Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Alchemist
Original Poster
#1 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 5:54 AM Last edited by Sunrader : 6th Aug 2021 at 6:10 PM.
Default Sim Science Report: What Breaks Scripted Events and How to Fix Them
There is a fair bit of discussion online where simmers say that when they use new templates for PV, the scripts are broken for them. There are a number of suggested theories and remedies in these discussions. I felt like we were missing some information, so I tested three versions of Pleasantview (PleasantSims Perfect stand alone, MeetMe with townies, Dragon Tattoo's Genetic) all with working scripted events when downloaded.

I tested the main theories for causes of broken scripts in a clean game environment, controlling variables and repeating tests as theories emerged or were eliminated. This is the TLDR version. If anyone wants more details of the testing, let me know, but the easiest thing to do is just test my final result for yourself.

My analysis. Because I saw no correlation between these events and breaking scripts, I gradually concluded that

1) Changing the name of files with a bulk renamer does not break scripts.
2) Changing the IDNO (parent name) does not break scripts.
3) Using Hoodchecker does not break scripts.
4) Attaching a subhood does not break scripts.
5) Changing the hood name in the Catalog Description does not break scripts.
6) Deleting Neighborhoodmanager has no effect on scripts.

My final result: The only thing that consistently broke the scripts was having more than one hood in the Neighborhoods folder with the same type of working script. ADDENDUM: This appears to only be related to the UID (also part of the IDNO) of the hood. SEE comments below.

In other words, you can have more than one PV in the Neighborhoods folder, but only one with a working script. If you put two freshly downloaded PVs, both with working scripts, in the Neighborhoods folder, one of them will break.

Once a script is broken, the script cannot be fixed by removing the other hood or by deleting the Neighborhoodmanager.

The only way to "fix" a broken script that I found is to start again with a fresh download and not to put it in a Neighborhood folder with another working script. ADDENDUM: This is no longer true. I have successfully fixed a broken script by changing the UID of another hood in the Neighborhood folder. I had one PV and one test hood in the same folder with the same UID. The PV scripts broke. I change the non-PV UID and the PV scripts were then fixed.

I hope with more research to find a way to fix/reset scripts of hoods that have already been played. Maybe someone here knows how to do this?

In any case, anyone who is having trouble with broken scripts in one of these templates or similar ones can just try downloading a fresh copy of the PV and putting it in a folder that does not have another working PV script.

Note: I did not test Strangetown or Veronaville but assume they work the same way. I did not test the effect that mods might have on scripted events.
Advertisement
Forum Resident
#2 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 7:26 AM
Thanks for looking into this Sunrader! I know I've seen this question around so it will be nice to have a place to start for someone to look into.

aka fir3princ3ss
My Youtube Channel
Currently playing:
-Medieval Charter Challenge on The Sims 2
-Ye Olde Royal Kingdom Challenge on The Sims 3
Field Researcher
#3 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 10:42 AM
As far as resetting the script goes, could deleting the Game Scripting controller from the lots be enough? The Capp family has one in the shipped Veronaville, and, if it gets deleted in SimPE, their scripted event plays out as intended, with the notification that normally wouldn't pop up.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 10:45 AM
But the fact is that you cannot have the same neighborhood more than once in the game. It has to be differently numbered instance. There are no 2 Pleasantviews that can contain the same script-same with Veronaville and Strangetown.

The reason is that the game will crash with two identically numbered games. I've done this before-and it's nearly impossible to load a game with them.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Theorist
#5 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 11:41 AM
I remember helping a person because their Pleasantview scripts not showing up, when Chris Hatch jumped in and wrote this:
Quote: Originally posted by Chris Hatch
It is the UID of the neighbourhood that counts, that is found in the ID Number (IDNO) in the neighbourhood file. Pleasantview must have a UID of 1, Strangetown 2 and Veronaville 3 for the game scripting to work. If your neighbourhood or any of it's sub-hoods have a UID of 1,2 or 3 then the game will automatically change the UIDs of the other 'hoods to make them unique which will break their game scripting.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#6 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 12:29 PM
I agree with @topp - having more than one neighbourhood with the same UID will cause the game to automatically renumber them on boot-up. So, if you have an N001 with a UID of 1, as well as a custom hood cauuse N400 with a UID of 1, then one of them will be changed when the game loads, so chances are the scripted events won't work.

