Hello everyone!

I made a Clam Chowder custom recipe using Echoweaver's tutorial here: https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=668625 and I am having trouble getting it to show up in the game. I followed all the steps, and have CCLoader installed but for some reason, the recipe book is showing up as blank string and the recipe itself is not showing up at all. I double checked the code, restarted this process over again by , it keeps doing it, I do not understand what I did wrong. I attached a screenshot and the recipe file so you all can understand the problem I'm having/maybe take a look at the code if necessary, Does anyone have a clue what mistake I made?

Any help is so very much appreciated!!! Thank you!!!

The book is showing as a blank string because you don't have the strings added to the STBL.
The recipe name will have key Gameplay/Excel/RecipeMasterList/Data:ClamChowder=0xD83413C0B755342C
and book title: Gameplay/Excel/Books/BookRecipe:ClamChowder=0x929B3A071E7FA9FF
So in your STBL, you add two entries with those as the keys, and what you what to appear in game as the values, probably "Clam Chowder" for both.

Hopefully then your recipe will show up too, but even if not, this is still a good first step

I also notice that you have "Ingredient_2" for the second and third ingredient, so you should change the third ingredient to <Ingredient_3>Garlic</Ingredient_3>.
This might actually be why it's not showing up, I made a similar mistake in a recipe I made

It fixed the Book Strings!! Yay!!!! Thank you so much for your help!!! The recipe is sadly still not showing up, even with changing the ingredient tag The book part is working completely fine. I've noticed that on the book popup from the grocery store that it says "Cooking level required: 0" even though I set the required skill level to a higher number. So I believe it's a problem with the Recipes XML file that I'm still trying to figure out Again, thank you so much!!

It still seems like the issue must be in the STBLs somewhere. It's easy to typo them, and and if you use the built-in S3PE STBL editor, you have no way to check the key for typos after you've entered it.

Do you run with NRaas Untranslatedkey? I think this is invaluable for debugging STBL stuff. If the game doesn't find a string it's looking for, this mod puts the STBL key where the string should be, so you can see exactly what the key should look like. You can download it here: https://www.nraas.net/community/UntranslatedKey

BTW: I live in New England, so I heartily approve of your recipe choice. Too bad the game doesn't have a way to fish for clams.

I'm so glad you like my recipe choice!!! My main theme for this project is Seafood, for my seafood restaurants!!

As for the UntranslatedKey, I've never ran with that mod before, so I installed it in my game but not quite sure what to do/is supposed to happen. When I loaded the game, no script error went to my sims 3 folder and nothing really popped up. No error messages or anything. Is there a specific step after I load the mod into the save file?

(Below is the new updated file after taking Zoe's advice above and fixing the STBL file.)

(I guess it's worth mentioning that this is my first ever time actually modding/doing a project like this, So I apologize if these questions seem ignorant. )

No apologies!

You just drop UntranslatedKey into Mods/Packages or however you organize your mods. It doesn't throw any errors or pop up any scripts, but when the game tries to display a STBL and can't find it, the mod will make it print out the key of the missing STBL instead of a blank. I think this is invaluable for debugging stuff involving blank text.

So, for example, if you go to the bookstore and try to buy the Clam Chowder recipe book, and the game can't find the STBL for the book title, instead of displaying a blank, it will display "Gameplay/Excel/Books/BookRecipe:ClamChowder". Not only does this tell you what the problem is, it also tells you exactly what STBL key you need to add to fix it.



I am here for this. We have SO MUCH FISHING and not nearly enough stuff to cook with fish! Or maybe I just want to be able to cook everything. I don't know.

Hmm. OK, interesting. When I open up the package in s3pe, I see a resource with key 0x220557DA-0x00000000-0x00619699B436AFE3 and the name "ClamChowder". This one contains two STBL keys attached to the string "Clam Chowder."

Then I see the entire collection of international STBL resources with the keys of the form 0x220557DA-0x00000000-0x[country-code]619699B436AFE3 names of the form Strings_[language]_[country]_[country-code]619699b436afe3 The English one is blank, and all the others contain two STBL keys that do not match the ones in ClamChowder and have blank strings.

That indicates that something has really gotten discombobulated in the STBLs.

