My sim Jonathan is a man about town, going on multiple dates with various men and women, he's a romance sim. He just ended a date with one sim, and he got a phone call supposedly from her best friend, asking to go on a date with him as well. Of course I accepted. The game pulls up a toast at the top right corner saying "You better get a move on, head to a community lot" "Don't be late!" something along those lines. I send him to his car to go Downtown, where she asked to meet him. I go to the club or a restaurant, and I'm sent to the community lot-- but I'm not in live mode. Live mode is completely grayed out, and I'm in Build/Buy mode permanently. I have reloaded my game 3 times and the same thing keeps happening in the same order. The only thing I can think of is, right before opening my game I changed my sim's gender preferences to 0.0 for both men and women in SimPE. I saved my changes, so theres probably no way of going back.

To circumvent this issue, I thought maybe he should try using a Taxi or Public transportation to get to the Downtown lot instead of his personal car.
At this point I went to his home phone and tried to call for a taxi, the command was taken and ignored each time. I was running out of time for him to get to his second date. I refused to even pick up the phone to call for a taxi/public transport about 5 times. He gets a phone call immediately after from the same "friend" saying "You stood me up! Never call me again!"

Like, he TRIED???

Now I have a sim who's angry at my sim because he supposedly stood her up.
Immediately after, it seems like she asked him out again to a downtown lot, I supposed this would be the "correct" way to go. I pressed "go to downtown lot" and he still got in his car. What happens when he gets there?

Build&Buy mode, no Live mode. I can't progress.

Is there any way I can fix this? I do have a backup of my game saves, but it isn't very recent. I would be losing one of the sims I created and possibly one of my families I created, but I would still have Jonathan unchanged.

Is it even POSSIBLE my small SimPE gender preference change would cause this? I wish I remembered the exact values he used to have. I just wanted him to be bisexual down the middle, as he used to be in the past.

I think that would be a coinsidence, but anything is possible.
I would make a full backup, pull all CC and see how the game works then.

If it's only one lot I would say check the portals in the lot and go to hood view and check for hood deco blocking it.

When using a taxi for a date or outing always have your sim go immediatly to the mailbox and don't speed up, just make them walk back and forth. There is a well known 'you stood me up glitch' if you play faster or do anything else.

Oh interesting, I did speed up. I didn't make him "walk to the mailbox" or anything, I didn't know it was a thing. I'll try to pull all mods tonight and see what happens.

What happens if you just go downtown without invitation?

Was it always the same lot?

Does it happen to other Sims as well?

Without invitation, it works as normal. As it should. He's taken to the community lot in Live mode NOT build mode, as it should be. It seems to only happen when I'm invited to an area. Really odd.
I feel bad I wasn't able to play all week, I rolled my save back now and everything seems fine? I'm going to try and re-create the same situation with the same date with the same girl - but I can't be certain I'll get the same sequence of events with the "invitation". Is there a way I can force an invitation prompt through L and D or Boolprop?