tried that too as well as the snapobjectstogrid, no go. and yes I agree, it is a bug with M&G, but as of yet, no one has done a patch for it.

I don't have an issue with the custom stairs, all the spirals work, it is just the straight stairs, custom and EA originals. 

thanks tho

well, no, that isn't it either.  i went back to other houses that i've played in the past, got the same error msg, and wound up deleting the stairs just to get into the house. minus the stairs in the house.  I think it is going to take un-installing M&G.  playing the game and then seeing whether that is the problem.   I just hate going backwards to fix a problem.  but thanks for the thought!

ok, I'll take that into consideration!  but as of yet, knock on wood, I've not had any issues. But thanks for the heads up

well gee, thanks for the hint, I did look through *anything* that had M&G in it, but to my disappointment, nothing to do with this particular problem.  I can not get any of the straight stairs, either custom content or EA made to play in my game.  I get an "out of range" error message on it.  I've had friends do some looking as well, and they have had the same issue. 
now if there is somewhere here that I've not searched, please do let me know.  not all people are computer savvy, and some ask in desperation, because they have exhausted what meager knowledge they have, which is why we come to those who, know more and might be inclinded to share knowledge with those who don't.

Happy New Year to you as well

oh and p.s.?  I don't have a problem with Securom... don't bother me in the least.

I'm having some issues with the new SP, it will not allow me to use straight stairs anywhere in my game, spiral stairs? no problem, and I've ruled out bad downloads.  is anyone else having this problem, and is there a patch out for this?  I'd hate to have to uninstall it since I spent the money on the game.