Unageing people and maid species?

[PlickaPlicka]

OK I've been having a bit of trouble with my game.

It all started when I loaded up veronaville for the first time and started playing on the Capp family with loads of children. I had boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true on and decided to "preserve" the two youngest by spawning Rodney's death creator and killing the child by drowning and the toddeler by being crushed by satalite. I was having a small bit of trouble controlling them so I planned to ressurect them using the Grim Reaper phone later on in the game.

After that wierd things started happening. When I tried to hire a maid on of those debug boxes came up saying "invalid species" or something like that. And the woman would automaticly put down her cell phone (boolProp testingCheatsEnabled trued given phone by the way). I could not hire a maid even with boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true off. After a while of meaningless gameplay I notised that none of my sims were aging, I tried the agesimscheat on cheat but it didn't work. Another strange thing was that every night the toddeler I killed would come up in one of those boxes saying she's died somewhere and her spirit would return to the place she was killed, her tombstone never moved.

When I decided to move house, I ressurected the two children, turned boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true off and moved them out.

When I got to the new house I clicked on the todeler, whilst controlling her and for some reason it said "set age", I'd never seen this before so I clicked it and then clicked on elder. I did this for the newly ressurected child as well. They both became elders and at 18:00 nobody aged again! I then promptly turned boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true back on and killed them with flies.

Any idea how I can hire a maid and start them aging normally again?


Thanks

Edit: The only hacks/mods I have installed are inteen, zombie apocalypse, fight club, Realistic diseases. I have no patches installed, all EPs up to Pets and no stuff packs

[jolrei]

I had boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true on and decided to "preserve" the two youngest by spawning Rodney's death creator and killing the child by drowning and the toddeler by being crushed by satalite.

Someone can stop me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that killing toddlers and children was a VBT.  The game, while allowing for social worker takeaways, does not autonomously allow for babies, todders, or children to die.  Consequently, artificially inducing the death of these characters may be the source of problems.  This is a bit more than a guess, but perhaps someone else can confirm.

[PlickaPlicka]

I'm not sure about the babies and tods but children have been allowed to die haven;t they? Or else why would you get a special message from the grim when you try to ressurect a child saying "I love children, I'll make sure the ressurection goes well". Possibly killing the tod did it... but why would it stop me having a maid, stop aging and make on saying that the todeler had died somewhere elsebut she hadn't?

[LFox]

I'm almost positive children and toddlers cannot be killed ESPECIALLY toddlers, did you know their fireproof?  And if you forcibly kill them you can probably get problems exactly like you got, things explode, fires start and next thing you know hippies are running around your neighbourhoods.

Probably a general rule to this stuff is if the game doesn't support it without cheats and hacks don't do it.  Moving in the grim reaper can cause really bad stuff too from what i hear.

[Soylent Sim]

Children are killable.  Toddlers aren't in-game, but simply giving them a "dead" token shouldn't damage anything too badly.  Toddler ghosts or crushing a toddler under a satellite might not be the best moves, but they don't sound like they'd muck everything up that deeply.

The maid, unfortunately, won't resolve herself in game.  This was a major issue in pre-patch Pets, where species code was incorrectly written for service NPC's.  Changing her species in SimPE might work, Deleted2-ing her definitely will, otherwise you need to find a way to kill a sim who won't show up on a lot.  And if you're running Pets, do patch ASAP.

Finally, RTFB!  The only support we officially give for inteen issues here is to suggest removing it.

[PlickaPlicka]

Will I have to delete the maid if I install the patch? And will I ahve to install patches for all my games? E.g uni patch nightlife patch OFB patch or just the pets on?

Well seeing as the todeler was made alive and was killed again as an elder it should resolve the aging problems. right?

[J. M. Pescado]

After that wierd things started happening. When I tried to hire a maid on of those debug boxes came up saying "invalid species" or something like that.

This issue is fixed either in some patch, or with "servicecallfix". You should be able to find it in the Pets Director's Cut.

Edit: The only hacks/mods I have installed are inteen, zombie apocalypse, fight club, Realistic diseases. I have no patches installed, all EPs up to Pets and no stuff packs

[jolrei]

Well seeing as the todeler was made alive and was killed again as an elder it should resolve the aging problems. right?

Please make this sentence more comprehensible.  What I get out of this so far:
1) Toddler was alive.
2) Toddler was killed (possibly/probably a VBT leading to odd glitches that would have had me scrap the hood or the lot and start over)
3) Toddler was reincarnated(?) or made alive again in some way.
4) Toddler somehow became elder (did the toddler age naturally or was this done artificially?)
5) Elder toddler (and I am having fun thinking about that) was killed (did (s)he die, or was it killed by other means?)

This is a bit confusing.  So many cheats appear to be involved in all this, starting with the one you must have used to kill the toddler in the first place.  I'm surprised the game knows what's going on with the toddler elder whatever now. 

