Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
TS3 + EPs & SPs - Known Glitches & Causes (all bugs in the first post) (please sticky)
Evil_One
Posts: 4,423 Member
This thread is primarily for EA so that not only do they know that there are bugs but also what exactly causes them in-game, I know others have started threads to report various bugs and glitches but these also require the TS3 design team to search through reams of code in order to find one tiny character out of place or something similar, so if people could also post what they think causes the bugs it might mean that they can release patches faster (or at least more efficient patches).
Could everyone please post whether or not they have the latest patches, I don't want to add/re-add bugs to the list that've already been fixed
Only report new or unfixed bugs if you have the latest version.
While this thread IS primarily for EA, don't let that stop you posting your issues (with the game not the thread).
Bugs Marked with -=? ?=- are supposed to be fixed, bugs marked with -/ /- and in bold text are confirmed as fixed.
To date EA have fixed 25 bugs on this list It seems there have be reoccurrences of several bugs.
1. Firefighter mission bug: When fighting a fire in a house where the occupant(s) have the brave trait(or other traits associated with fighting fire), sometimes they themselves will extinguish the fire this doesn't count towards the mission total and thus that mission can only end in failure.
EA how you might fix this is: Make the mission total fires require that there be zero fires on the lot thus it doesn't matter who extinguishes them as long as they're out.
-/2. Ye Olde Age Reset: pretty old bug that causes a sims age to reset if they receive a makeover or a tattoo, this is the same bug that used to effect both the mirror and the dresser... Presumably the same fix may be used./-
Additional: This has been reported by people who use neither CC nor mods so it isn't down to that.
3.-*Semi-fixed*- (It's still in there but isn't as long - at least not on mine) Clothes changing delay: I don't know how many are affected by this bug, but a sim can wait as much as 30-50 in-game minutes to change clothes (on time sensitive missions this can be a real pain)
Can be countered (sort of) by pausing the game for a while (strangely the duration of the pause is less than the game would've frozen for).
-/4. Sound buffer overload: Sometimes the in-game sounds can suddenly silence and after a while (although it can be a permanent loss of sound) a load of sounds will play at once and after that the sound will resume, I think this may have something to do with playing large amounts of custom music... It could also be to do with onboard soundcards.
Saving the game can sometimes cause this to go away on some of the longer incidents./-
5. Immortal Simbot: I'm afraid I have no idea what caused this (it could've been the result of experimental medical treatments or the occasional use of lifefruits, but I've previous ended up with a simbot who doesn't die from old age, even after other simbots made before the one in question have died from old age.
Additional:It has been reported that this bug can affect elders too.
-/6. Death seed: I'm not entirely sure if this is actually a bug, but a Death Seed (seed version of the death flower) is counted as a death flower upon the demise of the carrier./-
Not actually a bug afterall, Sorry EA.
7. Mailbox/trashcan destruction: A meteorite hit can destroy/disable the mailbox or the trashcan.
Possible workaround for ambitions players(Thanks Camkat): I found a work around for this. Just go into Edit Town mode and switch active households for a minute, then switch back. Upon returning, the mailbox should be back and usable and also the trashcan. (The meteor ruined both my mailbox and trashcan in my game)
Meteorites are so rare (at least they are for me), that I still don't know if this has been fixed.
8. Oh my god it's a...: Whenever a sim sees an occult sim (simbot, mummy or ghost) they immediately drop whatever they're doing (be that laundry, going to bed or tending to hunger need failure) and react to the occult sim in question, this can result in a sim starving to death, or peeing themselves and is REALLY irritating.
Additional: Extra fun can be had trying to catch deathfish in the graveyard.
9. Empty bookshelf: Unless a sim has the neat trait, no sims will replace books upon a home bookshelf, meaning that the bookshelf ends up empty and other sims aren't able to read the books... This is irritating with a single family member but can be really problematic with a large family.
NOT FIXED AT ALL.
10. Not THOSE Books: This is almost an exact opposite of the previous problem - A 'neat' sim will put ALL books away including career based journals that aren't transferable this can cause REAL problems for things like the medical career.
11. The Abandoned: NPC sims will leave toddlers (and possibly babies) on a commnity lot (I had to download Twallen's Supercomputer to fix this), This could be fixed by adding a check to see if there are any uncarried toddlers/babies belonging to the checked sims family on the lot and making them pick them up before they go.
-/12. No Relationship: Parents unable to build relationship with babies and toddlers (although I haven't encountered this bug a lot of others have)./-
-/13. Unchangable: This bug involved people going to 'Edit Town' to leave a bugged lot and although able to replace the bugged family they're unable to play it (the tick just goes grey and that's it), although I think it can be fixed by saving the game a warning box (you cannot play a new family until you save the game) or a fix would be better./-
-?14. No Sale: The children's baker stand is inoperable on community lots (unless you want to steal from it).?-
Not really sure if this IS actually a bug.
15. The war on tourism(with World Adventures): Many have reported being unable to find any tourists in Twinbrook in addition the tourists abroad are all FROM the place where your sim is located (Chinese tourists in China)
Additional: This has been reported in No CC/Mod games.
-/16. Going Olympic: Any sims involved in the Tag interaction with another sim will be permanently (excluding mods) be stuck running whenever the 'move here' order is given, while it does allow them to get around faster it is somewhat annoying./-
-/17. Glass of Milk?: Many seem to have noticed that some of the larger windows possess an odd milky tint to them./-
-/18. Getting blocked: The sculpting station will become completely unusable if a block is present when a copy of the lot is placed or the lot is abandoned (sims move out) and new sims move in (I think this may be some kind of strange ownership bug relating to the block)./-
19. No stakeouts: Sometimes on a mission which as the title implies requires a stakeout, the sim will proceed to the target lot and will begin the stakeout and then immediately cancel it, which makes the mission impossible to complete.
20. I won't live in this amazing palace (I mean squalor): Sometimes when renovating a room in the architectural career, it's possible to delete something the sim family needs without getting a warning other than "I won't live in this Squalor" even if the resulting room is an incredible luxury palace.
21. Family problems(with World Adventures): Many people have noticed that going on holiday in WA STILL causes problems with the family and/or the family tree.
22. You Can't Dig Here(with World Adventures): Many people have also noticed that excavating is no longer possible when sims are abroad (possible conflict with the miner functions).
23. Quite a performance(Performance issues are being reported in ALL of the new careers): This bug involves the doctor career's 'opportunities' and means that sometimes they aren't registered as working at all, get stuck and are unable to treat people or the performance bar jump massively up or down as a result of completing the opportunity.
