Problems Downloading Lots

[Magicmoon]

Whenever I download a lot one of 3 things happen:

1. It works like it should.

2. The house appears in the lot bin, but costs a ridiculous amount such as $285,597,664. If this type of house is put into the neighborhood, the house will "load" forever when I try to enter the lot. I have to ctl>alt>del out of the game. This type of house can be deleted from the lot bin.

3. The house appears in the lot bin, but the moment I click on it the hour glass shows up instead of the pop-up of the house with the price on it. After a minute or 2, or if I push any key such as escape, the game crashes to the desktop with a pop-up saying this application has crashed. This type of house must be deleted from my lot catalog folder outside of the game.

So far it seems that I get about an equal chance of any one of the 3 happening. I install houses using clean installer and only install the lot, although if I like the walls and floors I may install those too. But whether or not I install the walls and floors doesn't seem to have an effect on which way the lot will behave.  If I try to reinstall any of the houses that are in category 2 or 3 the same thing happens as it did the first time. When I report the problem to the uploader, they don't find a problem with the house.

Anyone know what causes this? I have seen it reported before, but the uploader never seems to find a problem. Two of the houses I downloaded from the Awesome Building Contest did this to me. One was a #2 and one was a #3.

Is it possible that OFB content in the house causes this? I only download houses that are reported as not needing OFB, with the exception of the Awesome Contest houses since none of them said what expansions were required.

It drives me nuts waiting forever for my game to load just to watch it crash the moment I click on a new house in the lot bin. Is there any way other than trial and error to find out which houses will load correctly and which ones won't? BTW, I have packaged several of my own houses so that my daughter can use them in her game. They always work correctly. I haven't had a single one of them fall into category 2 or 3.

[rohina]

I had this happen the other day, and I assumed it was because the house required OFB which I have on my desk, but still have not installed. I think actually, the house came up with a negative value of around 800k.

[ZephyrZodiac]

It can also be that the houses contain custom terrain paints, and if you haven't got the patch that fixed these, then there will be problems.

Even if you remove the terrain paints with clean installer, they are evidently still lurking - even though all the house-builder did was to open the terrain paints menu and use a Maxis one.

I have houses that I built, and work fine in the hood where they were built and the family have no problems,  Now, from that hood, I saved several to a file, and then loaded them with clean installer into my vanilla build game.  some worked fine, others just locked - and it can only be that when I built those houses, I'd considered using a terrain paint!  I shall have to retry them sometime now I have OFB and my game is patched up-to-date!

[Nec]

If you downloaded mine OFB is required and it will show up in the bin, and you can place it, but it will crash upon lot load. I found that out the hard way since i only have NL now. I don't think there is any OFB content in it, though. I will be installing OFB again soon. Maybe I will make a NL version.


I just remembered - it has an OFB dresser and coffee table

[Magicmoon]

It can also be that the houses contain custom terrain paints, and if you haven't got the patch that fixed these, then there will be problems.

If you are talking about Maxis patches, I do have them all installed that are appropriate for my game. I think the last patches out were for FFS & OFB only so I didn't do a patch just recently. If there is an awesome mod that addresses this problem, I haven't heard of it. I usually do download the terrain paints when they come with a house. I forgot about terrain paints when I first posted this.

If you downloaded mine OFB is required and it will show up in the bin, and you can place it, but it will crash upon lot load. I found that out the hard way since i only have NL now. I don't think there is any OFB content in it, though. I will be installing OFB again soon. Maybe I will make a NL version.
I just remembered - it has an OFB dresser and coffee table

I did download yours. If I remember correctly (and I don't always remember correctly) that house was a #3...total game crash and M1 Abrams Avenue was a #2-Weird high pricing. If I didn't remember correctly, then reverse the outcome of these 2 houses.

Not exactly a bunker...was a #2.

I didn't download Simbaby's because that is priced higher than what I like to use in the game unless there is something totally awesome about it that I want to check out.

Something else to point and laugh at.. I downloaded it but haven't had a chance to install it yet to try it out.  The other houses were either not uploaded yet, or weren't interesting enough for me to download.

So I see others are having the problem too, but no consensus on what is causing it?

[Magicmoon]

I had this happen the other day, and I assumed it was because the house required OFB which I have on my desk, but still have not installed. I think actually, the house came up with a negative value of around 800k.

Everyone seems to be pushing OFB and I know I will have to get it sooner or later or none of my favorite mods are going to work since modders almost always get all the EPs to keep up with the times.

But I have created a scenario for myself that I want to play out before installing OFB. My scenario requires no townies and only the minimum number of NPCs that I can get by with. (Restaurant personnel, barrista, mail and newspaper carriers). So I really don't want to install OFB because I know it will give me more NPCs and townies which will nullify my scenario.

After I get done with my scenario...and it may be a few more months yet, I will get OFB. But I am trying my best to hold off until I get done. I am enjoying my self made scenario, so why change things until I finish or get bored? I can enjoy the benefits of OFB on my next scenario and thus get more "time" out of my purchases.

