Thank  you all very much!

Yes, the cat was a contented, spoiled creature. And the sim in question does indeed want to see the ghost of his beloved cat.

I will try all of your suggestions; one is bound to work!  When I have some success, I'll post back what worked.

Thanks again.

I'm very jealous of everyone whose sims easily see ghosts, or get scared by them.

I have sims who really want to see the ghost of the family cat, but never have. And the ghost comes out every night!

I have the sims chase it around, and the stupid sims don't see it! It's right there, dang nammit!!! If a visitor can see the darn thing and get happy about it with a little green cloud around a ghost picture above their head indicating they've got a great,"Hey, I saw a ghost!" memory, then why can't the residents who are home every night?

I try and park the sim and wait for the ghost cat to stop. But the sim has ADD. Even if I get the sim in the same area or room as the ghost, the stupid sims absolutely and steadfastly refuses to see it. Even when the ghost cat decides to shriek, they can't hear it either. Maybe I just have stupid blind and deaf sims.

I don't have tight pants, and I don't have any hacks that prevent ghosts from being seen.

Are there any hacks that will *enable* my sims to see a ghost? Or, do you know of a surefire way that will guarantee that the stupid sims will finally see the ghost of their beloved dead cat? I'm now out of ideas after waiting for 4+ sim weeks for the stupid sims to see a ghost cat (or, am I being too impatient?).

Yes, I did push the button before my previous post. And because I have a minor dash of OCD... suffice to say, the sim was supposed to have a tan.

Oh, by the way, suntans last about 5 days 

OK, P&L if you must!

Thankyou for the "fix/burns & tans" on the debugger.

I'll just run along now...

OK... so... how do I know if the token is borked/gone, J.M.? Because, from what I understood of what you wrote, if the fix tans and burns reconciles the state of a sim's physical appearance with the data on the tokens, and the token is gone, then it can't do the fix? (In which case, the sim is *supposed* to have a tan because the gremlins in the game say so?) Just checking... 
How does it happen, or what causes the overlay to stay once the token goes away? (Or is this as yet a mysterious occurrence with no known cause? I wonder if it has anything to do with returning to the home-home base game neighbourhood with a tan or a burn...)


Does anyone know how long a tan is supposed to last? I know the Prima Guide (yes, known to be wrong on more than one occasion) says sunburn lasts one sim day, and I found that to be true, and it also says that tans last 2 sim days, which hasn't been what I'm finding out now (up to 4 days & haven't played on yet).

If I know how long a tan is supposed to last, then I will know whether the tokens are gone and the tan is perma, or whether I need to be a LOT more patient before reverting to a much earlier pre-tan saved game.

I should have known there was a fix right here...!

Zazazu, that's a very good question. I considered it "never" when the tan was present for longer than 4 days because the PrimaGuide says the tan is only supposed to last 2 days, and the sunburn is only supposed to last 1. So, I waited for double the time for the damn thing to go away.

Thankyou for the advice about the lot debugger, Gwill and TIgerlilley!

* KSK gratefully goes off to find the lot debugger

*****

OK, I got the lot debugger, and did the Fix... Tans & Burns. The portrait changed, but the tans are still on the sim... is it supposed to work immediately? Or do I have to wait a few days for it to kick in?

* KSK laughs

The loading time is not the problem! The problem is that I am lazy! Now that I have a satisficing method of dealing with the problem, my desire to invest any more time in this issue in the near future (within this week) has diminished.

So, roughly about an hour or two to find the sucker for a DL content of about 5,000 files then. Although the load time will reduce with less CC, there is still a finite amount of time required to load the game in any case.

But, your point is well taken, and binary sorting is definitely the best method for finding dodgy content, I think - particularly when the method is used along with a little thought (e.g. narrow down to 50 files, and if one is a mesh file and the rest are recolors - I'd take a risk on potentially wasting time and just remove the mesh file).

Anyway, I will find it when I have a nice chunk of time to myself.

Sounds quite possible that I might have CC meshes that crash the game to the desktop (obviously, SOMETHING in my CC does it).

There were... 4 custom meshes (all male) on my sims - two hairstyles, one clothing and one accessory. I'll check next time I send them to Twikkii.

