I have looked for days for some sort of answer to this problem and have only come up with about three others who claimed they had the same issue, but no one knew how to fix it. I created a world, exported it into my game and started testing. The only thing I have found wrong is that in certain areas, sims will get the icon for investigating a mysterious anomaly, but just stand there. Eventually it drops from their queue and they do something else. In other areas of my world they get abducted. The only mod I have in the game for testing it is Nraas Debug Enabler so I can trigger alien abductions. My game is patched to 1.67

I appreciate any help in correcting this problem. Thank you in advance. TwilightUnicorn83

This is happening in a world you created? You'll probably get a lot more help over in the create a world forum under the Create tab up top. Good luck.

I've had this happen to one of my sims sometime within the last few months. I'm going to have to think for a bit to remember which world it was happening in, but I believe it was an EA world. The notice came, my sim didn't go outside (she was sort of frozen until the time passed), then everything was normal again.

It was Aurora Skies where I had this problem. I never figured out what was causing it, I just used NRaas Retuner to stop the abductions.

Maybe because there's no enough free room in the lot. The animation requires a 6x6 tiles area
(I'm not sure about it because probably the "jig" is placed on the air and not on the ground).

Eskie227 - I was originally going to post this there, but those who said it happened in their game were using EA official worlds. But I will take your suggestion and post this in CAW as well.
Lindali365 - I'll have to try this in Aurora Skies to see if the problem persists outside of my world. I don't think I'll use the Nraas mod as I like having the abductions, but I'll make a note of it just in case.
Arsil - Thanks for the advise. I went back and tried the same lot only empty and still, the same problem happened.

Thank you all for responding : ) While the problem is still there, I appreciate your advise. TwilightUnicorn83

If it's like Arsil says it's more likely to be a modder issue, because they are more likely to know what's in the coding. As a world builder I would probably just put it in the routing issues box. It can be complicated sometimes to know where something belongs, but that's what I think.

Edit: I just had to prepare breakfast. world building is an umbrella kind of area, you end up knowing a bit about a lot. If you like to walk in the direction of what Arsil is saying it belongs in the create/modding discussion. If you would rather like Arsil to go to h*** or something, you treat it as a routing issue That's how I would do it.

[Let's use only this thread, otherwise it gets confusing. Ask a moderator to move it somewhere else if you want]

Volvenom gave a very plausible explanation. Maybe the terrain isn't flat or there are other routing
issues related to CAW (I can't use that software so I don't know the specifics).

Try these if you don't mind:
- flatten the whole lot with the terrain tool in Build Mode
- search for other possible routing issues or anyway to understand what's the difference
between lots where it works and lots where it doesn't.

To help you, I've cloned the jig and made it buyable. You'll find it in the Buy Catalog:
by function, electronics, misc. Try to place it in the lots where the abduction fails, so
you can confirm or exclude if the problem is the footprint of the jig used to make room
for the animations.

If none work, please describe me with details what happens when a successful abduction
takes place and what happens when one fails (i.e. at what point the interaction is interrupted)
and I'll try to investigate more carefully in the code.

EDIT: I'm already in hell since I'm trying to fix one of my mods ^^
Anyway, my theory too has to do with routing.

There are a few easy fix solutions available in caw, but it depends on what plans you have for that area. You probably know a bit about those already.

Thank you for the jig. I used it on several lots that where the abductions failed and there is plenty of space. Flattening the terrain does not help either.

I looked carefully at the routing lines of the lots that allow for abductions and compared them to the ones that don't and I don't see any difference. I've tried deleting the lots and roads and replaced them, but that didn't work either. I've conformed the edges and rebuilt the routing data, both a no go.

As for the abductions themselves:
***On lots where they take place here's what happens - I use Nraas Debug Enabler to trigger an abduction, the "Investigate Mysterious Anomaly" icon queues up, the lights appear above the lot, an alien ship appears and whisks the Sim away for about 3 hours and then they return.
***On lots where the abductions fail - I use Nrass Debug Enabler to trigger an abduction, the "Investigate Mysterious Anomaly" icon queues up...and the Sim stands there for about 30 seconds doing idle animations. While they stand there, I cannot direct them to do something else. No lights appear. After the 30 seconds the icon drops from the queue and either something else will queue up autonomously or I can direct them to do something.

Are there any files I could send that might help?

No, no files needed.

When the interaction is added to the queue, do Sims just stand where they are or they walk somewhere?
If the latter, that happens even when the abduction fails? Can they be abducted/taken even if they are indoors?

Are you always using the same Sim to make the test?
Is there a Road adjacent/connected to lots where the abduction fails/success?

On both free will and no free will, the Sim never walks anywhere, they only do idle animations where they stand.
On lots with successful abductions, the Sim will walk over to the lights, look up and be abducted.

A lot with successful abductions can happen both indoors or outdoors.
On lots with failed abductions, it doesn't matter whether they are inside or out, the abduction fails.

I have tested with one Sim I created and two different EA couples from the bin.
All of the lots in my world are adjacent/connected to one or more road. After you asked about roads, I removed all the roads around one of the failure lots and tried it, but it was no go.

Also, when I was testing on a lot with failed abductions, I looked around the world once to see if the lights appeared elsewhere in the world and they didn't. Not sure if that's useful information.

Thank you again for all your help : ) Oh, I also sent a message to a moderator to have this moved to the Create forum as suggested, but I haven't received a response yet.

I was testing this again today and just saw something odd.When I trigger the abduction on a lot that has failed, I noticed a speed boat randomly appear on the water. When I zoomed in, it was the alien. I did this a few times and the time that the event shows up in their queue as the active thing to do, the alien in the speed boat shows up then drives along a cliff side to the beach, gets out, runs up the road, calls their space ship and then zooms off. When they leave in their ship the event drops from the queue. Obviously these two things are related, but I don't understand why the alien pops up in a speed boat rather than over the lot where the abduction takes place.

is there a fix to this

mine happens in Midnight Hallow and i was wondering has any one found a fix

While I can understand why you'd resurrect this thread to ask your questions, I think you'd get a more directer and faster respond on your question if you'd create a new thread instead of resurrecting a thread that's 2 years old

Will close the thread now!