Insimenator.org

i've had two things happening to my game, both are really weird and i have no explanation for it.
first of all, when i was playing my game in don lothario's house, everytime he got in the shower he would disappear completely and live mode would be disabled. i tested it on another house and nothing was wrong with the showers. so i made don marry cassandra and i haven't had problems with the showers at her house.
the shower thing is weird, but i guess it's insignificant if it's not happening anymore. i'm adding this though because i was thinking maybe this could be part of the issue i'm having now, and maybe there's more to it.
i have no idea though.

second, i get random crashing in the game.
this has happened quite a few times so far, and i know it's probably not going to stop until i figure out the problem.
i've deleted my catche files, that doesn't seem to be the problem.
the game is crashing while it's loading lots, and i had one crash when i just arrived at a lot. there's no in-game crashing, as of yet. just loading screen crashing. and it doesn't happen all the time. it happens often, but not EVERY time, so it's random.
i'm about to remove my downloads and see if the crashing persists.

meanwhile, can anybody help me? what could possibly be the cause of the crashing?
i can't do a full reinstall of the game, btw.
i hope somebody can help. thanks if you can.

If you downloaded a house and the game crashes while loading it, it usually means the house was built with an EP you do not have.

Try loading a different house and see what happens.

The crashing while loading lots - are they lots with sims living in them or are they empty? Sounds like at least some of them are community lots since your sim was arriving when the game crashed. Are the crashing lots ones you have downloaded? If you downloaded them, do you have all the EPs necessary to run the lots?

If you use Clean Installer to import lots into your game, it will let you install them even when you don't have the expansions necessary to run them. Since I don't have a direct line to your computer I have no idea if you have any or all EPs installed, but if you do not and the custom lot requires an expansion you do not have, that would explain the crashing. It doesn't matter if a house was built using only base game content - if it was built in a game with all or some EPs installed, it will require all of those EPs.

actually, i do have all ep's. the lot could be any lot, there are just random crashes. i do have clean installer. but the lots don't crash the first time i load them up. i can load them up just fine sometimes, but other times it will just crash. the sim arriving crash only happened once so far. the other times it crashes it's when i'm loading a family, or just a community lot [to build, etc].


i've removed my downloads folder and play tested the game, and i didn't have any crashes.
i had a lot of hack conflicts though. could the conflicts cause the game to crash? the hack conflict detector found atleast 60 conflicts. i deleted the conflicting files, besides the 'inteenimator conflicting with it's own flavor pack' files.
and i'm hoping i'll have no more crashing.

Hack conflicts can be a big problem and they do make the game crash.

You might want to make sure they're all updated in case you didn't.

Yes-the hack conflicts can cause the game to crash-and 60 is far too many. It depends on how severe the conflict; the minor ones like the flavor paks interfering with the main Inteen won't cause a crash, but two versions of the same mod will, such as the PermaFridge, for example.
I've run the game with conflicts but they're so minor that they usually do not cause a crash. The Inteen one is a minor problem, and one that is addressed in the "Read-Me" file in the mod. I'd suggest you read it to make sure it is not interfering with other major mods to be sure. That file lists all the major conflicts it has with other hacks.
All you can do is take out all your mods and play without them, then put them back in one at a time. That way it should eliminate the worst of the conflicts.

okay, i'm starting to have the same problem with the shower. when my sim got in, they disappeared completely.
that's the problem i've had since i removed the possible conflicts. according to the hack detector i have '26 conflicts' but they are all the inteen conflicting with itself.
i don't know what to do for the shower problem. besides removing the downloads again and seeing if the shower still messes up.
i think i'll try that. i'll report back later.


edit: okay, there's definitely something up with my downloads.
does anybody know which hack could possibly cause sims to disappear in the shower???

I had the same thing happen just recently-I don't know what's causing it either-but it hasn't happened recently.
Weird, because my hacks have not changed since I reinstalled the game. Hope you find out what is causing this one.

yeah. another weird thing is my game is still crashing without any conflicts in my downloads folder. i can't imagine why. i'm going to take another look at my hacks again. i'll update you on anything i find.

Mines randomly crashing as well?

You said your game works fine if you take your downloads folder out. So, that would suggest you have something inside your downloads that's causing the crash. Something may have become corrupted.

What I do is, use Delphy's Download Organizer. Run a scan in your downloads folder then, check under Object Plumbing and see what shows up. You may find something.

omg! thank you for recommending delphys download organizer. i used it and found out i had about 3 or 4 SIMS 3 HACKS installed in my sims 2 folder! i'd crash if i were my game, too. jeez.
i deleted those files. thanks, all of you helped in a way. i appreciate it.