It wouldn't really be too much of a pain in the arse to find out which of the cc was causing the problem nowdays (the game loads much faster now - 8 minutes vs. 30 minutes since I now have a computer with 3 GB RAM and a new 3D graphics card with 500 MB memory). When I find it, I'll remember to report back on what the CC was. But, I imagine that it won't be for quite a while though.

Arrrrr!

I saw one of the posts here saying something was broken, and that suntans and sunburns are permanent as a result.

I noticed that when sims were on holidays, one got burned, but, it cleared up the next day (while still on the same holiday). Then, I got 2 sims suntanned. They went home with tans. And then the tans never went away.

Maybe tans/burns go away while on holdiay, but not when return home? (I might experiment with this some more.)

Does anyone know if there is a fix for this? I checked for the latest SimPE to see if there was a BV version, reasoning that maybe they'd have a "suntan" checkbox if I was lucky, but, they haven't updated for Bon Voyage yet (September 7th update was the latest on SimPE for Bon Voyage, and they said they wouldn't know how long it will take to bring out at this time).

Fortunately, I have a saved game, and I can simply avoid the sunbathing, but it would be nice to have a fix, if there is one.

OK, I know how to work around this problem - so it is in effect solved. Just in case anyone else runs into this problem, here's the work-around in sufficient detail to solve the problem:

The problem was CC on the sims I was sending to the Mysterious Hut.

The workaround was this:

* Take out the Downloads folder and the SavedSims folders
* In the game, before sending the sims to the Mysterious Hut, I did two things:
                            1. Changed the clothes to Maxis clothing (because they were still wearing CC even though I removed the folders named above)
                            2. Changed the sims appearance to Maxis hairstyles/makeup/accessories etc. (This action changes the face and eyes of the sim so that custom content left over is removed.)
                            NOTE that if you do not do 1 and 2 above, you will still get the problem, even if you remove the DL and SS folders! (This is where I screwed up.)

The Mysterious Hut then loaded when sending the sims to walk there.

Once I finished with the Mysterious Hut, I returned the sims to Home (temporary home at the hotel) and then saved the game.

Exit game.
Put DL and SS folders back in.
Restart game.

To restore the sims back to their original beautifully decked out custom content forms, I simply:
- changed their clothes
- changed their appearance in the mirror.

Just in case this is important, at no stage did I disable custom content through the Maxis "enable/disable custom content" option during this whole operation.

I know this is cumbersome, and it would be more thorough to remove the CC files causing the problem, but, I really am too fond of all the CC those sims were wearing to remove any of it from the game and said to myself, "stuffit - I'm not planning on visiting the Myserious Hut more than once for each playable sim".

**** Here ends the sermon****

J.M., thankyou for your feedback, patience and helpful suggestions, I appreciate it.


* KSK goes back to lurking and staying out of trouble

                       

OK, I'm a dickhead. Go point and laugh. But now the answer is closer.

I removed the DL folder and the SavedSims folder again, went to the test n'hood, created a new lot and sim (obviously no cc in it, given he was created from scratch with no access to cc content), sent this sim to the Twikkii Island, got him to find the map, and YES, *he* can get to the hut - note, this is my well-played game, not the clean install version.

Now this was a little different to the last time I removed the DL and SS folders in that the sims I sent to the Mysterious Hut *still had their cc in them* even though those folders were removed. Maybe those sims - still containing potentially offending cc - was the problem on sending them (which is one of the things you said in the first place - maybe it's a corrupt sim or sims).

I'm going to go back to those "corrupt" sims and change their appearance to no cc after removing the DL and SS folders, and see if that helps.

OK, if I am playing the game I have had for ages, then, even if I create a brand new custom neighbourhood that does not have any lots or sims and I had to create a lot and a sim so I could send one to vacationland, then yes, the Mysterious Hut would still crash when attempting to send a sim there. I confess, I did not DAC in the custom test neighbourhood I created because when I created a brand new custom 'hood, it did not contain any characters or lots at all, and I had to create a lot and a new sim so I had someone to send to vacationland (was I supposed to DAC anyway? It just doesn't seem logical to DAC in an empty 'hood, but if it's necessary, I will go back and do it exactly as suggested.)

