When a crash is intermittent, running one, two, or even many tests cannot confirm that the problem has been resolved.

Suggestion:

- Remove your original house download, so that we do not continue to test what we believe to be a broken lot. Encourage people who already have the original lot to continue to post any problems in that thread.

- Create a new test lot that you believe might have the problem fixed. Make sure that the new lot has a new name, so that we can confirm whether a person is using the old lot or the new one. Try to make the new lot as close to the old lot as possible, except for the things which you believe may be causing the problem.

It would be best if you could start a new thread for the new lot, to keep issues from the old lot separate. Let people download this new lot and see whether any crashes are reported.

In this way, we will get maximum testing, the users will get a (hopefully) more stable lot, and a report of even one crash will show that this is not the (only) issue.

[Update:]

Nevermind, I see that someone already got a crash with your new download.

[chit-chat]

Plasticbox,

lol, this is all new, and if there're problems. You're gonna be the hero who happen to show them out...
Don't panic for whatever cause...

Remember, we're doing testings based a complex act including Mootilda's part, Andi's part, the tester's part, the compatibility between the HW and the game for the testing time period, etc...

These all help, I say...

After all, a mistake can help a person be awaken the next time... :D



May I give some friendly hugs? Thank you with a bunch



[Lots > maxi.size]



I've my cause to release the largest stable usable lot, 64x64 lot now...

I believe Mootilda (and all others involved in the actual development of the LotExpander) would prefer to keep/move/continue the 7PM crash discussion in the 7PM thread at MATY, in order to keep this thead useable for other things ..

Inge, niol, Mootilda -- I'll copy+paste your last posts and answer you there =)

I really don't want to have to monitor MATY. I don't want my posts (made here) quoted over there. I don't want to have to read my mail there. However, I'm certainly willing to direct people to your MATY 7PM thread, if that's where you want to keep this issue.

I read your post at MATY suggesting that people want this shrinking feature, even if it corrupts their lots and/or their neighborhoods. I honestly hadn't realized this, and have perhaps been overly concerned about the whole issue.

So, I'm not going to worry about this any more. I'll assume that you're monitoring all of the various threads (your 2 threads here and your 1 thread at MATY, plus the one that I found while chasing Doc Doofus?) and that you'll let me know if anything interesting comes out of it all.

In the interim, I'll go back to my development work - so that I can provide even more wonderful features!

Please be assured, I'd love to fix this problem. I'm just trying to prioritize what I do with my (obviously limited) time. Sounds like you have the 7PM issue well in hand.

Noted. Sorry that I misunderstood. There obviously needs to be additional information available for each of the advanced options: what it does, why it is an advanced option, potential problems, etc.

My decision about whether or not an feature is "advanced" depends primarily upon how much trouble people can get into by using the option. If I can convince myself that shrinking lots is safe, then shrinking becomes a standard feature. Right now, there are the crashing issues, so I'm reluctant to even release it, much less consider making it a standard feature.

I think Mootilda, that there are two types of players (and all sorts in between). The ones who hardly dare download anything in case it explodes their boot sector, and the sort who think "well I bought this computer and The Sims to have fun with" and would find it quite amusing if their sims all turned purple and grew 8 arms.

I tend towards the latter end, and find myself feeling quite resentful if I feel I might be denied some experimental fun in order to keep the other type of person feeling safe. I can sense one of the main stress factors in your progress with this is wondering where to draw the line in what you are making possible.

I think your responsibility need stretch no further than marking out (you are using the concept of "advanced options" to do this) those features which are potential problems. You don't have responsibility for what people make using your tool, or the way they present it. Anyone can make a mod that crashes people's games, with almost any of the tools available. It's their responsibility to test their upload, or mark it as being "in testing" or whatever. If they don't, then it's not your fault.

Yes, I read it. Sorry that I didn't comment; what you suggested makes sense to me. I've been trying to get my head around all of the different UI issues, to see whether I can come up with a design which meets all of my criteria and everyone else's too.

If it hadn't been for the string-too-long crash that several people reported, I wouldn't have put out the advanced feature screen yet - since I don't believe that it's really complete yet. But, I wanted to get the crash fixed and it was easier to disable a few features in the newest version than to add all the appropriate fixes back into 1.2.7.

There is also the option of lot package replacement, suggested by niol. I suppose that we might want to consider writing another tutorial to show various ways of using these types of lots.

From MATY thread:

This is off-topic, but I'm not registered on MATY. I thought the external trashcan never got full? Cause there's no way to empty it - I've never seen a garbage truck come to a lot.

I'm working on my tutorial again - thunderstorms last night meant the computer was unplugged, so I did it on paper. Which enabled me to get my head around the re-vamp at last. So I hope to post the second draft later today.

I'll just go check my new upload first...

I agree that this could be useful information. Would you be willing to do these tests?

