[CD] Dogs don't go to potty if there are complicated stairs [ Edited ]

[JuliaChang93]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:Mac
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.62.69.1220
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Get to Work, Get Together, Get Famous, Island Living, City Living, Discover University, Seasons, Cats and Dogs, Parenthood, Vintage Glamour Stuff
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Place your family into a house with a front door attached to an entrance with stairs
What happens when the bug occurs? Dog wants to go potty, there is a speech bubble showing it, he/she cannot go outside to potty even she is trained; if it is commanded to her manually; there will be again a speech bubble showing footprints saying outside is unavailable to reach.
What do you expect to see? Trained dogs should go to potty without asking for it
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Yes
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

‌

It also happens without mods. My dog can use stairs normally, i am able to take her to a walk but she cannot use it for pottying. I tried it with another dog in another house with laddery entrance, the bug again occurs. The issue is still there in the apartments of San Myshuno (already been reported in forums). In my current home, sometimes my dog uses balcony in the back (without stairs) and it does not have any problems. I think it is about stairs.

Added front and back parts of my current house.

EDIT by Crinrict: Added Tag to Title, Adjusted Title a bit

[crinrict]

@JuliaChang93 Does it matter if small or large dog ? How many tiles is that porch (from door to steps) ? There are other issues with smaller porches so could you test if it works if you have a really large porch ?

[PriestessAvenara]

@JuliaChang93  Are we talking about an adult or a puppy? Puppies can't climb stairs and need to be carried outside. If it's an adult, I'm somewhat confused as well. Is there at least one free square of your own property at the end of those steps or do they go all the way to the road? Maybe that has something to do with it. The dog might not be registering your stairs as a way to get on your lawn. If there isn't at least one free square you might try moving your house a square back (tedious I know) and see if that works. It'd be better to put in the work troubleshooting than dealing with constant peeing on your deck...

Also during your walk you CAN get your dog to go to the bathroom. During one of the moments you stop walking and nothing seems to be happening, click the ground and choose the encourage to do business option. You should even have time to pick up any poo done.

[JuliaChang93]

Hello, does not matter if the dog is large or small. I tried enlarging porch size (first it was 6x2, i changed it to 6x3) and nothing happened. Also tried carrying my home a few squares back even there was already remaining area (it was nearly 3 squares even before), no solution... The dog is an adult, also can use stairs in normal ways (when i take my sim and my dog for a walk for example) there is no problem. Sometimes she comes to a family member crossing that stairs, but does not listen to me if i ask her to go to potty lol. It also happened another house in Sulani with an adult dog. I added some pictures showing the porch size (before - after) and remaining squares after stairs. As i mentioned before, she sometimes uses a balcony in the back and it is already smaller than the front porch... :/ I know we can get rid of this poop issue by taking the dogs for a walk but not everytime i am able to do it, so nowadays whenever my dog is struggling about this problem, i am using "make happy" trick unfortunately

[crinrict]

@JuliaChang93 I'm using the starter house in Brindelton Bay and it worked there last time I tried. Could you test if that house works for you ?

If it does, could you upload the houses you're having issues with to the gallery ?

[PriestessAvenara]

@JuliaChang93  At this point I'm convinced you are right about the stairs. Silly as it sounds, the only conclusion I can come to is that a dog will register those small porch stairs with only a few steps as a way out, but not the long ones you can put in your home like you have. Is there any way to have a door outside on ground level? I think if I were you I'd be desperate enough to put a special door outside to the backyard for my dog to use just to not have to deal with the constant clean up on my other porch until this gets resolved. If the dog can come to you up the stairs to complain it has to go to the bathroom, it logically should be able to recognize those same steps as a way to that lovely yard it just walked in from. This is definitely a bug.

[SheriGR]

@JuliaChang93 I have a couple of thoughts that may or may not be relevant.

• Is the grass on your lot actually a grass tile or real ground? If it's grass tile, the dog may not be seeing it as any different than going potty on the floor as @PriestessAvenara mentioned. One example of a home that has this (entire 'yard' was built as tiles) is 'The Old Salt House' in San Myshuno (City Living): https://youtu.be/IBFvmBlZicY
  If this is the case on your lot, please try sledgehammering some outdoor tiles and see if the issue ceases.
• When you removed your Mod folder to test if it was Mods, did you also delete the localthumbcache.package file in your ‘The Sims 4’ folder? That is important.

[JuliaChang93]

@crinricti will try this house and have you informed ^_^ For both cases i would like to share the information about these residential lots, i also downloaded them from the gallery and in case of some copyright issues i am giving directly the names: (lel)

"Sulani Dream Mansion" by KateEmerald (i was using it on 50x50 beach lot in Lani St. Taz, Sulani)
"Chateau Peak Renovation" by lilsimsie (i was using it on Chateau Peak lot in Del Sol Valley)

Update: Okay, that's a very sad moment for me because in this house (Bedlington Boathouse if i am not mistaken) everything looks fine... stairs making no trouble.

@SheriGRBefore trying the stuff you mentioned, i firstly want to ask if "localthumbnailcache.package" is as same as "localthumbcache.package", because i have a document named localthumbcache instead :/ sorry if it is weird to ask, i do not want to crash anything so better safe than sorry haha. By the way i guess "bulldoze terrain" would work to get rid of these grass tiles if there were some, right? After doing so, nothing has changed... :/

@PriestessAvenara, i added another main door connecting directly to the road without stairs and it worked. But unfortunately it ruins all context of the house, brainless guests only hanging around in my bedrooms lol (joking, actually not a very big thing to deal with, the real problem is it happens all the time :/ )

[PriestessAvenara]

@JuliaChang93  Yeah, I suggested in the back because I figured if it was put in the front NPC friends would use it too. I have a door to my backyard and never have a problem with guests entering it. Although a few have visited and walked out it to see my garden, they always leave out the front by the street. I'm sure your dog will do ANYTHING to get to a place to use the bathroom, back yard included. Although to be honest when I had a dog in one of my games he always chose to use the front door over the back yard one. On the other hand I didn't have a porch or stairs. My logic is if kids will use ANY sink to clean their plates, even upstairs bathroom ones, the dog will travel to the backyard if that's the only door that it thinks it can use to go to the bathroom.

I don't know about you, but I'd be disturbed by people wandering into my bedroom instead of the main house. So yeah, I'd probably either want another more dog friendly house if the dog won't use the backyard door...or people started using the backyard door instead of my front yard one like I want them to. I admit there is a possibility of that since the game might assume you want your guests to go into your first floor. I'm pretty sure there is a choice to "Make this door my front door" (or something to that effect) when you right click a door and have more than one outside. So that might fix people using the wrong door if that happens. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure your dog will choose ANY way out over your little porch. Haha. It is potty trained after all.

[SheriGR]

@JuliaChang93 Oh my goodness... I'm so embarrassed... yes, localthumbcache.package is the name of the file. Wow... sorry for the confusion. I will correct it in the other post so as to not confuse anyone else. I just tried bulldoze terrain and it did nothing to the tiles used (grass, cement, etc.) on The Old Salt House. You will need to use the sledgehammer on each grass, cement and other tile in the yard to delete any of them and get down to the real grass.