The fresh, clean neighbourhood was created after installing Vacationlands EP.

What we know is this:

* All EPs installed (no stuff packs!) - with clean install EA Games folder (never been played), can send a sim to Mysterious Hut, no crashing and no  problem.
* When replace clean install EA Games folder with EA Games folder containing my old, well-played game, then crashing of game occurs when send sim to MS, even if a custom test neighbourhood is created and a new sim is sent to a newly created Twikkii holiday desination for that hood. Removal of the DL and SavedSims folders does not solve the problem.

These things lead me to think that the problem:

1. is not due to any faulty installation of the BV EP - the installation is fine
2. is not due to any custom content or hacks


About the loadlot cheat - I tried the

loadlot "put the name of the lot in here if there are spaces in the lot name"

cheat, but, it did not work for me; this is what happens:

this is what I entered into the cheat window on one occasion:     
loadlot "The Mysterious Hut"

The result:
ERROR TSCheatSystem: ERROR IN CHEAT: Unknown command
      in command 'loadlot "The Mysterious Hut"'. OnErrorClearParserTempState called.
 with command loadlot "The Mysterious Hut"
.\source\TSCheatSystem.cpp(68)

LOADLOT, LoadLot, loadLot and Loadlot do not seem to work either. Also tried the same command for a lot that I knew the name of in a different neighbourhood. Still no joy. Tried without quotation marks. Wish I knew what I was doing wrong, darn and buggrit.

I'm sure I will think of something else to try, but right now, the wheel is spinning and the hamster is dead. Tomorrow morning I get a new one delivered.

Thankyou for persisting with me through this J.M. - I appreciate your help.

OK - I will try that (LOADLOT Mysterious Hut) tomorrow on my saved, well-played game and see what happens (now it's 12:33 am my time - for bed! Goddammit, not enough hours in the day...).

I did actually squirrel away a "clean install" version of the EA Games folder some time ago, so was able to perform a "clean install, no CC" version of the game with all expansion packs (no stuff packs) in the game.

SUCCESS!!! Mysterious Hut loads. So I conclude that the CD is fine, and the installation of the game was fine (because I did not re-install, I simply re-named the currently played (contains CC, has been played for ages over a number of expansion packs) EA Games directory to something else, and re-named the "EA Games Clean Install" folder and contents I had created as a last resort emergency backup quite some time ago to "EA Games" and ran the program.

Therefore, there must be something wrong with the saved game I had been playing for quite some time over a few expansion packs... I wonder what it is, and I'm determined to find out.

Will report back on how I go with your last suggestion when I am able to make some time to get at the game and tackle it again.

OK - reporting back now on suggestions since I had a little time to try them out.

I created a new test neighbourhood, no sims, created a sim, and then got him to go to this hut after finding the map. Mysterious hut will not load.

So, I uninstall vacation land, revert back to a pre-BV saved game, and then re-installed BV and patched the game. Created new hood, create new sim, get him to find the map, send to Mysterious Hut... and still, the lot will not load. *shrug*

I don't really know what else to do, other than try a complete fresh new install with no CC and no backup game and then install BV and see if that works. If it doesn't, maybe I got a crummy set of CDs...?

I will report back once I try this. But I'm open to any other suggestions, since I won't have time to try this any time soon.

Thankyou for your suggestions, JM.

Wow, you're *fast* ! (Thankyou.) Yes, it is odd... very mysterious.

OK, I have only tried one neighbourhood - the Twikkii neighbourhood, which is associated with Pleasantview.

When you say, "Install vacationland", you mean associate the holiday destinations to this new junk neighbourhood, right? (From the context, that's how it looks, but, sometimes I misunderstand.) I will do that tomorrow (when it isn't 11:30 pm my time) and report how it goes.

To answer the other questions, the base neighbourhood (Pleasantville) has been played for a long time, but, I don't have many playable sims (less than 10) and my computer has 2GB of memory (which solved the lot crashing problem when I had a beautiful house with LOTS of CC in it).

Under BV, I have not played long - got the game on Friday, and had the sims visit all the Twikkii vacation lots - the Mysterious Hut was the last desination the sims had left to see.