I have some thoughts on how you might fix what you have, but it occurs to me that you'll almost certainly save yourself a lot of pain if you just delete out all the STBL resources in s3pe, return to Step 6 of the tutorial, and do that part over. I'm dead serious when I say that I've never managed to fix half the bugs in my recipes/harvestables. There is an obscene number of places where a typo will bork everything up, and then you're looking for a needle in a haystack. I'm afraid if I put in the tutorial how often I've had to start over, nobody will want to try.

But this isn't starting over the whole thing. Just the STBLs.

Also, a fellow modder has created a Discord server to work through the recipe tutorial interactively. They have taken a bunch of screenshots and have given me permission to steal them to put in the MTS tutorial. If you are into Discord, drop me a PM here or on tumblr, and I'll send you the server link. It's an open-invitation server, but long-standing Internet paranoia tells me not to put the link on a forum post that is permanent and anonymously viewable.

Okay! I deleted the STBLS and redid Step 6. It didn't fix it not showing up, but I do know what you're talking about with the Discord and I think I will join it!

Glad to know I'm not alone in the bugging when it comes to doing this!!

Well Echo.... I believe I have figured out the problem. It's kind of a funny and interesting story really.

I tried doing another recipe that I had in mind to do from a different food VPXY (dessert). It is called Lemon Crinkle Cookies. I followed your tutorial again, and realized that I kept rewriting the same Dummy OBJ from foodCook instead of making separate Dummy OBJ'S. So I ending up thinking that was the solution. I tried putting the Lemon Crinkle Cookies in the game, and that recipe showed up!!!! You can imagine how I felt as I FINALLY solved a mystery!!! So I redid the Clam Chowder Recipe file from scratch and did the same from the Cookies. Make different Dummies instead of accidentally rewriting the same one over and over without me realizing. When I was done, I put the Clam Chowder file in my game once again. I loaded the game. And..........

The recipe ONCE AGAIN did not show up. The recipe book showed up just fine. But of course. Not the recipe. I had a sudden strong urge to scream. I was thinking: "It HAS to be the Recipe XML File. It just has to be." I did everything. I set Autolearn to false, removed the line completely, etc. Nothing worked. I was just on the verge of quitting entirely and just working on the cookies. Then..... I looked in the RecipeMasterlist file. I searched for the MacAndCheese recipe code when something caught my eye.

"<Recipe_Key>ClamChowder</Recipe_Key>".

I was so confused. I thought I had accidentally put it in that file, but as I looked at the code, it was its own code. Meaning it ALREADY EXISTS IN THE GAME. So I googled "Sims 3 Clam Chowder" and I found out it's already a recipe in the Food Truck from Late Night. So I think that's why it's not showing up. It has the same InstanceID and I think it's confused. Welp.

Oh. Wow. That would make sense.

Ok, so this is interesting. I haven't looked a lot at the food truck foods. There are probably all kinds of food models one can use to make custom recipes. So.... what does that Clam Chowder look like? It might've actually made your recipe a lot easier.... if a cookable recipe is what you want. If your primary goal is to add it to the menu in a seafood restaurant, you could probably use the game one and just chalk this all up to a learning experience.

If you want to create a cookable recipe otoh, you might get off easy and be able to use the existing EA resources and not have to clone foodEat at all. You'd still need foodCook and foodServe, since I don't think the food truck foods have a multi-serving size.

I've just decided to rename it to New England Clam Chowder. It finally has shown up, so that was indeed the problem!

It fits in, as after this recipe is done I will make the Manhattan type next!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to help me!!! :D

I like to put my creator name for keys, to help make sure it will be unique so you could always put LaurenClamChowder if you like. Also what appears in game doesn't need to be unique so that could still be "Clam Chowder" (just to confirm, you might have already realised this :p)

That's a good point. I put "EW" on everything.

ETA: When I put it that way, it looks like "Ewwwww gross!"

Maybe I like that. Ewwww the Pet Killer.

Okay.... So I have quite a few recipes done! Translated and everything. But when I click "set menu" on the Business As Usual Bistro stove, the recipes for some reason don't show up as available to put on the menu.

The only question I have left is, how do I enable them so that they show up on the customizable menu?

So close!

Wow. I've never tried to do this. If nobody else knows, I can probably decompile the stove and take a look. It'll take a bit though.

I sort of assumed they'd just show up, since as far as I know they have the same data as the EA ones.

BTW: What recipes have you made??

Nevermind! I figured it out through the video tutorial of Omedapixel!!! Yayyy!! Thank you soooo much for all your help Echo!!!!!