Tons of problems with Late Night

[sparky1922]

Hi Everyone,

I have been reading posts here and the problems I am experiencing are probably similar to what others record, however when people talk about mods and computer techs my eyes begin to glaze over because i need A-Z peel an apple on what to do. -)

I have Sims 3 and ambitions and despite a couple of glitches I managed to play those two games okay.

Last week i downloaded Late night and OMG i have never experienced so many problems.

My computer is brand new and up to spec for Sims 3 games and I only have windows 7 premium, microsoft office and these 3 Sims games downloaded. I play on medium settings and never had any problem till now.

I began with one female Sim in late night and turned her into a vampire, my first problem was her living in an apartment where she could not play any instruments at all in that apartment.  So I moved her to one of the houses over the bridge on the outskirts and things seemed okay for a while.  She married a human and had her first vampire baby.

Then I called for a butler!  It seemed that this is what made all my Sims become stuck on beds, my game started to freeze constantly and I noticed no mail or newspapers being delivered. By the time I realized it was the butlers, I had already dismissed and reinstated them several times but the freezing and glitching got worse.  So I dismiss the last butler and moved the family to another house, hoping that this would solve the problem.  I did not call for any further services and made sure I never needed a babysitter either.

Things were okay for a while.  I threw parties and had guests over to the new house, which never seemed to be a problem until my Sim has twins.  The freezing and glitching starts again and I have to reset Sims over and over, change the beds on a daily basis, etc, but are still Sims freezing and getting stuck.

This time I don't understand because I have not had a butler/maid/babysitter in the house.  I figure it may be the babies, so instead of having the pleasure of bringing them up, I cheat them to older schoolchildren.  Then, when they go to school, they walk straight back out again, and no matter what I do I cannot get that problem to go away. So I cheat them up to young adults so they don't need school, and I work on the family becoming a band together.

The 2 twins are now at young adult stage and all maxed their skills to 10 within 2 Min's (our time) of starting to learn.  There is still no mail or bills being delivered etc, they all still get stuck in bed no matter how many times I change the beds.  If they have a visitor to the lot, I make sure all guests are asked to leave because I read somewhere invisible Sims still remaining on the lot can cause these problems.

Then there were no mixolologists on duty when I visited the clubs, so I had to replace all the juice bars to get the mixologists back.  However, at Eugi's a Sim (NPC) is stuck in the lift and I used reset Sim to get him out so i can replace the lift.  It is not working, so I just don't go there anymore.

Also sometimes the lights or strobes already in the family property at time of purchase cause my whole screen to continually go around in circles if switched on. So I have had to remove and delete all of these on the family lot to stop this happening.

Should I be having so many problems here?  I cant blame my computer because it's less than a week old.  I downloaded all my games from EA, and the only problem I have is that windows sometimes says the launcher has stopped working then loads everything and the game anyway.  I don't have any CC other than what's in the games themselves or have bought from the exchange.

I read somewhere that if you move, you should bulldoze the lot.  But if I do that, how do I replace a property on that lot since that style house does not show up on my available lots/houses in edit town?  At this rate I would have to kick out everyone out in most of the properties just to get a few days game play before it starts glitching all over again?  That would sure reduce the population even further.

There is never anyone at the hotspot clubs, and I have tried searching the town as I heard they got stuck in certain locations but could not find any groups that looked like they were stuck.  My sim is a celeb 5 now but because there is no one around anymore there is very little celeb play.

At the moment I have to make sure my Sims don't try and go to bed, i search all night for a club with some Sims in it, they have maxed out there skills because of a glitch that gets them to ten within a few minutes and its really ruining a game.  I looked forward to owning and playing it so much, but I am tearing my hair out at the moment as I just cannot play the game.  So if someone could suggest anything I could try (baby steps please-) It would be so much appreciated.

Also I have a question about hunting:  on the odd occasion I have found a group of sims dancing in the grind club, but if I tell her to hunt they all rush out of the club.  When I have managed to find a sim and tell them to drink from them they always say no?  I have only found the odd sim at night walking the street where i have been able to befriend them and occasionally got a drink that way, but the whole hunting process like this is way too time consuming because of lack of sims around.  Is it supposed to be this way?