The crashing on loading of Mysterious Hut has always occurred in this scenario - I have not tried other sims, or other neighbourhoods.

I'm a bit lost when you talk about SDSC, but then, Google is my friend.

Thankyou for your suggestions, I'll give those a try in the recommended order, and report how I go when I find out. (I quite like the splicing idea - I wouldn't have thought of that.)

Cheers!

Hi guys,

The problem I have is that whenever I try to get a sim and his friend to walk to the Mysterious Hut (hidden lot), the game crashes while the Mysterious Hut is loading. This is reproducable.

I have removed ALL hacks and custom content (nothing in the downloads folder, and nothing in the SavedSims folder where I've created my own content). Still crashes.

I cannot get these sims to go to the Mysterious Hut.

As far as it gets is: the loading screen for the Mysterious Hut manages a partial load, but then crashes the game completely, and the lot fails to load.

I have not done anything with that lot - never touched it.

No sims have ever been there, so I cannot say that this lot has ever worked.

Any suggestions?

I could do a re-install, but I'm really not keen on re-installing The Sims 2, University, NL, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Rudolph.

Any advice would be most appreciated - I'm happy to take advice without arguing and post up what does/doesn't work for other people to refer to in future.

Cheers

* Edit to add more info:

I have all expansion packs except the Stuff packs.
The latest patch for BV on the Maxis website as of 1 Dec 2007 is installed.

Thankyou for the suggestion Sara, I'll definitely try that as soon as I get home, and will report back when I find out.... fingers crossed!


*update*

THanks Sara!!!! It worked!!!  Thankyou so much!!!

Now I can make a few things again

- by the way, no, I had no other packs installed other than what I mentioned

HOORAY! SOLVED!!

Hi, I hope someone might know the answer to this, and if you could help me please, I'd really appreciate this one.


I installed Sims2, Uni, NL, OFB, Pets and Seasons all in the correct order on a new PC that easily meets all specs. Installed Seasons patch.

Tried to open bodyshop, and lovely Windows message helpfully tells me that:

"The Sims2 Body Shop has stopped working"

The thing is, it doesn't even begin to load. I've never run the bodyshop before on this PC. So it could have been borkled from the start...

Anyhoo, I uninstall every Sims expansion pack in reverse order.

Then re-installed again, re-patched with Seasons patch.

Same problem.

Looked for this... "Pets bodyshop patch" (?) on EA website, but I was unable to find it in their list of patches. Tried to run the Pets patch, but of course it is up to date already since I have already installed Seasons and the Seasons patch.

No cc in downloads or savedsims folders.

Deleting the cache files in the Sims2 directory did not help.

I love to know what the root problem is and how to fix it, since repeating what I've already done and expecting different results seems a bit stupid.

Any ideas?

Great. Now I need to post the resolution in 2 threads instead of just the one.

Found the problem.

Had an old or incorrect version of 2Jeffs hack:  "  zTwojeffs_Preg For All Genders.package "


Installed the latest version appropriate to my expansion pack installations.


When I first put the updated hack in (after removing the old one), I could not "call" the second sim to the photobooth or the clothing booth - the "more" pie-menu option to get access to the join option was not responding - a single single mouse click did not work. When I double-clicked with the left mouse button very fast, *then* the "join" option was able to be accessed via "more", and after that, no problems at all, and I never had to double-click again, even after re-starting the game.

Problem now solved - Public woo-hoo is GO!

Back to the game! (And lurking...)

Great. Now I need to post the resolution in 2 threads instead of just the one.

Found the problem.

Had an old or incorrect version of 2Jeffs hack:  "  zTwojeffs_Preg For All Genders.package "


Installed the latest version appropriate to my expansion pack installations.


When I first put the updated hack in (after removing the old one), I could not "call" the second sim to the photobooth or the clothing booth - the "more" pie-menu option to get access to the join option was not responding - a single single mouse click did not work. When I double-clicked with the left mouse button very fast, *then* the "join" option was able to be accessed via "more", and after that, no problems at all, and I never had to double-click again, even after re-starting the game.

Problem now solved.

