Please use this thread going forward: [CHEAT] Cannot edit pre-existing sims | EA Forums - 11924857
Hi @crinrict I have not checked that yet; I didn't know that could be an issue, so I went back and read the previous posts in this merged thread. Seems like it is happening to a lot of people!
So if I understand correctly, I should take the family into live mode, and see if there is a "phantom parent" in the family tree, that is preventing me from connecting Mortimer to his parents and extended family?
If I do find that is what happened to cause the issue, I still don't quite understand how to delete a "phantom parent", generated by the game, so that I can continue connecting them?
Edit: I should add, when I created this brand new save, I did bring the saved family members into the game via my library when I clicked to create a family in the lower right button in the game - I opened CAS & brought them into CAS to edit them.
@AalyahReed Yes, check live mode - family tree
You could try resetting stuff with MCCC but I'm not too familiar with that. There's no other way in getting rid of the phantom parent (good description of what's happening, really like that word) unless you start over in CAS.The easiest way is just
@crinrict You were 100% correct - Everyone else is connected, but Mortimer has been given two, greyed out phantom parents by the game, which is why I can't designate Gunther & Cornelia as his parents.
I do have MCCC, but have never used it for the purpose of setting relationships before. I might be able to clear relationships with it, but I think when you designate new relationships through MCCC, it doesn't actually add them to the in-game family tree, but I could be wrong, so I'll have to look in to that.
You said "start over" in CAS, which I assume means that I would have to make new parents, right? That would be such a bummer because it took me so much time the first time. I had saved each household separately, and then was throwing them into CAS together to make the connections in the new save, which is when I encountered the issues.
You wrote "the easiest way is just..." but it looks like the text cut off?
I appreciate you telling me what to look for with the family trees in live mode, because I would never have figured that out on my own.
@AalyahReed Best way is to save everyone to your library and then just make a new family with all of them and then set the relationships in CAS. They will be different Sims that way but you'll keep everything but relationships.
So bascially:
1. Save everyone you want to make related this way to the library/Gallery
2. Delete the ones you have from the game
3. Create a new family with everyone and set the relationships.
Since it's just Mortimer though, it might even be possible to just remove him and add a new Mortimer from the library.
Hope you understand what I mean :D
> You wrote "the easiest way is just..." but it looks like the text cut off?
Yeah not sure what's that doing there. I think I wrote something in and forgot to delete that part.
Do make a backup of your save first in case anything goes wrong.
Hi @crinrict You have been incredibly helpful, and I'm reporting back to say that I think I was successful in fixing the issue!
I made sure all relationships between my Sims were utterly destroyed, by saving each of the 15 separate sims on their own to my library (except Cassandra & Alexander, who I saved together). I created a brand new save, I planned out a list of the best way to add them back together, so that the game would hopefully not have the opportunity to create any "phantom parents" which basically meant starting from the top in each group (Elders) all the way to the children. If the elders had phantom parents, that would be okay, because I could just pretend they were the predeceased Victor or Gretle Goth, etc. It was a very long process, and I kept notes the whole way through, just to keep track of what I was doing.
Then another bug occurred! Everyone added from my library brought in negative instead of positive funds! I was SO frustrated. And freerealestate wouldn't work, nor any money cheat, because the money cheats required me to move them to a lot first, which of course, I could not do with negative funds. So I did some searching on EA Answers HQ - turns out this is a long-term bug. So I picked my "starter sim" that I used to start the new save, who was already living in an apartment; I cheated up her funds substantially, then I kept adding families to her household temporarily and splitting the money between them. Needless to say, it was a lot. I encountered two bugs in fixing this issue, but I think I figured it out (knock on wood) thanks to the online help I received.
I have my families connected, but split into separate households now. Thank you so much for your help!
