Absolutely won't work out? Lazy, lazy sims.

[chintznibbles]

Heya, JM. Nice new site, by the way... I expect the fee will be put to good use.

I have a slight problem, though- two of my sims have seemingly lost the ability to work out.  I have zero idea what caused this, though admittedly I do have a ton of hacks (though nearly all of them are yours).  They get absolutely no pie menu when I click on any form of exercise equipment, and "work out" is absent from the TV and stereomenus.  I've tried forcing errors on them, deleting them and so forth, but they remain stubbornly lazy.  (which is odd, since one has 8 active and the other 10).

I have two other sims in the house who are fine with working out, and although they enjoy taunting the slowly-fattening non-excercisers, I think this would be better fixed.

I could probably dig up an error log or maybe a screenshot if you think that'd be helpful.

[Ancient Sim]

This has happened to me and I've seen other people mention it.  I don't recall anyone coming-up with an answer, but I think it had something to do with the Sims concerned being seen as visitors, not residents, because of course visitors can't use exercise equipment.  I had it happen to a Sim in a Greek house, who'd been there from the time Uni was installed (she was one of the original Maxis characters).  One minute she could use it, then she couldn't.  I had to cheat to get her the body point she needed because there was no way she could get it otherwise.

[baratron]

If the problem is that the sims are being seen as visitors, have you tried the Community Lot Skilling hack? It's comm-skilling.package:

Controlled sims, NPCs, and townies may gain skills while visiting community
lots, including non-college community lots. Notifications of skill-point gain
will only be displayed for controllable sims.

I think this is the package that allows visitors to gain skills in other people's homes as well. I know I frequently see a llama mascot guy sitting down with one of my controlled sims watching the Yummy Channel with a bar above his head!

[jrd]

This happens to me all the time as well: exercise machines become useless for all Sims, or all Sims but one. None of the usual methods work.
Only the millitary course and punching bag still work for exercise.

Once the bug starts happening, I have not seen it fix itself until I moved the family to a new lot.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Can they "Be personal trainer"?  Since visitors can be asked to do this, maybe another sim with lower body skills might be able to ask them do this, and they will gain some fitness while training the other sim.