Also if I start a new game, will I be able to keep this family that I have spent so much time on?  And will they be able to keep their celeb status and all their belongings/friends/skills/etc?  I am just not sure how to do this as I have never encountered this before.

Also why do the apartment and community buildings show up in edit town but none of the houses?

Sorry the post is so long, but I hope you can help me with this.

I just want to play this game properly and have a good time with it  

Warm Regards,

Dawn

 

[Hosfac]

Whew, that was quite a mouthful!    I see you're having a good number of problems, so I'll address as many of them as I can.

The 2 twins are now at young adult stage and all maxed their skills to 10 within 2 Min's (our time) of starting to learn.

This is a common glitch with vampire children.  Thus far, there has been no fix and there is no way around it that I am aware of.

Also I have a question about hunting:  on the odd occasion I have found a group of sims dancing in the grind club, but if I tell her to hunt they all rush out of the club.  When I have managed to find a sim and tell them to drink from them they always say no?

I've never seen sims rush out of a club en masse when a vampire hunts, so I don't know what could be causing that.  However, the likely reason that many sims tell you no when you ask for a drink is because they don't know you well enough.  You don't need to be friends with them, but you do have to spend some time getting to know them before they'll feel comfortable with letting you bite them.  You may find the Charisma skill and the Attractive Lifetime Happiness reward helpful to this end.

You should also know that biting a sim in public has a good chance of causing a scandal for celebrities.

Also if I start a new game, will I be able to keep this family that I have spent so much time on?  And will they be able to keep their celeb status and all their belongings/friends/skills/etc?

If you start a new town, and you save it with a different name than your previous town,  all of the sims in your original town will remain unchanged in that save.  However, those sims will not exist in the new town, nor will any of the townies in the new town know them.  In effect, these two saves will be two different towns entirely.  Nothing that goes on in one town will have any influence on the other.

Then I called for a butler!  It seemed that this is what made all my Sims become stuck on beds, my game started to freeze constantly and I noticed no mail or newspapers being delivered.

Sims getting stuck in beds is a glitch that has been around for a while, although it's not extremely common.  I have no idea what causes it or how to fix it, but I am extremely certain that this is not caused by having butlers (I got this glitch once before I had Late Night).  However, in my limited experience with this bug, once it starts happening it seems to continue to happen.

No mail is typically the result of a faulty mailbox.  This might also explain why you're not getting newspapers as well, since the mailbox is a trigger for several things on a residential lot.  However, if your mailbox was actually broken, you wouldn't be able to receive visitors since this is one of the things the mailbox governs.  However, if you want to see if repairing your mailbox will help, there's an easy way to do this:

Go into build mode and move anything that is irreplaceable into your family inventory (anything like skill certificates, lifetime happiness rewards, and trophies).  Move your stove in there too.  Then go to edit town and evict the family (they will appear in a box in the upper left hand corner of your screen).  Once they're all out, change the lot to any type of community lot, and then immediately change it back to residential.  Click on the box that contains your family, and place them back in the house.  Changing the lot type will remove the old mailbox, and changing it back will give you a brand new one.

You might get a message that says that some objects are not allowed on community lots.  If you get this, go back to build mode on the lot to see if you've forgotten anything.  If there's anything left that you can't replace, move the family back in to grab these items and move them out.  If you can't find anything, simply proceed with the change, then replace anything that isn't there anymore.

Game freezes on the other hand are typically caused by full or corrupted cache files.  This can be fixed by deleting the cache files.  Here is a thread that tells you, in detail, how to do this.

I read somewhere that if you move, you should bulldoze the lot.

I have never heard this, and I don't do this.  And since my game runs without any major problems, I don't believe that it's necessary.  However, if you would like to try this to see if it helps you, there is an easy way to get copies of those houses.  Start a new game in that town, and go into edit town.  Find the houses you want to replace and click on them.  In the panel that comes up, you will have an option to "Save to Bin."  That will save a copy of the house to your empty houses bin.  If someone is living in the house at the start of the game, evict them first.  Once you have everything you need, exit without saving.