Will it solve the aging problem?  Who knows.  Probably it will for the toddler since it's a dead elder now and beyond the reach of simtime.  For the others, you'll likely have to test to see if things resolve.

[PlickaPlicka]

Thank you JMP for the enlightening post and delightful picture!

To Jolrei, yes it was a bit confusing I'll explain using number like you just did.
1. I killed the toddler and child using Rodney's death creator, the child drowned and the toddler was hit by a satalite
2. The aging and service NPC bug started happening then (though now I'm starting to think they're unrelated)
3. I ressurected the toddler and child using the grim reaper phone (Paranormal reward)
4. I discovered when I a sim click on itself there was an option called "set age" which I'd never seen before
5. The sims still did not age with the toddler and child alive so I tried the agesimscheat on in case I had turned it off accidently
6. The sims still would not age, I moved them into a different house.
7. I still could not hire a maid
8. I went on the toddler and child, used the newly found "set age" button, I turned them into elders.
9. I then shift clicked on them and went to "kill" then "die by flies".
10. Still no aging or maid, however all along I have had a gardener who showed up for work everyday.

Better? So either install patch or JMP's hackto fix the maid thing, who about the ageing?

[veilchen]

In my game 'set age' appears as an option when I type 'agesimscheat' into the cheat window. As for the rest, because of all those maneuvers the game can hardly be called 'vanilla' anymore since you applied many a modification through the testingcheat. Maybe it would be better to get Moniques 'individual aging' over at MTS2. At least I think it's on Moniques. Well, anyway, I have it, but I'm not sure if it works on the little simmes. I never looked, because I never wanted them to stop aging.

[jolrei]

OK, having never had this particular aging problem, I can only suggest what I would do if I did have this aging problem.

Is it consistent throughout the hood, or just on the one lot?  If you have only one lot, why not try creating another sim or two, plant them in a house, and see if they age, can hire a maid, etc.  If they can, it is likely that the problem is restricted to the one lot.

At that point, you can try moving house - move out the family and bulldoze the lot (if you constructed the house yourself, hopefully you packaged it or backed it up somewhere).  Move them in somewhere else and hopefully all will work as per spec.

Anybody else with better ideas? (Rhetorical question really)

[PlickaPlicka]

OK, still no fix. On either of the issues. I'll be installing all the DCes right away, I'm so tired of this!

One thing about the no ageing thing, every day at 18:00 they don't age but it seems that one of those boxes comes up telling me to throw them a birthday party, even though they're still at the begging of that age group. The next day they still won't age, so it's not that the age bar is buggy and won't show their age.

Also, just so I know the DCs should only have .PACKAGE files in them right? Nothing else?

[cwykes]

I'm seeing similarities with the mess you can make with the tombstone of Life and Death.
1. check aging didn't get turned off
2. try using set to birthday and then feeding them elixir of live or sliding the age back with boolprop.

Moving visiting sims in using the first, easy option on tombstone of L&D results in the moved in sim not aging.  You have to use move in neighbour and hunt through all the sims in the hood instead.  The sims then age normally.   I ran into this a long time ago and I know better than to trust any of the spawned objects now.

[PlickaPlicka]

Yeah I never ever use the tombstone of L and D to move somebody in, I did it accidently once. Would this stop all sims ageing or just the one I moved in?

I'll try the set to birthday thing,  hope it works!

[jolrei]

Yeah I never ever use the tombstone of L and D to move somebody in, I did it accidently once. Would this stop all sims ageing or just the one I moved in?

On any cheated move-in that I've done, it only affected aging on the one sim.  Adjusting days until birthday using Insim jump started it again and all was fine.

Give it a try anyway - it may kick start aging.  Anyway, you won't lose anything by trying (presumeably) at this point.

[PlickaPlicka]

No, setting the birthday didn;t jump start it, and I'm still getting those annoying upcomming birthday messages every single freaking day! The parent's don;t anymore, probally becuase they're elders now. But still ageing is a problem.

I think the maid thing is fixed though.

[seapup]

Sometimes using the ageing cheat (ageing on/off) to toggle the ageing off and then back on again will jumpstart it. Other times I've used Insim to set the age ahead a day to get it going again.

[jolrei]

No, setting the birthday didn;t jump start it, and I'm still getting those annoying upcomming birthday messages every single freaking day! The parent's don;t anymore, probally becuase they're elders now. But still ageing is a problem.

I think the maid thing is fixed though.

Still don't know if this is lot specific or generalized to the neighbourhood.  If it is just this lot, you might (as per previous post) be able to fix it by moving the family to another lot and bulldozing the old lot.

Have you tried using the lot debugger to nuke and fix things?  (Possibly a long shot, but try the obvious stuff first, I say).

[PlickaPlicka]

No, the ageing cheat didn;t work and nor has any attempts to jump start the ageing process. I'm pretty sure it;s family based because the problem exsisted on their first lot as well. If it affects other families in the neighbourhood, who knows? I killed them all, I check that next.