Glad you found your problem!

gah. or so i thought i did. my sims are still disappearing in the shower. i have no more hack conflicts. i'm sure it's just one file i need to look for. but i have absolutely no idea which file, or which 2 or 3 files would cause my sim to disappear completely in the shower.
 :( this is starting to piss me off. i even had a mental relapse and started playing the sims 3. atleast sims in there don't disappear. thank you for your help anyways, though.

Are they floating heads or does the whole body disappear?

If its the former, then you most defiantley have a skintone that is not showerproof friendly or doesn't have a required mesh to make it showerproof friendly. I remember one time I made a sim with the FitChick bodyshape, and somehow didn't get the shape but only the skintone, and my sim would be nothing but a head in the tanning bed, or shower lol..I was pretty mad. I also REALLY screwed my game up one time, to this day I'm still not sure how I did it, but anywho I did something in one of my households, and the conflict made my sims shower with there clothes on, and run around naked! :eek: also there whole bodies were black, like shadows very freaky lol. I got rid of the problem by completley deleting the lot and family from my game.

i don't think it's the skintone. my sims aren't just floating heads. they'd disappear COMPLETELY, head, body, and all. i think they'd disappear from the shower. if i'm playing a single sim [like don lothario] and made him take a shower live mode would become disabled because the sim is gone. i'm using default replacement skintones, but i've used them before and had no problems. i don't think they're the cause of anything. they're just some louis/simcribbling skins.

Maybe, you should take out the default replacements then. I didn't think of it before, but I just realized that the skintones may have been the issue with my game, and perhaps yours? I would suggest atleast checking if the defaults may have  been updated or are corrupt. You never know and its worth a shot? Does your game act like that, with your downloads folder taken out, if so then you can safely say its something in your downloads folder, and I am betting its a skintone problem, if the problem only persists when your sims are in the shower? :-\

with my downloads folder out my sims do not disappear. i'll remove the skintones and see if it really is them. i would never guess that it would be my default skintones, but i'll check it. thanks.

edit: the skintones aren't the problem. i removed them and the shower thing was still happening. i'm going to test more.

Out of curiosity, is this a Custom Content shower or a Maxis one?

You might want to try and sell the shower and buy a new one.

See if that works.

the shower is the cheap maxis shower. i'll try selling it but i doubt anything will change.


edit: i sold the shower, and when i went to go buy it again there was this star over it

(http://i39.tinypic.com/6ohb13.png)


but the same problem happened when i bought a different shower, too.

(http://i42.tinypic.com/dmqjwo.png)


as for shower hacks/mods, i tried installing this
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=277398
but my sims started disappearing so i deleted it. i didn't install into my downloads folder. i installed it into the correct place. those files are no where to be found as far as i can see, now though. but do you think it could somehow have anything to do with it?

It does say this: This mod will conflict with any other similar mods that raise hygiene/comfort ratings for Maxis showers and tubs.

You might want to double check and see if you have any other mods in your folder. Because there is something in your downloads folder causing this.

i've searched my downloads folder. i don't have anything that would conflict with that. plus, i don't even have it anymore. i said i deleted it.

To be honest, I'm stumped.

And, I bet it's something really, really simple.

ugh, me too.  i'm sure i'll feel stupid as soon as i find out what it is.

Perhaps two sets of default replacements?

That is a non-starter for me-I don't have any default replacements for the cheap shower, or any hacks for making it better.
It might be something more subtle-but for the mean time, I'm just skipping the cheap shower and putting in another style. That does work, and it stops the disappearing act.

But looking through my texture logs, this message pops up:
 "WARNING,TextureManager,Cannot load texture 'waterStream' "

That message comes from not only the Texture Log, but also the Production Messages Log in my game.

Sorry, I meant two sets of default replacement skins.

when i look at the texture errors, all that comes up is an absolutely blank notepad.
i hate how this is just like a huge mystery. i just wish i could find what was causing the problem. i can't play the sims 2 properly.
and i double, and even triple checked to make sure i did not have two sets of default replacement skins. i remember skins i've downloaded before and so i'm always absolutely sure i don't have two at the same time.

I, too, checked my skins-I do not have any default replacements, but I do have ChristianLov's Skintone Replacement picture loaded with Stefan's and other skins.

I checked the skins on it, and they're working. I thought at first it could be related because the skins change during the shower back to Maxis basic. Updated the skins in it, and they stay changed, but the shower still screws up.

Jacob, you don't have that (ChristianLov's replacement picture) in your game, do you?

unfortunately, that can't be the problem either because i don't have that in my downloads. i checked to be sure. :(

Just a ray of hope here: I recently re-installed all my game, and I thought I had patched the EP's I had-Uni, and NL. I had done the Uni one, but I checked the patch for NL, and it had not been installed, so I did. I haven't gone into my game yet again, but will in the next few hours.

