"Something in your bones tells you to leave this plant alone"

[LeandraCearley]

"Something in your bones tells you to leave this plant alone" appears when hovering over the option to harvest any plant in mushroom/rock circle in University's Gibb's Hill in Britechester. Why is that? Plants are ready to harvest however the harvest button is grayed out and says the above statement regarding why it can't be selected. 

[SheriGR]

@LeandraCearley I can reproduce the message if I wait a day on campus and go back over at about 5/5:30 am. In my case then the Chrysanthemum with the mushrooms 'circle' gave me that "Something in your bones tells you to leave this plant alone" message, I cannot, however, see any message whatsoever about the mushrooms. Those mushrooms look different from the harvestable ones in the game. Did I misunderstand or were you not speaking of seeing the message when hovering over mushrooms? When I hover over mushrooms there I only see a 🚫.

I did have my sim plant and harvest on a lot in the town, so I'm guessing it has to do with some dynamic specific to this area in the town. This mushroom circle has a few harvestable plants, the mushrooms, and a stone 'alter' in the center. This is where the 'Secret Society' meets (more information about the Secret Society is in this article). https://sims-online.com/joining-secret-society-sims-4-discover-university/ I haven't played 'Secret Society' stuff but it sounds like they use crystals, harvestables, and metals for sacrifices, plus they tend that 'garden'. Thanks, @CGrant56.

If you would like your sim to be able to harvest plants you could grow some on their lot if they are in a home or in a planter if they're in the dorm. 🌱

[Trismagistos]

When you have time enough, @SheriGR, you should try to play the 'Secret Society' options. Really funny; especially if you like having your house invaded by Sims in long robes.

The fact that you get the message 'Something in your bones tells you to leave this plant alone' @LeandraCearley has everything to do with the secrets of the already mentioned society and refers to the mushrooms in the circle. That is also why the option to harvest them is greyed out. The other plants in the vicinity need caring, like watering and weeding and can be used in the rituals of aforementioned society.
Have fun playing.

[AngeleKay]

Hello, I am having a similar issue. I am on a home lot in Windenburg and we have a lot of plants, but all the Spinach ones specifically are giving me this message. It is currently Winter and so I tried moving the plants indoors (3 spinach plants). The plants are now green instead of brown but still displaying the same message. I can see the little spinaches ready to be plucked, and I can hit the sell option or graft, fertilize, analyze, talk to plant, etc. Initially I thought it had something to do with Patchy as I had never played with the feature before, but nothing has happened. We did bring the plants with us from another lot when the family moved, but all other plants were fine and I even harvested the spinach at least once on the new lot before this happened. Lmk if anyone finds out anything!

[PugLove888]

@AngeleKay , gardening can be a bit buggy, and I don't always read all the text when I hover over a plant, but I don't know if that message showed up for the first time with Discover University, or if it always existed.    It could be an isolated glitch with that plant or that lot, or it could be a widespread bug I'm not aware of. 

Are you playing on a console or on a PC or Mac?  If you are playing on a PC or Mac, do you have any Mods/Custom Content (CC)? 

[AngeleKay]

I play on a laptop PC on Steam, most of my packs were bought on Origin. I do not use any mods or CC, running completely vanilla.

[SheriGR]

@AngeleKay That is really strange. The only time I ever saw that was in that area mentioned earlier in this thread, in Britechester where the secret society meets. Do you own the 'Discover University' pack? A few things you could try:

• Reset/debug the spinach plants.
• Move the spinach plants into the household inventory then back onto the lot.
• Where did the spinach plants come from? Did you grow it from a seed pack? 
• If you plant one of these spinach plants on a different lot, do you still get the message? 
• Do all Sims in the household, when the active Sim, get that message on hover?
• You can try replanting the spinach from a seed pack.
• I have a spinach plant and multi-herb plants in the gallery if you want to test with any of those to see if you get the same result on your lot.
• Did you ever use any Mods/CC in the past? Sometimes glitches can be cached in.
• You could run a game repair to see if it makes any difference:
  
  Spoiler

  How to run a game repair:
  • Open Origin, click ‘Game Library’ then right-click Sims 4 > Repair Game
  • Let it run until it has completed all repairs. It will do the base game first, then run through each of your DLCs (Expansion Packs, Game Packs, Stuff Packs and Kits).

[AngeleKay]

Thanks for the suggestions! It does happen with multiple sims. I believe it was a seed packet that I opened and planted on the last lot (also Windenburg). I do have University and have not used any mods or CC since creating this save or installing the game on this system (previously used some on Origin on a different computer, but deleted all saves when I re-purchased on Steam and did a clean install).

I will try the reset/debug and the inventory fixes and get back to you!

[AngeleKay]

Quick update, the next time I loaded the game this issue was resolved. However, one or two in-game days later the same thing is happening with my carrot plants! xD I had just rearranged the garden in build mode, so perhaps this is linked to that specifically? If the issue occurs again I will try the debug option.

[SheriGR]

@AngeleKay Hmmm.... yes, it is odd that it showed up again. Please do give the troubleshooting mentioned a go if it re-occurs. You can also just try leaving the lot (and/or game) and returning to see if that helps. Maybe you have the buggy behavior snagged up in your cache? You could try deleting this cache file: localthumbcache.package in your “The Sims 4” folder [Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4]... but further removal of cache can be tried if the issue is not resolved by other means.