24. You can't register(This bug has been reported with ALL new professions): The Ghost 'hunter' profession sometimes doesn't properly register a ghost as caught.
EA: This sounds like a bug with the task completion registry system as I've also heard of the registry problems in pretty much every other 'controllable' career.
25. 'Consigned' to failure: Sometimes the consignment store stops working (your sim will talk to the person at the counter but that's it.
Everyone this can be temporarily fixed by: Cancel a consignment already in action, this I've found will allow you to access the store again.
EA: This seems to be a problem in the consignment store buy menu system.
26. Vanish: A few people are reporting a bug where a sim will simply disappear, it's described as invisibility but it seems more like the sims physical appearance is being deleted for some unknown reason (the plumbob and thought bubbles appear on the ground and not in the air where they're supposed to be).
EA: This is caused by the game not loading in the sims physical appearance.
Possible fix: pause the game for a while (10-20 seconds) and see if people start appearing... When the game is pause the game doesn't have to keep updating sims and so can start loading in those that should be there.
Additionally: I have one report of a sim actually being deleted by this bug after attempting a save and reload.
-/27. Gnomeless: If you add a gnome to your lot, it will move around as usual nightly, but after several days, it will become invisible and stay that way. I have seen at least one screenshot of a sim examining a gnome (gnome icon is in the action box in the top left corner), but there is no gnome to be seen./-
28. Can't touch this: Well, this one has been the object of a thread on the forum so it's certainly NOT unique; It occurs as a result of driving to a renovation (when there is a car parking space available) upon entering build/buy mode to begin the renovation the sim car is automatically tranferred into the inventory, however the bug is that it gets stuck in the inventory and can become unusable, people have also been reporting that Camera's (most likely WA ones) also can get stuck after use.
A possible workaround(from Branr): don't drive directly to the renovating lot; instead, tell your sim to go to the SIDEWALK NEAR the lot. When you get out of the vehicle, drop it BACK home (move your camera home too). Now walk to the lot and renovate. Pick up your camera when you complete the renovation to take a nice picture for the portfolio.
-/29. self 'Maid' sim: When changing into work clothes (I know for certain that the investigators outfits do this) the sims picture is replace by that of a maid (in my case it was a maid wearing wraparound sunglasses)./-
30. Broken wants: I have seen a number of stupid wants for example my inventor sim wants to discover a new invention (despite knowing all the inventions that it is possible to learn) also I've seen simbots that want to take a bath... Either this is a bug or the simbot is suicidal.
31. Stupid behaviour: like most sims, simbots seem to have an addiction with playing with the sprinklers and while with a standard sim this is slightly annoying, with a simbot it's downright irritating as they automatically short out.
32. Frozen vehicles: Many have reported(and I can confirm) that on occasion cars can be seen frozen in front of different lots, these cars become unusable and create pathing errors.
33. The Freeze: On occasions the game can freeze for approximately 10 seconds although certain animations (rotating plumbob, smoke or stink clouds, ETC) will remain animated.
Additional: This bug may occur for longer than 10 seconds, this bug may also occur repeatedly.
DEFINITELY NOT FIXED.
-/34. Eternal Celebrations: When reaching level 10 of the new ambitions controllable careers, local sims can become stuck permanently celebrating./-
VERY temporary fix: Use reset sim on the 'hero' and it'll temporarily stop the celebration.
-/35. Aaah, Nothing's blocking my way: Sometimes when ordered to do something a sim will turn to face a wall and complain about not being able to path to the location, despite there being a clear path to the object in question./-
Additional: Some have reported this can lead to a vibrating sim bug.
-/36. I must complain from ALL THE WAY OVER HERE!!!(Related to the previous bug): Sometimes when given an order and the sims cannot complete said command even if what is preventing them (assuming anything IS) is only one square away, the sim runs all of the way out of the house and right over to the mailbox in order to complain that the object that previously was right next to them was blocking their way./-
-/37. 'Extinguished' Upgrade: The upgrade for the personal fire extinguisher can disappear upon household change, move or program shutdown./-
-/38. No Progress(confirmed bug): Selling inventions in the consignment store doesn't count as work performance in the Inventor Career, or any other self-employed career it seems (except painters)./-
-/39. The Reaper Resigned: This bug I think may be the result of getting the Grim Reaper to join a family with either the new patch or ambitions, the Reaper in question isn't replaced and this can lead to people stuck in death with no-one to give them a grave marker./-
40. Random Sim Reset: Sometimes the game will randomly reset the sim you are playing, causing them to instantly teleport back to the home lot.
Specific Instance(From MeestorMark):When visiting the graveyard in Twinbrook at night, there is always one ghost who will appear and then move over to the graveyard entrance. the ghost then goes to get into a car and drive away. My photographer sim is there to take pictures of ghosts. If I take a picture of this ghost while he is outside of the graveyard to get a wandering ghost picture, it doesn't register as such, and my sim is always teleported back to home. Related to a bug already listed on page one, but thought it might be helpful to list a specific occurance of the bug.
-/41. Placement problems: It can be really hard to place objects in build/buy mode, Windows & Doors rapidly flip between walls and other objects can ping about the lot when you're attempting to place them./-
42. Assorted Error 12's: A number of people have experience this and it seems to happen randomly whenever people use build/buy mode, CAS or make sculptures and given that this EP has professions which require one or more of the previous, it's quite a big problem.
Additional: I must say I've never encountered an error 12, I wonder if it is a reaction to a particular piece of hardware/software?
TS3, is hardcoded to use 32-bit memory addressing (probably why I have never encountered the error) despite the 1Gb minimum requirement (what the hell were the coders thinking?), if you have more then the 32-bit allowance (even if it's only 512mb more) it'll start causing problems, frequent saving is supposed to ease this problem but as stated by ZeekSlider how can you frequently save in the stylist career?.
Possible relation to bug 33.
43. Laundry Laundering: Laundry can sometimes be dropped 'Beneath' an object, rendering it impossible for a sim to pick up.
44. Stuck in Transit: Sometimes salvaged Item from the junkyard can become stuck in the inventory.
45. Cook a while, cook forever: Some have reported that on occasions sim can get stuck perpetually cooking although the cooking skill isn't affected and the meal never burns.
46. I can't eat THAT... It's got no mustard on it: I can confirm that even though there is a freshly prepared meal on the lot, a sim would rather make a new one than eat the available one, even if they've just prepared the previous one but were distracted before they could eat it.
NOT FIXED, I'm still getting this one.