I also discovered that, if you have a time synch mod in-game then the scripted events could be disrupted as sims may be at work when you load the lot. I found this out when playing with the Story Progression beta- Don Lothario was out at work when I loaded his lot as the time had been synched to the last lot I loaded. So his scripted events popped up, but I couldn't play them as he was not there.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#7 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 4:24 PM Last edited by Sunrader : 6th Aug 2021 at 6:07 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by mate54
As far as resetting the script goes, could deleting the Game Scripting controller from the lots be enough? The Capp family has one in the shipped Veronaville, and, if it gets deleted in SimPE, their scripted event plays out as intended, with the notification that normally wouldn't pop up.


Perhaps, but I couldn't make it happen with LotCleaner. If someone knows a process, that would be great to know. I did get it working again in an unplayed hood by changing the UID.

Quote: Originally posted by FranH
But the fact is that you cannot have the same neighborhood more than once in the game. It has to be differently numbered instance.


Undoubtedly true, but it's not the parent name part of the IDNO or the filenames/numbers that people thought were breaking the scripts. It's just putting in two hoods with the same UID. It doesn't crash when you have the same UID. I think that's why people thought that renaming the hoods broke the scripts. I've just shown that it doesn't, so, for example, if people have a PV where scripts are broken that they want to keep, but they still want to play scripts, they can rename another PV and put it in and have working scripts by making sure that the UID of the scripted PV is 1 and others are unique. They can also confidently use Hoodchecker and add subhoods knowing they won't break their scripts. Hopefully, this helps as players don't have to try random things to get their scripts working. Even the hood creators were confused and unable to help their downloaders.

Quote: Originally posted by simsample
I agree with @topp - having more than one neighbourhood with the same UID will cause the game to automatically renumber them on boot-up. So, if you have an N001 with a UID of 1, as well as a custom hood cauuse N400 with a UID of 1, then one of them will be changed when the game loads, so chances are the scripted events won't work.



I agree with topp and Chris, too. The UID is probably the determining factor. I tested this and was able to fix a broken script in a copy of DragonTattoo's PV by changing the UID of a second test hood that was interfering with it. I could not see the game actually changing the UID, though. In my test, putting two PVs with working scripts in Neighborhoods, both UIDs of 1, one was broken, but SimPE did not show the UID changed/saved.

At least I have shown that using Hoodchecker and adding subhoods, etc, does not break it and deleting neighborhoodmanager does not fix it. Even Cindy wrote on her website that changing the name of her Pleasantview stand-alone broke the scripts, but the scripts do work in her PP00 hood. People change the names in order to put them in with another UID 1 hood and that breaks it, not the name change, filename change, or changing the parent name in the IDNO. Thanks for helping to make it clear!


Quote: Originally posted by simsample
then one of them will be changed when the game loads, so chances are the scripted events won't work.


It would be nice to know if this is random or determined by some order. Do you know?

Quote: Originally posted by simsample
I also discovered that, if you have a time synch mod in-game then the scripted events could be disrupted as sims may be at work when you load the lot.


I did not test any mods at all or even how scripted events play out in different circumstances. This is good to know.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#8 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 5:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Sunrader
It would be nice to know if this is random or determined by some order. Do you know?

I suspect (but haven't tested) that alphabetical loading would determine this. So, A001 would be parsed before N001, and therefore N001 would be internally renumbered if a conflict occurred.
Forum Resident
#9 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 5:10 PM
Quote:
I did not test any mods at all

But isn't that, like, the most common thing that breaks events? At least for me, events mostly break if I don't remove most of my mods
Alchemist
Original Poster
#10 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 5:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by sugoisama
But isn't that, like, the most common thing that breaks events? At least for me, events mostly break if I don't remove most of my mods


If you know of a certain mod that breaks them, we could maybe test that controlling other variables, but people were suggesting that Hoodchecker broke them, renaming hoods broke them, adding subhoods broke them... none of that appears to be the case.
Mad Poster
#11 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 6:31 PM
The one thing guaranteed to break scripted events is my playstyle. Like putting a burglar alarm in the Callientes' house. Like telling Mary Sue to ignore the chance card, so Daniel had plenty of time to finish his woohoo with Kaylynn, and then he woohooed Mary Sue when she got home from work. Like letting Cassandra see just what a cheating rat Don was before I played the Goth Mansion. Instead of marrying him, she attacked him!

