Occasionally, a Sim will call me asking me to go on an outing with them downtown. I will accept and before the taxi even arrives I'll get a message from them complaining that I supposedly stood them up.
I don't understand why this happens. It seems half the time I'm never able to leave my house fast enough for these Sims. It's really annoying to the point where I just refuse to accept invitations now.
Why is this happening?

I have noticed this too.

For this reason if I actually accept an invitation I will make my Sim hang out in front of the mailbox immediately and wait for the taxt right there, otherwise it's impossible to NOT stand them up.
It's really annoying though and that's why I seldom accept invitations either

I've heard of this before, and each time it baffles me so much. I've never had a Sim complain they got stood up. I have once or twice gotten a warning to call for a taxi soon or person will get mad, but I have plenty of time to make it there.

I wonder why it differs so from person to person.

Is it possible that this is a hack conflict?

I don't think it's a hack suppressing it as a side effect, because it took me months to download any hacks, I always accept outings, and I've never gotten a "stood up" message unless standing-up had occurred. In fact, I've always gotten a warning (in cases where the taxi doesn't come and I have to walk to lot) about needing to get a move on as you don't want to stand the caller up, and only several hours later (if I wanted/needed to stand them up for some reason) do I get the "you stood me up" message.

It's also possible that this is broken behavior that was fixed with a patch or an EP I've always had. You people who have this problem need to compare notes and see what you have in common that's different from the rest of us.

There was a similar thread in the past, I believe.

Please, people with the problem, tell everyone which EP or SP is your last one and whether you use the hacks. Maybe it helps us determine what causes it. I remember times it never happened, maybe some EP or SP introduced the bug. Or hacks conflict.

I have M&G, everything fully patched, experiencing this issue very often starting from either AL or M&G.

julmoo, sometimes sending them to hang out near mailbox is not an option, a few seconds is enough for a sim to claim that they were stood up.

It can be circumvented by sending your sim to a lot manually, though. Very fast. Once she or he arrives, other sims arrive, too. Even if it's in another location than you previously specified.

Even better, try the game without any CC to see whether you can reproduce the problem in a vanilla game. If it doesn't happen in a vanilla game, then we have a good technique for finding your problem which doesn't involve guessing.

It's too rare for other sims to invite your sim on an outing, so I can't imagine it being reproduced at will.

It happens if you speed up your game. After you accept invitation or ask someone out, don't speed up your game. I noticed this whenever I speed up my game.

May be a myth, but aren't you more likely to get outing calls if you had outings before? I get a lot of "My friend had a blast with you, want to hang out?"-calls if I go on outings.

I believe you will get that call from Downtownie. not Townie. so if you have outing with townie, I guess you won't get the call.

I have all EP's and SP's. I also use hacks (mainly to fix stupid EAxis bugs) and I constantly speed up my game.

Playing Sims is fun and all, but after being with the game for eight years I REALLY don't need to wait for them to go to the toilet in slow motion xD

Most of my outing calls are from the relatives of people the called sim dream dated the night before. They come between six and six-thirty. So you can try saving the game right after six the night after a dream date, and if the outing call comes quit without saving and start trouble shooting. But if the randomizer doesn't roll at six that won't work, and I'm just guessing that it does because it seems logical.

Even if you normally run at speed, try dropping back in to normal speed as soon as you get the call and you can see if it makes any difference. I hardly ever run at speed, only if the lot's empty or everyone's asleep, so if that's the culprit it would explain why it never happens to me.

You also get calls from playables.

I thought so, but then I had sims who kept throwing outings and they got no invitations. On another hand, there are sims who never went on outing or a date, but got the outing invitation from a random sim the first day. But you're right, I guess it makes sense that a sim is more likely to get invitations if he or she had outings before. I just remember trying to do that with one sim, but no matter what I couldn't get other sims to invite her to outings.

Hmmm its funny how yhe randomness seems to play out...
In my main (& seriously modded/custom) hoods I rarely get any outing calls (don't have a mod to prevent them, I checked). I do recall getting the same "you stood me up ya bugger" pop up while my sim was still on the phone being invited out, but that happened only once.
In my testing "almost vanilla" hood, one household is called three times a day to go out, all by the same townie. Every lot in that hood gets invited out at least once every two days even if no onehas actually been on an outing. But then this is the same hood where I had three alien abductions happen in the same night in one lot, & just had a sim abducted who was returned within one sim hour. Seriously messed up "randomness"...Tempted to keep that hood just to start an alien colony

No, dear, that's randomness that works properly. Randomness results in clusters and empty spaces, not uniformity.

oh yeah. you can get call from playable too. Even you can get 'contact' (temporary friend) with playable too.

I tend to get calls in fairly new households from one of the first friends the sim made. They always manage to call at an inconvenient time, so I haven't said yes yet lol.

Actually - duh! - in a hood with a downtown attached, an outing call almost always comes on the first day in a brand-new house (unless you've left the house prior to that point)! So this is actually quite easy to test. This outing is always called in the evening around six, like the follow-up outing.

Sometimes you have to manually have your sim call the taxi. Having a cellphone helps.

I've had this problem for years, with different EPs, and even wtihout many hacks. Glad to see I'm not the only one. I don't THINK I speed up time at that point, but i'll make sure not to now.

In order not to stand the Sim up, I either refuse (I'll call you on MY time and get into a hissy fit that you didn't run into an available cab the moment I called you!) or, if I really want to do this, I do what others do here. Teleport the Sim to the curb immediately, make him or her stargaze until the cab gets there, and make sure he or she doesn't get distracted and wander off. The latter isn't so easy with free will. It seems my Sim just HAS to wander off right as the cab gets to the curb!

I've been regularly playing for 2 1/2 years and this glitch has happened ... twice.

In both cases, it involved people who were dating, a 6 o'clock call came in for the followup date, and while waiting for the cab to arrive, a second incoming phone call was made and the waiting sim answered. Same caller. I *think* what happened was that the first date was immediately cancelled/"stood up" with the second call, no matter what decision was made with it.

In the cases it made for some interesting gameplay. Flaming bags of pooh, trash can kicking, the process to salvage and redeem the relationship, the works. Reminded me of some bad dates in RL with some very special people. Yeah, been there...

(As an aside, in both cases, the sims in question eventually got married. Those relationships had so much emotional potency as a result of the glitch that I couldn't have it any other way)

Speed was not involved in either.

My workaround: when I accept one of those calls, I don't pick up the phone when it rings again. I get off the lot asap. Sims who stay at home are kept busy doing something else...when I get back home, the phone is probably still ringing and is safe to pick up.

Not that this always works. Sometimes my freewilling sims are ahead of me and get to the phone first. But as long as it's not the first caller, everything is cool and there's no risk of irrational escalation

My theory. And I recognise that it may not match with others' data. It seems different from the OP. But it has happened exactly twice this way over hundreds/(thousands?) of hours of play. Not really something one can playtest for.

I try to avoid picking up the phone when there's already a date or outing in progress. I don't want to stand any of my sims' friends up. The fake sleepover complaint however? It always makes me laugh, especially when it's the cow or llama mascot(in one of my hoods, the llama is a big jerk too).