Another step toward hunting down this issue... assuming I have not simply fallen asleep and dreamt it, I accidentally caused the issue to happen on an uncorrupted save, which gives me a much clearer idea of what can cause it.
To explain: On a save I'd "cleaned" of Sorcerer, I was using an edited version of the base Sorcerer Trait and having it give the custom needs, so that I could more quickly test trying to "repair" that save. In other words, I had a trait called Bob that is just the base trait for the mod. Then there are 3 optional traits called Bobbo, Bobby, and Bobberino. Each of the 3 optional traits adds the two custom needs, but you're only supposed to use one or things would get weird.
I had Bob edited so that it was giving custom needs, so that I could test more quickly.
With this edited Bob installed, I tried to load a new save that works fine, where a sim in it has the two custom needs from one of the 3 optional traits. The same error message appeared!
So what this implies is, if one trait tries to blacklist a need and another trait tries to set it as an initial_commodity or reference it in ui_commodity_sort_override, the error will occur; the edits in Bob were blacklisting Energy and the sim in the formerly new and working save had an optional of the 3 that referenced Energy in ui_commodity_sort_override.
Here's what's weird though... someone pointed out to me that one of Bobbo, Bobby, and Bobberino (we'll say "Bobberino") was causing problems. With Bobberino gone, the issue disappears.
So far, appears to be true. Only I can't find anything significant about Bobberino, apart from which needs it blacklists. It blacklists Energy and Hygiene. I'm figuring maybe Energy or Hygiene, one or both, have issues with being blacklisted related to the patch. Logically, it wouldn't make sense for it to be Energy, since Vampire trait blacklists that and no one seems to be reporting issues with them. That leaves Hygiene.
Now I need to isolate and see if that holds true... making an alternative version of Bobberino that only blacklists Hygiene or only blacklists Energy.
...
Ok, did that. Turns out Energy blacklists fine. Hygiene causes an error.
All those hours in front of a computer, in need of a shower, and it was Hygiene all along.
It feels like the universe is playing a trick on me right now.
In all seriousness though, Hygiene seems almost undeniably the culprit at this point, but there's still one piece missing: Why? Why would you do this to me Hygiene? What did I ever do to you?
No, but seriously, why, out of all the needs, would Hygiene have issues with being blacklisted? Makes no sense. I'm not finding anything in the code indicating a change to Hygiene. Also, I'm now seeing it's an issue with Hygiene being blacklisted, whether it's a new save or not.
