in the inventory is bad.

On a separate note, I had a different type of disappearing food on the same lot.  One sim made pancakes for breakfast and put the leftovers in the fridge.  Later, another made pork chops and put the leftovers away.  That night, the father went to the fridge, took out the pork chops and the platter just disappeared from his hand.  Gone, completely, no where to be found.  He was able to take the pancakes out, eat, and put the rest back, though.  It was a standard maxis fridge, so no wonkyness caused by a custom fridge, and no error thrown.

[C.S.]

I haven't been checking the DC for new goodies and didn't even know about 'Don't Shoot Food'. The wiping clean of their inventories of anything edible happened without 'DSF' installed.

Prior to the incident, food could be dragged and dropped manually or transferred from one sim's inventory to another without any issues. There was no problem with macrotastics where sims eat out of their own inventory if their hunger level was too low or snarf food from someone else's inventory if they don't have enough cooking skills either. But this was all on the home lot. Anyway, I can't re-produce the scenario. Bah!

I made a copy of my game, extracted 'DSF' into Downloads and fired up the game. Had the elders 'make many' a few group meals then drive to the comm lot business. I had them serve a few plates of the freshly made food then dropped the platters back into their inventories. Nothing vanished. Grabbed a few platters from one sim's inventory to another just to mix it up and still no problem. Had them drive home, checked again when they arrived on the home lot and all the food was still there.

Exited the game, removed 'DSF' from Downloads, fired up the game. Had elders 'make many' some more food, transferred some serving platters between their inventories just in case that made any difference. Had them drive back to the comm lot business. Checked their inventories when they arrived, food still intact. Served a few plates then dropped them back in their inventories. Checked again. Food still intact. Cleaned up all the single plates of food sitting on the tables, paused the game, put the sims on macro>Be Salesperson. Dragged their hunger bars into the red, un-pause. Macrotastics made it so one of the sims grab a platter of food from inventory so both could eat. Platter of food was then auto-magically placed back into inventory. Checked again and food was still intact. Basically, I just can't re-produce the vanishing act no matter what I did.

Something I thought was strange when my sims' inventories was wiped clean was after their reporter friend showed up uninvited, sometime after the teen ate his sandwich but before macrotastics sent a hungry adult to grill some food. He gave the business a good review and seconds later, a best-of-the-best award. I've never had businesses receive more than one anything in a single visit. Anyway, I wanted to grab the best-of-the-best award from the owner's inventory and place it in the world near the ticket machine and that's when I found my playables' inventories had been wiped. I don't remember about the adults, but the elders had been given another copy of their diplomas. Man, they each already have one of those hanging at home. I'd much rather take the food.

[J. M. Pescado]

I have don't shoot food installed (and have for a while) and it doesn't work 100% reliably with Seasons.

Have you updated it? There was a don't shoot food update in the Director's Cut.

[jsalemi]

Yes, I have the lastest version installed.  Just double-checked this morning before firing up the game again.

Though it seems to be strange; I just checked another sim (new lot) and no problems with the food in her inventory, including pork chops.  Maybe the sim I played last night had food in his inventory from before I discovered and installed DSF a month or so back.  I can't remember if I played this hood (Pleasantview) since I installed it  -- I usually play Strangetown after a new ep or patch just to make sure things work right before coming back to PV.

[Sagana]

Without DSF, anything that causes a game reset - including installing an EP, hacks like the Lot Debugger/Sync Timer (I usually install both at once, so I don't know which causes the reset) and/or ACR shoots food. At that point, you might as well throw away all the inventory food as although some of it looks fine for awhile, it usually isn't dependable. (I guess that's why macrostatics just gets rid of it.) Other than on resets, with both Pets and Seasons, food is fine in inventories, except sometimes pies and the like from bakeries (tho I can *occasionally* get a whole pie and serve it, it's weird and glitchy) - in my game/experience at least.

[C.S.]

What do you mean? Just installing the Lot Debugger will cause a reset? Or are you referring to the use of its 'Force Error' feature?

It's bizarre to me that their food was wiped. I suspect maybe in my case, the game got confused when it was generating a best-of-the-best award for grandpa's inventory at the comm lot business.

[Sagana]

Yes installing or updating the lot debugger or the lot sync timer (one of these hacks or the other or both) causes a reset in my game. They don't change days to Monday but they do stand up beside their beds and have their energy reset and bladders half-full and all that. And food in inventories is nuked.

[J. M. Pescado]

Are you certain? Neither of those hacks has any global components which would cause this behavior. It is likely something else.

[C.S.]

Yes installing or updating the lot debugger or the lot sync timer (one of these hacks or the other or both) causes a reset in my game.

That was weird. I don't use the sync timer, and I don't recall ever seeing resets with lot debugger updates.

[jsalemi]

That was weird. I don't use the sync timer, and I don't recall ever seeing resets with lot debugger updates.

Nor I, and I don't recall it ever happening with sync timer updates either.

[Sagana]

I'm sure - all I installed at that time was the newest version of both of those (this has been awhile back - it was when the box changed colors) but I'll do it again and see if it still does this evening.

PS: Doesn't the sync timer have something that's global? How does it read time set from other lots without some sort of global?

[jsalemi]

PS: Doesn't the sync timer have something that's global? How does it read time set from other lots without some sort of global?

It uses a token, I believe, that's stored with the family or lot info when you install the timer for that family.  Tokens don't usually reset the lotl