Lot debugger... lot debugger. You mean the batman box type thing? What would I have to nuke and fix? I've only ever scrolled through it;s options, never clicked anything.

[jolrei]

No, the ageing cheat didn;t work and nor has any attempts to jump start the ageing process. I'm pretty sure it;s family based because the problem exsisted on their first lot as well. If it affects other families in the neighbourhood, who knows? I killed them all, I check that next.

Which brings us to the idea that the hood itself may be corrupted.  Do you know how to clone sims using SimPE and the Bodyshop?  You could do that and put them in a nice new clean hood, laying waste utterly to this one.  That is if the lot debugger does not fix, and if nobody else comes up with a brighter idea.

Lot debugger... lot debugger. You mean the batman box type thing? What would I have to nuke and fix?

Everything?  Click on the nuke option and select anything that looks likely.  Click on "reenable controls". Click on the fix option and fix everything in sight (probably don't have to worry about flashing blue or flashing red, if you don't actually see those problems).  Click on the memory option and clear gossip, garbage, and anything else that needs clearing.  I've never had anything break because of the lot debugger.

[PlickaPlicka]

OK, it's not complete neighbourhood corruption. I moved another family into a completely different lot and he did age. I then moved him into the lot where the problems first arose and he still aged! This means it family related right? I also tested all the other families in the family bin, it seems that every veronaville family is affected apart from one. What should I do with these? Delete them or would somebody like to study them somehow and find a fix?

Happy at last!

[jsalemi]

Veronaville is pretty borked right out of the box -- maybe it's time to trash the hood and let the game rebuild a new one if you insist on wanting to play it.  Otherwise, you'll have to go into every lot, nuke everything possible (especially attraction markers, which are known to get corrupted and cause problems), and hope that fixes it.

[PlickaPlicka]

I do really want to play Veronaville, so I'm going to have to ask; How do I trash it? I know you're supposed to delete n003 or something, but last time I did that it just completely got rid of the neighbourhood and it didn't regen like I was told it was. I had to reimport it back from the recycleing bin.

[jolrei]

OK, it's not complete neighbourhood corruption...I also tested all the other families in the family bin, it seems that every veronaville family is affected apart from one. What should I do with these? Delete them or would somebody like to study them somehow and find a fix? 

Just a suggestion (this is probably in the "that's so crazy it just might work" category, which I use a lot really) - several steps:

1) You will require teleporter shrub, Insim, or something else that allows you to teleport in and out as townies.

2) Remove all affected sims from lots as townies using Insim or teleporter.  This will "preserve" your sims without killing them.

3) Summon ONE of the adult new townies to your playable lot and make him selectable.

4) Jump start aging on this sim as per threads above (I use Insim for this - I think it's the temporal adjuster or aging adjuster or something like that - whatever works to add or subtract days until birthday).  Just subtract 1 or 2 days from the adult and aging should start up normally again.  You can always add the days back later if you want to.

5) Move the sim out of your playable lot (you probably don't want him/her joining that family anyway) in the normal game manner (i.e. find own place, using the computer or newspaper).

6) Move the now-playable-again sim into a lot/house from the family bin.  Just to be safe, I would move them into a new house, not one of the ones that had broken sims in it before.

7) Use a summoner (once again, I use Insim) to summon the sim's family members (who are still townies at this point).  Once they are on the lot, you can use the game's "propose, move-in" interaction to get them to move back in.  You should now have the family back together, and hopefully reset.  You can monitor to see if this solves the aging problem.  If it does, rinse and repeat for other affected sims (provided you want to keep them all).

Possible problem:  likely will not work if some of your "broken" sims are toddlers or younger - I don't know if townie toddlers are a good idea.

If you don't want to keep them, use Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo process to delete them (a bit 'involved' and requires SimPE), or simply kill them off (this will probably cause a bit of an aspiration hit in some of your playables who knew them and liked them).

Disclaimer:   This suggestion is based on an untested hypothesis.  No guarantee of success is implied.  Doing this may result in bad things (although, I think the chance of that is minimal) happening to your sims or your neighbourhood.

[jsalemi]

I do really want to play Veronaville, so I'm going to have to ask; How do I trash it? I know you're supposed to delete n003 or something, but last time I did that it just completely got rid of the neighbourhood and it didn't regen like I was told it was. I had to reimport it back from the recycleing bin.

1) Remove your entire The Sims 2 folder to someplace other than My Documents.  (You have to move it, not just back it up, for this to work).
2) Start the game -- it will recreate The Sims 2 folder, and put in new clean versions of the default hoods.
3) Exit the game
4) Go into your new The Sims 2 folder, and copy or move the new N003 folder to someplace else.
5) Delete the new Sims 2 folder, and move your original back
6) Replace your borked N003 by deleting it, and replacing it with the new clean copy.

Just to be safe, it probably wouldn't hurt to make a copy of all three clean base hoods somewhere, just in case you have to wipe one out and start over again in the future.