Forum Discussion

poptart52's avatar
poptart52
New Scout
6 years ago
Solved

[FIXED] [SV] Strangerville Scanner constantly low

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.64.84.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Expansions: All Game Packs: All Stuff Packs: Kitchen Stuff, Kids Room Stuff, Moschino Stuff, Movie Hangout Stuff, My First Pet Stuff, Perfect Patio Stuff, Spooky Stuff, Vintage Glamour Stuff,
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Play through the Strangerville Mystery. Receive an Infection Scanner by ANY means. Attempt to use infection scanner.
What happens when the bug occurs? Click the ground. Infection scanner (unused) will not allow you to scan, claiming battery is low. Option is greyed out.
What do you expect to see? I click the ground and see an option to scan the area for spores.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

‌

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Feedback/Strangerville-scanner-constantly-low/td-p/9263909

Copy pasting info from the original thread to show steps I took: 

Trying to play Strangerville. I've played it before on a different save file, back when the GP came out. 

Playing on my legacy game, haven't had any issues. When my sim gets a scanner, he immediately tried to use it but it didn't really do anything. I try and send him down to get spores at the lab, and I get "Cannot use Infection Scanner as its battery is low, please give it time to charge". Ok. So I forgot about it. Today I went back to try again, and again, infection scanner battery is low. I haven't used it. There's absolutely no way it's low. I tried debugging the scanner, getting a new scanner from a sim, getting new scanners from debug, everything. The last one, I tried both before and after removing all mods and CC, removing localthumbcache.package (and another one very similarly named to see if that one was the issue), and repairing the game multiple times. 

I *did* have issues regarding other aspiration goals not working previously, but they were all for non-strangerville related packs and appear to be ongoing issues that have not yet been completely resolved. 

I'm playing on: 
Samsung PC

Processor - AMD Ryzen 5 2500U w/ Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.00 GHz
Installed RAM - 8.00 GB (6.95 usable)
System type - 64-bit operating system, x64-based processer

Second fix attempt: 

Ok, so. I did the above (saving as The Sims 4.old, repairing game, making a new save), and it didn't work. I JUST got the infection scanner, went to the lab, it won't let me scan and says it's low battery. 

I may do this all again and try it without the Sim being in the military, to see if maybe that is triggering a glitch for some reason (last Sim I had do the Mystery, when the GP first came out, they weren't Military). But if that doesn't work then I'm not sure what to do. I may check debug to see if there are spores just so I can do the challenge. 

Third fix attempt:

Ok, final update:

I made a new save and played a Sim who wasn't military. Got the infection scanner, went to the lab, scanner doesn't work. 

I sent him home, input testingCheats true and then bb.showhiddenobjects, went into buy mode, and you can search "spore cluster". I bought a few and the DO fulfill the aspiration requirement, so I guess I'm going to just do that in my Legacy game. (You have to specifically click on the spore cluster you have placed and click "put in inventory" for it to work. Dragging to sim's inventory will not register for the aspiration)

 So I'll just do that. I'm not sure if Eco Living update is interfering with the StrangerVille Mystery or what's going on, but it looks like this is the only way around the glitch right now. 

Other notes:
It was suggested to try going to the Library and asking Scientists about spores (this was a fix for the GameChanger helping me). This did not work. Another player said for them, they just had to wait a couple in-game hours and they would get the option for the scanner to work. This did not work for me. However, after initially attempting to fight The Mother, I did get the option to scan ONCE. Later I saw it again - I believe this was after I completed the mystery.

Edit By Crinrict: Added Tag to Title, Adjusted some formatting for readablitly

  • SimGuruNick's avatar
    SimGuruNick
    5 years ago

    This issue should be fixed now, the charge functionality was completely removed. So there's no such thing as having a "low battery" anymore, the "Scan Area" interaction should always be available now and never greyed out. 