There is never anyone at the hotspot clubs

This is not unusual, unfortunately.  It seems to be the result of the game under-compensating for the computer hardware configuration.  Large groups of sims in one place can cause game performance problems.  I have seen a method for fixing this, but it's somewhat complicated to do (no baby steps unfortunately) and I wouldn't suggest that anyone try unless they are 100% confident with adjusting actual game files.  It's also something I haven't done in my own game just yet, and I don't feel comfortable posting something like this unless I have tested it myself.  Plus, it borders very closely on game modification (even though it requires no special programs to do), and I would have to discuss it with the administrators before I posted such information publicly.  But that's not going to happen any time soon, since I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with doing it.

This is as close to answers as I can give you.  I hope you find at least some of it useful.

[Juxtaposition]

Wow, that is a lot of issues.

I have used a butler in late night, and had no more than the normal amount of problems with them. (In that they continually made food until I locked up the fridge.)

Empty hotspots is not uncommon for me either, especially if the place has a bouncer, most NPCs can't get by, so even if they do show up they just get turned away.

It sounds to me like you're going to need to bite the bullet and start a new town, maybe load a new Bridgeport to see how it runs.  You may even need a reinstall, sometimes installs can be corrupted and redoing the entire install is tedious, but can sometimes fix a lot of problems.

One thing, I strongly recommend never using the Save command for Bridgeport, always use Save As, and enter a slightly different name (I use Dynasty 1, then 2, 3, 4 etc).  The only time my Bridgeport has ever gone crazy was early on when I was saving over other saves, it may be a coincidence, but I'm pretty sure I have one of the longest running functional Bridgeport at 38 weeks, so maybe not.

My launcher crashes when I load the game successfully also, ignore it, many people even bypass the launcher unless they want to manage downloads

Also, in order to keep your computer in top running order, make sure to use a defragmenter regularly.

Many people feel that deleting your cache files can help with long term glitches, google Sims 3 deleting cache files for the full information.  Deleting the listed files is safe, just don't delete ones it doesn't mention.

Hope any of that might help or reassure you, happy Simming, and welcome to the forum.

[sparky1922]

HI Juxta (I think you mentioned in your post somewhere that this is your preferred name if not apologies in advace)

Thank you Hosfac,

Thanks to both for welcoming me to the forums and thank you for so much information and speedy responses from you both.

I am going to print out your posts and try go through one issue at a time to see what I can achieve as I absolutely love this expansion pack and waited ages to get it until I got a new computer so when all the glitches began to occur it has driven me mental for the last couple of days -) The  current disappointment factor has been enormous

Another glitch that began today was when I was clicking on the vamp bed to make my Sim go to bed and it states the bed is in use by a Sim when the Sim is elsewhere? Have you any experience of that?

it is also nice to read the forums here to gain an idea of what is going on and see so many other simmers as my non playing Sims friends have no understanding of how we can get addicted to our games until they see themselves in my games haha

Once again thanks for your help and I will let you know how it goes.

Warm Regards

Dawn

[Pam]

Hi Dawn.

In addition to what the others have suggested, my best advice is to start a new game.  It sounds to me that your current game file is corrupted a great deal.  If you'd like to save your family to play in a new game, go into Edit Town and click on their house.  You can save them to your library (bin) both with and without the house.  When you start a new game, go into your library of Sim families, select your family, and place them in the town, then make them your active household.  They will still have all the money and skills from the other game.  If you want to place them with the house and in the same original location, you'll need to bulldoze the lot in the current game to make a space to place the family and house.  If the problem indeed is a corrupt game file, you should be able to now play your family fairly smoothly.  Some of your other issues are part of gameplay, so if you still have the same problems, post again and we'll help you with the actual gameplay.

[sparky1922]

Thank you Pam,

I  think I may have to do what you suggest.

I have only just downloaded the game recently from EA (my other games Sims 3 and ambitions are also downloaded from EA) Do you think I need to download late night from EA again? or just start a new game as I have had these problems almost from the original download date?

