Excuse me if this is in the wrong place or has an existing thread; I tried six ways from Sunday to think of good search terms to look for similar problems and got nothing. I have no idea whether it's a game play or a technical problem. I have Deluxe, Pets, Seasons, University, and Apartment Life. Please, if you have to move this, send me a PM so I know where to find it. I'm not finding these forums intuitive at all.

I play my Sims in rotation: A semester for each University household, a day for each Downtown and main neighborhood household, and round again. A Sim in a dorm got engaged to a Sim in a sorority during the semester I ran the dorm. The couple then exchanged virginities in the Sorority's hot tub during the sorority's semester of play.

Before cycling around to play the dorm again, I moved that household into a residence. When I played them again, I noticed that "Very First Woohoo with Fiancee" was still locked on that character's Wants list, which I thought was odd. When I sent him on a date with her, they arrived at the lot, the date meter and a dialog pop-up came up, showing a Dream Date as if a date had just finished; then suddenly the meter crashed, pop-up dialogs appeared in which each character accused the other of dumping them for another Sim, and I was left with no date meter and two Sims squabbling about stuff that had never happened.

I quit without saving, took out every bit of custom content of the game just like it recommends in the "Do this before posting" lists, came back, tried again, and got the same result. So I went to the Sorority, where I found the fiancee coming home from somewhere and the same business going on with the date meter. Also, the fiancee was about a semester behind where she should have been and also had "Very First Woohoo with Fiance" locked. As far as I can make out, the game did not save at the end of the session in which the virginities were exchanged, and the date was never finished; although both of them have "dream date" in the proper place in their memories.

Is that the most likely reason for this, and what can I do to fix it? I've closed without saving and it looks like I'll have the time it takes for the taxi to let them out to act in, unless someone can tell me a workaround or a cheat or tell me that it's such-and-such a tech thing. It creates a huge in-story problem, as it puts them mutually at about -100 for no reason whatsoever and she's wanting to run back to her high school boyfriend (who is now happily married to her fiance's sister and just had a baby). I can live with them having gotten their semesters out of synch and I don't mind rolling with some unexpected drama, but this is huge and out-of-character for both of them.

It may or may not be relevant that two Romance-aspiration characters with triple lightning and an excellent relationship, living downtown, had a huge quarrel at some point between playing their different apartments. I presumed that one of them did something stupid while I wasn't looking during an outing they had during another Sim's day - certainly there was a lot of quarreling going on in the background during it - but now I have to wonder.

Last edited by Peni Griffin : 30th Nov 2010 at 05:04 AM. Reason: left a word out

I've had something kind of like that happen...a Sim will ask another on a date, the minute they get out of the taxi, the date bails and the date ends. Fortunately it wasn't a bad date...but it wasn't good. Heh.

Okay, this doesn't get less weird...

I moved the sorority to the Simbin, moved them straight back into the house, checked to make sure they were lined up at the curb instead of with an incoming date (and also confirmed that I'd lost a lot of progress - the senior who graduated and was in her 72 hour grace period is a senior again), then went back to the Alma Mater house and sent Gavin out on his date for the third time, with the same result. Quit without saving, went to sorority, looked at Naenae's relationships and mood. She was in platinum mood with a bunch of desires relative to Gavin, and her relationship to him was double lightning, 97/98, red heart, engagement ring; so I marched her straight into the house to ask him for a date, pretty sure it was futile but game to try.

He doesn't appear in her phone list. Not in pictures, not in list; not in alphabetical order, friendship order, or lightning order.

I am stumped; and I can't play either household till I figure this out.

In the play session that ended in this discovery, by the way, I'd invited Naenae over and everything went fine. But if I can't fix this I'll never be able to date them again and it throws a big monkey wrench into the whole operation, since all my sims' stories are intimately twined together. This sucks big time.

Whenever I've had sims not appear in the phone list it's always been because the game thinks the 'missing' sim is on the lot you're trying to call them from. There are various ways to get rid of them, I think the Lot Debugger from MATY would be your best bet.

I just registered at More Awesome Than You and can't figure out how to find where to download this lot debugger of which you speak.

I bought Sims2 in August when people were dumping them cheap on E-bay in favor of Sims3. I deliberately did not get into any fora and only recently (when I got completely fed up of not finding men's clothes that look good on my favorite tubby sims or long skirts that aren't skintight) even succumbed to the temptation to download any custom content, so there's much that you take for granted of which I am ignorant.