47. No skill books(more of an oversight than a bug but still): the Twinbrook library has NO skill books meaning that if you want to learn skills, you have to first buy your own books and then read them in the library.
48. No credit: Rescuing Toddlers from burning buildings is not credited to the heroic sim, instead they just disappear.
49. Take a Picture of WHAT?: The photography skill is problematic, in the 'Home Sweet Home' Collection there is a requirement to take a picture of " .", apparently the object in question is a clothes hamper but it isn't listed as such.
50. In Dire Need: When moving sims into the sim bin as a household (from the neighbourhood) and moving them into a new town, some of their motives drop to almost failure level.
51. Lost Wishes: Some Ambitions based wishes are reset upon travelling so if you have the cook 10 perfect meals wish and you have already cooked 8 then travelling will reset it back to zero.
Additional: It has been reported that saving and exiting can reset the wishes as well(this can even affect Lifetime wishes, OUCH!).
52. The Reapers Gettin' Old(It must be a REALLY tiring job with the new patch): The Grim Reaper now for some inexplicable reason, can age; This could possibly be an alternative cause of bug 39. 'The Reaper Resigned'.
-/53. Trait'ors: The new ambitions traits are sometimes not properly read by the game this can cause the traits to disappear, the traits also aren't read properly by the exchange resulting in the ambitions trait being displayed as unknown./-
54. Positively glowing, where it shouldn't: The upgraded makeover station's glow will even show up if you view the floor below it.
55. Family Twigs: When the spouse of a sim dies, the dead sim is no longer in the family tree of the surviving sim if they had children it used to be the dead spouse would appear but would be greyed out, now however all memory of the dead spouse is lost and only the children actually remember their second parent.
I know the sims in TS1 used to forget that they'd ever got married and would marry again and I do understand the need for sims to forget and move on, but this is ridiculous they shouldn't forget the sims entire existence.
EA: If you're worried about it looking a little strange on the family tree just add new relationships for Ex-spouses (be they divorced or dead, it'd be interesting to have sims as widows or widowers especially if your sim has the Heart-breaker lifetime wish).
-=?56. Twisted: It's been reported that Children are using adult skeletal animations while reacting to the following: Taking a bath(and breaking it), being show the Banshee Banisher and the Oh, I don't feel well, I wish there was a doctor around medical reaction.
This bug results in the child sim being twisted temporarily to adult proportions, and looks really weird.?=-
57. Replicated(another oversight): When sims move away from a house (and take all their stuff with them) in addition to being able to put all their stuff in the new house, it's also still present in the old house.
-/58. Down to SimEarth(even on the second floor): Some have reported that although their sims can climb stairs (and do indeed go up them) they remain visible even on the ground floor... So you can see sims that are supposed to be on the second floor while viewing the first, also these sims when told to interact with something on the first floor, will act as if they're already on the first floor.
Alternate Explanation(From Love7680): I just loaded the sims and sent the mom to feed her son upstairs. When i clicked to go back down a level I was still able to see her upstairs feeding the baby. I then told her to do something downstairs and she went through the ceiling literally. So I sent her back up, I was still able to see her upstairs while I'm on the first floor, I had her do something else downstairs, and low and behold she did it again. Has anyone else had this happen and if so have you found a fix or the problem that caused it. And to make it more crazy when she's going from 2nd level to the first she still acts as if she using the stairs just doing it through air (walking down stairs) LOL. Very bizarre!!!!/-
-/59. Inability to change households: A highly obscure bug, that makes it so that whenever someone tries to change or save certain households the game remains in map view and the UI disappears, strangely this is caused by certain sims within the household.
This could be related to a piece of corrupted CC.
The only known and temporary solution is to quit using the cheats console./-
60. When is a piece of fruit, not a piece of fruit?: Fruit items caught via fishing are sometimes unusable (IE you cannot plant or eat them, you can however make pancakes out of some of them).
To date this is only known to affect flame fruit, but I'll keep it open for what is undoubtedly going to become a whole gardeners paradise of fruit & veg that cannot be used.
61. The laundromat that doesn't clean clothes?: Going to the laundromat doesn't actually result in your sims washing being removed from the hampers and cleaned.
62. It's hard to find good help these days: Some have reported that the Maid is NOT recurring, IE you have to call in the maid every day in order to get them to actually come and clean the house.
63. Having your cake... and selling it at the same time?: This rather useful bug is part of the architectural career, if you select a painting (or any sellable object in the inventory) and then select another, the previous one is sold... But isn't removed from the inventory and can be sold again, you can make quite a fortune with this one.
64. Solid platinum/Mud pension: Sims retiring at the top of the interactive careers, can retire with a pension that brings in sometimes over ten thousand simoleons, granted this may not be a bug, but that seems a little bit much for a pensioner... Solid Gold zimmer frame go!
Hmm, It's also been reported that you can have a massive negative pension... Poor devils, they work for all those sim days and then get looted by the people they work for, actually this one sounds somewhat true to life.
65. Grimmy gets a new do?: The resident town stylist will give non-active sims makeovers at random, this includes sims in business uniforms and the Grim Reaper himself... and while I must admit, I find the idea of a Grim Reaper in full dress and sporting a mohawk somewhat appealing, it can cause problems, namely it could be the cause of the Grim Reaper Aging bug.
66. I like you as a friend...: People have been reporting that their sims aren't progressing properly with their relationships, while flirting instead of going from alluring to very alluring, it can instead drop to 'okay'.
May be related to the Sim Reset Bug.
-/67. Job Reset: Sometimes when working in a rabbithole based profession, the work orders (meet coworkers, ETC) can reset to business as usual./-
NOT A BUG.
68. What's the big idea?: When completing the Master Inventor challenge the text box that comes up, says that your sim has completed 50 big inventions, even though the challenge requires 100.
69. I don't care about preferences: Make Preferred vehicle doesn't seem to stop the carpool from coming... What's the point of buying a car if your sim isn't going to use it?
70. Extreme Workaholics: I don't know if this affects some of the other careers but NPC firefighters (the co-workers of your sim firefighter) always stay at the firehouse and rarely leave... When they do leave it's at a time that is far too late to invite them over, and just what do we need co-workers for anyway? It's not as if they actually fight fires.
71. Ghosts... Going into the light (city lights that is): It has now been reported by more then a few people that ghosts don't always stay in the graveyard (I wonder if they go to houses so that the ghost hunters can have something to do?).
72. Whirling Simvish: A number of people have reported that their sims are for some unknown reason, spinning at random times.
