If you have ever played The Sims 4, chances are you have come across a few bugs. With the game having been around for over six years, it’s only natural that a few (okay, more than a few) issues will creep up.
Add to that using a bunch of custom content or mods and you?re bound to break your game at least once. Sometimes, the problems aren’t your fault. Like the whole Sims being obsessed with baking cakes thing? We suspect that’s to do with the Neighbourhood Action Plans that came with the most recent Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle expansion.
Most recently, I noticed a very peculiar thing happening to Olive Tinker ? one of the pre-made Sims that came with the Eco Lifestyle expansion pack.
Olive was looking a bit, err, strange when she aged up. The old weird-limbed children bug is not exactly a new problem in The Sims, but this one started causing problems in my game beyond just accepting Olive for being a bit different.
Olive’s long limbed aging up incident would cause my game to break every time. Most noticeable was that every time Olive Tinker aged up in The Sims 4, her avatar would go missing. This would result in it being impossible to save the game.
Even using the CAS Full Edit cheat would not help. In Create-A-Sim, Olive would just be a loading wheel of hell and the only way to exit The Sims 4 would be to CTRL ALT DEL the window and start all over.
It seemed pretty obvious that there was an issue with either my Sims 4 mods or my custom content somewhere. Considering that folder is quite substantial, it was not something I looked forward to fixing.
I thought I could circumvent the error by playing with another family and letting Olive age up on her own. That didn?t work. Ageing her up in CAS didn?t work either ? the issue was affecting other Sims, too.
That means every time a Sim child aged up to teen, the avatar issue would emerge and the game would break. Clearing the game cache and starting with a clean Sims 4 mods folder didn?t work either.
Fixing long-limb aged up Sims problems
It was obvious that this problem was going to have to take a process of elimination. Starting with the Sims 4 script mods, including the amazing Better BuildBuy mod from TwistedMexi, I moved all of these to the desktop and out of the game.
The error was still present. Having previously gotten so frustrated with custom content that I deleted the whole folder and emptied the recycling bin, I knew that wasn?t the best way to go about it.
I have since become much wiser about how to fix bad or broken CC in The Sims 4 using The Sims Tray Importer. But this wasn?t quite so simple.
I started deleting all of my most recently added Sims 4 custom content by sorting the CAS mods folder by date. Yes, straight up deleted, I didn?t have the time to test each item one-by-one. There weren?t that many ? so whatever I?d lose in terms of CAS CC would be worth it to save the game and fix the weird limbs age up problem.
Fortunately, whatever I deleted on the first go fixed the problem. I have no idea which exactly file was causing this, but I do know that this is a very good reminder to prepare your mods and custom content before The Sims 4 skin tones update rolls out in October.
It’s also a good reminder that keeping Sims 4 CC and mods organized in folders in some sort of configuration where CAS and Build/Buy is separated can save you a lot of agony -including when a base game update causes issues like breaking all of your CC windows, doors and arches.
It might feel like a pain if you have to go back and do it, but it’s well worth it.
If you have this problem with Sims ageing up causing avatars to go missing in your game, a process of elimination of all your CC might work for you too. But be prepared to be patient if your folder is just one giant pile of CC.
Happy Simming!