Auto Water Sprinklers Won't Auto Water... Help?

[marta_wolf]

Ok, so my sim is super good at gardening through books. So I put in a sprinkler so she wouldn't have to water her plants. She tinkered with it via Handiness skill, and gave it the Auto Water upgrade which I thought was dandy... Until I almost lost all of my perfect plants... the stupid sprinkler wasn't turning on regularly!?!? So how can I fix this so I don't lose my crop?

[wildredchild]

A few things to try here.

1.  Purchase a new sprinkler and try upgrading that one.
2.  Level up on handiness skill and then upgrade the sprinkler again.
3.  Manually run the sprinklers yourself in the mornings.
4.  Combine number 2 above with number 1.

[marta_wolf]

Thanks I'll try...

[Jonna]

That happens to me too.  It has to be a bug.  Just wait until your sim has high enough handiness, get a new sprinkler, and Upgrade it instead of Tinker.

[marta_wolf]

I deleted both sprinklers, replaced them with fresh, upgraded them and now they work just fine... Thanks!

[Pam]

I think sometimes tinkering doesn't produce the desired result.  It was probably a faulty upgrade, if that sort of thing happens.

[Tiax]

I saved after I upgraded the sprinklers, waited a day, and the sprinklers didn't run.

I loaded the save, turned the sprinklers on and then off, and presto, they ran on auto the next day.

Or maybe it has something to do with loading the saved game... 

[Swede1992]

I for one never even bother with that upgrade since with the no bills LTR, there's no penalty for leaving the sprinkler running all the time!

[Pam]

I for one never even bother with that upgrade since with the no bills LTR, there's no penalty for leaving the sprinkler running all the time!

I've heard people say that many times, but I've never noticed that bills are higher if the sprinklers run all day.

[Swede1992]

I've heard people say that many times, but I've never noticed that bills are higher if the sprinklers run all day.

I don't know why we otherwise would have this upgrade. All I know about the bills that the sprinklers can give is that when all my hobo sim had was a sprinkler, he always got bills of 1 simoleon. And that ran all day long; I never tried with upgrading it.

[Pam]

How much were the hobo's bills with no sprinkler at all?

[Swede1992]

0 (he never got any)

The sprinkler was the only piece of 'furniture' he ever had.

[Pam]

And you never upgraded the sprinkler?  Now I wonder if the $1 bill was from the sprinkler or from running it constantly.

[Swede1992]

And you never upgraded the sprinkler?  Now I wonder if the $1 bill was from the sprinkler or from running it constantly.

That is the question. I didn't think of it at the time and now I've built him a large mansion when he became too rich to logically remain a hobo.
It would have been the perfect test to see if this upgrade actually works.