73. Pictureless(World Adventures): Some have reported that a savegames picture can disappear leaving a blank square instead.
This is caused by having tents stored in treasure chests, still kind of obscure though (THIS DOESN'T ALWAYS FIX IT - however it could still be item in chest related - although what the Items in a chest have to do with the town picture is anyone's guess).
74. Job hopping: Sims can (usually only once they reach level 10 in a career) suddenly and without any reason change jobs, usually to a lower level and then can even end up unemployed... I'm sure EA with the recession on can understand how sims need their jobs
75. Family Tree'd: Some people are reporting that for some unknown reason their family trees become inaccessible.
76. Time Flies: A rather obscure glitch (the cause of which is unknown) causes sims to age up two ages instead of one, meaning that previously identical twins can sudden experience a massive age gap.
-/77. Showing no Favorites(Fast Lane Patch): A minor bug with the new Fast Lane patch, you can no longer choose custom music as a favorite with the 'Change of Taste' Lifetime Reward./-
78. Vacational Reset(World Adventures): Sometimes when coming back or travelling to a location abroad, you sim can lose completed skill Challanges IE the Mix Master Challenge in Nectar Making.
79. Broken in and gone home: This annoying bug in the Detective career, causes sims who have broken into a home at night to immediately go home, needless to say this makes it extremely difficult to dust for prints, ETC.
80. Reset to infinity: With the latest LN patch, the resetsim cheat not only resets a sim but also can result in the sim cancelling all actions at the same time as the reset each day, for example if you reset a sim at 4am, then the sim will cancel all actions at 4am each day... This doesn't always happen but when it does it is extremely annoying as cancelling all actions includes sleeping.
81. Depressed: An obsure glitch (believed to be because of the well rested moodlet) causes sims to be stuck in a low mood, and while depression is a fact of life for many people, it would be nice if this was fixed.
Workaround(From SketchElder):Save the game, go to the main menu, then reload the game. The moods should return to normal as soon as you unpause.
ResetSim might have the same effect. I haven't tried it but other people say it works.
Get a top-quality bed, something that gives 25 for the Well-Rested moodlet (30 if you have Over-Emotional).
82.DwarfiSim/GiantiSim: this is kind of an old bug, that was amusing at first but has become plain irritating... The inexplicable attempts by the game to use the wrong skeletons for sims, which results in sims either becoming compacted or being stretched.
83. Stuck Sims: It has been noted that the 'real' reason for the nightclubs always being empty is the sims go to a particular lot (usually the gym) and get permanently stuck there... This can lead to the afore mentioned empty nightclubs but can also be a real pain in professions that require people to be at a specific place at a specific time.
Alternatively I've noticed that sims can be trapped in underground nightclubs beyond closing time, because like the 'A simbot', there are whole groups of 'celeb' sims all reacting to each other, constantly.
84. Unprofessional: Bridgeport has many buildings which house multiple careers, however they haven't been added to the correct opportunity lists (including those from previous EPs), so there are opportunites calling for people to enter a building that doesn't exist as a single building (the corporate tower or town hall usually), or (with ambitions) the town hall hasn't been properly configured for celebrations to take place.
85. 'Driven' to extremes: It has been reported that autonomous sims are having their car spawn into their inventory repeatedly, so they end up with an entire multistory carpark in their backpacks... I wonder if they're related to Lara Croft?
86. Action Replay: An extremely annoying (and potentially fatal for sims) bug that causes a sim to repeat an action, until either the action cancels or the sim dies.
87. Generic bugs: I realise that technically, this cannot be called a 'Bug' but this game seems to have a bad reaction to almost every system configuration that exists, causing all kinds of different bugs for different systems.
Could everyone please post whether or not they have the latest patches, I don't want to add/re-add bugs to the list that've already been fixed
Only report new or unfixed bugs if you have the latest version.
While this thread IS primarily for EA, don't let that stop you posting your issues (with the game not the thread).
Bugs Marked with -=? ?=- are supposed to be fixed, bugs marked with -/ /- and in bold text are confirmed as fixed.
To date EA have fixed 25 bugs on this list It seems there have be reoccurrences of several bugs.
1. Firefighter mission bug: When fighting a fire in a house where the occupant(s) have the brave trait(or other traits associated with fighting fire), sometimes they themselves will extinguish the fire this doesn't count towards the mission total and thus that mission can only end in failure.
EA how you might fix this is: Make the mission total fires require that there be zero fires on the lot thus it doesn't matter who extinguishes them as long as they're out.
-/2. Ye Olde Age Reset: pretty old bug that causes a sims age to reset if they receive a makeover or a tattoo, this is the same bug that used to effect both the mirror and the dresser... Presumably the same fix may be used./-
Additional: This has been reported by people who use neither CC nor mods so it isn't down to that.
3.-*Semi-fixed*- (It's still in there but isn't as long - at least not on mine) Clothes changing delay: I don't know how many are affected by this bug, but a sim can wait as much as 30-50 in-game minutes to change clothes (on time sensitive missions this can be a real pain)
Can be countered (sort of) by pausing the game for a while (strangely the duration of the pause is less than the game would've frozen for).
-/4. Sound buffer overload: Sometimes the in-game sounds can suddenly silence and after a while (although it can be a permanent loss of sound) a load of sounds will play at once and after that the sound will resume, I think this may have something to do with playing large amounts of custom music... It could also be to do with onboard soundcards.
Saving the game can sometimes cause this to go away on some of the longer incidents./-
5. Immortal Simbot: I'm afraid I have no idea what caused this (it could've been the result of experimental medical treatments or the occasional use of lifefruits, but I've previous ended up with a simbot who doesn't die from old age, even after other simbots made before the one in question have died from old age.
Additional:It has been reported that this bug can affect elders too.
-/6. Death seed: I'm not entirely sure if this is actually a bug, but a Death Seed (seed version of the death flower) is counted as a death flower upon the demise of the carrier./-
Not actually a bug afterall, Sorry EA.
7. Mailbox/trashcan destruction: A meteorite hit can destroy/disable the mailbox or the trashcan.
Possible workaround for ambitions players(Thanks Camkat): I found a work around for this. Just go into Edit Town mode and switch active households for a minute, then switch back. Upon returning, the mailbox should be back and usable and also the trashcan. (The meteor ruined both my mailbox and trashcan in my game)
Meteorites are so rare (at least they are for me), that I still don't know if this has been fixed.