I didn't get FFS because there wasn't anything interesting it in for me. Same with Holiday Fun pack, with the exception of the long beard which I would love to have in my game. Those 2 packs looked like a poor substitute for the downloads that are already offered for free on the net...and the modders give us less bugs than Maxis does.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Although you do get more townies with OFB, I'm almost certain that there are no new NPCs.  The teenage and kid townies are not too bad (the kids at least are an improvement on Marsha and co.).  I'd suggest, though, install the game but don't add the Bluewater Village neighbourhood yet.  You shouldn't see any of the new townies until you do, but you will get the meshes for the new furniture!

[jsalemi]

No, I don't think OFB added any NPCs either.

[Magicmoon]

Really? I can add OFB without adding townies at the moment? Extra NPCs aren't really a problem with my scenario. But townies are. I am already having problems with dangling SWAFs from using deleteallcharacters and didn't want to add to my misery by having to delete more of them.

So you say that OFB adds a new neighborhood like Uni did? And like Uni, I can install the EP without actually adding that neighborhood? So what is the new neighborhood for? Can home businesses only be run in the new neighborhood but not in the base residential area? Appreciate any info.

[BlueSoup]

You can install OFB without actually using any of the business elements, if you so choose.  There is a shopping district that adds playables, but you don't need it.  It's just an extra area, and it's rather useless really.  You can run home businesses anywhere, I believe, even in Uni.  And definitely in the base neighbourhood.  You can plop down community lots in the base neighbourhood and buy them like businesses too.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I didn't even add uni to my new install until I had teens ready to go there.  Unlike with sims 1, you have a choice of whethre or not to install the new hood.

[Magicmoon]

There is a shopping district that adds playables, but you don't need it.  It's just an extra area, and it's rather useless really. 

So what if I hate the neighborhood after I install it? Is there a way to uninstall a neighborhood without uninstalling the EP? Since you say it is mostly useless, I also assume that load time will be longer after you add the new neighborhood? Of course I would want to eventually put it in to check it out, it would be stupid not to.

[BlueSoup]

Well, if you just want to check it out, I would advise making a test neighbourhood (everyone should have one, really) and then add it to that neighbourhood.  Go in, take a look, see if you like it.  Pillage all the community buildings if you like (a lot of ready-made businesses there), plop them in the lot bin and if you decide you don't like it, either delete the test neighbourhood or just forget about it.  You can always get the buildings you moved to the lot bin to your real neighbourhood(s) if you like them.

[Nec]

Bluewater Village is the only business district that adds more character files. An empty business hood will not add any at all.

[Havelock]

Well, if you just want to check it out, I would advise making a test neighbourhood (everyone should have one, really) and then add it to that neighbourhood.  Go in, take a look, see if you like it.  Pillage all the community buildings if you like (a lot of ready-made businesses there), plop them in the lot bin and if you decide you don't like it, either delete the test neighbourhood or just forget about it.  You can always get the buildings you moved to the lot bin to your real neighbourhood(s) if you like them.

I think lotbinning is not the best idea you get some usless unlinked data whit them. Have a look with Simpe in a lotbinned House fore sure you will find unlinked simrelations some have unlinked simDNA and at the worst unlinked Family Trees  in it. You can found this in variations even in DormTemplates we got with Uni. Maxis must have played most of the Dorms and  putted them uncleaned in the game as Templates.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Better to package them to a file so you can then reimport them with the Clean Installer.

[Havelock]

Would be the same Clean Installer could not remove this because its contained in the Lotfile itself. I dont know if its save but you could try to clean the Lotfile while in Lotbin have it done myself. Lots were i have done this play normal with Sims moved in. But who knows for sure maybe some More Awesome Modders here.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Oh, well, if that's the case, then bin it and sling it!  Most of those lots are hell to play anyway!  I mostly bulldoze them and build my own.

[Havelock]

Have found lots cleaned this way are less buggy even maxis ones. But maybe  it was a dream.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, when I discovered the Ramirez store had flying floor tiles which couldn't be deleted, I decided that was the time for a totally unplayable lot where your sims could hide for ages chatting to unpleasant townies to get demolished, so the Ramirez family sold up, I bull-dozed it and built them a nice shiny new stoe which they then bought back - and even though everything in it was more expensive, all the walls and floors were top of the range, it was still less than they got for the original!

[Havelock]

Wow i wish i had only flying Floortiles. I had in one Bluewather Village Spa in a high of 5 or 6 stories hidden Awnigs so my Spa was in darkness after loading. I have wondered where the shadows came from. After exiting the Lot i got the Picture in Nighbourhood view. Surprise!

[ZephyrZodiac]

Trouble is with these things, they seem to be hard-coded into the lot and it's impossible to remove them, which is why I just get rid of them!

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, when I discovered the Ramirez store had flying floor tiles which couldn't be deleted, I decided that was the time for a totally unplayable lot where your sims could hide for ages chatting to unpleasant townies to get demolished, so the Ramirez family sold up, I bull-dozed it and built them a nice shiny new stoe which they then bought back - and even though everything in it was more expensive, all the walls and floors were top of the range, it was still less than they got for the original!

Flying floor tiles usually mean you have some invisible object lodged on them, and bombarding them with the Stuck Object Remover tends to resolve this.

[ZephyrZodiac]

You think I didn't try that?

[Havelock]

I had a lot with an invisible Gardenlamp stuckobjectsremover could not get rid of them. At daytime it was a Shadow Square. At night enlighted.