Strange issue with NL strobe lights and Seasons...

[CynaraBlade]

Hi all,

I was wondering if somebody could help me shed some light (no pun intended!) on this problem I've been having since I installed Seasons...anyhow it involves certain community lots either taking forever to load, crashing, or refusing to load at all! I'm talking about Maxis-made community lots in the default downtown area in the NL pack, though I do believe the problem extends towards custom-made lots as well, and I know it's not simply a case of errant hacks or incompatible recolours sneaking in to the lot, as Maxis lots are affected.

I've been able to access some of the Maxis lots with no problems, such as Sims Gone Wired and the One-Twenty-Five cafe - the lots which seem to be affected are nightclub-type lots, mainly those with the Maxis hanging strobe-lights. Now, my brother has guessed there could be something defective about the strobe lights, and I'm starting to think there could be some credibility to his theory. It certainly isn't included in Maxoid Sam's list of known Seasons glitches, and for the record I'm not using any lighting mods in my game. I even took out some of the hacks I had installed, including J.M. Pescado's "Commlightson" hack, but to no avail. Has anybody else experienced something untowards like this?

At this point I must state I carried out an entire reinstallment of all my Sims 2 games before installing Seasons, and started my new game with a clean downloads folder (of course I added things gradually afterwards, and made sure any hack I installed was not out of date), but I can't help but wonder why those Maxis strobe lights seem to be the cause of my lots not loading up at all. I've conducted a conflict scan as well - no conflicts were picked up by HCDU.

Any assistance anybody can offer would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[tylersada]

I don't know about the strobe lights, but if you are having trouble with lots such as the Greenman lot in Riverblossom Hills.  the more family members hack causes the game to be slow related to the plant sims.  I don't know if this is your problem but if you have that mod you might try removing it, which is what I did to solve the slowness and stalling issue.

[CynaraBlade]

No, I'm not using the "more family members" hack. My problem only seems to be restricted to any lot using the strobe lights from Nightlife - these lots either crash my game, take forever to load or don't load at all. There is no slowness and stalling issue on my end.

[Micco]

Can you enter the lots without a sim? (Like you were going to build it.) If you can, remove the lights and see if that helps. Alternatively, use the boolprop testingcheatsenabled true before entering the lot with a sim; it should enter the lot and bombard you with errors on the offending items and allow you to delete them.

[CynaraBlade]

I have been able to enter those lots in build mode, yes, but it's very much hit and miss - it either loads up or doesn't. But Micco, I'll gladly try out your boolprop suggestion next time I play, and I'll let you know how it goes.

***Edit*** Worked for me! I'm just a bit bummed out that I'll have to forgo creating lots with strobe lights for now, but thanks for your help!

[liverbird]

I have the same problem did you find a solution CynaraBlade

[Tenshii~Akari]

I have the same problem.  Did you happen to download the custom recolors for the strobe lights over at MTS2?  For some reason, having those files makes Seasons go crazy... well, at least for me it does.  :?

[CynaraBlade]

Nope, I didn't download any custom recolours for those strobe lights, and I still don't have a solution. I've just been switching on "testingcheatsenabled" as a workaround, until a solution is at hand.

Okay, I've been going through my logs folder to look for the object error reports, and the error seems to be "Attribute number out of range" for each of the strobe lights. Sorry to be tardy in getting back to you both!

Could somebody please try and make sense of these error messages? I've attached the error reports from my logs folder here:

[ATTACH]66900[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]66901[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]66902[/ATTACH]

[ancienthighway]

I'd like to say that I can't believe EA/Maxis would publish a game with code that doesn't follow the same path for every one given the same set of circumstances.  It's just not possible.  Or is it?

I just added Downtown to my PV 'hood, then sent one of my eligibles out to hit the hot spots.  Three places visited.  No problems with NL lighting on any of them.  The only thing I was able to gleam from the object errors were the names of the lights.  I'm running every EP except Pets, plus FFS and GLS.

When you had a clean DL folder, did you try running the game to see if the club lighting was working properly?

[CynaraBlade]

I must confess I never bothered to do so when I had a clean DL folder, but I'll try it out. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that EA/Maxis botched something though, as they're notorious for doing a half-arsed job on their EPs, aren't they?

[CynaraBlade]

Okay all, I'm sorry to be a pain in the ass and bump this, but I've scanned other threads people with similar problems have posted, and I'm betting on the problem being caused by a custom object cloned from those strobe lights which hasn't been updated for this EP. I removed the vast majority of my custom objects from my DL folder, as well as a whole bunch of hacks, and when I went to play the game before, the club lights were functioning as normal again! I switched on TestingCheatsEnabled, and there were no error messages appearing every time I went to place one on a lot or enter a lot with said lights.

Yes, I'm glad to say I've nailed the problem...for now. All I need to do is identify the culprit file, which will be difficult as I have a rather sizeable volume of downloads (3.7GB at last count, 2.1GB once I had removed the objects and hacks), but I guess all I can say is that I'll need to start gradually adding all my stuff again in an attempt to zero in on the renegade file.

Sorry if I'm rambling...I'm just a bit drunk right now! lol

[Auronette]

Gah...sorry about this bump guys and gals, but I'm having this same problem.

Cynara, have you had any luck in isolating the file that was causing issues for you?  I fear I have an even larger download file than you and was hoping that if you found your culprit, that you could let me know what it was as that might cut down the detective work on my part.  *crosses fingers*

[Tenshii~Akari]

^^ Same here.  I still can't pinpoint which file(s) start this error, and I finally found out it wasn't the re-colored strobe lights... :dontknow:

[CynaraBlade]

Nope, I've never had the recoloured strobe lights installed in my game. Quite frankly I've no idea how to determine which objects are cloned from what, so I haven't been able to isolate the problem file.

Auronette and Tenshii, all I can suggest is that you remove all your custom objects from your downloads folder, and reinstall them gradually like I did. I'm sorry if my suggestion doesn't directly nail the problem, but I have a whole batch of objects from Sims Connection and Simslice which I haven't bothered to reinstall in my downloads folder, as I've gleaned from different sources that objects from both these sites can cause the game to throw up errors. I also had the the "Out Of the Way" objects set from Caravan Sims in my game at one point, which I haven't reinstalled either as I'm guessing one of those signs could be the culprit file.

Somehow, it doesn't seem likely to me that a recolour file is the cause of this...

[Tenshii~Akari]

I've never downloaded anything from Caravan Sims, and I have very few objects from Sims Connection. (the medieval chair set and a decorative scooter)  

I only have four things from Sim Slice still enabled (pet fire, flaming suprise, and private school/public school entry "tests." ) but I'll check and see if they still cause problems anyways...  :?  *crossing fingers for luck*