Warm Regards

Dawn

[Pam]

Thank you Pam,

I  think I may have to do what you suggest.

I have only just downloaded the game recently from EA (my other games Sims 3 and ambitions are also downloaded from EA) Do you think I need to download late night from EA again? or just start a new game as I have had these problems almost from the original download date?

Warm Regards

Dawn

If you've only been playing the one game file since you installed Late Night, I suggest that you try starting a new game before bothering with a reinstall.  If it keeps doing the same things in every game you start, then it would be time to look at something else.

[sparky1922]

Hi Pam,

I managed to save my family to the library and then place them in a new game and so far so good, however it was okay for several days last time so the jury is still out -) If it all starts again I will go for the reinstall.

Also whilst I don't usually add CC or mods to my game I have been in search of something that can give my vampire Sims the option to drink from anyone they like without having to be friends, have you any experience/knowledge or advice on such a mod.

Warm Regards

Dawn

[Pam]

Also whilst I don't usually add CC or mods to my game I have been in search of something that can give my vampire Sims the option to drink from anyone they like without having to be friends, have you any experience/knowledge or advice on such a mod.

I'm afraid we can't help you with this.  It's a strict Forum policy that we don't discuss specific mods or provide links.  They are quite dangerous to your game and often cause a great deal of trouble.

[sparky1922]

Shh okay Thanks for that Pam,

I just soooooooooo want my vamps not to have to ask for their drink lol

Regards

Dawn

[samoht04]

The Higher the Charisma Skill the more boost it gives on a Relationship when you meet a Sim for the first time. Completing a few of the Skill Challenges can really boost it. One of my Sims got to Level 6 and had most of the Challenges complete and everytime he met someone new it was instant friends.

[Hosfac]

The Higher the Charisma Skill the more boost it gives on a Relationship when you meet a Sim for the first time. Completing a few of the Skill Challenges can really boost it. One of my Sims got to Level 6 and had most of the Challenges complete and everytime he met someone new it was instant friends.

Learning the Charisma skill, meeting 25 people, and buying the "Attractive" Lifetime Happiness Reward will have you drinking from random strangers almost immediately.

Kind of like that old saying:  "You had me at 'hello.' " 

[sparky1922]

Thanks for that extra info,

I will concentrate more on the skills and challenges I am just so obsessed with bands and music playing extras at the moment so I suppose I wanted I just wanted to be lazy 

Warm Regards

Dawn

[sparky1922]

Hi Pam,

I did start a new game of late night as you suggested but some of the glitches came back 

I also downloaded that beautiful new sunset valley world and installed my bridgeport family into it and spent several hours really enjoying that today until the Sims got stuck on beds again, the vamp beds and the normal Sim ones.

some Sims will reset but others remain stuck in their beds?? also when i try to delete a bed to replace it with a new one it states that the object cant be moved as the Sim is still in it when it isn't.

so I think I will have to go into a reinstall and just wondered if I delete it from my EA launcher and then download from the same site is that how to do it?? (I dont have discs I downloaded all my games from EA thinking a digital download could not be corrupted ??)

I was also thinking of trying to save the family because I have spent so much time on them but wondered if they too would be corrupted because It all seems to be coming from the initial download of late night.

I presume too that I will have to delete the new sunset valley world as I installed the late night creation family in there too?

I am so disappointed having to start all over again.

Warm Regards

Dawn 

[Juxtaposition]

I don't think you'll want to delete them from the EA manager, I think that would make it harder to reinstall them.

You'll want to uninstal using my computer - programs - programs and features, it will bring up a menu, I would recommend doing a total reinstall of all your Sims 3 games listed, it's not normal to generate so many errors.

Corrupted installs are not usually caused by bad source data, but by the data becoming glitched or omitted when the data is transferred from the source onto your hardrive.  So it's as likely to happen from a download as from a CD.

Keep your save, there's a good chance it would be OK with a new install, at least I hope so, but make sure they're not the first file you open, just in case

I hope things work out for your game, it's terrible that you have so many troubles with it.