Racing Skill Meter stuck

[simfulicious]

My horses will not gain racing skill past a couple little notches on the skill bar, no matter how much I gallop with them, or how much they train.  I checked a different file that it was working for yesterday, and it no longer works there either.

Is anyone else having this problem?

[simfulicious]

Sorry to double post, but I solved my own problem and thought I would share.  Apparently, this is the same type of thing that is happening to some people with cats/dogs and the hunting skill.  First I cleaned out my caches and went back in...did not fix.  Then I uninstalled both the magic book and the fountain of youth, and now it works again.

The interesting part for me is that this worked fine yesterday, without doing anything, and now today it got glitched.

[Saltypaws]

I am having the same problem with mine.  First it works and they get a couple of racing skills and then it just quit.  I am having other problems too, but it is off topic, but I don't think I can even play the game for right now.

[Laurencius]

Other simmers are saying that it may be a conflict with the spell book. Apparently uninstalling the spell book and deleting the cache files has been solving the problem.  There's a thread about deleting cache files here: http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=463.0

[Jonna]

I had this problem with one file (cannot check the other file as it became corrupted somehow).  I do not have any premium content like the spell book or fountain of youth.  I did try cleaning out my cache files, etc but that did not fix the problem.  I decided to stay away from horses for now and try out dogs and cats.  Fingers crossed that the hunting skill won't bug out on me!

[Saltypaws]

I experimented and uninstalled, the chimes, fountain and spell book, went back into the game and all hunting skills and racing meter was fine, whereas before it was stuck.  So now everything is working properly.

[Gaelicsunrise]

I'm close to giving up.  I have a horse with racing stuck at level 5.  I've uninstalled the uber toilet, spell book, magic fountain, (i don't think I have/bought chimes)  deleted the package files and restarted the computer after each uninstall.  The meter's still stuck.

Any other ideas? 

Oh, I play with no mods and no cc which wasn't bought directly from EA.

[Ricalynn]

You said you deleted the package files. Do you mean the cache files and DCBackup folder?

[Gaelicsunrise]

Hmm, didn't deleted the dcbackup files - but yes, the cache.pkg files - except the user preset one, but the others, caspart; compistor, etc.  Those I deleted.  (sorry I'm not more specific, I'm not at home and don't have the folder in front of me right now.)

Will try deleting dcbackup files when I get home tonight.

[Gaelicsunrise]

No.  Deleting the file (there was only one) in the DCBackup folder didn't fix the problem.  The horse gains skill in jumping (which is currently below 5), but racing is stuck at level 5.  The rider gains skill in racing, the horse skill gain is static, stuck just below the threshold to reach level 6.

There's a worldcache folder, does it hurt anything to delete those files?  There's two hidden springs files in there, which was the world containing the (now uninstalled) fountain of youth.  Never mind, I found a post in the technical help thread which said it was OK to delete the files in this folder, so I did.  It's still stuck.

So far, I've uninstalled the ubertoilet, fountain of youth, spell book... deleted the cache.package files and restarted the PC.  (I don't recall buying windchimes, I couldn't find them in the installed objects so I can't uninstall them)

Racing skill gain still stuck.  Any more ideas?  I appreciate the help.

(On the bright side, the rider has gone from level 6 to level 8 riding skill during all this troubleshoot/test to see if it worked routine.)

[MaryMarsh]

This may be an out in left field suggestion, but have you tried ResetSim?

I have a problem with horses refusing to leave my lot, for instance when I want to race them. They move around and interract with other Sims; they just won't leave the lot. To fix the issue I use ResetSim.

It seems remotely possible it might work with this issue also.

[Gaelicsunrise]

Thank you, Mary Marsh, I tried that too with no luck.  But I appreciate the help.

When I get home tonight I'm going to look and see if I have any other premium content (since that seems to be what people uninstall to make things work again) left in the game to uninstall.  If not I'll chalk this up to the fact there is no work around for players and I'll just start another game, resign myself to being pokey racer, or sell the horse and hope the next one isn't bugged.

[simfulicious]

I'm going out on a limb here, but do you have that gumball machine thing that came with the arcade, because I think that has premium game content in it too, just like the fountain, magic book, windchimes, and toilet.  If you do, then try taking that out as well. 

[Gaelicsunrise]

Well, I did have the gumball thing, good idea.  I uninstalled it too, deleted the cache.package files, restarted the computer - the horse is still stuck at level 5.  Another horse's (same game) racing skill is now also stuck at level 5. 

I'm out of ideas.  Unless I start uninstalling barnacle bay, hidden valley, etc.  Thanks for the ideas, folks.

[Jonna]

I'm out of ideas.  Unless I start uninstalling barnacle bay, hidden valley, etc.

I wouldn't bother.  I don't have either of those and it's still stuck for me.  I have absolutely nothing special, no premium content whatsoever.  I don't know why removing premium content helped some people, and while I am glad it did, that does little to help those who have the problem regardless.  It's frustrating but unfortunately it appears that only time will provide a solution.