What I do is make a hood called "Lot testing", where I place new lots and take a look before they go in my main hood. Regardless of the results regarding possible corruption, I would recommend it.

I had to re-do my new hood twice because a lot I downloaded here was crazy un-even and completely borked the terrain. I was lucky that it happened as I was setting it up, rather than when I had already started playing. For me it is worth the tiny bit of extra hassle to keep my hood from unexpected surprises.

Is it too late if you've only opened the lot in build mode?

After we get all this information is it likely to help with finding a way to fix lots?

We really don't have any answers at this time.

IF a lot is corrupted and IF the corruption from lots can spread to a neighborhood, then the corruption might occur at any of the following:

- When the lot is added to the neighborhood. This is when occupied lots corrupt the neighborhood.
- When the lot is edited (in build mode). This is when a lot with missing Maxis Monkey objects will crash and possibly corrupt your game.
- When a sim moves into the lot. This is when the reference to the TemplatePerson is created.

If you are concerned, the best thing is to avoid downloading lots. I don't know of any way to ensure that a lot was not previously occupied. Of course, you can ask the creator whether the lot was ever occupied. For example, I do not share previously-occupied lots.

If you are concerned, but you want to download lots, the next best option is to install the lot into a temporary or test neighborhood, then remake the lot from scratch in a permanent neighborhood. Package the lot before any sims move in and always use that never-occupied lot when you need a new copy.

If you are concerned, but you want to download and use those downloaded lots, then I believe that you are safest to:
- Ensure that you do not have the "lightly furnished house" mod installed.
- Use the Clean Installer to remove the furniture. We know that furniture retains references to sims.
- Install the lot into a temporary neighborhood, preferably one without any sims at all.
- Delete the original lot in the Lot Bin, so that we don't get confused.
- You might want to consider using the LotAdjuster to fix several things at this time.
- - Flatten the edges of the lot.
- - Remove unused terrain paints.
- Edit the lot.
- Add the Stay-Things Fixer to the lot and then remove it. This will reset any previous use of the Stay-Things Shrub or "lightly furnished house" mod.
- Save the lot. Tests made in this thread tell us that this will remove the spawning of the TemplatePerson. We also know from previous experience that this will reset some of the lot controllers.
- Package the lot and use the Clean Installer to install the lot into your Lot Bin again.
This copy will be as safe as we currently know how to make it.

That's the ultimate goal. Determine whether it's unsafe. If so, determine whether there's some way to make it safe. If so, write whatever tutorials or programs are necessary.

I've downloaded far too many lots to rebuild them all. I guess I'll just have to avoid the obviously lived in ones and take my chances.

I intend to backup my new neighbourhood before I move any sims in, so hopefully I can return to that if I get problems.

I got my game mostly setup and I started a hood to help testing this, but I wanted to double check something before I get started. I'm not using completely empty templates, and hood checker finds some stuff (memories) related to the three family bin families that I end up with. Would that interfere with testing, or is it alright?

Um in regards to what I mentioned about the neighborhood folder of mine not having relations, but the lot package having relations...apparently it had to do with HoodChecker removing relationships from the neighborhood package file. However, the relations from the Lot package weren't removed. So, maybe HoodChecker should be searching for the relationships in the Lot packages too, if indeed the Sim relationships are embedded with the Lot packages.

EDIT: Never mind, testing still in process, may have mixed the two control neighborhoods.

I've attached a log with the actions done for the testing. So far, the experiments done were the following:
1. Creating two new neighborhoods (Test Hood A, and Test Hood B), both with same 'NeighborhoodTemplate' folder renaming/parameters (see below in the middle for the explanation)
2. Creating a Test Lot Template in Hood A using a specific set of objects in the home (mentioned in the text file).
3. Loading, then exiting the neighborhood from game start-up to closing
4. Packaging the Test Lot Template
5. Sending the Test Lot Template to family bin
6. Installing the Test Lot Template from Clean Installer, then from bin into neighborhood (with previous lot still in the neighborhood)
7. Creating A Sim, using BodyShop template figure, then exiting game
8. Loading, then exiting the neighborhood from game start-up to closing (again)
9. Clicking Sim from family bin, then closing the game
10. Placing the Sim into the house, running game for 24 in-game hours AND taking note of each action that occurred by the Sim (& any other Sims entering/visiting the lot)

