Invisible Sims

[Dabutlergames]

Many of my sims have suddenly turned invisible including the pets. How do I fix it?

[Kvinden]

You can locate the only by the thought bubble but you can't interact with them ? It happens very often, likely a bug

If you have master controler use the sims/basic/outfit. Select all the sims in town and then change their clothes to casual/daily (or whatever).
They will suddenly reappear but later it can happen again.

[Dabutlergames]

I tried changing an invisible sim clothing, I loaded up other households and a few of those sims are missing. Looks like a Thanos snap has happened! They can still interact with the world and other sims, but there is no thought bubbles and no plumbbob.

I deleted all the caches too and still nothing. I don't want to start a new game as I only have one save and it's a legacy playthrough.

It's a shame I'll have to resolve to using mods to fix it.

Thanks for the help! :)

[igazor]

As long as we are getting into mods for the solution here, NRaas DebugEnabler has a Fix Invisible Sims command that is intended to work on the entire town at once when this happens and many of us find it to be around 85-90% effective -- meaning it may skip or miss a sim here and there.

I still see this bug on worlds I have never played before within an ongoing game, but regardless of when it shows up once it's solved by either the DE method or by somehow getting all of these sims to change outfits once, it never happens again within that world and ongoing game. Starting a new game or traveling to a new vacation destination might of course undo the fixed situation and might just bring the bug forward again in the new (to that game) world.

[Dabutlergames]

I downloaded the NRaas mod. However trying to figure out how to install it. I have no mods folder and had to create one. It's unfortunate it's so buggy, before it was on steam and I used my discs (I thought I lost them but I was happy to buy it again on sale of course, but anyone thinking of getting it during this pandemic the price is outrageous for an old game, but it's a far better experience than what EA dishes out with 4) I don't remember having so many problems with the game regarding bugs before. I have the odd sims with degrees as teens that never attended uni and some issues regarding stuck sims on fencing on community lots, that I could tolerate as it's easy fix as I focus on my core family I'm lucky story progression has not screwed up my many family households, it' just given them a few pets but this is game breaking!

[igazor]

I think the invisible sim bug was something that was fixed by one of the earlier patches along the way but it got broken again by one of the later ones. But I don't have any hard evidence to that effect.

The Steam version of the game is on Patch 1.67 and is the exact same game files that the disc version delivers once the latter is also patched up. The Origin version is 1.69 but the only changes there over 1.67 are the annoying and required Origin-Launcher tie-in and the way in which the game starts up.

Mods in TS3 are a form of package based content. A lot of CC comes that way as well, it's up to the designer/developer as to the form they offer it in. The game is programmed to read a Mods folder, but it doesn't come with one. A valid Resource.cfg file is also required. The whole framework (it's three folders nested properly plus Resource.cfg) together with two sample mods to test the setup can be downloaded here, unzipped and placed into the TS3 user game folder in Documents all in one step.
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files

[Dabutlergames]

Thanks for the link, I will consider installing it.