I'm also trying to use the official EA site, but my experience when I tried to get them to help me with an install problem when I tried to load The Sims Complete after Sims2 came out (yes, I am cheap; my book budget doesn't leave room for buying computer games) doesn't encourage me to think this will do me any good.

It seems to me that there's a slight chance that, if the problem is caused by Gavin being in two places at once, the lot debugger will clear it all up, so I'm anxious to try. At least if I get the lot running normally again I can set to work to repair the breach or play out the consequences if I can't prevent it.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Lot debugger:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...topic,72.0.html

Okay. Did that, but it doesn't put up the options described. I tried "Force errors on off-world" and "on in-world," as the closest thing to "CLEAR OFFWORLD LOITERERS" I could find in the options offered. Have I got the wrong version?

On the theory that it may take less time to read the 48 pages of nearly incomprehensible posts in that thread than to get a reply here, off I go.

What the heck is "debug mode" and how do I go into it?

Some of the Lot Debugger's options are available only once you activate debug mode --> Ctrl+Shift+C to bring up a console window where you type boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true -- and false to de-activate it.

Well, that didn't help either; although this time when I went to "Nuke" in addition to the sorority girls the name "Celeste Rossi" popped up. I don't think I've ever even noticed a townie with that name, so I nuked her on general principles, not expecting it to help, and it didn't.

I think I've managed to get this question through the maze of the EA site, but I'm not hopeful about them doing anything but shrugging and telling me to play it as it lies and avoid closing in the middle of a date in the future. I think most computer companies fire all their old staff when they bring an update on line, so that no one backward enough to not pounce on the newest-latest-greatest as soon as it comes out will ever get useful tech support.

Emmmm. Are your games secong or first hand???

I bought them used on e-bay. Is this likely to cause a problem? The games themselves shouldn't have been modified, and if there were scratches or something physical disrupting the disk, wouldn't I have had something go wrong before now? I've been surprisingly glitch free (judging by the experiences of others) since August. This is the first thing that's arisen that's so bad I wasn't willing to live with it.

I had a similar situation once where a sim got stuck in his car going to a date. At the time I had no idea that I might even repair the problem. Eventually I just let everything play out. His date called and accused him of standing her up and I thought I would have to have him make it back up to her and everything.But then I sent him downtown for a separate outing and the date started.

But that doesn't help you. It sounds like the game saved with whatever error is going on so no amount of resetting will fix it. Did you ever check their relationship panel after the date to see if the relationship has actually been damaged? Maybe the relationship is okay.

If not you can keep looking for various fixes,but as annoying as it is you may just have to play it through.

Whether the games are first or second hand shouldn't make a difference. One thing to check is whether your game is patched. Go to the official Sims 2 site and download and install the patch for each game you have installed.

In terms of fixing this problem, if a patch doesn't work then you should probably check the Help section - there is an FAQ/walkthrough for when you're having problems. If that doesn't solve it then there's a Help forum to post in.

Oh, yeah, they were mad at each other! Still are, in the backup I made before I started fiddling with stuff (because I'm not all that tech savvy about the game, but I know about saving drafts!). I think it was something like -75%/-30% both ways and they both said the other was doing the dumping.

Believe me, I scanned every FAQ and procedural thing I could find, but nothing seemed relevant. I got a notice in my in box this morning saying EA had my question and would answer it within 24 hours, so I'm going to give it another day. If they or somebody here can't give me any hope, I'll reload the back-up and declare that she's bipolar with paranoid tendencies, and has gone off her meds. This can be made to fit with her behavior and relationships with both the men she's dated. She started as a townie; I hate them but sometimes the game forces them on you and she'd been working in well with Gavin's storyline up till this mess. So at least if something drastic happens to her I won't be as devastated as if she were someone I made myself or played up from a baby.

Hmm - Before I tried to take her on the first disastrous date she visited and everything was fine. I wonder if I invite her over, have her move in, and then take her on the date if it would still crash? I'll try that this afternoon. That would still mess up the sorority, because almost the entire membership except her is seniors, but since I lost a full semester there anyway that'll be a lot easier to play catch-up on. Come to think of it, the freshman who just failed to pledge did so because Naenae took a dislike to her, so taking her out means I can get a new member faster. And I'm not invested in the sorority as an institution anyway.

Thanks for trying. And remember - always save right after a date, or this could happen to you, too!

Yay! First, I downloaded all the patches and installed them. (Thank you, el flel. I don't know if that's what made the difference, but it couldn't have hurt.)

