Walls can include: attic walls, fences, swimming pools, foundations (including the invisible walls associated with the column deck), ... almost any vertical structure. I often get this message because I have left a fence at the edge of the lot. Check the new edge of your lot and make sure that there really is *nothing* at there, except for one edge of the perpendicular walls.

A picture might help. Alternatively, if you could attach the neighborhood package and the lot package, I could try to find out what the LA is complaining about.

The LA needs to make changes to the neighborhood package. What you are seeing is expected behavior when the lot package is changed and the neighborhood package is not.

Try using the Browse button in the LA to find your neighborhood package on the disk.

By the way, you don't need to copy the entire neighborhood folder. The LA only needs the following:

- Neighborhood folder containing the neighborhood package.
- Lots subfolder containing the lot package.

You can't really run the game with only those two files, but you can copy the files to Windows, run the LA, copy the files back to the Mac, and then complete the lot adjustment by running the game and making a build change, etc.

I should have thought of that before I tried moving the neighborhood.package file around. TS2 doesn't recognize the neighborhood anymore, so I can't make screenshots :/



I didn't realize LA makes changes to the neighborhood.package file in addition to the lot, so for a time, all I was doing was copying the lot file back and forth. Of course, this produced the blue-square effect on the shrunken lot in-game because the neighborhood file said the lot was 3x2, but the lot said otherwise. The neighborhood loaded fine, only the shrunken lot looked funny. I then "wisened up" and copied the (LA adjusted) neighborhood file back to the Mac side along with the lot after using LA. The game then could no longer see the neighborhood. Deleting the neighborhood manager file and reverting to what I thought was a pre-LA backup of the neighborhood file did not have an effect.

I downloaded SimPE to check the neighborhood file. I am not familiar with SimPE, but everything seemed to be in good order and I suspect/hope it's not corrupted. I was reading malthaussen's saga (starting at #132) about missing neighborhoods and an apparently unknown file that tells TS2 how to read neighborhood information. I believe that secret file may be the source of what's causing my game to misbehave. However, if that's the case, I may have the same fate of reinstalling.

Unless I can't count, there's nothing near the edge except perpendicular walls. I have attached the lot in question, in case there's something I don't see...



That's exactly what I did that produced problem 2: TS2 can't find my neighborhood anymore. And I foolishly forgot to backup the neighborhood package prior. However, as I mentioned in my response to plasticbox, I don't think the file is corrupted, but something is that's making TS2 think it no longer exists.

I downloaded your lot and will try to take a look at it today.

In the interim...

You may be able to use SimPE to fix the blue bits in your neighborhood. Just find the Lot Description for the lot(s) in your neighborhood package and change the height and width for the lot(s) to the new values.

Malthaussen's problem sounds like it was (at least partly) caused by having multiple identical neighborhoods in the same game folder. According to Pescado at MoreAwesomeThanYou, this can cause major corruption because the GUIDs between the two neighborhoods conflict. Have you done this yourself: copy and rename a neighborhood within your game folder, so that you end up with two identical neighborhoods?

As far as I know, there is no hidden file containing information about neighborhoods. The only info exists in the neighborhood manager (which can be deleted to reset) and the individual neighborhood packages.

Update:
You have a fence on the new edge of the lot... on top of the roof. Remove it and you should be fine. You can add it back after the shrink.

Ah yes, those silly railing things. I forgot about those. If I ever get my neighborhood working again, I'll remove them. Thanks.

As to your other question: no, I shouldn't have any duplicate neighborhoods. The issue began the moment I copied over the LA-adjusted neighborhood file over to the Mac side (replacing the old, functioning one). I have no idea what about it was changed that it's no longer recognized, or why. I guess I'll try reinstalling the game. WooHoo!

mootilda can you try to make a version there you can do like 10x1 and 10x10 sizes

The 6x6 limit is an EA game limit, not a LotAdjuster limit; the game will crash with lots which are larger than 6x6.

LotAdjuster seems to work for most lots I have (although I didn't try them all), but I keep getting an error on one particular lot -

"Unhandled exception has occured in your application. If you click continue, the application will ignore this error blah blah blah

(Upon clicking continue it just hangs forever until I give up and close it)

Value of '1207209' is not valid for 'Value'. 'Value should be between 'Minimum' and 'Maximum'.
Parameter name: Value

Then there's a bunch of details.......

