Can't Use Basement Stairs (Fixed)

[ZMan]

My sims can't use the stairs that lead to my basement for some reason. I remodeled Beau Chateau from Riverwood by expanding it and adding a basement, but I never bothered testing the basement stairs because I have never had a problem like this before. It is on a foundation, but I used a method to add contiguous stairs from the first floor to the basement without using any cheats. I used this same method in another house without any problems. I have tried deleting and rebuilding the stairs completely, clearing my cache, resetting my lot as well as building the stairs in different locations and orientations, but I simply cannot get them to work. The small stair section that goes through the foundation seems to be causing the problem because when I delete it and clear enough space for my sims to enter from outside the house, they can use the basement stairs without any problems. However, when I replace the foundation and the small stair section, I can not get it to work with this particular house. Is there anything else I can try to get this to work? Thanks.

Edit: I still can't get a contiguous set of stairs to be functional, but if I stagger the small section as MeestorMark suggested then it works perfectly.

[Twinmum]

Just a thought.. are the stairs directly under another set of stairs up to a higher level? There is a problem with stacked staircases, in that if they are not in allignment with the arrows on the block footprint, sims can not use the lower set. If this is the problem in your case, you will need to move one set so that they are not directly on top of each other. If you really want the stairs on top of each other, you would need to rotate them 90 degrees ie. if your stairs run north south and the block footprint runs east west, you need to rotate the stacked stairs to run east west too.

[ZMan]

Just a thought.. are the stairs directly under another set of stairs up to a higher level?

Nope. I've also tried building them elsewhere and facing different directions with no luck yet. I'll probably end up having to put them in the garage and putting a tunnel to the basement because I just can't seem to get them to be functional when they go through the foundation with this house.

[MeestorMark]

When you say they can't use the stairs, what is actually happening? Do the sims stamp their foot and have the blocked path bubble? Or do they climb the stairs all the way to the top and then turn around and go back down?

The first means the path is blocked for sims for some reason even though the stairs will place. The second is a glitch that can sometimes just happen with stairs and no one has ever really figured out why. The only way I have ever cured it for games is to save the lot to the library and then replace the lot onto another space that is rotated roughly 90 degrees in either direction.

Another option I have read that cures the problem for some people in the second instance, is to break-up the run from the top of the foundation to the bottom in the basement. They put a break-up, single tile space on the ground level below the foundation, then run from the ground into the basement. It doesn't give as clean of a look to me, but it makes the stairs usable.

I hope this helps. I find this to be one of the more annoying glitches in the game as it has messed up some of my cooler stair systems in builds. Lol. I feel your pain.

[ZMan]

When you say they can't use the stairs, what is actually happening? Do the sims stamp their foot and have the blocked path bubble?.

Yes, that's the problem. They don't seem be able to use the small section, but if I remove it and destroy some surrounding foundation, they can use the other stairs to the basement just fine. I might try staggering it like you suggested and seeing if that helps. Thanks.

Edit: Staggering the stairs worked like a charm, thank you. I was lucky and didn't have to demolish anything except for but one block of foundation to get it to work.