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cyndisa's avatar
cyndisa
5 years ago

Snowy Escape rental is unfurnished and Sim disappears

I just bought the Snowy Escape expansion yesterday.  Excited to dive in, I loaded up a saved game (in Sulani world) and told my family to travel to Mt. Komorebi.  I rented one of the houses on the top of the mountain and was disappointed to see that there were no furnishings whatsoever in the house.  I set my parent sims to Woohoo, and they walked inside the house and promptly disappeared.  Right clicking on my active Sim's avatar only focused on nothing, as my invisible Sim climbed an invisible staircase, got to an invisible bed, and apparently had an invisible Woohoo.  Able to do virtually nothing, I waited and watched to see what my Sim would automatically do ... hoping that she would re-appear.  Nope.  She remained invisible but did random things on her own OUTSIDE of the rented house.  She found a public bathroom to use but would not go in the house.  She found a vending machine to waste money on but would not/could not do any cooking in the house.

So, I did a "repair" on the game which completed successfully.  Today, I decided to try a completely new game with a new Sim and start it in the Mt. Komorebi world.  I hoped that this might clear everything out and cause the game to behave correctly.  However, no dice.  My sim established herself in a residence, but when I sent her to travel to the top of the mountain (again, renting a house there), there were no furnishings at all, despite being able to see furnishing through the window of the house.  Thankfully, my sim did not disappear this time; but I was not able to make her do anything in the house that might have caused her disappearance (such as "woohoo-ing" that my other Sim did).

Please, help!  🙂  And thanks for your time.

P.S.  I took a screen capture of the issue, but the file is too large to upload.  No time at the moment to try to downsize, but if needed, I'll try to get it uploaded later today.

Edit:  I have no mods on the game.  I have most of the Sims expansions, a good number of the game packs, and a few of the stuff packs installed.

pc

5 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @cyndisa  Try clearing Origin's cache and repairing again; sometimes that's necessary to get the repair to work.

    https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/

    If that doesn't help, try deleting the folder for the pack and redownloading it.  The folder is labeled EP10 (Snowy Escape is expansion pack 10) and is located within the Sims 4 game data folder, by default in Program Files (x86)\Origin Games.  Once you delete the folder, you should be able to redownload the pack, although if you don't see the option, you may need to clear Origin's cache again.

  • cyndisa's avatar
    cyndisa
    5 years ago

    @puzzlezaddictThank you for the suggestions. I cleared the cache and repaired the game again.  I, also, deleted and re-downloaded the pack.   I am now able to see furnishings in lots that already have a family living there.

    However, the rental properties are still "empty" unless I actually go on vacation. I have been using the "travel" command, as I only want to see what the property is like, rather than taking a vacation to it.

    What is strange about the lack of furnishings is that ... when I go into build mode, all of the furniture is there. But as soon as I exit build mode, it is, once again, missing.

    Also, my Sim still disappears after going into the empty rental. Very strange. I can see her footprints as she walks in the snow, and I can see things she carries, such as food or drink from the vending machine. But she is invisible.

    Is this a bug?

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @cyndisa  Sorry for the late reply.  Just so I'm clear, you can't see the furnishings in live mode when your sim travels to the world but isn't renting the house, but they're otherwise there?  And does your sim disappear while on the lot, or only when going inside the house?

    I took a look in my own game to make sure I was remembering correctly, and I was: when my sims visit an unoccupied regular (non-rental) house, I can see the furnishings through the windows.  But if I get close enough to make the walls drop down, everything disappears except for the floors and the cutaway walls: no furnishings, no appliances, etc.  (This only applies to indoor items.)  The same is true of a rental property.

    The difference here is, my sims can't enter an unoccupied ownable house—from the hand waving and complaining, the door has to be locked.  But they can apparently enter a rental.  The one I sent to take a look did also disappear when she entered the rental house, but that's not surprising, since nothing else in the house is rendered either.  She appeared again when I told her to walk back out the door and off the property.  Interestingly, I could also see her inside through the window when I was zoomed out enough for the walls of the rental to reappear.

    So no, I don't think this is a bug, I think it's a slightly weird side effect of how an empty house isn't rendered and the fact that sims can enter an unoccupied rental lot.

  • cyndisa's avatar
    cyndisa
    5 years ago
    @puzzlezaddict Thanks for the reply (and no worries about being "late" - all of us have other things going on besides games and online communities)!

    To answer your questions ... first question - yes, that's correct. Second question - skip to the last paragraph. 🙂 Here's what I've observed so far ...

    Per normal game behavior, when traveling to another occupied house, I cannot see furnishings until I knock on the door and gain entrance.

    Now ... when traveling to a rental property, I am also not able to see furnishings. I originally thought this should not be; but from what you're saying (and from what I've seen when trying both the "travel" and "take a vacation" commands), this is normal.

    What seems very not normal is the fact that my sim disappears completely, after entering the rental property. After executing the travel command via her phone, she travels to the rental location; and I can see her on the property. However, once she enters the house for any reason, she disappears and does NOT reappear after exiting the house. I can follow her footprints as she walks to the ski lift or a vending machine or the bathroom, or wherever. I can see the item she gets out of the vending machine, when she sits at a picnic table to eat or drink. But she is completely invisible. The only way I've been able to make her visible again is to leave the location. This is the part that I wondered if it was a bug.

    Thank you, again, for trying to help me diagnose and fix this!
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @cyndisa  I think it's normal, or at least not a bug itself, that the sim disappears while inside a house where the furniture is not being rendered.  If nothing is rendered, then that includes the sim, so maybe it's an oversight or just the way the feature is programmed.

    The last part is definitely not what should be happening.  I looked again and did notice my sim was still invisible when initially exiting the house, but I zoomed out and she reappeared.  I'm not sure whether it happened because I zoomed out or because she stepped off the property; she'd exited through the back and had been standing on the patio.

    Does it help if you zoom all the way out?  Does it help if you go to Manage Worlds and back?  What graphics settings are you using?  You can put the game in windowed mode and use the snipping tool (Windows key-shift-S) to capture the relevant portion of the screen, then open Paint and crtl-V to paste.

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