8. Oh my god it's a...: Whenever a sim sees an occult sim (simbot, mummy or ghost) they immediately drop whatever they're doing (be that laundry, going to bed or tending to hunger need failure) and react to the occult sim in question, this can result in a sim starving to death, or peeing themselves and is REALLY irritating.
Additional: Extra fun can be had trying to catch deathfish in the graveyard.
9. Empty bookshelf: Unless a sim has the neat trait, no sims will replace books upon a home bookshelf, meaning that the bookshelf ends up empty and other sims aren't able to read the books... This is irritating with a single family member but can be really problematic with a large family.
NOT FIXED AT ALL.
10. Not THOSE Books: This is almost an exact opposite of the previous problem - A 'neat' sim will put ALL books away including career based journals that aren't transferable this can cause REAL problems for things like the medical career.
11. The Abandoned: NPC sims will leave toddlers (and possibly babies) on a commnity lot (I had to download Twallen's Supercomputer to fix this), This could be fixed by adding a check to see if there are any uncarried toddlers/babies belonging to the checked sims family on the lot and making them pick them up before they go.
-/12. No Relationship: Parents unable to build relationship with babies and toddlers (although I haven't encountered this bug a lot of others have)./-
-/13. Unchangable: This bug involved people going to 'Edit Town' to leave a bugged lot and although able to replace the bugged family they're unable to play it (the tick just goes grey and that's it), although I think it can be fixed by saving the game a warning box (you cannot play a new family until you save the game) or a fix would be better./-
-?14. No Sale: The children's baker stand is inoperable on community lots (unless you want to steal from it).?-
Not really sure if this IS actually a bug.
15. The war on tourism(with World Adventures): Many have reported being unable to find any tourists in Twinbrook in addition the tourists abroad are all FROM the place where your sim is located (Chinese tourists in China)
Additional: This has been reported in No CC/Mod games.
-/16. Going Olympic: Any sims involved in the Tag interaction with another sim will be permanently (excluding mods) be stuck running whenever the 'move here' order is given, while it does allow them to get around faster it is somewhat annoying./-
-/17. Glass of Milk?: Many seem to have noticed that some of the larger windows possess an odd milky tint to them./-
-/18. Getting blocked: The sculpting station will become completely unusable if a block is present when a copy of the lot is placed or the lot is abandoned (sims move out) and new sims move in (I think this may be some kind of strange ownership bug relating to the block)./-
19. No stakeouts: Sometimes on a mission which as the title implies requires a stakeout, the sim will proceed to the target lot and will begin the stakeout and then immediately cancel it, which makes the mission impossible to complete.
20. I won't live in this amazing palace (I mean squalor): Sometimes when renovating a room in the architectural career, it's possible to delete something the sim family needs without getting a warning other than "I won't live in this Squalor" even if the resulting room is an incredible luxury palace.
21. Family problems(with World Adventures): Many people have noticed that going on holiday in WA STILL causes problems with the family and/or the family tree.
22. You Can't Dig Here(with World Adventures): Many people have also noticed that excavating is no longer possible when sims are abroad (possible conflict with the miner functions).
23. Quite a performance(Performance issues are being reported in ALL of the new careers): This bug involves the doctor career's 'opportunities' and means that sometimes they aren't registered as working at all, get stuck and are unable to treat people or the performance bar jump massively up or down as a result of completing the opportunity.
24. You can't register(This bug has been reported with ALL new professions): The Ghost 'hunter' profession sometimes doesn't properly register a ghost as caught.
EA: This sounds like a bug with the task completion registry system as I've also heard of the registry problems in pretty much every other 'controllable' career.
25. 'Consigned' to failure: Sometimes the consignment store stops working (your sim will talk to the person at the counter but that's it.
Everyone this can be temporarily fixed by: Cancel a consignment already in action, this I've found will allow you to access the store again.
EA: This seems to be a problem in the consignment store buy menu system.
26. Vanish: A few people are reporting a bug where a sim will simply disappear, it's described as invisibility but it seems more like the sims physical appearance is being deleted for some unknown reason (the plumbob and thought bubbles appear on the ground and not in the air where they're supposed to be).
EA: This is caused by the game not loading in the sims physical appearance.
Possible fix: pause the game for a while (10-20 seconds) and see if people start appearing... When the game is pause the game doesn't have to keep updating sims and so can start loading in those that should be there.
Additionally: I have one report of a sim actually being deleted by this bug after attempting a save and reload.
-/27. Gnomeless: If you add a gnome to your lot, it will move around as usual nightly, but after several days, it will become invisible and stay that way. I have seen at least one screenshot of a sim examining a gnome (gnome icon is in the action box in the top left corner), but there is no gnome to be seen./-
28. Can't touch this: Well, this one has been the object of a thread on the forum so it's certainly NOT unique; It occurs as a result of driving to a renovation (when there is a car parking space available) upon entering build/buy mode to begin the renovation the sim car is automatically tranferred into the inventory, however the bug is that it gets stuck in the inventory and can become unusable, people have also been reporting that Camera's (most likely WA ones) also can get stuck after use.
A possible workaround(from Branr): don't drive directly to the renovating lot; instead, tell your sim to go to the SIDEWALK NEAR the lot. When you get out of the vehicle, drop it BACK home (move your camera home too). Now walk to the lot and renovate. Pick up your camera when you complete the renovation to take a nice picture for the portfolio.
-/29. self 'Maid' sim: When changing into work clothes (I know for certain that the investigators outfits do this) the sims picture is replace by that of a maid (in my case it was a maid wearing wraparound sunglasses)./-
30. Broken wants: I have seen a number of stupid wants for example my inventor sim wants to discover a new invention (despite knowing all the inventions that it is possible to learn) also I've seen simbots that want to take a bath... Either this is a bug or the simbot is suicidal.
31. Stupid behaviour: like most sims, simbots seem to have an addiction with playing with the sprinklers and while with a standard sim this is slightly annoying, with a simbot it's downright irritating as they automatically short out.
32. Frozen vehicles: Many have reported(and I can confirm) that on occasion cars can be seen frozen in front of different lots, these cars become unusable and create pathing errors.
33. The Freeze: On occasions the game can freeze for approximately 10 seconds although certain animations (rotating plumbob, smoke or stink clouds, ETC) will remain animated.
Additional: This bug may occur for longer than 10 seconds, this bug may also occur repeatedly.
DEFINITELY NOT FIXED.
-/34. Eternal Celebrations: When reaching level 10 of the new ambitions controllable careers, local sims can become stuck permanently celebrating./-
VERY temporary fix: Use reset sim on the 'hero' and it'll temporarily stop the celebration.
