Two copies of custom townie show up at a playable business (again!)

[margonaute]

After not being able to find any clues by searching online, I posted this help message (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=467442) a few months ago but didn't get any responses (better luck this time?):
I was at a playable-owned business when I spotted two copies of a townie I made, exactly identical hair and outfit, etc. I panicked and sent everyone home (was afraid to exit directly from the business since the sims were on a community lot and not their home). Everything seemed back to normal over the next few sim days, even back at the business. So I'm wondering how concerned I should be about this one townie clone? After searching, the only explanations I've found have to do with game-generated townies showing up in multiples, but this is a custom sim that I made in Body Shop, so that doesn't seem to apply here. I ran Mootilda's Hood Checker before and after this play session and didn't see anything out of the ordinary in the log (I ran the "Remove" action as well). And this is one of those problems that's tough to run the FAQ on since I can't actively recreate the problem. In several subsequent trips to that and other community lots, I did not see it happen again, but.......

Has anyone seen this before/know what might be glitching/how bad this is?

The same thing happened today:
http://i.imgur.com/OKCZJ.jpg
Two copies of a townie (that I created in Body Shop) showed up, same outfit, same name (that I made, not one automatically generated by the game). I can't remember if this was the same business lot or the same townie as when I last had the problem since that was back in January. I ran HoodChecker, but the report didn't list the townie (0x0056) anywhere.

So now this glitch has happened twice. It seems like the problem has to do with how the game is generating customers for OfB businesses (this time, I was visiting another playable's owned business, whereas last time I think I was playing an owned business?), but I don't know how serious it is... Does anyone have any idea what's going on and/or how bad it is??

Update: Also, there's still only one copy of the townie in SimPE, so it looks like the game is just temporarily generated a double? Really hoping someone can tell me this doesn't mean my game is going to explode...

[margonaute]

Okay, I know we're not supposed to double-post, but has really no one ever seen this?
http://i.imgur.com/3S93r.jpg

As last time, I sent a sim to the same business owned by another playable, and the same custom townie showed up in duplicate. Checked in SimPE, and while she had a memory of meeting herself (before HoodChecker cleaned it up), there was still only one copy of her in the Sim Description panel. So it doesn't seem like the game is actually generating a permanent copy, just some sort of temporary one.

This is a hood made using empty templates, so there aren't many townies available. Could it just be some issue with the game being stupid about generating customers since there isn't a huge pool of townies to draw from??

Anyone???

[Darby]

I have experienced this, also in an empty-template neighborhood. In my case, it was at Uni. I had created a few dormies, but not many, and when I'd take a playable student to a community lot, I'd get duplicates fairly often.

Like you, I think it has to do with the game thinking it needs more sims to populate community lots and businesses, so it creates duplicates of existing sims. I have no skills to even begin to verify such a theory, so I have no idea if it has any merit at all, but I can tell you that when I added more dormies, the duplications stopped.

As for how serious the issue is, I really don't know. I've heard bad things about a "Met Self" memory that can happen if a sim tends bar on an owned business, but this is a little different.

[margonaute]

Hmm, maybe I'll just bend my BACC rules a bit and make a little townie pool to see if that makes a difference...

Thanks for responding!

UPDATE for anyone searching for this thread later: I created some more townies, and that seemed to solve the issue. I've visited that lot multiple times and haven't seen any sign duplicates!

[Darby]

Let me know how it goes. I'm curious.

And good luck!