Free vacation issues and disappearing sims (and other bugs) Anyone know way to fix / work around?

[Jessie]

So I had a teen sim and 6 adults (4 of them young adults) I get the free vacation event and most of my sims don't return. (only one of them did which was a normal adult and was 1 of my starting 2) so after over a week in game I can see it isn't going to be fixed with time so I move them in and then out which seems to fix it however this causes one of my sims to disappear (the other one I started with) and 2 of the young adults can no longer select a bed to sleep in. Another issue is that the family tree is messed up and won't show any information for some sims (likely due to a sim disappearing but can't confirm). Another thing is that it still seems to be counting them as away on vacation in the sense of when looking at the relationships panel (haven't tried to go on vacation again since the not being able to sleep and disappearing sim have pretty much made me get bored and close the game).

Any suggestions for how to fix any of these issues? I would rather not have to start again considering their are 3 generations worth (starter couple, twins each with partner and 1 of those had a child now teen and have gone from the standard starting amount to something like 1.3million owning most of the city and max fame for basically all of them).

Also bug wise have experienced one where beds stop being able to be queued however a work around was to just make a new bed and delete the old one (with small net cost but the family I have made has become extremely rich).

[geekgirl101]

This is an old issue that hasn't been fixed and is often the result of sims going on vacation who are close to having their birthdays. There is only one sure I way I know of to recover sims stuck on vacation, but you'll lose everything in their inventory, their lifetime wishes, and any moodlets they might've gained from going on vacation by doing so. Install Twallan's Master Controller mod, click on the Town Hall and select the following:

NRaas > Master Controller > Sim > Advanced > Reset Sim
Highlight both Name: First/Given and Name: Last/Surname
Type in the name of the sims who are stuck on vacation.

Next make a note of how many funds the family currently has *<previous family funds>, pause the game and go into buy mode, then do the following:

Hit CTRL+C and type: testingcheatsenabled true
Hit CTRL+C again and type: familyfunds <surname> 100,000

Repurchase everything that was previously in the missing sims' inventories. After rebuying everything do the following:

Hit CTRL+C again and type: familyfunds <surname> <previous family funds>
Hit CTRL+C again and type: testingcheatsenabled false.

NOTE: This must be all done whilst the game is paused and/or whilst in build/buy mode otherwise the cheat may result in corrupting the game data making you unable to load the game again in the future.

To restore their lifetime wish click on the sim and select the following:

NRaas > Master Controller > Sim > Advanced > Edit in CAS

This will take you to the Create a Sim window where you can then click on Personality. Sometimes their lifetime wish will already be displayed but if not then either choose one under Lifetime Wish or click ... to pick a custom lifetime wish if it's not already displayed, then Accept the changes.

Any rare items that were lost from holidays in China, Egypt and France may be restored by resetting the chests they were found in using NRaas's mods or resetting the dungeon itself, although resetting the dungeon itself may cause irrepairable damage to the game. I think the holiday worlds can be reset by moving to another city but you'll lose your home and friends doing so and returning back will reset the city to default. Consider this option as a last resort.

Finally you'll need to reset the entire world or your missing sims will still be registered as on vacation. To do this select the following:

NRaas > Master Controller > Town > Reset Everything

This can take some time depending on how many houses and community are there and how many family members and objects are in each of them. Your sims will be returned home so don't do this during work/school hours if you don't want to affect their performance.

To avoid such tragic losses in the future when sending parents on vacation purchase a chest from holiday worlds or if you have Supernatural one of the alchemy cabinets from the Storage in buy mode and transfer any storable items into it your sims are carrying (excluding nectars, these can be stored in a nectar rack or a holiday chest.) If you have none of these as an option then transfer everything to the teen's inventory.

[Jessie]

Thanks for the advice however this was well over a year ago and I haven't really played the game much since then (not even installed)

[geekgirl101]

I'm aware of that, but the issue is still ongoing despite EA having been notified for almost 2-3 years. Knowing how to recover from such an incident is something every simmer should know to avoid having to start over a new world/family until EA works on some major fixes (which are very unlikely to happen.)

[Jessie]

Yeah but you forget about a vital thing about EA. They don't care about the customers, they just want to get as much money from them as possible for as little work as possible, heck when you are REMOVING features from the base game just to resell them and having less and less in the sequel it screams money grabbers.
(Also don't even consider buying all dlc for sims 3 would cost you around $72,000 according to someone working it out)