-/35. Aaah, Nothing's blocking my way: Sometimes when ordered to do something a sim will turn to face a wall and complain about not being able to path to the location, despite there being a clear path to the object in question./-
Additional: Some have reported this can lead to a vibrating sim bug.
-/36. I must complain from ALL THE WAY OVER HERE!!!(Related to the previous bug): Sometimes when given an order and the sims cannot complete said command even if what is preventing them (assuming anything IS) is only one square away, the sim runs all of the way out of the house and right over to the mailbox in order to complain that the object that previously was right next to them was blocking their way./-
-/37. 'Extinguished' Upgrade: The upgrade for the personal fire extinguisher can disappear upon household change, move or program shutdown./-
-/38. No Progress(confirmed bug): Selling inventions in the consignment store doesn't count as work performance in the Inventor Career, or any other self-employed career it seems (except painters)./-
-/39. The Reaper Resigned: This bug I think may be the result of getting the Grim Reaper to join a family with either the new patch or ambitions, the Reaper in question isn't replaced and this can lead to people stuck in death with no-one to give them a grave marker./-
40. Random Sim Reset: Sometimes the game will randomly reset the sim you are playing, causing them to instantly teleport back to the home lot.
Specific Instance(From MeestorMark):When visiting the graveyard in Twinbrook at night, there is always one ghost who will appear and then move over to the graveyard entrance. the ghost then goes to get into a car and drive away. My photographer sim is there to take pictures of ghosts. If I take a picture of this ghost while he is outside of the graveyard to get a wandering ghost picture, it doesn't register as such, and my sim is always teleported back to home. Related to a bug already listed on page one, but thought it might be helpful to list a specific occurance of the bug.
-/41. Placement problems: It can be really hard to place objects in build/buy mode, Windows & Doors rapidly flip between walls and other objects can ping about the lot when you're attempting to place them./-
42. Assorted Error 12's: A number of people have experience this and it seems to happen randomly whenever people use build/buy mode, CAS or make sculptures and given that this EP has professions which require one or more of the previous, it's quite a big problem.
Additional: I must say I've never encountered an error 12, I wonder if it is a reaction to a particular piece of hardware/software?
TS3, is hardcoded to use 32-bit memory addressing (probably why I have never encountered the error) despite the 1Gb minimum requirement (what the hell were the coders thinking?), if you have more then the 32-bit allowance (even if it's only 512mb more) it'll start causing problems, frequent saving is supposed to ease this problem but as stated by ZeekSlider how can you frequently save in the stylist career?.
Possible relation to bug 33.
43. Laundry Laundering: Laundry can sometimes be dropped 'Beneath' an object, rendering it impossible for a sim to pick up.
44. Stuck in Transit: Sometimes salvaged Item from the junkyard can become stuck in the inventory.
45. Cook a while, cook forever: Some have reported that on occasions sim can get stuck perpetually cooking although the cooking skill isn't affected and the meal never burns.
46. I can't eat THAT... It's got no mustard on it: I can confirm that even though there is a freshly prepared meal on the lot, a sim would rather make a new one than eat the available one, even if they've just prepared the previous one but were distracted before they could eat it.
NOT FIXED, I'm still getting this one.
47. No skill books(more of an oversight than a bug but still): the Twinbrook library has NO skill books meaning that if you want to learn skills, you have to first buy your own books and then read them in the library.
48. No credit: Rescuing Toddlers from burning buildings is not credited to the heroic sim, instead they just disappear.
49. Take a Picture of WHAT?: The photography skill is problematic, in the 'Home Sweet Home' Collection there is a requirement to take a picture of " .", apparently the object in question is a clothes hamper but it isn't listed as such.
50. In Dire Need: When moving sims into the sim bin as a household (from the neighbourhood) and moving them into a new town, some of their motives drop to almost failure level.
51. Lost Wishes: Some Ambitions based wishes are reset upon travelling so if you have the cook 10 perfect meals wish and you have already cooked 8 then travelling will reset it back to zero.
Additional: It has been reported that saving and exiting can reset the wishes as well(this can even affect Lifetime wishes, OUCH!).
52. The Reapers Gettin' Old(It must be a REALLY tiring job with the new patch): The Grim Reaper now for some inexplicable reason, can age; This could possibly be an alternative cause of bug 39. 'The Reaper Resigned'.
-/53. Trait'ors: The new ambitions traits are sometimes not properly read by the game this can cause the traits to disappear, the traits also aren't read properly by the exchange resulting in the ambitions trait being displayed as unknown./-
54. Positively glowing, where it shouldn't: The upgraded makeover station's glow will even show up if you view the floor below it.
55. Family Twigs: When the spouse of a sim dies, the dead sim is no longer in the family tree of the surviving sim if they had children it used to be the dead spouse would appear but would be greyed out, now however all memory of the dead spouse is lost and only the children actually remember their second parent.
I know the sims in TS1 used to forget that they'd ever got married and would marry again and I do understand the need for sims to forget and move on, but this is ridiculous they shouldn't forget the sims entire existence.
EA: If you're worried about it looking a little strange on the family tree just add new relationships for Ex-spouses (be they divorced or dead, it'd be interesting to have sims as widows or widowers especially if your sim has the Heart-breaker lifetime wish).
-=?56. Twisted: It's been reported that Children are using adult skeletal animations while reacting to the following: Taking a bath(and breaking it), being show the Banshee Banisher and the Oh, I don't feel well, I wish there was a doctor around medical reaction.
This bug results in the child sim being twisted temporarily to adult proportions, and looks really weird.?=-
57. Replicated(another oversight): When sims move away from a house (and take all their stuff with them) in addition to being able to put all their stuff in the new house, it's also still present in the old house.
-/58. Down to SimEarth(even on the second floor): Some have reported that although their sims can climb stairs (and do indeed go up them) they remain visible even on the ground floor... So you can see sims that are supposed to be on the second floor while viewing the first, also these sims when told to interact with something on the first floor, will act as if they're already on the first floor.
Alternate Explanation(From Love7680): I just loaded the sims and sent the mom to feed her son upstairs. When i clicked to go back down a level I was still able to see her upstairs feeding the baby. I then told her to do something downstairs and she went through the ceiling literally. So I sent her back up, I was still able to see her upstairs while I'm on the first floor, I had her do something else downstairs, and low and behold she did it again. Has anyone else had this happen and if so have you found a fix or the problem that caused it. And to make it more crazy when she's going from 2nd level to the first she still acts as if she using the stairs just doing it through air (walking down stairs) LOL. Very bizarre!!!!/-
-/59. Inability to change households: A highly obscure bug, that makes it so that whenever someone tries to change or save certain households the game remains in map view and the UI disappears, strangely this is caused by certain sims within the household.