There's one other thing that I'd like to add to this discussion; I've mentioned this before, but it may need repeating: I have noticed that many of my lots are more difficult to place immediately after expansion. Once an expanded lot has been placed anywhere in the neighborhood using the game, it becomes easier to place - often in locations where the game was unwilling to accept it right after expansion.

Unfortunately, moving these lots in-game defeats the whole purpose of allowing them to be moved by the LE.

I assume that this problem is related to some change in the lot package, which is fixed by the game when the it accepts a new location for the lot. At the moment, my only suggestion is that odd 3D Array Instance 3. Perhaps we could fool around with this record a bit and see whether it changes a lot's ability to be placed in a neighborhood.

That record must do something!

Some other considerations: Do moved lots which have been expanded or shrunk behave differently from lots moved using LE with no size change? Do lots which just have their Top and Left values changed using SimPE behave differently from lots moved using the LE?

It's too bad that we don't have access to the tool which EA/Maxis uses to create and modify lots - if such a thing exists.

I agree with you - the external trashcan never gets full and is never empty. You can always put more into it; you can always kick it over and make a mess.

Yes, but if you're trying to *salvage* it, you sometimes can and sometimes you can't. I recently had a sim making money (or, well, trying to) by salvaging the trash .. that's why I've seen that. In my game it seemed to depend on how often / when / how much trash the sims put *into* the can first .. that's why I think the outdoor trash must be "deprecating" somehow.

Um .. I'm sorry .. I thought you *wanted* to keep the 7PM issue separate from this thread? I agree that it's harder to keep up when all the various topics are mixed together in one place, that's why I've quoted posts from here at MATY .. to make the whole story readable and to avoid more people posting here (imagine that entire thread ending up in here .. ugh). Let me know if you want me to remove any quotes, and I'll do that.

I only see two options in cases like this one: splitting things up, or keeping them together. Not trying to argue or anything, I just don't see an alternative (do you?).



Sounds like a good plan =). I'm a bit overwhelmed with monitoring it all, as well, but I do see how I'm responsible for threads/posts that only I can edit. I'll do what I can.

You can be sure that if I see any posts indicating that the problem could be fixed on your side of things, I'll let you know about it immediately. As long as we don't know that you *can* fix it, you shouldn't need to waste time with it.

I want to be able to redistribute shrunk lots without crashing people's games, that's why I'm so concerned about it .. I totally understand that for you it's not a priority issue (I agree with Inge on that point, you're not responsible for the mess people make with your tools).


Speaking of keeping up: maybe, for the next tutorial -- what you and Inge mentioned (somewhere .. I don't find it right now, something with advanced options?), and I don't know what aelflaed has up her sleeve? -- it would be an idea to make a user group to post it, so that more than one person can edit it? Could make it easier to keep things up to date, perhaps?

No need to apologize. I do want to keep these things separate. I just feel overwhelmed if I have to keep track of too many threads on too many different websites. My hope is that by splitting off some of the busier issues, people can decide where to spend their time and energy.

I'm not sure that I need to be a part of the 7PM thread at this time. I don't know that I have anything useful to add to the discussion and I'm not sure that the general chatter is helpful for me, either.

The more threads and the more websites that I have to visit, the less actual work that I get done. Does that make sense? There seem to be a lot of people already working on this crashing issue, so I'm hoping that I can spend my time elsewhere (until there's something concrete for me to do).

I am also very unsure of the rules at MATY. It seems like a more hostile place, which is why I have not tended to either read or post there, unless absolutely necessary. My attempt to answer Doc Doofus' question was my very first post at MATY. Your email to me there was my very first email at MATY. MATY just isn't a site that I frequent.

However, you suggested that you start a thread there because you felt that you might be able to get more technical help, so I agreed. I understand that there is at least one person at MATY who is very technically competent and that you were hoping that he might be able to help.

No, there's no need to remove posts. My only problem is that I like to monitor threads that I'm posting in... if you copy my posts over there, then I feel the need to monitor those threads, too. So, I'd prefer that you not copy things that I say over there... perhaps just a link to my post here?

Of course, if I'm not monitoring the thread, I have no way to know whether you're quoting me or not... I was just surprised to find you responding to posts that I didn't remember making at that website... then I realized that you were copying things over. I don't know about you, but posting one place and getting a response in a second, then responding to that post in a third place is terribly confusing to me.

Great. If you find yourself completely overwhelmed, be sure to let us know. I think that we are all eager to find out what's causing these crashes, since we'd all like to make small houses and row houses with abandon.

That's exactly my thinking. There might even be some research that would be easier to me to code than for someone else to try to do by hand.

That's what I've been trying to convince myself of. Your post over at MATY about people wanting these lots, even if they crash, made me realize that I was trying to take too much responsibility for the issue.

