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Re: [FIXED] Sims lose their first and last names

Sorry in advance for a long post, but I seem to have found a workaround (and possible preventative fix, though it won't restore names already wiped out in a save game). Disclaimer - for people with large neighborhoods of people, it will require some bookkeeping...

I would recommend using the MCCC mod for this step at least, since using the "Relationships -> Add Relationship" interaction will show you a dialog with ALL sims in your world, where you can see if their names were wiped out.

Here are the steps:
1. Load your save game with names hopefully still there
2. Load a household
3. Using MCCC as above, click a sim and choose Relationships -> Add Relationship
4. Scroll through the whole list and write down sims that are missing their names
5. Repeat this a few times by quitting to Main Menu (WITHOUT SAVING!) and then reloading your save, and choosing a new household. This is because it seems a little random as to which households' names are affected, so doing it this way will sort of filter and catch them all.
6. Once you have your master list, load your save game again to begin the prevention.
7. For EACH AND EVERY family with a member whose name was wiped, you will need to Edit that family FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD (i.e. without loading a household, so you don't clobber the names) and change the affected Sims' names. For safety, I just changed every Sim name in each family. It did not seem to require changing the last name... just changing the first works. All I did was add a bunch of capital Z's to the end of the name so it's obvious what I added.
8. Save your family in the Household editor, rinse and repeat for ALL the rest of your families that had the issue.
9. Once you've successfully edited all your affected families' names, SAVE YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD GAME.
10. This may not be required, but I did it anyway... Quit to Main Menu and reload your game.
11. Now the "prevention" - go back through all those families again, and revert the names back to their original names by removing the Z's (or whatever you did to change them). Again, DO NOT load any households to play yet, do this from the Household Manager at the neighborhood level.
12. Once all names have been reverted back to their originals, SAVE YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD GAME AGAIN.
13. Again this may not be required, but quit to main menu and reload your save game.
14. You should now be able to load a few random households and click Relationship -> Add Relationship on a sim and scan all the other households to verify that no more names got clobbered.
15. Once you're satisfied your Sims are safe, you are good to go - or so it seems.

I haven't tested this for an extended time, but it seems to work after an hour or 2 at least. Also, this won't prevent name clobbering for ancestry/dead sims since you can't edit them (that I'm aware of anyway), so unfortunately I have no real help for people with that version of this bug.

Hope this helps people while we wait for an official fix!

12 Replies

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  • MickCasanova's avatar
    MickCasanova
    Rising Scout
    4 years ago

    It's a whole lot simpler. From World View, of a given save, just change the names back in CAS and save the family. This bug only seems to affect games that were saved prior to the patch. Once the names of sims in the save have been edited and saved, upon return to that save, everything sticks as it should. Unfortunately, any and all saves prior to the patch will display the names of the original NPC they were changed from. This of course doesn't help much for people who have played a legacy game for years only to have it destroyed by an idiotic change.

  • MickCasanova's avatar
    MickCasanova
    Rising Scout
    4 years ago

    I should preface by saying that I have yet to create an entirely new game in 1.77 as of yet, so I'm not sure what will happen. I will certainly keep an eye out. Thanks for the heads up.


  • @makoto99 wrote:
    Sorry in advance for a long post, but I seem to have found a workaround (and possible preventative fix, though it won't restore names already wiped out in a save game). Disclaimer - for people with large neighborhoods of people, it will require some bookkeeping...

    I would recommend using the MCCC mod for this step at least, since using the "Relationships -> Add Relationship" interaction will show you a dialog with ALL sims in your world, where you can see if their names were wiped out.