This could be related to a piece of corrupted CC.
The only known and temporary solution is to quit using the cheats console./-
60. When is a piece of fruit, not a piece of fruit?: Fruit items caught via fishing are sometimes unusable (IE you cannot plant or eat them, you can however make pancakes out of some of them).
To date this is only known to affect flame fruit, but I'll keep it open for what is undoubtedly going to become a whole gardeners paradise of fruit & veg that cannot be used.
61. The laundromat that doesn't clean clothes?: Going to the laundromat doesn't actually result in your sims washing being removed from the hampers and cleaned.
62. It's hard to find good help these days: Some have reported that the Maid is NOT recurring, IE you have to call in the maid every day in order to get them to actually come and clean the house.
63. Having your cake... and selling it at the same time?: This rather useful bug is part of the architectural career, if you select a painting (or any sellable object in the inventory) and then select another, the previous one is sold... But isn't removed from the inventory and can be sold again, you can make quite a fortune with this one.
64. Solid platinum/Mud pension: Sims retiring at the top of the interactive careers, can retire with a pension that brings in sometimes over ten thousand simoleons, granted this may not be a bug, but that seems a little bit much for a pensioner... Solid Gold zimmer frame go!
Hmm, It's also been reported that you can have a massive negative pension... Poor devils, they work for all those sim days and then get looted by the people they work for, actually this one sounds somewhat true to life.
65. Grimmy gets a new do?: The resident town stylist will give non-active sims makeovers at random, this includes sims in business uniforms and the Grim Reaper himself... and while I must admit, I find the idea of a Grim Reaper in full dress and sporting a mohawk somewhat appealing, it can cause problems, namely it could be the cause of the Grim Reaper Aging bug.
66. I like you as a friend...: People have been reporting that their sims aren't progressing properly with their relationships, while flirting instead of going from alluring to very alluring, it can instead drop to 'okay'.
May be related to the Sim Reset Bug.
-/67. Job Reset: Sometimes when working in a rabbithole based profession, the work orders (meet coworkers, ETC) can reset to business as usual./-
NOT A BUG.
68. What's the big idea?: When completing the Master Inventor challenge the text box that comes up, says that your sim has completed 50 big inventions, even though the challenge requires 100.
69. I don't care about preferences: Make Preferred vehicle doesn't seem to stop the carpool from coming... What's the point of buying a car if your sim isn't going to use it?
70. Extreme Workaholics: I don't know if this affects some of the other careers but NPC firefighters (the co-workers of your sim firefighter) always stay at the firehouse and rarely leave... When they do leave it's at a time that is far too late to invite them over, and just what do we need co-workers for anyway? It's not as if they actually fight fires.
71. Ghosts... Going into the light (city lights that is): It has now been reported by more then a few people that ghosts don't always stay in the graveyard (I wonder if they go to houses so that the ghost hunters can have something to do?).
72. Whirling Simvish: A number of people have reported that their sims are for some unknown reason, spinning at random times.
73. Pictureless(World Adventures): Some have reported that a savegames picture can disappear leaving a blank square instead.
This is caused by having tents stored in treasure chests, still kind of obscure though (THIS DOESN'T ALWAYS FIX IT - however it could still be item in chest related - although what the Items in a chest have to do with the town picture is anyone's guess).
74. Job hopping: Sims can (usually only once they reach level 10 in a career) suddenly and without any reason change jobs, usually to a lower level and then can even end up unemployed... I'm sure EA with the recession on can understand how sims need their jobs
75. Family Tree'd: Some people are reporting that for some unknown reason their family trees become inaccessible.
76. Time Flies: A rather obscure glitch (the cause of which is unknown) causes sims to age up two ages instead of one, meaning that previously identical twins can sudden experience a massive age gap.
-/77. Showing no Favorites(Fast Lane Patch): A minor bug with the new Fast Lane patch, you can no longer choose custom music as a favorite with the 'Change of Taste' Lifetime Reward./-
78. Vacational Reset(World Adventures): Sometimes when coming back or travelling to a location abroad, you sim can lose completed skill Challanges IE the Mix Master Challenge in Nectar Making.
79. Broken in and gone home: This annoying bug in the Detective career, causes sims who have broken into a home at night to immediately go home, needless to say this makes it extremely difficult to dust for prints, ETC.
80. Reset to infinity: With the latest LN patch, the resetsim cheat not only resets a sim but also can result in the sim cancelling all actions at the same time as the reset each day, for example if you reset a sim at 4am, then the sim will cancel all actions at 4am each day... This doesn't always happen but when it does it is extremely annoying as cancelling all actions includes sleeping.
81. Depressed: An obsure glitch (believed to be because of the well rested moodlet) causes sims to be stuck in a low mood, and while depression is a fact of life for many people, it would be nice if this was fixed.
Workaround(From SketchElder):Save the game, go to the main menu, then reload the game. The moods should return to normal as soon as you unpause.
ResetSim might have the same effect. I haven't tried it but other people say it works.
Get a top-quality bed, something that gives 25 for the Well-Rested moodlet (30 if you have Over-Emotional).
82.DwarfiSim/GiantiSim: this is kind of an old bug, that was amusing at first but has become plain irritating... The inexplicable attempts by the game to use the wrong skeletons for sims, which results in sims either becoming compacted or being stretched.
83. Stuck Sims: It has been noted that the 'real' reason for the nightclubs always being empty is the sims go to a particular lot (usually the gym) and get permanently stuck there... This can lead to the afore mentioned empty nightclubs but can also be a real pain in professions that require people to be at a specific place at a specific time.
Alternatively I've noticed that sims can be trapped in underground nightclubs beyond closing time, because like the 'A simbot', there are whole groups of 'celeb' sims all reacting to each other, constantly.
84. Unprofessional: Bridgeport has many buildings which house multiple careers, however they haven't been added to the correct opportunity lists (including those from previous EPs), so there are opportunites calling for people to enter a building that doesn't exist as a single building (the corporate tower or town hall usually), or (with ambitions) the town hall hasn't been properly configured for celebrations to take place.
85. 'Driven' to extremes: It has been reported that autonomous sims are having their car spawn into their inventory repeatedly, so they end up with an entire multistory carpark in their backpacks... I wonder if they're related to Lara Croft?
