Visitor in CAS!
SaraMK:
Quote from: maxon on 2007 February 23, 05:52:17
On another note, I was wondering whether Disappearing Hood Syndrome (of which you hear quite a lot of on the BBS - 'my Pleasantview has disappeared' - my personal response would be 'good' but that never seems to go down well) is related to increasing hood corruption and potential BFBVFS. In that, that isn't an explodie-firey dramatic event either, more like a winking out of existence.
I haven't heard about a specific cause of vanishing 'hoods being discovered.
I do know that the ever-so-great Enhancer program is capable of corrupting a neighborhood and causing it to vanish (and that there is no way to fix it once this happens). I also know that SOME vanished 'hoods can be recovered with SimPE, since I have had it recover vanished 'hoods for me, but that some 'hoods are not recoverable. I have also heard of 'hoods apparently vanishing after the user merely looks at it in SimPE (though I'm not entirely sure I believe those accounts). A number of vanished 'hoods seem to vanish soon after an EP or stuff pack has been installed, but many happen outside of this scenario. No definitive "big event," such as a game crash or error, that signifies an impending winking out of existance has been found as far as I know.
I had a personal theory that attempting to renumber 'hoods or to forcibly add another 'hood to an existing set, can cause them to vanish due to a conflict between their Number ID's, but I haven't found this to be the case in most, or even very many, cases of vanished 'hoods.
As far as the BBS, I would not pay much attention to what they have to say about the subject, since they're just as likely to have deleted the 'hood themselves and forgotten they'd done it. Or done something equally idiotic. Yes, vanished 'hoods are a real phenomenon, but not all cases of vanished 'hoods are actually an unexplained event, which is what we are primarily concerned about here. We don't care about 'hoods that vanish because the user opened them in SimPE and started deleting stuff at random.
Unfortunately, I have not had an unrecoverable vanished 'hood happen to me in quite some time. I have been pondering whether my discoveries in the field of 'hood editing/merging could be applied to fixing a 'hood that has clearly suffered some sort of internal malfunction. Unfortunately there is no way to test anything without having such a 'hood at hand, and as we all know, once you want something to happen, it becomes that much rarer an occurance.
EDITED to say that I can't say I particularly want it to happen, really. :-X
maxon:
Yes, I've heard many times of hoods going AWOL with the install of a stuff pack or EP. It does look like the game simply ignores them if it once discovers a problem - I'm assuming their existence gets erased from the neighbourhoodmanager.package once this happens.
I've never actually had a hood vanish on me (touch wood) but then I've been carefully managing my hoods for a good long time and haven't allowed any crap stuff in - you kow the sort of stuff that causes problems. I'm forever cleaning up the neighbourhood files too - bad memories, SRels with no connection and so on. I've been running Little Carping since day 1 - well actually something like day 5 - it took me that long to decide I wasn't playing the Maxis way.
I've often thought the BBSers have so much trouble with this kind of thing because they do all sorts of mad things like download lots from the Exchange and move families from one neighbourhood to another ('ooo put the Strangetown families in Pleasantville, wicked'). That always makes me use a sentence involving the words 'not', 'touch', '10'', 'barge' and 'pole'.
SaraMK:
Well, the reason the vanishing 'hood problem is so "interesting," is that it can happen pretty much anytime (or so it seems). I guess it is possible people are not posting minor details when they complain about the problem, and that those overlooked details are the inexplicable key. In any case, it always seems kind of random to me.
I have a neighborhood that I started shortly after Uni was released, and it's still going strong with no errors, and is one of my most-played 'hoods. I have several others that are also very old. Yes, I take good care of them and use all possible means to stop unnecessary NPCs, bad memories, etc.
I have had several go missing and be unrecoverable. Unfortunately in all cases I either didn't care about the neighborhood and so didn't give it another thought, or it was long before I had the kind of knowledge that might have actually helped in trying to figure out why it happened. I'm not sure I'd be able to figure it out if it happened now, either, but at least now I would be willing to give it a shot, rather than just shrug and go on with my life.
Ambular:
I had a thought regarding the CAS visitors...would locking any doors added to the CAS house and/or adding a gateless fence prevent (in theory) problems by keeping any visitors who do show up at a distance?
ETA: Whoops, just realized doors can only be locked in live mode, so revise that to just the fence idea. *Facepalms*
Ambular:
Well, I forced errors and stripped controllers as per Pes's suggestion and also fenced off the lot, and I haven't seen any strays the past few times I've run CAS, so hopefully between those precautions any potential problem has been solved. Also, I checked out the neighborhood in SimPE, and to the best of my limited ability to judge, it isn't loaded with junk files. So, with any luck, that's all she wrote...
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