Then I went back to the sorority, and Naenae still couldn't call him. So, quit without saving, back to Alma Mater, had Gavin invite her over, a little interaction to make sure she's in a decent mood, invite her to move in, and she does. I tried to get Gavin to ask her on a date then, but it fell out of the queue and now I could look at her mood meter they were both pretty hungry, so I let them take care of some needs and by that time Gavin was way too tired to date, so I sent him to bed and had her putter around doing useful things. Other household members were about to wake up hungry, so I told her to make breakfast, but the fridge was empty. Okay, sigh, more delays, send her to the grocery store. (It's not much more time-consuming, and way simpler, than getting a delivery.) She gets to the grocery store, and voila - dream date bar appears. Gavin's with her. There's almost three hours left on the meter. Their motives don't scramble, so I fulfilled a couple of suitable ones, ended the date, he said they'd have to do that again, she bought the groceries, and walked home. By herself. This made me nervous, but she hadn't had to wait for Gavin to get up in order to walk to the lot, and when she returned - alone - I checked, and Gavin was still safe in bed. So I guess this was, literally, a dream date as far as he was concerned.

So I saved, then quit (saving again; I'm going to be paranoid about this now), returned to the sorority, and got nervous again, because Naenae still appeared on the loading screen. However, she wasn't standing at the curb, and Heather can still call her and Gavin, so whatever the heck this was, it seems to be fixed. The freshman who just moved in from her own lot, oddly, still has the "Join Greek House" aspiration on her meter, but if that and some jiggery pokery with how I write the story is the worst long-term result of all this, I can deal.

Now I need to do the "putting custom content back a little at a time" bit in order to fix a couple of students whose class progress bars aren't advancing, but that's a known bug with instructions right here on the site, so big whoop.

Thanks y'all! I hope you never have to deal with a mess like this, but if you do - that appears to be how you solve it!

I just got an "answer" from EA. It consisted of referring me to FAQs I'd already read. So, slightly worse even than I was anticipating.

I wish I didn't like this game so much, because the company is a jackass. But since I solved my problem myself (with a little input from you nice folks) I can afford to laugh at them. So - customer support that alienates customers!

This might be a problem with them being in a bad mood when they arrive? If the lot is shoddy it'll put their mood down, but even more likely is their need to pee. There's a MATY mod for this - can't remember the name of it, right now, but is is ace as it stops this sort of thing. I used to have an incredibly bad time throwing parties because the party would immediately move into the bathroom and people would start screeching and stomping because everyone was crowded in there. Anyway, yes, it may well be their biological urges (and not the good kind) getting in the way of them having fun. Find a mod to make them arrive bladder-empty and it may well sort your problem. Good luck!

Edit: Actually, having read it more thoroughly, it does sound like a bugged lot. Man, this game is tricky to play without it going beserk and crashing/breaking/glitching/mutating/exploding/getting hit square in the face by a satellite while watching clouds.

Naw, both lots are fine now. Comparing what happened with my current glitch (look down the newsgroup lists and see "joined but not joined...") on the frat, the game holds two versions of one sim in memory under certain conditions, and insufficient precautions were taken against user error creating situations (starting a new date while another was unfinished; joining the frat from a dorm while not quite departed after a frat party) in which both versions need to be active at once. These kinds of problems are inevitable results of using code this complex. The possible interactions of user/machine/code are too numerous to plan for all of them.

By taking Naenae to a community lot with Gavin-A while the date with Gavin-B was still open, I generated a false signal that Naenae had taken up with another (Gavin-A) sim while on the date, so of course Gavin-B was mad at her. Taking Naenae to a community lot by herself enabled her to finish the date with Gavin-B and return to Gavin-A peacefully asleep, neither of them the wiser. My husband says this was possible because Gavin is a time traveler. (CF the excellent book "The Time Traveler's Wife.")

Now I have poor Jimmy Phoenix-B trying to leave the frat to go home even though Jimmy Phoenix-A is a resident of the lot and doesn't have another home to go to. Fortunately, if I have to let him wander till he starves to death (and his motives are all about to crash, so it shouldn't take that long - he got stuck in the hot tub after the party was technically over, which is why I got impatient and saved before he had quite left the lot - I wanted to end the session before the actual frat boys got up) it will only affect a few sims, as he hasn't been around long enough to tangle himself up in my storylines. Since he's the only one stuck, I can just say he was hit by a car on his way to the frat, and play with the place haunted, his friends in mourning, and the frat in crisis because they'll be down to two members after Kevin's graduation party tomorrow.