Any idea? This lot is (ironically) the whole reason I downloaded the adjuster, I totally messed up and used a lot that was way too big.

Sorry forgot to mention some important things... The lot is a 5X4 residential lot that I want to shrink, I have all the expansions up to AL but I don't have mansion and garden (does that matter?) and I'm running Vista but like I said it seems to work fine on other lots in the same neighborhood.

There are two possibilities:
1) Your lot has a version of the data which the LotAdjuster has never seen before and doesn't know how to handle.
2) Your lot is corrupt.

Let's hope that it's the former. If you attach your neighborhood package and the lot package for the problem lot, I'll take a look and see whether I can figure out what's wrong.

Ok, I fixed the problem. I guess I had things too close to the edges. First I pared it back and left one row blank - still didn't work. Then I pared back another row and now I can load the lot with no errors. I'll leave the post here though in case someone else has the same problem.

Thanks for the tool, I know it's really helpful for people like me that aren't very good at preplanning lol :D

LOL guess we were typing at the same time, didn't see your post until after I posted again.

I remember reading something somewhere in all the info provided about stuff too close to the edges but couldn't seem to find it again. Silly me, I feel like a moron now.

Hopefully all is well now and thanks for the offer of help. If I have any further problem with the lot I'll send it to you to look at.

Even if you found the problem, it would still be really helpful for me to examine your lot.

No matter what problems exist with a lot, I'd like to have the LotAdjuster give people a meaningful error message, rather than just crashing... you could help by giving me a copy of the lot before shrinking, if you still have it.

Thanks!

hi , i downloded you program , and evrything worked perfectly with the lot i was happy , but now i discovered that when i go out with any sim i get stuck the live mode is in grey is like when you want to build in a comunity lot... please help !!

This sounds like the problem that occurs when the mailbox is deleted from a residential lot. Can you see the mailbox and garbage can at the front of the lot?

Mootilda sorry for posting offtopic but did you get my PM? Not sure if your box is full or anything...

Thankyou for keeping up with the Expansion packs

I'm getting one of those "Unhandled exception errors" also on some lots I've tried adjusting. I am attaching the lot & neighborhood package files, and a screen capture of the message and the text of the Details in case you want to take a look at the problem.

Thanks for the detailed report. I'll take a look at this as soon as I can.

[Update:]
OK, I found the problem: a very high Lot Class Value.

Fixed crash and uploaded new version 2.4.

Thea, this should solve your problem as well. The problem was not that there were things which were too close to the edge, but that expanding your building obviously brought the Lot Class Value above the threshold handled by the program.

This is wonderful, thank you so much. Now I can use lots I have downloaded that didn't have enough space for a driveway (Yay!).

Hello! : )
I don't know if anyone have posted something about this, but I didn't see anything..

Well, I was going to make a lot bigger, and a message came up that if I continued my neighbourhood could get fu*ked or something, because of the Mansion and Garden thing.. So, this program is not compatible with Mansion and Garden pack??

gah, I suck @ writing english, but I hope you understand my problem :P

You have an older version. Be sure to download the newest version, 2.4.

Hi, I downloaded LotAdjustor but all the lots I've built and tried to Adjust AFTER installing Mansion and Garden stuff won't work (an error page appears). Also, If I try "Adjusting" a 6x5 (or 5x6 - not to sure which one?!)lot , It comes up as a 6x6 lot so I can't expand it to a 6x6 lot because "apparently" it already is one. Have you seen these problems before? Do you have any solutions? thanks.

Your "5x6" lot is, in fact, already 6x6 - the actual size includes the road, which is one tile wide. Regarding your other problem, I believe Mootilda will need some more detailed info than "an error page appears".

I'm getting this message:
OBJECT REFERENCE NOT SET TO AN INSTANCE OF AN OBJECT
The lot adjustment was aborted! An error occurred during modification of your lot. The current version of the LotAdjuster is unable to continue.

Please report this error at: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=282409 and attach a copy of your lot to the posting.

Alternatively, sign my guestbook at: http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/pod.php?user_id=892026

mayfly: "Please report this error at: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=282409 and attach a copy of your lot to the posting."

So where is the attached lot?