39 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion
Show More
  • Komori44's avatar
    Komori44
    Rising Newcomer
    5 years ago

    I had the same bug and finally found a way to make it works!!
    To use your scanner for the first time, go in town (not the laboratory) and take care of a flower. After the flower opened, scan next to it. If you don’t find spore, try another and repeat the process till you get one.
    Then go to the laboratory when your scanner is charged and use it.
    For me, it works. I hope it’ll works for you too.

  • lunapbird's avatar
    lunapbird
    5 years ago

    I had the exact same issue and I figured out what it was so I'll post here in case this helps someone.

    I had my Sim's aspiration set as 'solve the Strangerville mystery'. In the first part of the aspiration there are three tasks to complete which loosely correlate with solving the mystery, however there is one extra task to complete which involves you buying a curio. This has got nothing to do with progressing the SV mystery, so I didn't do it. The problem was, I continued to progress through solving the mystery (collecting evidence, dossier etc), and then WENT BACK to buy a curio because I thought 'huh, I should probably do that'. I then got stuck because the next part of the aspiration involved collecting evidence, and putting together a dossier, which I had already done, but the game was now registering as incomplete. I had the scanner at this point, and was getting the same error you described - it needed charging and was unusable no matter what I tried. I realised that the game essentially thought I was still in the evidence-collecting stage (as that's where I was on the aspiration), and the made the object unusable. What worked for me was using UI cheats extension, and marking the aspirations tasks as done up to the task I had actually completed in game (just literally right click on them). I was then able to continue on as normal.

    TL;DR - if you have Strangerville Mystery aspiration on, make sure you complete the tasks in order even if they don't relate the mystery, otherwise the game will not register you as having progressed (even when you have) and you won't be able to use objects or use certain interactions.

  • brittanymc82's avatar
    brittanymc82
    5 years ago

    I have the same exact issue. I left my Strangerville family for one sim week and came back and the scanner was still low. Another glitch I have only in Strangerville is my sims freeze and won't do what I tell them. For example I told them to go to bed and they stood in front of the bed for hours. I kept resetting them and they still did it. When they finally got in their energy wouldn't go up and the time speed didn't increase. I left the household and came back later. I told my sim to run on the treadmill and he just stood in front of it for hours. I just gave up on it.

  • wonko56's avatar
    wonko56
    5 years ago

    I tried to use the infection for the FIRST time and got the "battery low" message. I don't see the point in having to clear cache files, save, repair, restart, reload saves and whatever else rigmarole and other associated *. I thought this was a game, not a course in advanced computer diagnostics or whatever.

    i can only conclude that this dlc is utter * and I won't ever be buying another EA game again.

  • eustacecs's avatar
    eustacecs
    5 years ago
    @Komori44 Scanner's charge level resets upon traveling often. Regardless of if it's first use or not. For me, at least.

    To reproduce reliably: wait until it's fully charged, travel, let's say, from StrangerVille to some Valley Del Sol culb, travel back to location from which you started. Using 'maximum zoom out until option to travel appears' to initiate the travel in both cases.

    Voila! Almost 100% chance that scanner will require charging again!
  • PoptartJuniper's avatar
    PoptartJuniper
    Hero (Retired)
    5 years ago

    Just came across this issue on PS5 trying to complete the SV story. The scanner was low and I could not use it. I've completed the story a few times before on different saves, but on this new save it would not work.

    I've submitted my save.

  • SimGuruNick's avatar
    SimGuruNick
    Icon for EA Staff (Retired) rankEA Staff (Retired)
    5 years ago

    This issue should be fixed now, the charge functionality was completely removed. So there's no such thing as having a "low battery" anymore, the "Scan Area" interaction should always be available now and never greyed out. 

About The Sims 4 Bug Reports - Archive

This is a read-only archive of bugs previously reported on Answers HQ. Click "The Sims 4 Bug Reports" in the right-rail to browse and create new bugs.14,620 PostsLatest Activity: 8 years ago