Free Vacation Glitch

I've only done the free vacation offer once and the problem I had with that was minor. Now I never accept it.

You could try moving the household to the bin and then back to the neighborhood. That seems to work to fix a lot of issues but I don't know if that will work with this. And I think doing so will probably make your sims lose all their relationships, so it's probably something to try as a last resort (and on a test save game in case it doesn't work).

If you have NRaas MasterController you might try resetting the lot, or the whole town before trying so drastic as moving to the bin and back.

I never accept the free vacation, it glitches the game.

mlnov39 wrote:
I never accept the free vacation, it glitches the game.

Not always. Anyway, the free vacation is so short that if you make a backup copy you only lose a couple of simdays' progress if something goes wrong.

I've tried it twice, and both times I did a "save as" as soon as the parents were leaving. I save every simnight anyway, so if something had gone wrong, I could've just started again from the morning of day the parents left.

First time the teen party was a disaster, and the parents came back the same night, and scolded the kids, and since there was something weird about their opportunities, I decided to go back to my backup save. But now that I think of it, there wasn't really anything badly wrong with the game. I just got scared because I'd read about so many problems here.

The second time everything worked just fine. And now the son of the family is married and the twin girls at uni. So, I could just happily delete the backup save I had.

So, while there might be problems for some, it's nothing having a backup copy couldn't solve.

The last time I accepted the free vacation, my level 10 scientist came back unemployed. Now she has to work her way all the way back up to the top. Although, that is partially my fault, seeing as I stupidly deleted the save I had made before they left.

But to prevent stuff like this happening in the future, I'd recommend doing Save As and creating a new file every single time you save, rather than just hitting Save and making the file bigger. It helps tremendously with issues like Error Code 12 (when the file is too big to save it), and when your game inevitably goes corrupt one way or another, you'll have backups.

The way I do it is I count up with every save. For example, my current game is called Bernadette, so whenever I save I save it as Bernadette1/Bernadette2/Bernadette3/etc. I'm almost at Bernadette200 and I haven't had an issue with Error Code 12 at all. But, obviously, you don't want your main menu all crowded up with a million different copies of the same game, so when deleting old saves I'd recommend that you keep at least two or three versions of your family. It might be kind of annoying to remember to do at first, but it really is worth it to keep your precious Sim families safe.

I've found a fix for this through a long time of experimentation (and several death threats aimed at my computer) In a moment of desperation, I tried this, which I used a long time ago when another one of my games glitched.
1. Go into Edit Town mode and save a copy of your family
2. Place them in another house/a copy of their old house (I have not tested if you move them out with their home, but I don't see why it wouldn't work)
3. Begin playing! They will retain everything they had, including degrees, skills, careers, etc. Unfortunately, they lose relationships with the rest of the town, which sucks, but that's repairable.
It worked for me, but I haven't had a chance to test it on another computer. My computer is running Windows 7 (the most recent Windows I can stand using. Windows 8 is a nightmare), and I have some custom content from TheSimsResource, but nothing else that even resembles mods. Good luck to you
-The Oracle Of Quantico

Kinda reminds one of that "Free Vacation" you "win"-- IRL. as in "Yeah, Sure.."

Oh, once in a while they're for real but most of the time? Well as they say "no such thing as a free lunch!"

@ the oracle dude (too long a name to copy) Win 7 the latest you can stand? Ditto here. But take heart, it's why they're rolling out Windows 10 this summer-- or early Fall.

"8" is officially a bust . In spite of it emulating Smartphones which many (but not everyone) is so adept at-- that finger-swiping interface simply didn't "click" with many.

"10" is supposed to resemble "7" more than "8".

(But don't quote me verbatim.. in my line of work I deal with commercial and corporate clients who just last year gave up XP for Win 7 "Enterprise"- For many it was a large and costly undertaking, so I don't expect to be dealing with Win 10 issues on a professional level for.. years to come. Best to look it up via official channels.)

It's such a shame.. it was always so fun to have the wild teen parties and get the notification that the parents' return was imminent.

I love getting a break from "the parents" but it seems that free vacations do more harm than good. The kids always get in trouble which I guess makes it more "realistic" but I mean, does it really? They were away, how would they know what went down? :-p I don't think I'll be accepting more vacations. I'm having a glitch or problem myself right now so I can't even play. I posted it on the "technical problems" section.

> @TheOracleOfQuantico said:
> I've found a fix for this through a long time of experimentation (and several death threats aimed at my computer) In a moment of desperation, I tried this, which I used a long time ago when another one of my games glitched.
> 1. Go into Edit Town mode and save a copy of your family
> 2. Place them in another house/a copy of their old house (I have not tested if you move them out with their home, but I don't see why it wouldn't work)
> 3. Begin playing! They will retain everything they had, including degrees, skills, careers, etc. Unfortunately, they lose relationships with the rest of the town, which sucks, but that's repairable.
> It worked for me, but I haven't had a chance to test it on another computer. My computer is running Windows 7 (the most recent Windows I can stand using. Windows 8 is a nightmare), and I have some custom content from TheSimsResource, but nothing else that even resembles mods. Good luck to you
> -The Oracle Of Quantico


I second this - this is the only fix that ever worked for me. I really wish there wasn't such a glitch as a let's play I watched on youtube she never seems to get the glitch and she accepts the free vacation every time and the teen parties are so awesome...I mean I suppose you could throw a party and invite only teenagers and just make the parents go to the park or something but it doesn't have the same thrill. I always get the glitch and thus never accept them anymore.

I know this has already been resolved but out of curiosity would doing resetSim and the names of the sims work for this glitch?