I think that might be why it's doing strange things-I had not applied the patch to it. Have you patched your game? It might be worth the time to check your installed game files and patch files-if you registered with EA, it will be in your game file in the installed game.

Crossing my fingers and toes with hope. Will report back when I've played for a few hours.

Edit:
  I did put the patch in, and it seems to solve a few of the problems-but not all the houses are affected. So if you do have an unpatched game, patch it.
  For those houses that are not enabling the shower, I'm about to throw the owners out and get a new house for them. Perhaps it's the age of that particular game-it's one of the earliest versions of my favorite neighborhood, so it might have become a bit corrupted in the meantime. Of course I've been running the Lot Debugger on every single one of them, so the memories are going to be reduced.
  Otherwise than that, I can't say what's causing the problem. Damn, I wish I knew the answer. Sorry for not being more helpful.

as far as i can see, when i installed m&g it updated my apartment life ep, so everything is patched as of right now. {i THINK}
but i don't think the patch would work because it's something in my downloads folder that's causing the shower problem. i'm still trying to find what it is. the game behaves normally without the downloads folder. ugh. thanks for helping, though. i only need to find something like an outdated mod that's screwing the game up. and i really need help doing that.
i appreciate the patch advice, though.

Well, if you do find a link between a download and the problem, please post..I'm still very curious as to what's causing this.
First time I've ever had this one happen in my game. It's not like the ordinary "jump" bug-more like "jump and vanish from the shower" bug.
Weird, no matter what you call it.

There is one other thing I'm going to try-I have the neighborhood placed in a map that has no corresponding SC4 file in the SC4 folder. I'm going to change it to one that does have a file. Perhaps it is related, perhaps not. I'm surprised the thing works if it has no related map in the game! (I have Mootilda's Hood Replacement Mod).

Did you download anything recently?

The reason I ask is, one time I downloaded a Custom Content cell phone and it caused a "jump bug" It affected the regular cell phone also.

Think along those lines.........Not the cell phone itself or the shower.

I think I have found the problem, finally! I pulled a classic "Ness", by having two copies of the same hack in my game-the Bathroom controller. They were in different places, and were differently dated. I've played several houses, and they are all ok without it.
Now I have to download the newest version and re-install it.
I do feel a little dumb. So, check your downloads carefully. You can never be too sure! I certainly was!

i'm completely sure that the problem is just an outdated hack. or possibly more than one. those are the ones i need to find. the only possible outdated hacks i have would be squinges. i search for his old stuff and download it.



EDIT: alright so, here's what i've done. i made nina move in with don (so i could still play after don disappeared in the shower) and i found out that
1. only male sims disappear in the shower. females are fine.
2. i entered debug mode and i saved the game after he disappeared. then i went back to the neighborhood and reloaded the lot.
there was an object error.

(http://i42.tinypic.com/2r47b4l.jpg)

and i'm attaching the exact error log.

NOTE: don being a vampire has nothing to do with it. i just changed him into one because i was bored.


there is also something else going on.. ? don and nina keep pointing at nothing and laughing for no reason? i have no idea why. it's annoying though.

Looking through the error log, try removing:
1.  All of your vampire related mods, because the error was on a vampire processing the sleep test.
2.  All of the "naughty" mods, because these may be doing something with the sleep test and overlooked vampires.
3.  All custom careers, because these can just be a pain in the ass when you update EPs and they stop working.
4.  All custom foods, ditto.

What do careers and foods have to do with a disappearing sim you might wonder.  I wonder the same thing, but poorly made careers and foods have broken many other things completely unrelated so it's worth checking.  Of course, this particular error may have nothing to do with the sim disappearing, too.

i think that this error has everything to do with the sim disappearing, because i know that if i removed all my downloads, then entered debug mode etc and did the exact same thing that i wouldn't have an error. i'll try removing those things, though. it makes sense because i do have some careers, and definitely some custom food items i've never downloaded before. i'd never guess that'd be the problem, but i'll test everything and see if my problem persists. but in the meantime, thank you.

I have in game crashes during play but it seems only to be when theres a lot going on. I didnt have a crash when i played my single mother and her kido.

JacobM: do you, by chance, have the Margarita Tiki bar from MTS (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=347222)? I say this because a bunch of my friends from Usenet have exactly the same sim disappearing from showers problem from the Margarita Tiki bar. None of them have any idea why the bar would make sims disappear but it does. Taking out the puddle package fixes it. Not sure if the bar keeps working afterwards, though. It's enough that the files for the bar are in your downloads folder. Even if the bar isn't on the lot, sims still start disappearing from showers.

That's one I do have-and I have it in my game. Thanks for the heads-up, and I'm going to take it out now, because I never use it anyway.

