Sims Stuck

[leeana]

I've looked everywhere for a solution to this problem and hope tried all sorts of things to no avail.  I'm hoping someone might be able to help.  Please forgive me, i'm a complete Sims 3 noob, but I've searched enough of this forum and others to know that stuck sims issue has been brought up a number of times.  I just can't find a solution that works for my situation.

My teen sim travelled alone to China for 11 days.  The trip was excessively laggy, but I could not find any stuck sims there to reset, so I just dealt with it until the trip was over.  During this trip, i found Pangu's Axe, found the relic in the Hot Springs, and just started out trying to get full access to the Dragon's tomb before it was time to go home.

I got home, and my Sim's parents that stayed behind were stuck.  I've attached a picture to indicate what it looked like.  The pictures were missing from their thumbnails.  The default active Sim was stuck, (shown in the pic), and I could click on objects to interact, but she wouldn't move.  I could not click on her husband's thumbnail just above hers.

I could click on my teen sim that just returned from China and control her, but once I clicked on her, I couldn't go back to either stuck parent with missing pictures in their thumbnail.

Things I've tried:

1.  Resetsim (sim name) - no change.
2.  Exiting without saving, then loading the program up again to return home again - no change.
3.  Ending the trip early by phone.
4.  Letting the program send my sim home on it's own at the end of the trip.
5.  Evicting my sims out of their current home and moving them to a new home - I could evict them with no problems, and they showed up on the clipboard with no problems.  However, when I loaded up the game again, I believe they were still stuck in their old home (I couldn't find them, and their thumbnails were still unclickable and without pics).

Does anyone know a solution to fix this?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!
 

[leeana]

Sorry, I forgot to add:

6.  Tried clearing all cache files and restarting with no change.


Also, since I am such a noob, I have no custom content, and no mods.

[Pam]

Welcome to our Forum, leeana.

It's quite unfortunate, but it sounds like you've been struck with the travel bug.  I consider it to be the single most catastrophic bug in the game.  It's exactly as you describe:  one or more Sims travel and when they return home, the Sims who didn't travel are forever stuck.  Even more bad news is that there's no fix for it.  There's one more rescue that I don't think you've tried, and that's to retrieve your previous save in the game.  Sims 3 automatically keeps two copies of all of your game files.  To retrieve your previous save, follow these instructions.

I wasn't able to view the picture you attached.  It looks like you used the Attachment feature, which is for attaching files, not images.  You can use an image hosting service, such as Photobucket, or you are welcome to use our Gallery to host your Sims 3 images.  Click here for instructions and information.  This is the preferred method for linking images to your posts on the Forum.

I must compliment you on your excellent English writing skills.  Your post is very nearly perfect.  If you would make sure to capitalize all of your pronouns for "I" it would be perfect and much appreciated.

One last thing...  I'm moving this to the Technical Help board because it's a problem with the actual mechanics of the game and not so much a specific World Adventures gameplay problem.

[Leto85]

I got the exact same problem. Leeana, do you also have Generations installed? Because for me things like this started to happen after that installation.

[BellaClo]

Hello Leeanna and welcome,

You sadly seem to have encountered a large bug, which happens too often with WA's travelling.

There is a routing issue (= the way the game handles the pathing of active and inactive Sims) near the Hot Springs in China. Lags and freezes start after one of your Sims has visited the place a first time. This is especially true if your Sim is a celebrity and attracts the troop of paparazzi with him wherever he goes.

There is not much to do to avoid it, except not to visit the place. But it's already too late for you, and moreover it's indeed a tomb involved in the Pangu's Axe quest.

If you have a save in China, you can try "resetsim *". This will reset all the Sims, including your active household. It's only a temporary fix because the locals will always want to go back to the Springs once your Sims have been there.

Yet, from your post, it seams that your problem is bigger and deeper. You may not be able to recover your family after China at all. Do you have a previous save before they travelled there? If nothing works, this might be your best solution.

Bugs while travelling are pretty common. Saving often, and using 'save as' to give your saved files different names, is a good idea. I usually save before leaving, in vacation if required, and when my Sims are back home. And I also find that I have more problems when I have several Sims travelling.

Hope you'll find some solution with your Sims.

[leeana]

I got the exact same problem. Leeana, do you also have Generations installed? Because for me things like this started to happen after that installation.

Yes, I just installed Generations, although I'm not sure if I this was my first or second trip after install. 

[leeana]

Thanks Pam.  Sorry about the capitalization issues and messing up on posting the picture. 

Thanks also for the suggestion.  This was also something I tried - to use the backup file, but unfortunately, the backup was when my sim was still in China, so even though I went through the frustration of exploring the Temple of Heaven again, I still came home with the stuck sims.  I didn't have a save from before she left for the trip. 

[Noodles]

Oh, this seems to be happening a lot. I had this happen twice on my game. Last time I tried a little bit of everything just to see if anything would remove that stuck, portrait-less sim, and was able to get rid of it by splitting the household in Edit Town. I did not find a way to fix her though...

But the problem is, after moving her out of the house, it was a bit like an avalanche with the glitches... other bugs kept pouring in one after another (rest of the sims going invisible and back again, furniture glitching etc etc), so I decided just to delete that file. Since then I've made a new backup save every couple of hours just to make sure.