Back to the game! (And lurking...)

LOL! LOL!

*bows*

Which is why I thanked you! 

Jase, thanks for the pointer. I'm currently taking advice under Q3.

Although I did say one hack at a time to make it sound more dramatic, I am in fact using that sorting technique, because it is exponentially quicker than sorting one at a time, and I'd be there forever with the number of hacks I have otherwise. Thankyou for mentioning it though, Witch, just in case I was stupid enough to actually test hacks one at a time.

JM, with me being me, of *COURSE* there is no problem with my testing methodology. Firstly, the game was saved immediately prior to an appropriate testing scenario, when I can then test and exit without saving. This ensures the SAME test conditions every time. With this scenario set up, FIRST test without ANY hacks to verify correct game behaviour. YES, works properly with NO hacks - sims can woo-hoo in clothing booth and in photobooth, and get the floaty icon above their heads when finished, a memory stuffed into the memory bank, aspiration fulfilment wants points value above heads, asp. meter increased, and want in the wants panel gets filled and rolls over - all fine and dandy. Put half hacks back in. Test works correctly yes/no. If yes, put hacks in sep. folder labelled "OK" in downloads, then put back in half of discarded set. Re-test. Problem yes/no. If problem yes, remove half of suspect batch of hacks... you get the idea. Rinse, repeat...

ANYWAY. Have narrowed the sucker down. Have about 10 hacks left to sort.
I suspect 2Jeffs "preg for all genders" hack, only because in that list of about 10 hacks, that is the ONLY one even remotely related to woo hooing. Further testing required before I can be certain.  If it is, I need to verify that I have an appropriate version of that hack, and discuss with 2J *IF* it is in fact the problem I am having. In any case, I will then still need to test that the remaining hacks left in the "unsorted" pile do not have MORE hacks that also give the problem.

Will let you all know what I find, when I have sufficient evidence to be certain.

But, it is certainly one of the hacks I have causing me this headache. I can't believe nobody else has reported this particular problem before... and I haven't seen their report if they did

I said "HELPFUL" replies, guys!

All my hacks are in a hack folder, and subdivided by awesomeness for easy management.

Still need to find out which hack(s) are preventing CLOTHING BOOTH and PHOTOBOOTH woohoos.

Am finding out which ones it AIN'T so far.

Oops! I broke it!

I broke public woo-hoo ability and memories with a combination of hacks. That is, woo-hoo could not occur in clothing booths on community lots (sims jump out) or in photobooths on community lots (same story), and, so, because no woo-hoo, no memory icons. Car woohoo on a community lot filled the want, but, did not give the memory.

So... I removed ALL hacks. I was actually frightened to run the game *without* those beloved hacks! :lol:

Woo hoo in clothing booths was then successful, no jumping and produced a memory. Woo-hoo in clothing booth after that also successful (no jumping). Will be testing again for photobooth just to confirm it really is OK as far as memories goes - since memory of public woohoo not given twice for the same two sims. Anyway, it works fine now, but.... *CRIES*

Now I need to find out WHICH hacks were causing the problem!!! I never played romance sims until recently, so would not have known when the problem started happenning, or I could simply have pulled out the last hacks I added into the game.

I am currently in the painful process of adding hacks back in... slowly.... a few at a time...





ANY *useful* help with identifying which hack or hacks causes this problem would be very greatly appreciated!




In the meanwhile.... slowly... slowly... add hack, test, add hack, test, add hack, test....

.....I'll post up what I find the problem to be, if nobody can help in the meanwhile...

Dammit dammiti DAMMIt!!!!

First started playing a romance sim properly, and found this problem >8-( 

But, not only did the hot-tub NOT count as public woo-hoo, and NOT generate a memory, I had a problem with the PHOTOBOOTH aswell (have base, uni + NL only)!  With the photobooth, the participants seemed to "jump" out at the end. No memory.

Grrr.

I really HOPE the clothing booth works...

"it's my only hope"   ....!

Well... that explains why one of my sims is constantly congratulating his spouse for cheating on him.

But it IS annoying. He should NOT be congratulating his other half for it.

At least I know there's very little that can be done about it, besides a re-write of the whole code...