[OPEN] [CD] Cats can't use the litter boxes
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? n/a What expansio...
Forum Discussion
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? 1.46.18.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All of them!
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? I have tested this in a completely New Save without Mods. 1. Have a Cat in your household at ground level. 2. Build a simple room of any size (minimum 2x1) 3. Place Stairs heading to the roof of the room (to the next floor, just a way to reach "upstairs") 4. Place a Litter Box/Pet Bowl on the top floor in such a manner that it can be accessed by the Cat after it walks upstairs. 5. Find a way to drop Cat's Bladder/Hunger Motive. (I'm sure you guys have enough debug tools)
What happens when the bug occurs? The cat simply stays at ground level! The cat might go upstairs for other reasons (in this case, to sniff the litter box, to follow another Sim, maybe it has the Curious trait etc.), thus making the litter box/pet bowl "detectable". That doesn't count. You should pay attention if the cat happens to go upstairs and just sniffs the litter box instead of using it. If that happens, it may use it afterwards, for they are now on the same floor. The direction doesn't matter! If you place the cat upstairs and the litter box/pet bowl downstairs, the cat will still be unable to detect it. Again, it might go downstairs for different reasons.
What do you expect to see? My point is that the cat should simply path to the Litter Box/Pet Bowl like humans do with Beds, Toilets, Showers and almost anything (I suppose almost). I had numerous cases where my cats wouldn't go upstairs/downstairs for a different reason (like following a sim) and stayed there until they had a bladder issue on the carpet.
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
I have attached an image to show the simple "contraption". Notice the puddle behind the Sim. The cat was not able to detect the Litter Box upstairs and had a Bladder Issue.
Regarding the time I encountered this, I had bought the Cats & Dogs Expansion Pack around May, and have encountered this problem ever since. I am really surprised that nobody has mentioned this bug yet. I've seen people complaining about their Cats and Dogs not being able to Go Potty, but now I think I've covered much more detail that I hope you understand. I've started to suspect this around the start of July. Now I am completely sure this is what happens.
As a side note, I know you don't support Mods but, while trying to troubleshoot, at one point I have downloaded a Mod that made me able to Play the Pets. In the Needs/Motives Tab, the click to auto-complete works when the litter box/pet bowl is on the same floor, but doesn't when they aren't. Again, I have also tested this without any mods beforehand.
SimGuruNick
EA Staff (Retired)
EA Staff (Retired)I'm hearing that we limited the object picker range for pet bowls and litter boxes because of performance issues. Not to say this is "by design" but yeah, that's why it's happening.
Detection radius for litter boxes on the cat's occupied floor is about 60 units. If the litter box is one floor away, this shrinks to ~30 units. Cats cannot detect litter boxes that are two or more floors away.
So yeah, I'm guessing this is primarily an issue for bigger houses/lots. If you place multiple self-care items (litter box or food bowl) on the lot and space them out, does that stop the issue from happening? Thanks much for the reports!
My house only has two floors, the ground floor, and the second level. (the ground floor is lifted off of the actual ground btw) and the cat still has an issue detecting it. It will even whine about being hungry when outside when the food dish is on the ground floor. The litterbox is on the second floor and it cannot detect when it has been cleaned and often times cannot find it to use it. Thankfully I've only had one accident so far, but it seems the cat does not go upstairs to use the litterbox, it goes for some other reason then realizes the box is there.
I'm experiencing this issue also. There's 2 cats in the household (adult + kitten) and 3 litter boxes (2 on the 2nd floor and one outside - the first floor has no foundation) and the cats are uncomfortable nearly all the time because of the litter boxes even though all are empty and clean.The kitten seems to be able to use the one outside, but the adult one wont.
@SimGuruNick wrote:I'm hearing that we limited the object picker range for pet bowls and litter boxes because of performance issues. Not to say this is "by design" but yeah, that's why it's happening.
