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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 5:39 PM Last edited by kaycee34 : 16th Sep 2018 at 6:24 PM.

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default (SOLVED) Having problems with combining households
I have no idea if this question has been answered elsewhere. I have literally looked all over and I cannot find a solution for the life of me, and I KNOW that there is one.

I moved a Sim into a college dorm, and I want to move in their sibling into the same dorm. However, the game keeps telling me that there would be "too many" sims living on the lot if I did that, therefore I'm unable to move both sims into the lot. (Even though only 1 Sim is living on the lot currently.) This is true for even regular residential lots. Say my Sim goes to college, finishes and then I want to move them back into their parents house that only has 2 current sims living there(the parents) it does not let me.

My graphics card in Nvidia GTX960 4g, processor is AMD Athlon quad core. So its not like im running a super old system that cant handle it, i figure that the game doesn't recognize my setup and is making everything difficult for me because of this.

Can someone PLEASE tell me a fix for this?(That doesn't involve using the Tombstone of L and D, because I shouldn't have to do it that way if i'm not even at the max number of sims living on a lot.
I'm going crazy here.

Also, forgive me if this is in the wrong category. I have never had to make my OWN post about something before in my years and years of being on this website and playing sims. -_-
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 6:21 PM
If this has suddenly started happening, and it happens with all households in all neighborhoods, it's almost certainly a mod conflict or a bit of bad custom content. You can test this by backing up your game, removing your downloads folder, and trying to merge households. If you can, all you have to do is grab a drink and go through the old 50/50 as described in the game help FAQ. (Bear in mind that this game is sufficiently complex that chaos theory applies. It doesn't matter if it "makes sense" for a mod to cause a problem or not. What makes programming sense and what makes human sense are not the same thing at all.)

For future reference, the proper procedure when trying to solve a problem with the game is to work through the steps in the game help FAQ, making notes on what happens, and if none of those things work, post in the Help forum, describing both the problem and what happened when you worked through the steps in the FAQ.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Alchemist
#3 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:04 PM
for merging households in neighborhood screen to exceed the limits; following cheats would be required::
uintprop maxtotalhumans x
uintprop maxtotalpets y
uintprop maxtotalsims x+y
where x and y are integers; can be same or different.
I take Pets or later would be required for those cheats to work.

non-cheat limits::
human: 8
pet: 6
total: 10
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#4 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:11 PM
Moved to help

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:20 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
If this has suddenly started happening, and it happens with all households in all neighborhoods, it's almost certainly a mod conflict or a bit of bad custom content. You can test this by backing up your game, removing your downloads folder, and trying to merge households. If you can, all you have to do is grab a drink and go through the old 50/50 as described in the game help FAQ. (Bear in mind that this game is sufficiently complex that chaos theory applies. It doesn't matter if it "makes sense" for a mod to cause a problem or not. What makes programming sense and what makes human sense are not the same thing at all.)

For future reference, the proper procedure when trying to solve a problem with the game is to work through the steps in the game help FAQ, making notes on what happens, and if none of those things work, post in the Help forum, describing both the problem and what happened when you worked through the steps in the FAQ.


It's not a mod conflict problem. It started happening ever since I got my new computer setup. And as I stated above, I already searched the forums. There is nothing that I can find that would possibly help my issue, which is why I made my own post. I'm sure other people have had this problem before, and I'm not sure if I need to go into my Sims 2 files and edit them to fix it, or if there is some kind of mod/game cheat I can use to easily solve the problem.

Also, a while ago I tried fixing this problem, when I initially upgraded my PC, but nothing on the forums/FAQ page helped, so I kind of just dealt with it. But I'm getting annoyed by "dealing with it" because I would really like to be able to send my Sims to college together.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#6 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by maxon
Moved to help


Thank you.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:23 PM
Quote: Originally posted by mdsb759
for merging households in neighborhood screen to exceed the limits; following cheats would be required::
uintprop maxtotalhumans x
uintprop maxtotalpets y
uintprop maxtotalsims x+y
where x and y are integers; can be same or different.
I take Pets or later would be required for those cheats to work.

non-cheat limits::
human: 8
pet: 6
total: 10


Thank you so much. I'm going to try doing this now. Hopefully it works, although I don't think my game is letting me have the non-cheat max limit of sims living on a lot, it's just totally denying me of adding any other sims to a household no matter how many are already currently in that household.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#8 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by kaycee34
Thank you so much. I'm going to try doing this now. Hopefully it works, although I don't think my game is letting me have the non-cheat max limit of sims living on a lot, it's just totally denying me of adding any other sims to a household no matter how many are already currently in that household.


