Why did these sims die of starvation?

[gjammer]

Cynthia and Henry were very happily married. Ninety percent of the time they were happy, playful or flirty. Their son, Skippy, was born recently and they were dutiful parents. Then, suddenly, they started neglecting their needs. Despite my heroic efforts to get them to eat they wouldn't consume anything. Their energy plummeted and they frequently passed out. The only way to get them to care for Skippy was to delete food from the action queue. Henry did manage to eat some cheese crackers but that's all he ate. Meanwhile, Cynthia played with her  tablet and Henry watched TV, on their own. Cynthia died first. Henry was grief-stricken. He died of starvation a day after Cynthia. I'm deeply puzzled about why they refused to eat. There was no adversity in their lives. Any insights would be appreciated.

[Tynynounours]

Do you have any mods?
What is the autonomy setting? High free will?

It seems odd to me they would do fun things if they have access to food and are starving. I would probably have locked them with the fridge and away from TV/computers/tablets.

also, it takes about 24h to starve, they should have time to fill their needs a bit.

[Playalot]

Was it the fridge bug maybe or the cooking bug where sims will continually start cooking something but not be able to complete the meal? Even with that sims normally help themselves to a Quick Meal. Honestly, sounds like a mod issue but if it wasn't, a quick save, exit and then deleting your localthumbcache.package file probably would have solved the issue.

[gjammer]

These Sims refused a quick meal more than a dozen times each. I was bummed out by what happened, but my other families are eating normally. I'd like to think this was a quirk of some kind not likely to be repeated. I saved the game 15 minutes before the husband died so I can continue to replay the last 15 minutes trying different things but I think I'm out of options.

[Playalot]

Did you try taking your sims to a different lot? Traveling through loading screens soft-resets the sims so can clear up glitches. You also haven't said if you are using any mods...?

[oshizu]

@gjammer
Starvation is one of the trickiest death types to achieve, so I'm also surprised that it's happened to your sim unintentionally.
In Pinstar's Legacy Challenge, one can score a point for coordinating a specific minimum number of death types so I've tried starving a sim a number of times.
Starvation is so time-consuming that I just skip that death type. Entering CAS or, as Playalot mentioned, traveling to another lot will reset the household sims' needs.

My sims will eat when their Hunger meter is low, even when the club has set "Eat" as a banned activity.
Once a sim gets the "Hungry" moodlet, if they go without eating another 24 hours, they'll get the "Ravenous moodlet.
If a Ravenous sim goes another 24 hours without eating, they'll die of starvation.

If your other households are eating normally, though, perhaps that particular household is glitched.
Did you create those sims yourself or download them from the Gallery?

[scoed]

I have had this problem a few years ago. Where my fridge was bugged so my sims would walk up to get food stand for a second then do something else and slowly starve. I moved it and everything was fine again. Try moving and replacing the fridge, stove and the like.

[oshizu]

@scoed
Thanks for reminding us that kitchen appliances can be glitched.
It's only happened to me after moving into a house occupied (or formerly occupied) by a premade household (like the Landgraabs).