Yeah, so I was playing a lot that I’d recently just started, and I saved. I then noticed that Rod Humble had been materializing on the sidewalk. And when I hit play, he started down my walkway and up to the front door. He disappeared as he rung the door bell. Uhh... I used Batbox and reset off-world loiters. Hopefully that helped but... I’m not sure. Are my Sims gonna be okay? Also, my sims can't leave the lot except to go to work...

EDIT: As per suggestion, I checked the portals. They were fine and not the problem, for once. I ran HCDU and I found what I believe to be the problem. Thanks everyone!
EDIT 2: As soon as my sims reached the community lot, the game crashed. Back to the drawing board.

Update: Good news! Using @Joandsarah77's suggestion, I tried out the "What Caused This" program, and I appear to have finally tracked down conflicting global mods. And some duplicates... yikes. The only problem is a community lot I made keeps crashing when I send my sims to it. I think I did something wrong there... Dang it, and I worked hard on it too. I wanted to share it with you guys, but I guess I won't. In case anyone was wondering, it was called Desiderata Plaza (in Desiderata Valley, shocking, I know) and it was kind of like an outlet mall. There was a hair salon, a clothing shop, a restaurant, and a dance club. Darn it.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the help, and especially to @Joanandsarah77.

What was the issue?

What do you mean by "he disappeared"?

I wouldn't worry too much, as I think it sounded like he just reset. However, if you are concerned, you can check your objects.package file to see if it has been altered or not.

To do this, go into your program files (mine is a folder that says 'Program Files (x86),' but I've seen it called other things), then EA GAMES, and either your most recent EP, or just FreeTime's folder. If you want to be safe, you can go into all of them to check. Then, you go into TSData -> Res -> Objects and you should see a package file called objects. If the recently altered date says it was altered in 2021, then something went wrong, if not, you're fine.

But again, I wouldn't worry.

Oh. Alrighty then last I checked, my objects file was set to read only, so it should be fine. There’s just one other question. The lot is the one in Deserita (I can’t spell it) Valley with the stream on the property. I put a driveway right next to the body of water (that’s the only space I had). I put down one of Fresh Prince Creations’ custom cars and sent a sim to get the alarm set. I checked the clock when the sim returned. “Okay, you guys can have lunch out before you go to work since you have enough time.” Aaaand he reset when they tried to get in. (You know, when they do the weird shift thingy and stop what they’re doing?) Yeah, so I replaced the car and tried again. They still reset. Was there a potential reason... or???


By the way, thanks for the help!

I don't use custom cars at the moment, so I wouldn't know. Do you play with debug mode enabled? You could potentially find the cause through that. Try opening the cheat console (CTRL + SHIFT + C) and type into it "boolProp testingcheatsenabled true" without the quotes. Then, try making them interact with the car again and if there's an issue, it should give you an Object Error window, which has the options 'Cancel,' 'Reset,' and 'Delete.'

This is what the game does behind the scenes, the player just isn't privy to it; it will encounter an error and by default, it will reset the cause. With debug mode on, it allows the player to have a say in what gets done. The purpose of seeing these object errors lies in the clarification of what's causing the issue. You should see where the error is (an object or sim) and what the error is. To get rid of the window, just select 'Reset' as it's the safest option. The stack trace (error log) should then be automatically saved in EA Games/The Sims 2/Logs folder. It gives a more in depth reason to the cause.

Sorry for the over-detail, it's just for anyone who encounters the same issue in the future.

I save lots with visitors on them all the time. Nothing bad has ever happened. I think the idea that you must avoid always doing it is extremely overcautious.

Oof. I had the puppies and toddlers on vacation mod, added in the necessary components and my sims got stuck leaving. So I removed all that. I've learned that this mod can cause problems. And also, I did check for errors, and none appeared. So I'm gonna see what happens now. I'll let you know. Thanks!

They can’t walk to community lots or drive without getting stuck, still. So... I suppose I should check the lot portals, but I don’t know where they’re supposed to go if I have to move or replace one...

@Airazor65 -I had that happen to an EA apartment lot once and could only more my sims out and move them into another apartment lot I'd built myself.I do have ways to check for that portal issue now that weren't avialble to me back when I had that issue on the EA apartment lot on my old computer.I was playing vanilla back then because that computer wasn't very powerful and it ran Windows XP.

So I tried a different household, in a different neighborhood (don’t ask why, I just wanted to see what would happen) and they got stuck on the road too. I don’t know what to do now.

If your problem is portals, try the Portal Revealer: https://modthesims.info/d/251392/portal-revealer.html
It also contains a file for buyable portals.

Aside from that, have you tried HCDU yet to see if you have any mod conflicts?

If you build an entirely new lot, do the problems happen there as well?

Make a backup. Load your game and put on testing cheats. Try and do the action causing an issue and see if you get an error and an error report. Download and use 'What caused This?' http://www.picknmixmods.com/Sims2/N...CausedThis.html To use that show it the path to your download folder and drag the error report into the large blank field. It will then read your folder and try and determine if some CC is causing the issue. This is a brand new program.

Ooh. Sounds cool! Thanks! I ran HCDU and I think I finally found the problem. Too bad I didn’t see this sooner. Thanks!

What was the issue? It's always helpful to say in case someone else has the same issue.

Actually, I'm gonna do what you said to, and I'll get back to you on that.