Doesn't work at all. The game doesn't even recognize the cheat...sad.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:31 PM
In that case, I suggest trying the thing that didn't make it into the FAQ, which has been causing a lot of problems lately: run the game without your anti-virus on. Many new anti-viruses get a lot of false positives for viruses with Sims2 files and have been known to quarantine them, apparently at random. Some of them won't allow whitelisting them, either! So that's become my go-to advice for people with weird problems the 50/50 doesn't fix.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:43 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
In that case, I suggest trying the thing that didn't make it into the FAQ, which has been causing a lot of problems lately: run the game without your anti-virus on. Many new anti-viruses get a lot of false positives for viruses with Sims2 files and have been known to quarantine them, apparently at random. Some of them won't allow whitelisting them, either! So that's become my go-to advice for people with weird problems the 50/50 doesn't fix.


Still not the solution, unfortunately. :/
I really feel as if it has something to do with the game not recognizing my graphics card so it's defaulting everything to LOW specs/settings, because I can only invite 2-4 people to parties depending on how many people are living in my household.(That's a whole other issue, but it really doesn't bother me at all because there's an in-game cheat to fix that.)
So I'm not sure how exactly to fix this whole "Can't move more than 1 sim into a household together unless they were all in the sim bin in the same family" thing.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 15th Sep 2018 at 8:47 PM
Here are some screenshots to get a clearer view on what exactly I'm talking about.
Screenshots
Mad Poster
#12 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 1:01 AM
Quote: Originally posted by kaycee34
It started happening ever since I got my new computer setup.

I agree with your first post. I too get the impression that the game is not recognizing something about your new hardware setup. I think the number of sims allowed on a lot is determined by the processor and/or the amount of available RAM. For some reason, your game seems to think that your computer is not powerful enough to handle processing more than one sim per lot. Your graphics card probably has nothing to do with your problem, but it can't hurt to try turning some settings down just to make sure. (At least set Shadows no higher than Medium, Reflections to Off, Lot View Distance no higher than Medium, maybe set your sceen resolution a step or two lower.) If your game was failing to recognize your graphics card at all, you would be seeing "straw" grass and solid blocky blue water from neighborhood view like in the first picture on this page.

You haven't said what operating system you're using. If I remember correctly, Windows 10 has been reported to cause some kinds of weirdness all by itself. (I'm still using Windows 7.)

I've heard that some people with modern multi-core processors have had trouble with the game working properly. Have you tried this fix? It may or may not make a difference in your case. I have an AMD processor with six cores and my game runs fine without any fix.
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...ual_Core_Issues

Another thing to try: If you have a 64-bit version of Windows, you can apply the 4GB patch, which will allow your game to see and access more available RAM.
https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Your config-log.txt file should show how much RAM the game can see and use. This file is found in My Documents > EA Games > Sims 2 > Logs. (It may be named after your PC. My PC is named Zeus, so my file is ZEUS-config-log.txt). It's the top section of the file that's relevant. "Free Memory" is in the section under "Machine Info".
Test Subject
Original Poster
#13 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 1:56 AM
Quote: Originally posted by RoxEllen1965
I agree with your first post. I too get the impression that the game is not recognizing something about your new hardware setup. I think the number of sims allowed on a lot is determined by the processor and/or the amount of available RAM. For some reason, your game seems to think that your computer is not powerful enough to handle processing more than one sim per lot. Your graphics card probably has nothing to do with your problem, but it can't hurt to try turning some settings down just to make sure. (At least set Shadows no higher than Medium, Reflections to Off, Lot View Distance no higher than Medium, maybe set your sceen resolution a step or two lower.) If your game was failing to recognize your graphics card at all, you would be seeing "straw" grass and solid blocky blue water from neighborhood view like in the first picture on this page.

