[OPEN] Comedy routines being put up for sale at the Flea Market autonomously [ Edited ]

[simvasion]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Often (50% - 99%)
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Get To Work, Get Together, City Living, Outdoor Retreat, Spa Day, Parenthood, Dine Out, Fitness Stuff, Movie Hangout Stuff, Perfect Patio Stuff, Luxury Party Stuff, Spooky Stuff
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? It's hard to test because the game will randomly select from playable and non-playable sims to be vendors at the Flea Market. Occasionally it chooses my high level comedian sim, who has over 20 written comedy routines.
What happens when the bug occurs? The comedy routines are apparently stored as invisible objects in your sim's inventory, and when they stock the Flea Market table autonomously while in NPC vendor role, they can choose to put their comedy routines on the table for sale. After the Flea Market ends, they can either disappear completely, or be dumped into the Household Inventory where they were previously retrievable but since a recent patch they disappear upon being placed in the world and can't be dragged directly back into my sim's inventory to be restored.
What do you expect to see? If my sim gets chosen to be a vendor, I'd expect comedy routines to be exempt from sale, or at least make them duplicates, or at least make them properly sellable and useable like books and I can live with my sim getting income from selling them.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? No

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I have a sim in the entertainment career as a comedian and while working through that, he built up quite a selection of various short, medium and long routines, and refined some of those too.

Today, after playing a rotation around the neighbourhood, I returned to this sim and clicked on the microphone to perform a comedy routine for his daily work task, but noticed it was greyed out, saying he needed to write a routine first.

I checked the comedy section of the computer and was surprised to see that he had no routines at all - they've all disappeared. It's like been reset as if he never wrote any at all.

I have no idea what the cause is, as I haven't played this sim's household for a few days. I was able to perform comedy routines last time I played him. Similarly, I have no idea when it might have happened.
(see update post below - the cause is identified as attempting to sell them at the Flea Market!)

So far, it doesn't seem like anything else has been affected, like he still has all the stuff in his inventory OK, relationships are OK and learnt skills are still OK. He just seems to have lost his library of comedy routines written.

I am able to write comedy routines on the computer OK, so I've just started from scratch redoing them again. But it is a really strange and annoying thing to happen and I'm worried it could happen to my other comedy sims.

[simvasion]

OK, so here's an update – the missing comedy routines... I found them!

I managed to find my sim's missing comedy routines as a stack of comedy routine objects in the Household inventory (see attached picture). They appear as physical books with a unique cover and can be placed in the world. The object placed in the world has no interactions available and has a sale value of $0.

I was able to place them on to a surface in the world, then in Live mode I was able to successfully drag them back into my sim's personal inventory, where they immediately went invisible and didn't display as objects any more (they're apparently meant to be in there, but invisible). They then showed up again as performable routines in my sim's list when clicking the microphone.

Before I made this startling discovery, I had made my sim rewrite one comedy routine. I didn't want to bug him out by having two copies of the same routine in his invisible inventory, so I tried having a different sim accept the comedy routine. Interestingly, it works and the new sim is now able to perform my old sim's comedy routine – it shows up under microphone performances, with credit for writing it given to the original sim.

Bug or feature?

I'm guessing this is a bug, as I'm sure from the fact that these comedy routines as physical objects are meant to be in an invisible part of your sim's inventory and not accessible in this way to players. Although it does make an intriguing feature if they weren't invisible and could be traded or sold in retail venues, like authors in the writing career can sell their books.

How did this happen?

I have my suspicions about how this happened. I've seen my comedian sim before attending the Flea Market and sale tables in San Myshuno districts as a collectibles sale vendor, and he often has a bunch of collectibles like entire sets of crystals, MySims dolls and rocks in his inventory when I visit his household, despite him not being a collector and never before having touched a harvesting node for these things.

Once while playing a different household, I was surprised to see him at the Flea Market with strange books I'd never seen before on the sale table trying to sell them to NPCs and when I inspected them they were his comedy routine books – the same ones I have in the attached picture. At the time, I thought it was very weird, and that it must be either some strange feature I'd never noticed before and tried to Google how I could get his comedy routines to show up as physical objects I could sell. But apparently it must be a bug because they clearly aren't meant to be sold this way.

My guess is, that while I was playing a different household, he appeared at some sale table somewhere in San Myshuno or at the Flea Market again, and automomously dumped his entire stock of comedy routines on to a sale table. When the festival or sale ended, he went home or the table despawned and the contents reverted to the household inventory (as that is what normally happens if you leave stuff that you own in a sale table).

What to do about it?

I'd suggest the developers take a look at this autonomous behaviour of not-currently player controlled sims picked to be stall vendors and maybe protect the invisible comedy routines in his inventory from being able to be placed in the sale tables. Or turn it into a proper feature and add some kind of UI interface letting comedy skill sims access these comedy routines as physical books that can be sold on purpose.

[crinrict]

So you're saying, the Sim tried to sell his comedy routines at the flea market ?

Would you be willing to share your save so it's easier for the devs to duplicate this ?

Preferably before you put them back into the inventory.

[simvasion]

Sure, I've only tested putting one of the routines back in his inventory. The rest are still in the household inventory. Do I just ZIP up the whole saves folder?

[crinrict]

If you know which save it is, you can just zip that one, if not, do the whole folder.

[simvasion]

Ok, I'm uploading it to the MediaFire drop now. I only have one save (slot 2) and its different .ver files aside from the autosave (slot 1).

The affected sim is called Randall and lives in the BFF household in Willow Creek and should have the comedy routines as physical objects in the household inventory last time I checked. I also tested giving one of them to Travis Scott, so he should have one my my sim's comedy routines too.

He also lives across the street from two other unplayed households with NPC ladies who recently gave birth to random babies spontaneously as part of the GTW pregnant sims don't spawn bug - the game made them pregnant and they gave birth at home instead of coming to the hospital. I dunno if the save will help with that too.

And in my other thread about earned DJ booth interactions not appearing for custom mixes, the DJ is also in that save - he's the only played sim living in Windenburg. If it might help with the testing because he has the custom mix already composed and ready to test.

Thanks!

[crinrict]

I've added this to the general section although it seems flea market related.

Since the connection is not obvious, I put it under general for easier find.

[simvasion]

The good news is that since the 22 August 2017 patch, the Flea Market vendor tables seem to be working again and vendor sims can sell things again.

I also spotted my comedian Randall (who the game picked to be a vendor while I had switched to playing Penny Pizzazz) trying to sell his comedy routines again, so I managed to get a screenshot of it actually happening as proof.

This time, after I watched him clear the table and walk home, I switched characters to check on him. The routines that I had saw on the table are now missing - they aren't available for refining on the computer or for performance on the microphone. They also aren't in the household inventory this time. I don't know if they are now permanently missing or if they will eventually reappear after a few days.

I hope this gets fixed. I didn't mind before when they reappeared, but this time I don't know if the changes they made to the table make the contents vaporize completely after the tables are cleared. I didn't see the green dragon toy or future cube that were on the table anywhere in his inventory afterwards either.

In an experimental save, I had Penny buy one of the comedy routines. It appeared in her household inventory when she returned to her apartment, but it was unusable, because when I moved it into the world it just disappeared this time instead of being able to be placed on a table and be picked up.

[crinrict]

Thanks for the follow up