    Here are the steps:
    1. Load your save game with names hopefully still there
    2. Load a household
    3. Using MCCC as above, click a sim and choose Relationships -> Add Relationship
    4. Scroll through the whole list and write down sims that are missing their names
    5. Repeat this a few times by quitting to Main Menu (WITHOUT SAVING!) and then reloading your save, and choosing a new household. This is because it seems a little random as to which households' names are affected, so doing it this way will sort of filter and catch them all.
    6. Once you have your master list, load your save game again to begin the prevention.
    7. For EACH AND EVERY family with a member whose name was wiped, you will need to Edit that family FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD (i.e. without loading a household, so you don't clobber the names) and change the affected Sims' names. For safety, I just changed every Sim name in each family. It did not seem to require changing the last name... just changing the first works. All I did was add a bunch of capital Z's to the end of the name so it's obvious what I added.
    8. Save your family in the Household editor, rinse and repeat for ALL the rest of your families that had the issue.
    9. Once you've successfully edited all your affected families' names, SAVE YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD GAME.
    10. This may not be required, but I did it anyway... Quit to Main Menu and reload your game.
    11. Now the "prevention" - go back through all those families again, and revert the names back to their original names by removing the Z's (or whatever you did to change them). Again, DO NOT load any households to play yet, do this from the Household Manager at the neighborhood level.
    12. Once all names have been reverted back to their originals, SAVE YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD GAME AGAIN.
    13. Again this may not be required, but quit to main menu and reload your save game.
    14. You should now be able to load a few random households and click Relationship -> Add Relationship on a sim and scan all the other households to verify that no more names got clobbered.
    15. Once you're satisfied your Sims are safe, you are good to go - or so it seems.

    I haven't tested this for an extended time, but it seems to work after an hour or 2 at least. Also, this won't prevent name clobbering for ancestry/dead sims since you can't edit them (that I'm aware of anyway), so unfortunately I have no real help for people with that version of this bug.

    Hope this helps people while we wait for an official fix!


    Has your fix held since implementing it?

  • Ravingbantha's avatar
    Ravingbantha
    4 years ago

    @MickCasanova wrote:

    It's a whole lot simpler. From World View, of a given save, just change the names back in CAS and save the family. This bug only seems to affect games that were saved prior to the patch. Once the names of sims in the save have been edited and saved, upon return to that save, everything sticks as it should. Unfortunately, any and all saves prior to the patch will display the names of the original NPC they were changed from. This of course doesn't help much for people who have played a legacy game for years only to have it destroyed by an idiotic change.


    I can attest that it applies to new games as well. Just started a whole new game this morning, took all the old save files out, added in only a dozen or so Sims from my library, and the game still had the same issue.

  • Ravingbantha's avatar
    Ravingbantha
    4 years ago
    I've also noticed that a number of sims I renamed many months ago now have their old names. For example, I found a better version of Miko Ojo, so the one I was using I renamed and changed around some to be a new Sim, now she is renamed Miko Ojo. This is common while going through my list. So I wonder how many sims whos names were changed are actually based off the sim the name was changed to
  • Kita5399's avatar
    Kita5399
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    @Ravingbantha Yes this is what I’m seeing as well, keeping copies of my legacy and save templates on my desktop for now. Luckily I have been using a test save since the patch to check mods.
  • MickCasanova's avatar
    MickCasanova
    Rising Scout
    4 years ago

    unfortunately, the patch released today did NOT address this issue. I loaded an older game, and the names were still reverted. So no joy here.EA, WAKE UP!

  • makoto99's avatar
    makoto99
    4 years ago
    @Ravingbantha Sorry for not responding sooner, but yes, my entire world is fine and has no issues since I fixed the affected families. Hopefully EA will hotfix it soon and fix families automatically.
  • I have been playing now a while since the patch, wasn't noticeable until it seems like NPC sims are born with only first names and newly generated sims have only 1 first name. 

  • I created a small tutorial (with my strange English translation) on how to return names to ghost Sims quickly, using MC Command Center. It took me 30 seconds with each Sim. I hope it serves you all!

    Tutorial   🙂 

  • mauvejinjo's avatar
    mauvejinjo
    New Hotshot
    4 years ago

    So today I loaded up my game and noticed that the first names of my Sim's ancestors have disappeared - but their surnames are intact. I tried recovering past saves (where I know for certain their names were still intact) but even in those the glitch now appears.  As these were sims the game culled from the ghostly plane, I can't even bring them back to fix this. 

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