86. Action Replay: An extremely annoying (and potentially fatal for sims) bug that causes a sim to repeat an action, until either the action cancels or the sim dies.
87. Generic bugs: I realise that technically, this cannot be called a 'Bug' but this game seems to have a bad reaction to almost every system configuration that exists, causing all kinds of different bugs for different systems.
0
Comments
I submitted this to their Help section and they have stated they are working on it.
My advice is don't play the game through the launcher (it's that which connects to the internet), instead create a shortcut directly to TS3EP02.exe to play it.
Another soundbased bug I've encountered:
Infinite volume computer games: On occasions when playing the computer (games only) the sound from it will play at maximum volume all over the entire lot, without registering camera distance.
C'mon, other people can post too.
When a sim child gets on the bus the buss will take off and they will just re-appear on the sidewalk. I cannot click on the school and the lot the school is on is displayed as a park.
Upon thinking something corrupted the specific school object, I demolished the lot. I cannot place another shcool, the school is in the objects menu in build mode for community lot, but It is ALWAYS red and when I click it doesn't have a tooltip about why i cannot place it. Every other building [Town hall ect.] Can be placed.
Thus, i've had to download Twallans careers mod [I liked it anyway, but seriously]
I don't have any mods that affect schools so They aren't causing it.
ALSO:
I downloaded a "School" rug that is essentially a school building but it is functionless as well. Something is wrong with the schools, and It is probably caused by the teaching career.
I have dire problems with laundry.
When my sims have a laundry machine and thus produce laundry, they can no longer change to go to work or go to bed. Other people have thsi problem too, and It is most likley caused by the clean clothes moodlet, which NEVER appears after retreiving clothes from the dryer
After i get this massive glitch, the lot is corrupted and I cannot enter the lot from startup:
[What I mean is, I evicted the previosu sim, the glitchy one, and tried to place a new sim on the same lot. I canot, when I hit the button to play it jsut turns grey and never goes to the lot. RAWR.]
My sims will run everywhere for days on end and then stop for some unknown reason. And then something will trigger it again and it's back to the races.
EDIT: After reading some of the following posts, I've seen that this glitch is sometimes related to playing tag. In my game, however, this is not the case. I had a single sim living alone. She never played tag with any child or adult but one morning just started running for no reason.
The windows in my game are no longer crystal clear. They all have this milky haze/taint to them.
Parents can't build relationship with babies and toddlers.
Which annoys me so much! As a firefighter, you have to react fast and I always set things on pause when the alarm rings. So he changes his clothes, it takes 30 minutes to 1 hour (in-game) and he will therefore only get a B in his mission.
I also experienced @rodier1128's bug, with the school. My school is never in the game in twinbrook, but neither have I checked the other neighborhoods. Luckily my couple doesn't have kids yet, but I'm well nervous if they can't go to school later on. My Town Hall has also dissapeared, but it came back.
This can be fixed however with Twallans Debugger: http://ts3.tscexchange.com/index.php?topic=3857.15 once its installed, click City Hall, then Debugger then Options then Reset Walk. That fixes it.
(WARNING: This will also cause your ghosts to stop floating and walk normally (although they will still walk through things)
I'd love for my sims to walk places, but I don't want to download mods
I also have milky/opaque glass in my windows, but not all of them tends to be the bigger windows so i have a house with a lovely view but you cant really see it from inside the house???? its irritating.
Also a much more serious error. The save and quit while in the game will corrupt my save files or fail to save at all :shock: :!: I have to choose to save only while in the game then go to edit town then save and exit :roll: or just quit :?
A temporary fix is to go back into and out of buy/build mode.
Any sculpting blocks becomes unuseable after you place a copy of a house with a block in a neightbourhood.
well thats up to you of course
Personally, I just made a simple mod to stop them from Autonomously playing tag. Problem solved
And yeah "Oh My God it's a" is REALLY annoying. Stupid thing is, they even do it to EACH OTHER! My Playable ghost dropped his command, because he saw another ghost! ***? 1) He's your father, 2) He looks identical to you. Do you look in the mirror and go "OMG a ghost!"?
Another problem is when my firefighter character fought a fire (first one) he put it out but the game didn't recognise it was out. The symbol for the fire was still there and the alarm was still going off at the fire station but he couldn't do anything about it. When I clicked respond to emergency he did nothing and the queue item just disappeared. He lost experience though.
I still get Error 16. I thought that was fixed a while ago :?
I have the slow clothing change too. Usually around 1 sim hour.
Oh and the sound buffer overload. I don't have any custom music in my game.
I also have a problem with the books not being put away. As far as a neat sim goes, this is problematic only because if a doctor, they'll put their medical journals in the bookshelf which makes it impossible to know which one your sim has read and which one they haven't because they're all nested. I ended up, when an elder sim passed having a massive amount of medical journals in my bookshelf that I could do nothing with. Couldn't sell or delete them and because I had a full shelf with custom items as well, I didn't want to sell the bookshelf. Any ideas?
Architects career seems a bit buggy.
I'm sure as I play on I'll notice more of them.
Sims leaving toddlers on community lots (not my sim, but other sims leaving toddlers alone on community lots).
Crowley Family Legacy Patriarch - Jonah Crowley
This, and the age reset with makeovers are the ONLY bugs Ive seen yet.
I'll stack a sim's queue full of things to do, and he/she will drop every single one to panic at the sight of a simbot he/she is best friends with and has lived in the same house with since toddlerhood. The sim that created the simbot (and who considers her as his DAUGHTER!) has the same reaction! Uh, REALLY?!
I don't have any mods in my game, but if they don't take care of this in a patch, I will start looking for a mod to remove it.
This is an action that should be reserved for sims in households you are not currently playing, out on the street, as the simbot strolls through town, for example.
As far as the sound overload problem is concerned, something that is also happening on my computer is when the sound stops working, the graphics begin to slow very heavily and the game operates choppy, especially when you try to move the screen. Then the graphics stop completely and my screen goes black. This can go anywhere from 2 - 4 minutes with a black screen, but the game doesn't crash. After that amount of time, the game appears again right where I left off before the black screen. My graphics card is fine, everything appears fine on my computer.
So now I just stop the game when the graphics start to slow and I hit save. For whatever reason that seems to stop it from going black.
*EDIT* - Another problem is sometimes in P.I cases when a stakeout must be done to complete an case, when 'Stakeout' is pressed the P.I just goes there, pulls out the bushes and suddenly they cancel the action and thus the case can't be completed unless you cancel the opportunity.