Product: The Sims 4
Platform:Sony Playstation 4
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Deluxe Edition (Awesome Animal Hats, Life of the Party, Up All Night), City Living, Dine Out, Perfect Patio, Vintage Glamour, Cool Kitchen, Luxury Party, Romantic Garden
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Wait until one of your sims receives an incoming text message.
What happens when the bug occurs? The incoming text message pop up window automatically creates a duplicate input method.
What do you expect to see? I expect to have only one input method active at a time.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? On console - never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure
I will try to describe what I mean as clearly as possible. Normally you have one input method. Either the cursor, or the "menu selector". The cursor is pretty self-explanatory; it's the thing that you move around with the left thumbstick that looks like a little, floating pointer. The "menu selector" is the input method that you get when you press the touch pad on the controller. It removes the cursor and instead allows you to manually cycle through the various UI menus by highlighting the one you want with the various directional inputs and then pressing X.
Okay, now that's out of the way... What happens when you get an incoming text message, is the text message bubble/window automatically creates a duplicate "menu selector" input method on itself. Your cursor will remain, or your current selected menu will remain open. Then, upon tilting the left stick in various directions, your NORMAL input method will move as expected, but the duplicate "menu selector" on the text message bubble will also swap between the circular "answer" button in the middle and the "x" button in the top right corner of that same bubble. If you happen to still have the cursor up, and you tilt the left thumb stick in an upward/rightward fashion, even if the cursor is hovering over the circular "answer" button, it will instead close the text message bubble as if you declined the message, because the DUPLICATE "menu selector" is highlighting the "x" button in the top right corner of the bubble.
Once you realize that you always have to tilt the thumb stick in a downward/leftward fashion to make sure the duplicate "menu selector" is highlighting the circular "answer" button in the center of the text message bubble, and not the "x" in the top right corner of the bubble, that solves one problem; you can press the X button on the PS4 controller to make your selection and you will be able to respond to the text message normally. Once the text message has been either exited or responded to, the duplicate input disappears. HOWEVER, your NORMAL input method will also behave as though you selected whatever it was pointing to/highlighting. So, after you respond to the text message, either a radial menu will pop up, with regular choices depending on what your cursor was hovering over, or it will activate whatever menu/action/item was highlighted by your normal menu selector, depending upon which input method you were using at the time the incoming text message bubble popped up.
So, I've figured out what is happening, but I don't know why. I'm not a programmer, but I've given as much detail as I can. I hope it helps.
I can't be certain of which patch or pack caused this issue, as I was away from Sims 4 for a few months. The bug must've been introduced between 12/19/2017 and 03/26/2018, as that was the period of my break from the game. I never encountered the issue prior to 12/19/2017. I'm sorry I can't give a narrower time frame for the bug's appearance; I know several patches and packs were released within that period... (I suppose I should mention that I did not have the Cool Kitchen pack prior to my break, and I obviously did not have the Luxury Party, Dine Out, or Romantic Garden packs at that time, either, so it's most likely one of those four packs, or a patch that was released between the two dates of my time away from the game...)
