I play with Retail shops since 4 years intensely on my save, and have nearly 50 retail shops in this save, of which 48 are npc/non-owned. I use them mainly as supermarkets, malls or fashion shops for my Sims, selling a combination of items, food and fashion.
Since 01 November 2025 I experienced a bug for the first time, that first just affected 1 retail, but now I have already 4 affected and it seems spreading over time :( Every time it happens, I'm not saving and restarting the game losing progress on that save, to try to safe the shop.
UPDATE: Please read the first comment below this post, memory boost can prevent this issue!!
Issue:
When my Sim visits the (fully stocked with marked for-sale items npc-owned) retail as a buyer,
- the retail bell doesn't ring,
- no staff appears
- and all for sale items are suddenly not for sale anymore.
- Even mannequins lose the sale hover, but I can still buy the outfit. And when I buy a mannequin outfit and come back to the shop, the outfit is not restocked as it would usually be when the retail is functional.
- But other items are not buyable anymore.
- Subsequent visits are always without bell and nothing to buy, it completely loses the retail functionality.
- If i save this store now to the gallery, or restart the game, it stays without above functionality.
- When i buy the shop as my Sim, and make items for sale again, it works for 1 visit, and then breaks again the second or third visit.
Way to reproduce it:
Unfortunately it seems to start rather randomly to my shops, but every time it did happen, it happened after I visited several shops in a row and that same shop more than once in the same play session shortly in succession. I always travelled with the "M" button and picked the shop in manage worlds.
It happened with 3 stores in Newcrest and one in San Myshuno, all shops have been well visited in the past by my Sims and are already quite a while in my game (not sure if that matters). I didn't have to buy anything, I just enter the shop, let my Sim walk around for 10 seconds, load into a different lot and come back to the initial shop, and the retail is suddenly broken.
I have a save file that I saved just before it starts happening to 1 of my shops -> It has the shop working at first, and then when visiting the shop next to it and coming back to the first shop the first one stopped working. Happy to share it!
I tried a lot of tests on it as it was so reproducable, but couldn't find a pattern.
What i tried so far:
- Everything below i tried and then closed the game, deleted thumbnailcache and restarted, in case the bug stays in memory and spreads.
- When I alternate visiting the shop with some shops in other neighbourhoods, it did not break even after alternating over 5 times back and forth,
- I tried alternate visiting it with a specific shop that it was previously not breaking with and that was in another neighbourhood, but when i moved the same shop right next to it, my shop did break when visiting -> which made me think that the issue is connected to the lot or the fact that they are in the same neighbourhood rather than the contents of the build.
- I tried alternating my shop with a non-shop that was next to it (a playground) and it broke as well -> so alternating loading into another retail is not required to reproduce this
- I usually tested with the same Sim visiting, to keep results consistent, but also tested with another Sim in case it is connected to her, but it still broke
- I checked if just going into the shop through build mode back and forth with another shop, making a small change (deleting a for sale item in that breaking shop) and then going in with live mode afterwards: And indeed when I did that my first live-mode visit in that shop was already broken.. It made it seem like something about loading into the retail (or me deleting an item) already impacts the retail for-sale integrity
- Using "Modify in CAS" on my Sim while in the retail while it starts off still functioning correctly, did not make it break even when doing that repeatedly (I tried 3 times in a row). But once the shop is broken (which removes the for-sale status on all items), the Modify in CAS can bring back the retail bell if the shop had mannequins -> it somehow restores the recognition of mannequins partially, although they are still missing the sales mouse hover icon even when restored. All other for sale items are not restoring though unfortunately.
- I tested in a new save with just the 2 retails in the exact same spots next to each other in newcrest, no mods, and i couldn't get it to break even though i loaded back and forth between them 8 times => I wonder if something is saved onto the lots of my long-living save file over time, that makes it break more? Although when i moved the retail to another world that I hadn't played with very much yet (Ravenwood) it was still breaking after just alternating once with another shop in the same neighbourhood.. So unlikely the issue is in the lot location itself..
- Maybe it is connected to my save file being big -> I have all packs possible and had all lots in all worlds built-out with medium sized builds (0 residential rentals though, never placed them as they scare me), until i reached the protobuf overflow issue with disappearing adjacent builds anywhere i loaded into => i reverted to a save before that issue happened and removed 12 lots and 10 apartments, which moved me into a safe space away from reaching protobuf overflow for a bit (hopefully), but maybe it could be still related to this retail issue starting to happen?
I checked but I did not get any LEs. I tested without mods in the save where everything is fine, and then try to reproduce it with the exact same steps and it happens without any mods as well.
I'm playing on Windows PC, latest game update version, all possible packs and tested without mods.
