Objects on Lot Appear as Silhouettes

If the video doesn't work/post right, here's a picture of how the objects appear....

OH and another peculiar thing I just discovered... two mail boxes where they clearly should not be (seeing as only one mailbox is allowed per lot).....

@Stardust547  When you installed Seasons, it sounds like you left your TS3 game folder (the one in Documents) in place.  It, or rather any number of files within it, could have been corrupted by the install process.

The easiest way to troubleshoot now is to simply delet the five cache files in that game folder.  They can fill up with old data and cause all kinds of issues, so they should be deleted regularly.  Many of us do so after every play session.  For reference, they are:

• CASPartCache.package
• compositorCache.package
• scriptCache.package
• simCompositorCache.package
• socialCache.package

If that alone doesn't help, pull the entire folder out of Documents and onto your desktop.  When you launch the game again, a clean folder will spawn with no content.  Try loading a new save in this folder, and then edit a couple of lots to see whether the objects behave as normal.  If they do, copy the affected save into the clean folder and load it.  If the save behaves normally, plus or minus some missing store or custom content, you can start transferring your other saves and everything else you want to keep into the new folder in batches.  Be sure to test the game after each batch to make sure the issue doesn't reappear.

If your save is still behaving oddly in the clean folder, you can try saving the lot to the bin and replacing it.  This should get rid of most if not all problems with the lot that remain.

@Stardust547  Clearing your caches will do nothing but help; like I said, many of us do this every time we play.  Transferring your saves to a new folder will also be fine, but I suggested copying the affected save over rather than simply moving it because your store and/or custom content wouldn't be in the clean folder yet.  But it's easy enough to test out the lot, quit without saving, clear your caches again, and then move your other content over as well.

If your active sims live on this lot and you evict them (in order to copy the house, bulldoze the lot, and replace it), the sims will keep their jobs and relationships but lose their promised wishes and opportunities, as long as you do everything in one Edit Town session and don't save the sims themselves and replace them with their bin copies.  That's why I suggested it last—some people (like me) would be disappointed to lose those promised wishes.  But this process is an excellent way to get rid of corruption, and it won't damage your save.

Of course, if you don't like the results of any of these steps, you can quit without saving.  Or you could make copies of your saves now, so that if something goes wrong later, you can revert to the backups.  But none of what I described should damage your game in any way, as long as you add or reinstall all of the content that save uses into your clean game folder.

The affected lot is unoccupied so I think I will try the last suggestion first....

@Stardust547  Then it sounds like you need to generate a clean folder and try out the lot in there.  You could also copy it to the bin, quit, start a brand-new save, and place the house there, just to see if it's any better.

The Sims 3 folder in Documents is your game folder, and all of your user files, including saves and added content, are located inside it.  The cache files are "loose" in there, so to speak; other content is organized by type.

Is there some kind of tutorial somewhere for all of this stuff you're mentioning? I don't quite understand a lot of it, to be honest. I'm not very tech savvy (except to my grandma, but you know how grandmas are). Sometimes it helps me to have things broken down.

@Stardust547  I've never seen a tutorial that covers exactly what you're asking for, but reading Crinrict's summary of user files may help get you oriented:

https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/faq-user-files.html

Just to cover the basics, your user files are all installed or added to your Sims 3 game folder, which is located in Documents\Electronic Arts.  If you remove the Sims 3 folder from Documents\EA, the game won't be able to find it and will generate a new one for you the next time you play.  This new folder won't have any of the corruption that might have been present in the old folder.

This is often referred to as the "clean folder test" or the "factory reset" and is an excellent way to start troubleshooting—it helps narrow down the source of the problem.  For example, some random file in your old game folder may be corrupt; you create a new folder, that file stays in the old folder and is removed from the picture, and you don't see a problem.  Maybe you want to test a save, so you place it in a clean folder, which by definition is not corrupt, and the save still doesn't work; now you know that the save itself is corrupt, not anything else in your old game folder.

What I would recommend now is that you generate a clean folder as described, then copy over your Saves folder from the old game folder.  (Right-click on Saves, select copy, right-click inside the new game folder, select paste.)  Load up the game, go to Edit Town, copy the affected house, quit the game, delete those five cache files.  Load the game again, but this time, at the Main Menu, start a new save.  Again, go to Edit Town, place the house somewhere in town, and see whether it's still behaving oddly.

If the house now works, you can do a bit of building, then save the new version to the bin and delete the old one.  You can then quit to desktop, clear your caches (again), load up the save that has that house in it, and replace the old version with the new one from the bin.

If the house still doesn't work even in a clean folder, then the house itself may be borked in some way.  Depending on where you got it and which items it uses, there may be ways to try to repair it, but it doesn't sound like you're prepared to go down that path.