I usually have cutscenes on so I can see the parent drop of a kid at college.  I just sent a set of twins yesterday, and all went as usual.

Today, for some reason, another set of twins is going and both parents are alive, but neither one shows up in the cutscene to drop them off!  I haven't done anything different, haven't added any hacks, installed new software, downloaded anything new, etc. etc.  The only thing I did between yesterday and today is make a couple of recolors in Body Shop.

I did try taking out all my hacks and even took out the recolors, but I'm still not getting a parent there to drop the kid off for either of the twins.  It's not really a big deal, since neither of the parents has a LTW to send X kids to college, but I've never had a parent NOT show up!

This is the hood I've played the most, and I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turned into a BFBVFS, but it doesn't seem like this is a symptom of that.  Or maybe it is.  If so, I guess I'll have to be prepared for that.

I haven't tried using debug mode to see if I get an error, but I can if it will help.

Any suggestions? 

What happens when it is milked?  Does the sim that milks it drink it right away?

And does it work like the elixer, giving them 3 more days?

These sims have only been adults for a few days.  I'd kind of hate to waste a 3 day addition to their life, if they haven't been an adult for 3 days yet!

That's what I do.  In the hood I've played the most, one of the "challenges" I've made for myself is for each household to only get one career reward per adult sim.  Each couple has one child who moves in after going to Uni to take over the house when the elders die.  That child marries, has children, rinse repeat.  One of the goals is to eventually get all career rewards, 2 per generation.

Because this is my genetics hood, I don't want any of my sims to die except the way I have planned for that family, so I just put the cowplant in a fenced in area in the back yard, made of half-walls with no door or gate.

I recently started an all-townie hood just so I could make use of some of the other ways sims could die.  (Was getting frustrated, needed to vent somewhere!)  Tosha Go married Orlando Centowski.   She's now an Eco Guru, and the cowplant is in the back yard in a fenced in area with a gate.

Last night, when I was playing this hood, the nanny, who is tracking Orlando's schedule, came over just before he left for work and went back and grabbed the cake and was munched.  Because I haven't had any cowplants that I actually allowed to be fed this way, it was the first time I had seen this happen!

Fortunately, it was Monday, so Tosha will either be pregnant and won't have to work on Wednesday, or I'll have to remember to have her (or him) hire a nanny for that day.

There is now a lock on the gate until I figure out what my next move is.  I assume the plant won't feed again until it's been milked, and I need to do some research on the milking thing.

Hey, Brynne, isn't that the one that got banned or pulled or something from YouTube?  (I noticed it came up in Google video.)

I actually had this problem a long time ago.  It didn't happen on every sim that had the pixie cut, and changing appearance in the mirror didn't help.  And it was ONLY the pixie cut.

It also seemed like it was only on the child's version, not teen or older.  The bangs filled in like a bar across the forehead.

I think it was my graphics driver.  If I remember correctly, when I upgraded my driver to the next version it solved the problem.  But that was two or three versions ago!

It may have started after I got NL - it's been a long time ago.

One of the things I've noticed recently about the loading screens is that sims standing close to the edge of the "box" that the sims are shown in may have an arm cut off if they have their hand on their hip.

I've also noticed that my servos don't show up right, either.  The little green ball in the middle of the body is missing, so it looks like the top half is floating above the bottom half.

And I suddenly started having recently deceased sims still showing on the loading screen.  But when I play the lot the next time, save and exit, they are removed.  They used to be removed from the loading screen (and the n'hood view box) as soon as they died.

Haven't had any that were supposed to be there NOT be there - yet - however!

One thing I've noticed about routing and doors is that it makes a difference which side of the door the hinge is on - like left- or right- opening.

If you've ever played the Grunt house in Strangetown you'd know what I mean.  The downstairs bathroom has a door to a one-tile wide hallway.  I couldn't figure out why they would come out of the bathroom, then walk through the bedroom and living room to get to the kitchen, when it's a straight shot from the bathroom to the kitchen.

It turned out that the bathroom door's hinges are on the side of the door that is closest to the kitchen.  So when they exit the bathroom, the door blocks their passage in that direction.  They therefore HAVE to go the other way, since they don't close the door themselves.

Could there be something about the way the door is facing or where it's positioned on the wall that is making your sim do the walkabout?

I have a GeForce 6800 with 256 MB RAM and with OFB, they finally made the game take advantage of the things I got the card for.  I have noticed that with Pets, the lighting and detail have improved even more.

The 7300 is newer than mine, so the card is better than what the game has been able to display up til now.  I had to tweak settings to get the best textures, detail and lighting before OFB, but I think I had to cut back on some of those settings and let the game use its own after OFB came out.

In fact, since I got Pets, I have been spending a lot of time looking at stuff in my sims' houses from the base game that look so much better than they ever had before! 

Exactly.  I have no trouble hearing it when they're performing, which is only at Uni because I use the nobuskers hack, but when they're practicing the piano volume can vary from lot to lot.

And it doesn't matter if there's anything else producing sounds at the same time, like sims talking.  I guess it's something we should complain to Maxis EA about... like they'll do anything to change it. 

Sometimes I can't hear the piano, either, but usually it's so soft (even zoomed right in on it) that I can hardly hear it.  If I turn the volume up, then another sim will invariably grab the guitar to practice and - BAM! - instant headache while they shred those strings.

Why don't guitars break?  They're more likely to break a string than a piano will go out of tune!

This had bugged me, too, since day one playing this game.  Just recently I was thinking that the other instruments were louder because they have amps, and drums are loud anyway, but the piano doesn't have any amplification.  However, pianos are comparitively louder vs. the other instruments in real life than they are in the game.

