The lot was owned. So no npcs have ever worked there. I sold the lot then, tried to edit it. When I enter the community lot in build mode there are frozen npcs. I have never seen this before. Does anyone know, can I just delete them or is the lot corrupted?

Thank you

Did you have things like the chef stove that would normally spawn an NPC if the lot wasn't owned? The game may have gotten confused when the lot stopped being owned and spawned NPC replacements. I'd send a sim there in live mode to reset it, then check in build mode if they're still there.

I once saw a "frozen" chef in a Downtown Maxis restaurant when I opened it in build mode. At first I thought the game had spawned a new chef, but when I checked, it was one who had been in my game for ages, ever since I added a Downtown to Veronaville. His name in my game is Todd Goldman, but in the game files he's called Serdar Lewis. When I sent a Sim to the restaurant (which is unowned) a different chef was working in the kitchen. When opened again in build mode, he was gone.

I think it's only a temporary glitch and therefore unimportant.

From what I understand, a community lot sometimes can go live while you are building. It has never happened to me, but it seems to be fairly common - the game spawns chefs, bar tenders, etc and you also may get a fountain working. I have seen some posting about that in building competitions. I would also send a sim there in live mode. As far as I know it is not something to worry about.

This is only a problem if you're trying to build an empty hood. In that case, if you open a building and see an NPC, quit to the neighborhood without saving, check your Characters folder to be sure it's still empty, then go back in. The NPC will be gone and you can proceed. If the Characters folder isn't empty you'll have to either accept that the hood now has a bartender or whatever, or restore from your last empty backup.

It happened to me for the first time ever building for Gdayars's contest. I could tell because the pots and pans on the stove were in 'cooking' mode - there were gas rings alight and steam over the pans. Never seen it before. No sims though. I've seen sims in lots I've downloaded. I always check lots in a throwaway hood so would delete the instances of the sims (cooks or whatever) and then save the lot. Exit the game, clean with SimPE and, these days, go back in and use Chris Hatch's lot cleaner and resave.

Yeah Peni - it never happened in Polgannon. I wonder what prompts it.

Thank you for all your input. I well try to load it in another hood and see what happens.

Something very similar happened in my Simless building 'hood Aedicia when I was playing along in Jo's contest last year. I think it must have been when I was building the pleasure park, as I included an open-air restaurant in that. I never actually spotted him in the restaurant kitchen, but a Sim file appeared in Aedicia's Characters folder. When I checked in SimPE, it was an Elder chef called Rick Brewster. Well, I don't want any Sims in Aedicia, and I had a very recent backup, so I restored from that, with very little work lost. The lot in question was almost finished and had already been copied to my contest 'hood. That would have been that but for my perhaps eccentric idea that any Sim who appears in my game has the right to live. So, before I overwrote Aedicia with the backup copy, I extracted Rick in SimPE. Then I made a clean clone of him in Body Shop and deleted the original extracted version. I then made a second clone in Body Shop, changed it to a teen and then saved it. Finally, when I next opened Elswyn, the 'hood I made for the contest, I added teenage Rick (or Ricky) as a playable Sim, created parents for him, and moved them all into a little cottage beside the sea. In view of his origins, I gave Rick a strong interest in food, and will make sure he learns to cook. Maybe one day he'll open his own restaurant.

Yeah, that's AndrewGloria's logic.