So far, the test done were only for creating a neighborhood, and observing a Sim interacting with his environment in game for a 24-hour in-game period of time (using a template terrain downloaded here). I renamed all the "...TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate" folders from all expansion/stuff packs to "...TSData/Res/--NeighborhoodTemplate". I do have custom content installed in this experiment, all accepted/enabled. I have made back-ups for the neighborhood folders between experiments, have done a few attempts, made screenshots, & saved logs from HoodChecker for memories found (whether valid or invalid), if noted. The actions from the experiment were typed manually, and are found in the Text from the zip file attached.

1. I have not yet packaged the lot with the Sim active in it
2. I have not evicted the Sim into the family bin
3. I have not transferred one lot to another neighborhood (empty, no furnishings)
4. I have not transferred one lot to another neighborhood (occupied lot, furnished)
5. I have not transferred one lot to another neighborhood (empty, furnished)

EDIT 2: So far, I've been playing around with the Test sim, giving him the scanner gun, and raising his cleaning skills to 10 using the Sim Blender. The Sim found his fingerprints, A Cleaning Maid (with red hair and maid's hat?), Ron Humble (NPC, seen as a blank though bubble), the Grim Reaper (NPC, seen with hula wreaths on his shoulders), & Mrs. Crumplebottom (NPC). I'm starting to question if the gun scanner possesses relevant information. However, the instances that the Grim Reaper and Mr. Crumplebottom appear are from wall lights in separate rooms at their respective locations. In other words, if the Sim scanned the same wall light, the information stays the same as the previous scannings. Ron Humble's fingerprints came from this pink box set down outside the house. The test sim hasn't scanned any architecture of the premises.

EDIT 3: After using the scanner gun some more, perhaps the cleaning maid is the default first person for objects that the scanned gun detects (e.g. if no one touched it last)? As for why Mrs. Crumplebottom and Grim Reaper have fingerprints in the home? Don't know.

Good point. Perhaps the HoodChecker should be checking the individual lots.

Perhaps likewise with Clean Installer, it should remove Sim Relations from the lot if no one occupies it.

Or, if the lot is occupied by 2 or more people, the Clean Installer should remove all outside relationships for the Sims living on the packaged lot, and leave only inside relationships between the people living on the lot. I've noticed that by packing a lot, the package contains Sim Data for the people living on the lot and then several miscellaneous entries from sims outside the lot. That may be the 'Packager' trying to collect relationship data for the Sims outside the lot who knows Sims on the packed lot (in order to maintain relationship statuses). As for the tombstones...if dead sims have character files packed into the package, the dead sims probably still have relationships with and/or outside the family. The Clean Installer should severe any outside relationships not contained on the lot, I'm guessing.

Okay, off to bed, goodnight.

Should be relatively easy, now that I've got the logic for modifying packages working. Up until recently, the Clean Installer separated out the packages and moved them to the correct location, but never changed anything inside of a package.

Are we sure that it's completely safe to remove these? Are there other records which should be removed, for example: SCOR?

That's a major piece of work and probably won't be enough to stop the corruption that will be caused to your neighborhood. At the very least, you'd have to remove the OBJD for each unnecessary sim, the sim relations, the family ties, the memories, the SCORs, etc. We don't even have a list of everything that needs to be removed.

Basically, if we wanted to remove even just the Sim Relations from never-occupied lot packages, we'd have to do extensive testing to ensure that this was safe. Otherwise, you risk causing more corruption than the original records ever could. It's easy to suggest that I start culling things, without understanding what they're used for, but I'm not going to risk corrupting every single lot that's installed with Clean Installer from now on.

The wonderful thing is that I don't need to program anything for you to test this. Those records are easily accessible. Just delete all of the Sim Relations in your lot package and test; if it makes any difference (pro or con), let us know.

The reason that I'm cautious is that I've seen the results of just deleting things when you don't understand how they're used. A number of downloadable neighborhoods, both occupied and empty, were corrupted because people decided to remove unwanted sims by deleting their character files. Instant corruption of something that might not have been corrupted before.