Not quite the same.  The shower itself disappears.  The last time I tried it the sim turned up on the other side of the wall the shower head was on, looking embarassed at being naked. 

I removed the puddle, and tried the bar without it, it works fine as far as I can see.  It's just for drunk sims throwing up with no toilet on the lot.

But the creator can't replicate the problem, so you never know, it could cause different effects than those I got.

i do have the tiki bar! that is very weird.
i'm going to try deleting the puddles package. THANK YOU, so much!

i've deleted the package, and don lothario doesn't disappear and the shower doesn't anymore. but my sims are resetting like crazy. i always seem to have a problem. but i wouldn't blame my game for having these problems, because i do have about 8,000+ downloads right now. i'll be satisfied once i get everything working right, though.

4 people on Usenet got the disappearing sim problem (are you kat? Or are you someone else who just happens to be called something similar?) but not all the Usenet people using the tiki margarita bar got disappearing sims. It could be a combination of bar + particular mod that causes this. The whole problem has me intrigued and I might just have to install the margarita bar and see if I get disappearing sims as well.

i do in fact think it was the puddle.package that was causing the problem. the reason, because don lothario was a sloppy sim taking a shower. that means he needs to generate puddles (from the whole peeing in the shower thing), but the puddles.package was making that corrupt somehow. my other 'neat' male sims did not disappear in the shower, neither did nina caliente. (she moved into his house).

I have every reason to believe it was the Tiki bar and puddle, because previous to putting it in, I had absolutely no issues dealing with the "shower disappears and sim reappears in another spot" problem-it had never occurred in my game, usually very stable and reliable.
I had just put the mod into my game before this happened..so I think we can say it's 99% certain that this mod does this to the showers.

In fact, the first time this happened, I could not understand why it was happening and uninstalled all my game, and reinstalled it-then put the mod in and the problem reoccurred, with a freshly installed game. So for me, this is the cure.

But I would like to know why it generated such a clash-to make the shower itself disappear and the log file saying "cannot load shower effect" or some such message. I can't replicate it because the mod no longer is in my game and the logs are from today.

so, to update you guys, there is no more shower disappearing. but my game is still randomly crashing?? outdated mods can cause game crashing, right? but which ones? that is the question. i separated my hacks from the rest of my downloads, and it says i have about 200 something hacks. there are no conflicts, but something is definitely outdated. mostly the crashing is on a community lot, now. has anyone else had this problem or know what could possibly be causing the game to crash?

It depends on which mods you have and which EP's you have. If you have all of them, you have to get the matching mods/hacks for the last one you installed.
Which means in this case, you take out all of them, and d/l the latest mod/hack for each of them, and then test the game.
I will admit that this is not a fun thing to do, but it looks like the only way to truly correct the problem. BTW, also update your CEP files, if you have them, (pretty much everyone does) for the latest one.

Do you have any Community lot hacks, like "have parties" with inteen, or something? Perhaps that could be a problem in itself.

It could be meshes that require an EP/SP you don't have.  If a townie needs that mesh for clothing or hair and is on the comm lot, the game will crash.

i've been going through and deleting a lot of the possible culprits. i have every expansion/stuff pack so i don't see how a mesh could be a problem.
the game doesn't seem to crash when my 'hacks' folder is out.

i'll attach what's in my hacks folder. maybe somebody knows what it could be?

Jacob, I took out all my hacks that could affect the read-out, put yours in my game and ran the HCDU on yours:

Report Start 7/18/2009 11:51:07 PM
 
*** POSSIBLE CONFLICT DETECTED ***
File Type: BHAV
Procedure Name: Interaction - Wish - Youth - TEST
Group ID: 0x7F285E93
Instance ID: 0x00001012
Packages Containing This Procedure:
\downloads\Jacob M's hacks\LBFYouthWish.package
\downloads\Jacob M's hacks\youthwishfix_arek91.package
 
*** POSSIBLE CONFLICT DETECTED ***
File Type: TTAB
Group ID: 0x7F285E93
Instance ID: 0x00000001
Packages Containing This Menu File:
\downloads\Jacob M's hacks\LBFYouthWish.package
\downloads\Jacob M's hacks\youthwishfix_arek91.package
 
*** POSSIBLE CONFLICT DETECTED ***
File Type: TTAs
Group ID: 0x7F285E93
Instance ID: 0x00000001
Packages Containing This Menu Strings File:
\downloads\Jacob M's hacks\LBFYouthWish.package
\downloads\Jacob M's hacks\youthwishfix_arek91.package
 
End Of Report
 
3 possible conflicts detected.

Mind you, this is inside my game which has only Uni and NL.
Hope this helps you out.

alright, thanks. i got rid of one of the files. i just need help finding mods that are outdated. i've been carelessly downloading without thoroughly checking if they were al/m&g compatible.