[Open] - Active Sim busy even though not doing anything

I've been having the same issue, with my passive sims randomly "starting events" without being prompted and then getting stuck (because there's no actual event to be completed). So far it's happened to two sets of my passive sims as of yesterday, both of which had completed a relationship story with each other in the past week.

i managed to resolve the glitch with the first set of event-locked sims by removing one of the locked sims from the family, so they were definitely "in an event" together.

however, i don't want to do that with either member of the second pair (both of whom started reading as "in an event" immediately after I removed that first sim, which seems to indicate that i didn't actually solve whatever root glitch is causing this?); they're two of my main sims, with tons of activity logged on each of them, and i'd hate to lose that - especially if it wouldn't actually fix the core issue. 

Has anyone found a workaround for this? is there a way to force-close events, maybe? i can't make any of the 'problem sims' active or even call them out of the house (even tapping them where they appear onscreen doesn't register - i have to manually trigger a simple face-to-face interaction via an active sim's "contacts" page, and obviously i can't start any actual hangouts with them while they're "in an event"). i'm not sure there's a way to fix this without a technical patch, but i'd be grateful to hear anyone's insight on the issue!