Yes, I believe SCOR would qualify for removal too, since I've seen those generated when a Sim enters the lot (whether visiting or not, the Sim could be merely passing by from the sidewalk's ends). For example, I've done several lots where I consolidated every living Sim from Strangetown, Pleasantview, and Belladonna Cove to this neighborhood. I would even resurrect dead Sims and place them on an empty temporary lot, then transfer them to the new neighborhood. I would filter (from the Clean Installer) only the Sims living on the lot and the lot itself. I would save it, then install it for teleporting in the game. When the game starts, I place the lot in the neighborhood, then I exited the game. Afterwards, I check the Lot package file, and delete Sim Relations, and Sim Score files from the Lot Packages.

It wouldn't make sense for a community lot to have Sim Relations embedded in it, which my community lots have. If a Sim's Relationship is stored on residential lots, that's a different story, since in theory a Sim's 'portfolio of relations', so to speak, would be stored between that Sim in his house, and the other Sim living in their house.

So far, this consolidated neighborhood has lasted over a year, with one time I had to use a back-up, because I did a stupid thing with the sims teleporting bush downloaded on the Internet. There are no Sims who speak with gibberish thought bubbles, and no lost character data files. There are also no sims in SimPE with blue background color, especially from those at Strangetown. I just resurrect them from the Grim Reaper phone. They come out different, sure, but then I kill them off again in the new neighborhood, and send them to a cemetery in the consolidated neighborhood.

EDIT 1: I've been using the fingerprint scanner in this old lot from 2007 that I transferred to my consolidated neighborhood about a month ago. This is separate from the experiments I've been doing in my previous posts. So, I made pictures of what the Sim holding the scanner found on the consolidated neighborhood. I've taken a picture of 8 objects scanned, and found the Sims in SimPE that match the thought bubbled that pulled up. Afterwards, I placed the lot in the house bin (occupied), then placed them in this other neighborhood. Both neighborhoods got back-up prior to doing this, of course. I'm made my sims use the fingerprint scanner in the 2nd neighborhood, and the fingerprints got referenced to another sim instead. I think the scanning is irrelevent, in the sense that if none of the sims in the lot touched the objects, then the scanner will choose a sim from the neighborhood as the person who last touched the object in question. So far, I have not received gibberish lines or other corrupt thought bubbles.

Of course, this test corrupted the 2nd neighborhood, due to the relations of the sims not being entirely erased, but as I mentioned, I've made a back-up of the 2nd neighborhood, so no worries there. The corruption occurred when I placed the occupied lot from the previous neighborhood into the other. It created 26 character files. 8 for the people living on the lot, and 18 others that were references to sims from the previous neighborhood. That's normal, we knew about the effects of moving houses from hood to hood via house/family bin. The SREL entries in SimPE registered were only for the Sims living on the lot. There were 56 new entries. I've inspected the lot package that was installed in the 2nd neighborhood. There were over 3500 SREL entries, more than what the 2nd neighborhood had. There were 62 SCOR entries too. So, I haven't seen gossip with the 8 folks on this lot yet, will continue to observe.

EDIT 2: Wow, forgot that moving an occupied lot to the house/family bin causes instant corruption by erasing the info from that occupied lot family, but not the character file entries in SimPE! Thank goodness I made a back-up recently.

EDIT 3:Deleting the sim relations and sim scores made no difference to the sims I've tested in this other neighborhood. They retained their relationship statuses within the lot and outside the lot. After deleting the SREL and SCOR entries, I started up the game, entered the lot, then exited after 5 seconds. I shut the game, and took a look at the lot package file again. 7 entries for SREL were listed (corresponding to the 7 sims living on the tested lot). Then the same number of sims scores were placed again (62 entries before deleting, then 62 entries again for after the game testing).

Of course. References to sims are just numbers. The likelihood that another sim in another neighborhood has the same Sim Description instance number is very high. That's why this is a useless test. You'll only get squiggly lines if the instance number is not assigned. This is why I said that you should always test in the same neighborhood where the sim was created.

Moving occupied lots is particularly useless, since the sims will be renumbered when they are installed in the second neighborhood. The likelihood that all of your sims will get the exact same identifier in a new neighborhood is quite low (unless, perhaps, the neighborhood was relatively empty).

If you're going to test in a different neighborhood, or if you're going to test moving occupied lots, then you need to compare the Sim Description instance numbers of the two sims. Nothing else matters.

