Sunset Mall - Unable to interact with ground floor activities

I'm having a similar issue.  I'm doing one of the Downtown Developer quests and I can't get my Sims to start digging at the Mall to harvest gold shards.  I collected the last shards from them but can't start a new dig.  Add to that, when I tap on items that they should be able to interact with, nothing happens.  I can send them outside the mall doors but it is very hard to locate them inside.  I have to tap multiple times to get the locator/ pin drop to appear.