You haven't said what operating system you're using. If I remember correctly, Windows 10 has been reported to cause some kinds of weirdness all by itself. (I'm still using Windows 7.)

I've heard that some people with modern multi-core processors have had trouble with the game working properly. Have you tried this fix? It may or may not make a difference in your case. I have an AMD processor with six cores and my game runs fine without any fix.
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...ual_Core_Issues

Another thing to try: If you have a 64-bit version of Windows, you can apply the 4GB patch, which will allow your game to see and access more available RAM.
https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Your config-log.txt file should show how much RAM the game can see and use. This file is found in My Documents > EA Games > Sims 2 > Logs. (It may be named after your PC. My PC is named Zeus, so my file is ZEUS-config-log.txt). It's the top section of the file that's relevant. "Free Memory" is in the section under "Machine Info".


Thanks for taking the time to try and help solve my issue.

Unfortunately, none of the above worked! :/

I know now that the game actually IS recognizing my graphics card. So I'm all out of idea as to what it could be. (Unless I'm overlooking something in my grapichsrules.sgr file.)

I know it's not mods, i've tried the game without mods and the issue still persists. I've tried the 4gb patch, the whole unticking cores in the task manager thing, and also running the game on low settings, but to no avail. (By the way I too am still using Windows 7)

I'm getting so frustrated because I have no idea what else to do and I feel like I'm the ONLY one who is having this problem because I literally cannot find anyone else posting about this issue.

I really hope I find a fix soon. I'm just sincerely hoping it's something as simple as editing some kind of file in one of my sims folders, but we shall see I guess.

Although it's not really a game breaking glitch, it IS taking away a big part of the game for me.
Attached files:
File Type: txt  Graphics Rules.txt (33.4 KB, 3 downloads)
Description: Here's a copy of my Graphics Rules for you or anyone who might happen to come across this thread, in case anything seems off about it.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#14 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:12 AM
The graphics card has nothing to do with this. If you have one sim and the game won't let you have anymore because it's 'full' then either you have a mod, token or game file issue.

If you have tried pulling your download folder out to desktop (not simply disabling it) and the problem persists it is not a cc issue.

If you have renamed your sims 2 folder, ran the game and tested in the new sims 2 folder it can't be a token issue or an issue under Documents The Sims 2.

At that point you are left with an install file issue. Did you install CC into your game files? If so find and pull that. If you changed the files in anyway you might need to switch back. if you are on the UC you might need to do a game repair in origin.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Undead Molten Llama
#15 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:14 AM
You shouldn't be getting that message if there's only one Sim living on it. I suspect there's something wrong with the lot. I'd move everyone out and then move them back in. That resets the lot, which might clear up the issue. I simply can't imagine how this would be a hardware or graphics issues; it's more likely that your new setup has for whatever reason bugged your existing lots, and you may need to reset all of them, or at least any that you want to move more Sims into. If you don't want to lose all the furnishings when you reset (which won't happen in dorms, unless the resident(s) have bought their own stuff since moving in, but will happen on residential lots), then you can use the "stay-things" shrub from Simlogical. Scroll down this page a bit: http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2P...2_MiscHacks.htm

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#16 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:18 AM
If it was only one lot I would say so too, but they said it was all lots.

How many lots did you try OP?

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Undead Molten Llama
#17 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:23 AM
If it's all currently-occupied, playable lots, then I suspect that their new hardware setup bugged 'em all...but probably not empty lots. I could be wrong, of course. But if that's what happened...Well, it certainly wouldn't be the game's weirdest freak-out over new hardware. But hardware, graphics, or CC issues doesn't sound likely to me.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#18 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:25 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
If it was only one lot I would say so too, but they said it was all lots.

How many lots did you try OP?