Detection radius for litter boxes on the cat's occupied floor is about 60 units. If the litter box is one floor away, this shrinks to ~30 units. Cats cannot detect litter boxes that are two or more floors away.
So yeah, I'm guessing this is primarily an issue for bigger houses/lots. If you place multiple self-care items (litter box or food bowl) on the lot and space them out, does that stop the issue from happening? Thanks much for the reports!
Since I saw this was bumped, I was going to mention what I've read in relation to Deathcofi's mod (which I've used in the past) when I saw this post. So that's why it happens?
I see, and I do understand. 🙂 I'd still like to ask, though, if the radius restrictions were achieved it as follows...
"Having looked at what this mod [Deathcofi's Pets can find Pet Stuff on other Floors] does I am surprised to discover that EA have set all of the actions for eating and relieving themselves on pet objects as actions that are NOT autonomous which really doesn't make sense considering we can't control the pets ourselves without mods.
I also noticed that the issue might affect pet beds as well as the laying down interaction is set as not autonomous as well!"~ Menaceman44
"It appears to be. All I could see that had been changed by this mod was the 'Allow Autonomous' flag had been changed from False to True."
~Menaceman44 (after asking if that's the cause of the issue)
🤔
Nick wrote:
I'm hearing that we limited the object picker range for pet bowls and litter boxes because of performance issues. Not to say this is "by design" but yeah, that's why it's happening.
Detection radius for litter boxes on the cat's occupied floor is about 60 units. If the litter box is one floor away, this shrinks to ~30 units. Cats cannot detect litter boxes that are two or more floors away.
So yeah, I'm guessing this is primarily an issue for bigger houses/lots. If you place multiple self-care items (litter box or food bowl) on the lot and space them out, does that stop the issue from happening? Thanks much for the reports!Interesting. Yes, one of my buggier cats lives in Ophelia Villa (the Goth house; Alexander aged up with the RNG trait "Cat Lover" and married one of my Sims). She has kibble towers and litterboxes on multiple floors and has trouble finding them sometimes. Like, she's on one side of the basement I added and saying she's hungry or needs a litterbox when she has a kibble tower and laser litterbox on the other side of the basement. She also has a kibble tower in the kitchen and a litterbox in one of the second floor bathrooms, but those apparently don't exist. (That said, well. Her name is "Princess" and that's how she's treated, so she has eager human attendants telling her about her dishes whenever she seems hungry.)
The other is over 900 Sim days old, based on Simology panels of the elders he lives with. He lives in a 3 story house with a greenhouse on top and litterboxes and food dishes on each floor but the greenhouse. I love him dearly, as do his human-Sim companions, but he has terrible trouble finding his food dishes. He can be maybe five build mode squares from his food and still be generating popups reminding me to fill his dish when he has a full kibble tower.The cat in Riverside Roost is a lot younger and has never had trouble finding her (single) food dish or litterbox. Nor has the very young cat (aged up from kitten a week or two ago) in the Chieftain's Villa lot in Sulani.
I always assumed the issue was the age of the cats, since pets from my oldest save were super buggy in that regard. On one memorable occasion I lost my temper with a cat requesting a nice clean litterbox when she had four, so I went into build buy and purchased her maybe 10 and surrounded her on all sides, to no avail. (Perhaps I confused her.)
Jumping in as well, I thought it was just my current pet but it makes sense.
Ever since the recent update of 1.72.28.1030 I never had this issue, I play in a mega legacy mansion, fills most of the 50x50 space and I have only ever needed two little "pet rooms" however to get my current pet (who I had prior to the update) to feed and use the litter box I have had to delete the current food tower and place a new one, call pet to location, fill it and command it to feed and so far the pet has 'remembered' where the food is located to self feed and same deal with the litter box, I've had to walk to the old box, delete it, buy a new one, place it (these are placed in the same spots as before), call the pet and the pet uses the box and then remembers it.
