Sims are gone & missing from some households

I do have some mods that add things like custom traits (from both chingyu and thepancake1) and more trait slots, but there still doesn't seem to be any pattern that forms even knowing that. I did get an email that thepancake1 released an update for his traits (https://www.patreon.com/posts/mod-status-for-1-108836941?utm_campaign=patron_engagement&utm_source=post_link&post_id=108836941&utm_id=ab68820f-e2ee-4b95-9af4-ae5966b7aa2d&utm_medium=email) a couple days ago, but I already tried straight-up deleting all of my mods and it didn't bring back the missing Sims, so I don't think replacing an outdated mod with a new version would make any difference either.

I've been actively choosing not to play TS4 until I could get this figured out so I wouldn't make any progress that I could potentially lose while trying to fix the issue. I created a new Sim and worked on a house, both of which I saved to My Gallery so I could access later, but I didn't save my game either time just in case it would somehow leave my Sims missing permanently. 

I just went back and used Recover Save, and the missing Sims did show up again. However, that was without mods. Once I added my mods back in and started up the same save file, the Sims went missing again. I updated thepancake1's mod, and that didn't seem to help either, so I'm going to have to do things the old fashion way by removing them all and adding them back in small groups at a time so I can figure out which mod is causing the problem. I'll let you know if I'm able to find anything. Thanks

Apparently I did have a Hybrid Occult mod installed that seems to have been causing the problems. I forgot that I have an Alien Spellcaster and that I couldn't do that in vanilla TS4 😅 I believe it was a hybrid mod by Iced Cream, and in retrospect, there was actually a pattern because all of the Sims I who went missing were also occults of some type. (Don't know how I didn't pick up on that earlier lol, my bad)

I went to check out if there was an update for that mod, and there...kind of was? I think what they ended up doing was merging their mod with another one called Occult Hybrid Unlocker & Stabilizer by TwelfthDoctor1. (The included screenshot is of the old mod that I deleted.) So I deleted the old hybrid mod and downloaded these instead:

- https://modthesims.info/d/643617/

-  https://modthesims.info/d/647863/all-in-one-occult-hybrid-stabilizer.html

I went poking around to make sure everything worked correctly, and it everything seemed to be fine. I checked to make sure my Alien Spellcaster Sim still had both occults, and sure enough, she did. I haven't noticed any Sims still missing, so it seems that problem has been solved. It did, however, create ANOTHER problem...because of course it did. (Because apparently, we as TS4 fans aren't allowed to have nice things.)

Now I can't open CAS without it freezing on the loading screen, making me have to Force Quit the game. I even tried going to CAS on a non-occult Sim (one of the 2 that DIDN'T go missing from that same household), but it froze again. So now my Sims are back, but now I can't edit them or create any new ones...excellent. 😮‍💨😭