WARNING to those withOUT last EP but use the Tree of Prosperity

jusMeh

Ticked off. Very.

I'll explain why I'm angry and how I fixed my recent game problem in case anyone else loses their mind over a bad case of 'lagging' caused by the most inane, stupidest possible thing ever - a case of lagging in this game that was caused by a SIMS 3 STORE ITEM, a single item that was NOT fixed or patched for EVERYone who plays this game. FACT.

Now...

Had this issue which took nearly 2 DAYS to even figure out exactly what had been causing it:

http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2013/11/sims-in-slow-motion.html

Don't ask me why this tree didn't cause me issues before, I do not know. Or maybe it did. Again I cannot explain this.

1. First I looked up how to use Nraas to 'dump alarms.'

Fix didn't work because said alarms kept firing over and over afterward.

2. So uninstalled tree of propsperity as suggested by Crin. (Also deleted script cache each time I had to re-start game)

DIDN'T WORK due to traces of the tree still in game. And YES I'd also uninstalled the separate 'fruit' file in the launcher as well as the entire tree itself! Deleted ALL caches!

btw those leftover traces were "orphaned simulator objects spawned by the "Tree of Prosperity" according to the Nraas site.

3. Used updated Overwatch mod. Didn't work due to Overwatch not finding the tree in game because the tree itself had been uninstalled - just not the traces it left behind, which were still firing those 'alarms' that were stalling my game and causing time errors similar to those in Sims 4, even! (time jumping around)

4. Had to install a CORE mod to fix it - Error Trap. Pathetic. It found over 6000 errors due to the tree on the game's start up. We're talking within a matter of a few SECONDS.

5. Supposedly there was an official EA fix for this stoooopid tree a while back, but it was a fix ONLY for those who'd also installed ITF, the ONLY EP I didn't have! So for those like me, I guess we were just S.O.L.? Is that it? Really, EA/xxxis? Wow. Is nothing beneath y'all? We paid REAL $$ for this! This was NOT paid for by watching ads!

I'd paid REAL MONEY for this garbage just so my game could go t!ts up at some point. Tree came with a $20 or $30 friggin' store world. Woooow.

/rant, and sorry if old news but it was NEW to me!
My game might finally be fixed, but it wasn't until I jumped through a hundred flaming hoops first. This is why it's beyond me why ANYONE in their right mind would trust EA enough to buy anymore of their Sims content (Sims 4??). I can't even... and this was not the only thing in TS3 that they 'forgot' to fix, as everyone knows. Yet they're promising to 'fix' this and that in Sims 4, their latest installment? Yeahhhh right. Sorrynotsorry at all (to the devs, whether they're overworked or not - if you're overworked to the point you cannot fix something that YOU are charging $$ for, then you best quit your 🐸🐸🐸🐸 job). I may get banned for saying this stuff but I do NOT care.

Go for it. I'm sick of their scams. I only wanted to inform/warn others who don't have ITF but DO have that tree installed in their games, and are wondering why the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 everything is going in slow motion all of a sudden. That is the ONLY reason I'm posting right now, otherwise I've mostly been staying the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 away from here due to... reasons.

Done. And this will also end up moved to either Store or Bugs section where it will die, and help absolutely NO ONE. I better stop now before I say anything else on my mind.... still VERY angry. There. Is.No. Excuse. Zero.

Edited to give a huuuge thank you to Crinrict for explaining this issue -on her site- so thoroughly and providing the solutions as well.

Edited again to thank Nraas's wealth of TS3 game FIXERS, as this game could very well be UNplayable -for some people- if it weren't for Nraas mods and those amazing people who develop them. And this is hard for me to admit, because I love this game so much, maybe TOO much, otherwise... never mind.

jusMeh

To get an inkling as to what I'd gone through just to find the source of this issue, here's a list of things I did and/or deleted from my game before I knew what the REAL problem was:

1. Filtered out every single type of animal in the game via Register mod.

2. Deleted tattoo chair and annihilated the tattoo artist to boot

3. Annihilated an awesome sim I'd just made not long ago

4. Annihilated/killed another sim I recently put into my game.

5. Deleted excess outfits from most sims in game

6. Cancelled paper delivery for every. single. sim. in my save game.

7. Turned off 'visitors allowed' @ most of my community lots.

8. Reset whole town via MC a thousand-and-one times to no avail

9. Turned off ALL moon phases except one

10. Turned off Pet Autonomy

11. Killed off 3 of my own created pets, totally annihilating a dead one that had been in the legacy forever.

12. Turned off Celebrity via Options

13. 'Dumped alarms' a hundred times to no avail

14. Bulldozed various lots

15. Evicted some families, saved to bin, then re-purchased their homes to reset them

16. Edited family tree which didn't work, so didn't save game (literally must've quit w/out saving and restarted game 20 times before discovering the actual, true problem, not counting the times I quit and restarted as I tried to solve the problem I'd found - deleting caches each and every single time)

17. Tweaked various lots, both community and household lots, deleting objects, spawners, using MC to purge objects and spawners, deleting sim inventories, YOU NAME IT.

18. Tweaked Overwatch settings a dozen times, literally.

19. Used various 'developer' cheats through the console window, such as purgegenealogy and cleanhouseholds - the cheat purgegenealogy really IS misspelled, btw, it should be purgegeneOlogy...

20. Annihilated twin toddlers (they were adorable too) from my legacy family, a distant relative's kids.

21. And I WAS going to have my main sim quit their job and then re-hire them again, thinking the sim's JOB was somehow bugged!