Note that I am assuming that the reference is the Sim Description instance number, which is much less likely to be unique than the SimID GUID.

I'm not sure that I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that deleting the SREL and SCOR made no difference at all, because they were just regenerated?

Have you noticed any benefit in deleting these records? Have you noticed any corruption which occurs if you just leave them? If not, then removing them is a low priority change at best.

I still haven't managed to get though the test results that you posted in post #56. At this time, I can see that you're doing a lot of work, but I'm not sure that any of it is useful. I got lost when you said that you put (what I assumed to be) a lot into the family bin.

Perhaps you could state what you're trying to learn and then summarize your results? For example:

Oh the point of so many small seemingly insignificant tests is to make sure that all the differences in neighborhood folders are accounted for, & that nothing else inside the neighborhood folders are missing/different. Because if there's a big difference in certain files that are not related to the actions in question (e.g. sending an empty lot to family/house bin should only effect the Lots folder, maybe the neighborhood package too, but nothing else), then there's corruption somewhere in my testing, and any further testing would yield false results. I also make so many back-up folders to keep the results consistent, and any need to go back to previous steps will keep the testing legitimate.

I was wondering why the same neighborhood was producing over 10,000 bytes difference originally. But then I found out why after step 100. So all those attempts weren't actually needed. Never mind, never found out where the extra ~10,700 bytes came from, but did find out that changes made in SimPE creates bytes. Then the bytes disappear when the game starts.

All that I've listed is just for confirmation that the tests are correct, and no corruption results in the matter.
What I'm saying is that there hasn't been any significance with the SREL and SCOR entries for lot packages. There's no correlation between the relations Sims have in-game, or the relation entries in the lot package. I can delete all the SREL and SCOR entries in the lot package, start up the game, and find the Sims still retain their relationship numbers. I don't know why it generates SREL entries, though. I haven't seen any degrading in the neighborhood (not from this test I mentioned, but from creating the consolidated neighborhood over a year ago). I haven't seen any squiggly lines from deleting the SREL or SCOR entries. I guess the benefit would be the lot package being smaller in size, which means less loading time? I haven't found a difference in loading time since my game already loads quickly, so I can't say how much time is saved.

I haven't reached the point of using the stay-things shrub to see what the corruption is for leaving furniture on the lot when the family moves out, then moving that lot into another neighborhood. That'll come later in the week, if needed. I always thought that the furniture disappeared from the lot because it was what happened when families moved from house to house. They take their furniture with them.

That's the test lot of mine. It's a Template Lot that started off empty, built for the first time, then moved to the family/house bin. I started with an empty neighborhood, then built that 1 lot, then i moved the lot to the family.house bin. I just wanted to take an accounting of where the difference in bytes were, to make sure that only the lot (and the neighborhood package file) was responsible for the neighborhood folder reducing in size, and not anything else.

I should have explained in the text document (at step94) that the lot being placed into the family/house bin is represented as cx_00000011, since I have 10 other lots occupying the LotCatalog folder.

I believe the important parts come from step 116 and later.

That's likely compression. I believe that SimPE defaults to decompressing any modified records. You can set the compression after changing a record, if you want to stop this.

I understood that only Buy objects (+ career rewards etc) contain Sim references, but Build objects - not. My question is what about locked gates and gardens with growing plants? I'm moving out all Sims in Veronaville and packaging their completely empty houses (tombstones somehow don't get sold while moving out, I had to sell them manually), but since many Sims were into gardening, their garden plots are left behind along with gates my Sims locked to stop strays. Now I'm thinking if it's still safe to package such lots and move into other neighbourhood.

At this time, we don't know where the sim reference is stored in the lot package, or which items contain sim references. You'd have to run some tests to see whether there are sim references associated with these things.

I'll bite the bullet and move it in anyway. If it goes boom, well, I'll deal with it My brain is all jelly from the heat here, no testing in such conditions is possible.

I just looked trough one of my binned and habitated lots with SimPE. There is a resource type with the abbreviation objt (object table?). It seems to contain lots of controllers - can't look into it with the plugin view, only the hex plugin. Sadly these objects aren't named, so you have to digg through all entries. But I found after a superficial glance the portals, social markers, some personality controllers etc. It might be hidden somewhere there. Have fun digging trough those.