I want this issue resolved. However, I'm not sure that I've got anything to contribute right now. If I do contribute, it should probably be something like changing the LE to move all objects onto the lot, or to warn people if the area to be removed is not empty, or ... some code-y thing.

Perhaps you're thinking about the tutorial to explain to people how to move, share and place "unmovable" lots? That one could be difficult to get right, but it would be very helpful for people who aren't familiar with the techniques.

This is where you can tell that I'm a complete newbie. I don't know what a "user group" is or how to make one or anything. However, if it allows moe than one person to be responsible for a thread, then it sounds like a good idea.

Let me know when you've got a link, so that I can add the link to the original post for this thread.

Mootilda,

here's a link to aelflaed's lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=254686


Probably not, at this point.

One thing you could tell us: what exactly is the LE doing with trashcans when shrinking a lot? Because here's one difference between my lots and most everybody else's: I have additional trashcans. Bit far-fetched perhaps, but it *could* be that the game does something with the trash at 7PM on the first day, that it doesn't do when the sims aren't brand new, and that breaks when the lot has been shrunk *and* has additional cans. And that is also prevented by the auto-save on move in (hence why no crash on replay).

Here's the complete quote from the "rehash list" post (#24 of the MATY thread):


Do you think this could make any sense?


I've seen some silliness, but never encountered it personally. There are some very competent people there, yes. There are competent people here too, but I don't really know where to find them easily .. I could have posted in the Ranch I suppose (special forum for featured/awarded creators -- not sure if you can see that it exists), but you don't have a feature (quite incredibly, actually) so you would have been unable to see it at all.

Will try to cut down on on the quoting. It was mostly technical things anyway, as far as I recall -- like what you said about um .. record types in lot packages, and stuff. I wanted to get the info across in one piece (this is stuff I do not understand), so I quoted.


I'll have to see how it goes during the week. This weekend I had time, that's why I was so active (although this stuff has eaten *way* more of my weekend than I would have wanted to). During the week I don't.


Me too. If it can't be solved on a technical level, at least I want to establish a clear set of rules what to do/avoid in order to share shrunk/resized lots safely. Something more substantial than "don't be plasticbox" =).


Yes, that's what I meant .. there are a few modding groups on this site, and as far as I'm aware all group members can edit the posts (at least, that's what I assume is the point of the groups in the first place .. other than just "identity politics"). If you do a member search for "marylou", for example, you will also find the group "MaryLou and Numenor", that's one such group.

I was thinking of this when you posted in my tutorial thread, and all I did was copy and paste what you said in the OP .. you could just as well have edited it directly, would have been faster.

Not sure how to set up a group -- I'd PM Delphy, or one of the moderators (I've been in touch with v1nd1care btw, but haven't heard back except that she says she's aware of it and will discuss it with the other mods), they're always very helpful.

If you want to make a group, and set that group as the owner of my tutorial thread for example (but I'm not sure if that's technically possible after the fact), then please go ahead! I'm not worried about "intellectual property" and stuff .. whatever works better.

Off for now. Will maybe check in very quickly in a few hours (gah! monday morning!), then I'm off for the day. Have fun in the meantime.

If "move portals" is checked, and there is exactly one trashcan, then the LE moves it to the correct location between the road and the sidewalk. If "move portals" is unchecked or if there are multiple trashcans, then the trashcans remain in the same location on the lot. The logic for multiple trashcans is the same as the logic for any other non-portal object.

Anything is possible, but there's no obvious reason why the game would crash with two trashcans.

Feel free to quote the above in the MATY thread and attribute it to me.

The first thread that I read at MATY had a horrible picture of a person with his eye gouged out. I just haven't wanted to go back.

I doubt that I will ever gain any status on this website, because I will probably only ever work on the LotExpander - it keeps me busy.

Mootilda, I think it's obvious featuring material, to do so much with the LotExpander as you have. It's a huge amount of work, and adding enormously to the game as well. Not to mention the added excitements of taking over work begun by someone else, in another language. Lots of brownie ponts to you, I say.


Update- I've removed the tutorial draft. The finished version is available here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=255110

[Rotations: all 3][roads non-stand.]

I've done an experiment in which I've made new lots on the strangetown neighbourhood for 4 directions without entering and saving them to initiate the data additions into these empty new lot package files. Instead, I altered some of the values for them in the lot description file in the neighbourhood package file.

Since the version of my SimPE copy is not for BV, I used the hex interface to mod it to avoid misreading of the plugins.

I . with U10=02, U11=01, L=62, T=62, z=356.625, 30x30->60x60

Now, it's L=59, T=55 after relocation, 60x60, the lot has successfully adopted the terrain shape.
But strangely, some arrays seemed to be added into the lot description file

3. with U10=08, U11=03, L=62, T=62, 30x30->10x10
Lol, it doesn't show up in the neighbourhood.