I love to listen to then practice, too.  Just a few days ago, I was really listening to one girl child play and was trying to remember the name of the tune she was playing when she gained a skill point and switched to another song!

LOL Jordi - talking to yourself?

Do you have TJ's pets-compatible buyable career rewards?  You have to buy them through build mode now.

I just had a fingerprint scanner disappear when I sent a sim to use it, and found I couldn't buy one in my existing collection, so I came here and found TJ had a new one for pets.  Maybe that's what you need.

I just got back into a hood with college kids graduating.

Had one girl call to move back to the hood.  She picked up the phone, dialed, hung up.  Had her try a second time, same thing.  Quit game, came and got the test fix and put it in.  This time, she completed the call without a problem.  Second girl in same dorm was also able to move back home after putting in the fix.

There were no other taxi calls involved at the time.  The first girl had just returned from her final, the second I had let sleep awhile before having her make her call.

Hope this helps you, JM.  It helped me!

I've noticed that when an animal is about to enter the lot, my game lags horribly, and I have a pretty decent system.  I never had any noticable lag before when anyone or anything came onto a lot, but now, when my game "freezes" for a second or two, I know an animal is going to show up.

Doesn't seem to matter if it's a dog, cat, skunk or wolf.  They all do it.

Are you saying that it happens in every dorm/residence with every sim that's supposed to move out, or just that it happens on any college lot?

Need to know this if it happens again.

Well, I had three students who were going to move out in that one dorm, and with each one they picked up the (landline) phone, dialed, and hung up. No dialog box, nothing.  And I don't have any custom meshes for anything in my game.

But it was only the one dorm.  The other two had worked fine.  And I have the dreaded Pets, and this one dorm was the only one with this problem.  When it happened, I remembered reading some threads here about the same problem, so I came back and re-read those threads, then tried the stuck move-out, but it didn't work.  I thought maybe I should check for more recent updates for the hacks I have, so I downloaded the director's cut and found that the phone hack had been updated since the one I got a week ago when I got Pets.  And it was the only hack that was newer.

That's why I thought you must have fixed whatever the problem was.  They were able to call and move out after I put in the new phone hack.

I don't think I have anything on this one lot that isn't on the other two, either.  All three are the same dorm - the six room one.

I just had this happen last night.  I have three dorms, and this was the third dorm.  Students moved back ok in the other two, but I couldn't get anyone to call/moveout in the third dorm.

I tried the stuck moveout on the lot debugger, and it said it fixed 3 objects, but they still couldn't call.  I checked here, and there was a brand new (11/17) version of the phonehack in the director's cut, so I downloaded it.  When I went to exit the game prior to installing the hack, I got the "Application will now terminate" message and crashed to desktop.

I put in the new phonehack - nothing else - went back into the dorm, and they were able to call and move out.  So my guess is it was something you changed in the last phonehack update that fixed it.  Either that, or just exiting and restarting reset something.

No.  I've never had them call home, and the want for both is satisfied, usually putting the new YA into platinum, if they weren't already.

I have one dorm that I only use for the purpose of getting the wants satisfied.  Once they're there and have done the age-up spin, I immediately save and exit, move them back into the bin, and then into whatever dorm/residence I'm putting them in. 

There aren't even any dormies present on the first lot yet when I exit.  And this dorm is close to a clock that I hear tolling the hour every time I put a new sim on it!

Don't know if it matters, but all my skins & clothes from BodyShop wind up in the SavedSims folder, not in Downloads.

I just found the reminder about the hosts file at laverwinklesims.  Whew!  I was getting tired of looking at that relicnews web page!

Yeah, it's a rare thing for me if it doesn't stick.  Good things Maxis fixed that, eh? 

I think I had to use InSim to add a day to Jenny's life to get her pregnant, because they don't have the asp points for the elixer.  I don't think I got the option for "Try for baby" with her, either, when I first started playing the hood.  And I didn't fix the DNA or anything like that before I had them try.

The dollhouse is another good way for toddlers and siblings to build rel.  I've done it a few times when the child who wanted a new family member wasn't happy with the new family member taking away his/her "baby of the family" status.  But I have to be in the mood to watch the toddler munching on the dolls before I'll do that!

I don't usually worry about family relations with a toddler until he/she becomes a child, though.  The only ones who really need to have a good realtionship with the baby/toddler are the parents, and usually only one of them is sufficient.

Brothers and sisters get their relationships built up pretty fast after the child transition, if you have them play chess together once or twice.  Then they'll usually start the red hands bit, and by the time they're all teens they're punching each other just like everyone else.

I usually have them skill on charisma unless they get a want for a logic point.  I feel the same way about them not being able to work on that skill as a child, and if they're low on outgoing, it's tougher if they wind up with the "max 7 skills" ltw and the smart milk didn't stick through the toddler/child transition.

So my toddlers usually have 8 to 9 charisma skill points before they transition, and I've had a few (high outgoing) max out in that time.  Those with 9 points are usually about 80-90% through that last point, so there isn't much left for them to work on later.

Logic and creativity are usually maxed before they're teens, anyway, so I get the charisma out of the way first.  Then I don't have to listen to their silly speeches.  The wabbit head doesn't bother me as much. 

Shows how close I pay attention, I guess.  I don't usually watch them when they're sitting in the crib, cuz I usually send someone to fish them out right away.

The first time I noticed it was when a toddler was waiting to be put IN the crib, though!  And I've probably only seen it three or four times.  Guess I just keep them too occupied!