Re: [OPEN] [CD] Cats can't use the litter boxes

Hmm I consider that the fact that it happens on a new save makes a big difference. That user mentioned something about leaving the lot. This bug can happen anytime (actually, every time the conditions are met - that is the cat being on another level other than the level the litter box/pet bowl is on).

Edit: Also, if I buy new litter boxes/pet bowls or just move the existing ones on the same level as the cat, it will use them - another difference between this thread and the one you mentioned. True, they can have strange connections. But I consider that the steps I provided describe a totally different scenario.

Today I've tested it with a Dog and a Pet Bowl. Same result.

Oh, maybe this explains why my dog is often hungry? I have all the bowls outside and you need to walk stairs to get inside the house. My cat is often outside playing and exploring and whatnot, so that would explain why the cat is full and the dog is starving. I have several time had my sims to call for the dog by the bowl because it won't eat even though it's sad and when I ask it what's wrong, it's hungry. I have to explore this further.

I think this is related. My dog won't go outside to pee/poo, it will wait until there's an accident, and I think it's because there's a small staircase to get to the ground. If I have my dog outside, because I've played with it there or whatever, it seem to be willing to take care of it's business by itself. 

I am having the same issue from time to time. As a workaround, I go to the build mode, move a litter box to my family inventory and put it back again. The problem is solved. Similar approach works with the coffee machines when my sims make a coffee and then cannot grab a drink. Moving these objects to the family inventory always helps. Resetting an object from the debug menu doesn't help though. Looks like object meshes shrink in size, or not very good in overlapping with other meshes. I tried to put a litter box farther from the wall and looks like it helps too. But in case of coffee machines there's no other way, because you have to put them on kitchen surfaces. Probably, I found a good place, or the recent updates fixed it... No idea. But I am sure, one should try to put litter boxes without bb.moveobject cheat and find a place at least one tile away from the wall. I haven't tried it yet (do not like too much mods), but there's a mod which fixes this bug: Pets can find Pet Stuff on other Floors.

[Edited by CM] Linking to mod sites is not allowed on AHQ - EA_Charlie

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.

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@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!

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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)

🤔

My cat is stuck when she/he pooping.

I need to ''reset him'' everytime...

I have some very, very old cats.  (I tend to not let them die of old age and just feed them age-down treats forever.)  The older cats that pre-date the "we retrained all our dogs and cats to eat autonomously" patch are very hit-or-miss on finding their food dishes.  Even with a kibble tower on every floor it's sometimes "[Name] is very hungry!  Don't forget to fill up a dish for him/her!"  It used to be always, then it was frequent. 

If they go on vacation with the cheap dish you have to refill constantly yourself they find it 100% of the time. My impression, right or wrong, was that eating was somehow tied to how often the bowl was filled and not, you know, the actual presence of food in the dish.

"Newer" cats are better at finding their food dish but still not 100%. 

I've gotten into the habit of, if their icon turns the uncomfortable red, just having a Sim walk to a kibble tower and "call to eat" before actually asking the cat what's wrong.  I've also found that they only seem to know about the kibble tower they were last called to. I did install the mod that was supposed to fix this, but maybe these poor elder cats are too buggy?  It helps but doesn't completely resolve it. 

I also have the laser litterboxes on each floor, and they can USUALLY but not always find those.  If "what's wrong" is that they want a nice clean litterbox when they have three, I...

...cheat the cat's need.

Honestly, it's crossed my mind to install the playable pets mod just so I can tell my Sim pets myself where their food dishes and litterboxes are.  I'm not quite there yet, but it's crossed my mind. 

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.