Yes, the sim reference is undoubtedly in the OBJT record, although there are other records which help to define objects on a lot. The best references for the internal format of the OBJT record that we have are the LotAdjuster source code and the Wiki and a DOC file by Inge Jones in post #1360 of the LotExpander research thread.

My expectation is that the nID (Sim Description instance number) is stored in the OBJT record and that zeroing it out will remove the reference.

The two alternatives are to write a program which clears the sim reference for all objects on a lot, or to modify the Stay-Things Shrub to clear those references.

[Update:] This might be helpful to people. It's a debug version of the LotAdjuster which just prints out everything that it knows about the OBJT records on a lot. I'm just linking it here in case someone wants to fool around with it:
http://www.modthesims.info/article.php?p=1817546

That's just great. :/ Oh, why didn't Maxis create something like a reference list to store this information and not attached it directly to the objects? That would have kept the lots clean. e.g. move lot in bin/packaging it --> delete this imaginary reference list.

That's all I've got. My coding experience isn't very good and very basic. The best I can do is write a calculator or an three-dimensional array in C++. But I guess, if someone could write a programm which zero those nID out, might hit the jackpot. :D

Additional thought: you can assign ownershipment to car, right? And a car is an object on a lot. This ownershipment has to be somewhere stored in the lot file. When you search for an owned car and compare it with an unowned car, maybe you will find this nID. And then compare it with another objects. I don't know.

I have on my to-do list to try to find the sim reference in this record, which is likely in the approximately 400 unknown bytes in the final array, since most of the rest of the record is known.

It might be easier to find in an in-game BHAV mod, if anyone wanted to look there.

I figure I'll chip in that I am totally lost as to mostly everything written in this thread now, and I'm not sure what to do or how to help. I'd still be happy to do so though if I get clear instructions on what I should do, because I can probably do it, I just can't think of what needs to be done when I don't understand half of the talk.

You mentioned flamingos and garden plants Mootilda. I built a lot in a test hood that is full of such things, but perhaps it would be best to test one at a time? Should I do the same was as before, by comparing hood checker results when moving back into same hood, and then into another?

I don't like the idea of an other mod which runs among the game. I imagine that the game will just likely restore the deleted stuff, like: "Ohh, there is missing something. I better put it right back! *grabs magic wand and zing* (and yes, I imaging the game at that point being like a little fairy godmother, with wings and frilled dress and everything).

One question: what's with the stuff in the ObjectScripts.package. There are all LUA-scripts stored and some of them are very interesting. To what are these scripts it connect to? I've seen some consensuses to the file from Inge Jones. Could that show, what the other 400 unkown bytes are?

EDIT: Never mind. I figured it out by myself, that these LUA-scripts are the BEHAVs in plain text. Or better: corresponding with each other.

I don't know of any list of items that remain on move out, but I know that it includes architecture (windows, doors, columns, etc.), gardens (including growable plants?), and the wishing well. You might want to run a test first:
- Fill up a lot with one of every item in existence.
- Move a sim in.
- Have the sim plant the Seasons plants.
- Move the sim out without any mods, so that most of the objects are removed.
- Write down a list of everything that remains.

Once we have that list, I believe that the test runs something like this:
- Create a lot with items which are left when a sim moves out without mods.
- Move some sims in and have them "use" all of items in all ways possible.
- Move the sims out without mods.
- Move one sim in with free-will turned off. Give them the scanner and have them scan the lot repeatedly. If they find any references at all, then we know that objects left on the lot during move out can contain sim references, even without using the Stay-Things Shrub or "lightly furnished" mods.

That sounds like an excellent project for me. Requires no understanding of the GUIDs and BHAVs and whatchamagogs. Just good old documenting what happens. I'll get right on it =)

EDIT: It's kind of surplus, but I figured I'd do this right so I started with one category at a time from buy mode and work my way to the end of build mode. It's time for bed now, but so far I got through seating, surfaces, decorations and plumbing. No surprise that everything sold properly when moving out. I'll keep going tomorrow evening.

One question, do you think items being placed on something matters? Since all tables sold, anything on them would sell too, wouldn't it?

Yes. When you delete an object, the game deletes anything in that object's slots.