22. Deleted main household's basketball hoop, among other things I thought could be glitched

23. Messed with DebugEnabler's hot buttons settings to try and do a short cut to cleaning out any auto 'alarms'

24. Forced to download a core mod to fix the problem (but thank heavens it DID fix it)

25. Forced to uninstall an object I actually liked from the game, when it didn't even fix the issue at all

26. Was planning to use Nraas Retuner to edit or purge legacy ghosts from my game in case they were causing the lag

27. Forced to spend literally, literally HOURS on the internet to search for a solution/what the problem could be, when the solution was basically buried and hard to find (for me anyway)

28. Considered just deleting ALL my legacy tombstones (and I'm on Gen. 7! The longest legacy I've ever played in ANY Sims installment ever)

29. Considered starting a new save as last possible resort.

Ad nauseam. You name it. I did it.

And all because of a $20 or $30 store item that EA/xxxis charged real money for. Yeah, still irked very much. And I refuse to patch up to the latest patch (if that even fixes this issue) due to the newest patch being a PITA all its own. I DON'T WANT IT. For one I would no longer be able to skip the dumb launcher (so I've heard) and I don't want to be tied any more to ORIGIN, no more than I already am! I don't want the new patch to randomly delete any of my EPs or tell me to uninstall most of my Eps because EA/xxxis didn't know how to optimize their own game... No, just no. And I do not plan to buy Into The Future, it's just not for me. There was still no excuse for this nonsense; none at ALL.

And it seems funny they're having similar problems w/ Sims 4; could that game be having 'faulty alarm' issues as well?? Do these developers never learn?? Gawd.

Aaaaand now I gotta go in my game and try to undo some of the damage I'd done to it (and my legacy families) before I knew what the real problem was.

Karritz

The latest patch that fixes anything game related was either 1.67 or the one immediately before it. Patch 1.69 just tied the PC version to Origin.

jusMeh

hi @Karritz, I am actually patched all the way up to 1.67. If somewhere along the way that tree was fixed (for everyone), I didn't get the memo, lol. Trust me - I got the huge exception XML or whatever via Error Trap to prove it was due to the tree and/or traces left of it, plus I got exception errors via Debug Enabler's 'drop alarms' interaction on the civic center which also states the initial freezes were due to the tree, before I uninstalled it.

Plus, of course, my game is thoroughly fixed; there are no more freezes or lag of any kind whatsoever. Now I'm happier.

coco

Ouch, I would be pretty ticked off too if that happened to me. I'm glad you could fix your game and ErrorTrap is a really good mod to have. It will clean up your game and stop this from happening again.

bklienhart

I'm with you there. Having both Sims 2 and Sims 3 gradually devolve into god-awful horrible buggy messes is the main reason I'm not buying Sims 4.

JoAnne65

So EA pretty much sold you something that basically behaves like a virus. Hurray for EA.

igazor

Broken tree items aside, this game is notably horrible at trash collection. I don't mean the rubbish items our sims throw away, I mean junk data -- trash collection is a programming concept. ErrorTrap steps in and does this for us, that's what all of those seemingly redundant (in an otherwise healthy game) deleted items found, found items deleted, dereferencing, etc. logs that aren't really errors are all about. It's widely misunderstood exactly what the mod is for and what it keeps doing when those logs are generated, some players are annoyed by their mere presence, but many of us put up with all that activity happily knowing that otherwise our long-running games are going to get clogged up and become unplayable after a while.

Yes, it's a Core Mod, yes it shouldn't be necessary to require a Core Mod for our games to function properly, but many of us find that it is. As far as Core Mods go though, it's very well-behaved and easily removable should that ever be required.

KatNip

That mustve been horrible to go through! Thank you for letting the forum know, and I'm glad the issue is resolved now.

Pary

JoAnne65 wrote: »

So EA pretty much sold you something that basically behaves like a virus. Hurray for EA.

EA are also still selling the sundress in the Store that amputates your sims ring finger on the left hand
They absolutely have no shame, so this bug wasn't surprising to me at all.

The bug was supposed to have been fixed, back in the day in a patch, but again, unsurprising if it just still doesn't work. Half the game is bandaided to death.

1need4kaffee

Apologies for the minor sidebar, OP.

Pary wrote: »

EA are also still selling the sundress in the Store that amputates your sims ring finger on the left hand
They absolutely have no shame, so this bug wasn't surprising to me at all.

How was that again? An anti-marriage dress? Divorce is too tame. You want out, we whack your finger off! No pain, no gain! Which dress is that, so I can keep all my fingers?

Pary

It's this one -



Edit - I was just in CAS so I took a quick screenie -

JoAnne65

I think I have that dress and never noticed That's one very strange glitch

ciane

I remember reading all about the tree of prosperity problem and Twallan's statement that you had to have Error Trap to fix it because Overwatch could only clean up afterwards and not prevent it. That was when the problem was first isolated and I learned that coding from one save would transfer to another if you returned to the main menu to start another save or a new game rather than quitting and reloading. Like you, I prefer NOT to have a core mode, even a fantastic one; so I sometimes play without ET, but I can appreciate playing with it too. I didn't know that the patch that fixed this issue was tied into the ITF install. That's something I'll have to remember when lag comes up for others who don't have all the EPs.

I am very glad you eventually solved your problem and still have a legacy to play. Thank you for sharing your problem, attempts at solution, and final resolution so that others may benefit from your experience.