2. with U10=02, U11=01, L=80, T=57, z=356.625, 30x30->20x60
The lot happened to be over the 2 parallel road in the Strangetown. The icon looks like a 10x60 one instead of 20x60.
Entering it will return back to the neighbourhood just the same as entering a nullified saved lot.

4. with U10=01, U11=00, L=82, T=57, 30x30->50x30

Now, , L=81, T=58, with some empty spaces and 2 singles values added. For this lot, I've moved the portals in the buildable area by 10 tiles.

I succeeded in switching a beach lot into the strangetown and the "beach" is still working... :D


[roads & portals]

Actually, in the tutorial lots, Maxis left some interesting jpg files in the packages. check the attached pix...


[record formats (lots and neighbourhood)]


Yes, I'll do yet another test for this.


gonna dig it a bit .


[chit-chat]


They'll worry they can't play the god anymore if so!
Nah actually, they'll worry to lose their business on the TS2 line.

Probably a moot point now that we found aelflaed's lot is crashing too (standard cans on that one). Will add your remarks tonight, for the sake of completeness.


Which is exactly the kind of thing that this site is about =).


aelflaed,

my tutorial is simply a post. I only needed very few images since the actual process is simple. Will look at your PDF tonight.

Off for a while.

Mootilda, I think this is one idea you are best fitted to answer. Is this a possible line of investigation, or just silly?

From Aelflaed's lot thread:


Do you think it worth uploading a shrunk lot, NOT built to the edges, to see if people can crash one of those? Or is that a different question?

In tutorial news, I think the idea of retrieving missing portals by making them (0,0) doesn't work. Maybe I've misunderstood what you meant, but when I do it, the lot goes wrong, or the portals don't change.

In basegame, I placed one of MaryLou's 1x3 lots. I moved the road to one side (forgetting to extend to make space, maybe this is the issue?) and changed the portals to (0,0). The lot wouldn't replace in the hood, possibly because there was no space for the road. Inside the lot, the portals were still in line with the old road. So I went back and expanded it to make it 3x2. The new road strip is now visible, but the lot still won't replace.

I also did one in NL, a Maxis 2x2 template. I moved the road to one side and zeroed the portals. The road change appeared, and the portals remained on the old road. I actually did this one first, and then the other. I meant to do the basegame one with the original LE, but actually used the newest one.

I can easily take that suggestion out of my troubleshooting section, but I thought I'd report it anyway.

Apparently the two people with crashing lots shrank at the back as well as the sides, whereas my non-crashing shrunk lot was only shrunk at the sides. If the LE's actions are significant to the crash at all, it's worth looking at this area.

In the meantime, please can Aelflaed and Plasticbox make similar houses to what they made before, but this time shrink at the sides only. That will be a good comparative test.

"Featured" just means "the staff got excited as soon as they saw this". It doesn't necessarily signify overall value. I have seen uploads immediately featured because they looked exciting, only to be found to be not working later on, yet they keep their trophy. On the other hand some of the most valuable and long-running downloads didn't catch the imagination of the staff - who of course as players have their own particular turn-ons in terms of content.

I do happen to know that as a policy things don't get featured in retrospect. Ie once a thing has been uploaded for some time, and turns out to have been more valuable than at first recognised, they don't really like to feature it later. At least this was how it was explained when it was last discussed in my presence.

Personally I think the moomoo is perhaps more fitting for someone who undertakes development and maintenance on a tool like this that can be used in many types of further creation, but I believe that has been suspended now. The benefit to the community of someone like you getting a moomoo is it gives you access to the better server, and helps you to pick up feedback and post updates more quickly. I think it would be a good idea if there was at least some access flag you could get (doesn't have to show publicly) that could be given to tool developers at least while they were actively developing that would give you enhanced access.

Sure can. Nice to have something concrete to try, especially something not involving testing eight lots at once.

I'm happy to test for you aelflaed - perhaps you could post it here or email it to me to save it waiting in the moderation queue.

I haven't posted in here because I thought the 7pm crash issue was going to be kept seperate. I think to keep from there being too many fingers in the pie I wont clutter up this thread with observations - you or plasticbox can bring anything you think relevant to mootilda's attention.

Mootilda - you are not the only one wary of MATY. I tend to post there rarely and usually read my posts several times before committing. Nobody seems to be yelling at anybody in the 7pm crash thread though so I thought I'd be brave.

The Lot Expander *is* featured, as you can see from the golden icon next to the thread title and from the featured downloads forum.
It's true that the featured status has been "inherited" by the former Andi's thread, but believe: if the staff would not have thought that the feature was well-deserved, they'd "un-featured" the Lot Expander.

As for the Ranch, it's reserved to MooMoo winners and "featured creators", i.e. those creators that have been featured "as a whole", and not for specific downloads.