The "bug" occurs for every existing, occupied lot.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#19 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
The graphics card has nothing to do with this. If you have one sim and the game won't let you have anymore because it's 'full' then either you have a mod, token or game file issue.

If you have tried pulling your download folder out to desktop (not simply disabling it) and the problem persists it is not a cc issue.

If you have renamed your sims 2 folder, ran the game and tested in the new sims 2 folder it can't be a token issue or an issue under Documents The Sims 2.

At that point you are left with an install file issue. Did you install CC into your game files? If so find and pull that. If you changed the files in anyway you might need to switch back. if you are on the UC you might need to do a game repair in origin.


I don't have the ultimate collection through origin. My installation is from the disks.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#20 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:28 AM
Which goes back to something that affects everything, which is CC, tokens, document files or install files.

Did you do all that I mentioned above?

Since you are on disks (so am I) Are you patched?

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Test Subject
Original Poster
#21 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 2:56 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
Which goes back to something that affects everything, which is CC, tokens, document files or install files.

Did you do all that I mentioned above?

Since you are on disks (so am I) Are you patched?


I have tried starting up the game with no downloads folder, issue still persists.

I have also tried using a brand new "The Sims 2" folder as you recommended, issue still persists.

As for pulling CC from game files I'm not even sure how I would go about doing that, if i even managed to get bad CC stuck somewhere in my game files.

And I'm 99% sure that I'm patched and up to date, unless in the past 6 years or so there has been a new patch for The Sims 2 that I'm not aware of?

kaycee34 :)
Undead Molten Llama
#22 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 3:00 AM
Welp, if a new Sims 2 folder didn't work, then resetting lots probably won't help, either.

I'd wager something got FUBARed when you changed your hardware config, so you're down to uninstalling/reinstalling the game. Just make a back up of your current Sims 2 folder in Documents so you can copy/paste stuff back into it once you get it reinstalled and all that.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#23 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 3:34 AM
Quote: Originally posted by iCad
Welp, if a new Sims 2 folder didn't work, then resetting lots probably won't help, either.

I'd wager something got FUBARed when you changed your hardware config, so you're down to uninstalling/reinstalling the game. Just make a back up of your current Sims 2 folder in Documents so you can copy/paste stuff back into it once you get it reinstalled and all that.


Unfortunately, uninstalling/reinstalling the game isn't really an option for me. I only have Double Deluxe and the Mansion and Garden CD's. All of my other disks got lost over the years and there's no way I'm paying a crap ton of money again for such an old game lol.

kaycee34 :)
Mad Poster
#24 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 4:00 AM
You won't need a crap ton of money. It's still possible to get the UC for free, and it's possible to find the disks reasonably priced (I'm talking $5-10) if you're good at shopping secondhand stores on- and off-line. I got most of mine through e-bay cheap. It was a few years ago now, and the only one I couldn't find for a reasonable price was Happy Holidays, which I didn't want anyway.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Test Subject
Original Poster
#25 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 4:12 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
You won't need a crap ton of money. It's still possible to get the UC for free, and it's possible to find the disks reasonably priced (I'm talking $5-10) if you're good at shopping secondhand stores on- and off-line. I got most of mine through e-bay cheap. It was a few years ago now, and the only one I couldn't find for a reasonable price was Happy Holidays, which I didn't want anyway.


I've heard that some of the Customer Service reps from Origin or whichever occasionally give out the Ultimate collection to simmers who have some kind of proof of owning at least one sims 2 disks or so. A few people have even gotten it for completely free without any type of proof of purchase. So I guess it just depends on if the reps feel like being generous or not.

But as I said, it's not really worth the hassle and I don't feel like harassing a rep for EA about a game that was made years and years ago.

My issue is really just an inconvenience, so if there's really no way for me to fix it without uninstalling/reinstalling, chances are I will just suffer for now lol. But who knows, Ill probably end up ordering all of the hard copies of the EP'S for myself around the holidays just so I can have the whole CD and booklet collection again.

I used to love buying a new Sims 2 EP at the store and then on the ride home reading the booklet and seeing all of the new things you can do/have haha.

kaycee34 :)
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