As for mods, I reckon I'd have had no abductions in Strangetown, if I hadn't temporarily removed the No Alien Abductions mod till the babies were born.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#12 Old 6th Aug 2021 at 7:05 PM
Quote: Originally posted by AndrewGloria
The one thing guaranteed to break scripted events is my playstyle. Like putting a burglar alarm in the Callientes' house. Like telling Mary Sue to ignore the chance card, so Daniel had plenty of time to finish his woohoo with Kaylynn, and then he woohooed Mary Sue when she got home from work. Like letting Cassandra see just what a cheating rat Don was before I played the Goth Mansion. Instead of marrying him, she attacked him!

As for mods, I reckon I'd have had no abductions in Strangetown, if I hadn't temporarily removed the No Alien Abductions mod till the babies were born.


Indeed! I've never actually played the scripts they way they are scripted, but at least we know how to make them show up in the game at all.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#14 Old 7th Aug 2021 at 9:07 PM
@Aspersim We are talking about the UID, which is the internal numbering for the neighbourhood files. You can't read or detect them yourself unless you open the neighbourhood in SimPE.

ETA image:
Alchemist
Original Poster
#15 Old 8th Aug 2021 at 12:26 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Aspersim
All I know about the Neighborhood manager file is the fact that if your change the name to Pleasantview, it plays the Pleasentview movie. What are we talking about? How the N001 N002 N003 N004 displays in order when you start up the game

Here is the way I make custom photos display for custom hoods, it's a little bit of a file teasing procress
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=582726


We are not talking about how hoods load in order or about their neighborhood picture (Neighborhood.png) or about the camera move movies (Neighborhood.reia).

We are talking about the scripted events, the stories that pop up like the one when you enter Don Lothario's house for the first time. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/The_S...h/Pleasantview).

We are talking about how to make sure they run in a new copy of Pleasantview, Strangetown, or Veronaville. The way to make sure that happens, for example, for Pleasantview, is to make sure the UID (the number that simsample has shown in her pic) is correct (1 for Pleasantview) and make sure no other hood in the Neighborhoods folder also has a UID of 1.

Also, it is ok to delete Neighborhoodmanager. It will regenerate, but it has no effect on scripted events.


That is what we are talking about.
Mad Poster
#16 Old 8th Aug 2021 at 1:17 AM
So, if you don't care about EA Pleasantview, etc. but want to attach the base game hoods as subhoods to some other hood, just changing all the UIDs so that the subhoods have the UIDs originally associated with the main hoods will cause the scripts to work in the subhoods?
Alchemist
Original Poster
#17 Old 8th Aug 2021 at 2:28 AM
Quote: Originally posted by kestrellyn
So, if you don't care about EA Pleasantview, etc. but want to attach the base game hoods as subhoods to some other hood, just changing all the UIDs so that the subhoods have the UIDs originally associated with the main hoods will cause the scripts to work in the subhoods?


I have not seen scripts work in subhoods. If you find out they can, please let us know how. I only found that attaching a subhood to a main hood that has a working script does not break the script, which was one of the theories floating around.
Test Subject
#18 Old 2nd Oct 2022 at 8:36 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Sunrader
I have not seen scripts work in subhoods. If you find out they can, please let us know how. I only found that attaching a subhood to a main hood that has a working script does not break the script, which was one of the theories floating around.


So I am currently playing GC Pleasantview and my scripted events broke halfway through…they worked for the first 3 households but now do not work. The bus doesn’t even come to pick up Dustin! Is this a UID issue? It’s the only PV in my Neighborhoods folder. I *did* move Nina into her own place before finishing the scripted events, could that have done it? Or would it be because I gave the Caliente condo a burglar alarm like I saw on a comment above?
Back to top