Bug
Symptom

Arrested suspect can’t be found at police station

January 11, 2016 /

Problem

After arresting a Sims and returning to the police station, the suspect is

  • Nowhere to be found
  • the new chief of police

I can’t issue another APB or cancel the case

Cause

  • For some reason the suspect doesn’t make it to the police lot.
  • You’re using mods and you have > 8 Sims in your household. Since there can only be 20 Sims on a lot at the same time, it can happen that the lot already has too many Sims (especailly since the game seems to count all household Sims to that total, whether they are on the lot or not)
  • The suspect is stuck at the spawning point of the lot.
  • The suspect is a policemen themselves.

Solution

  • Finish the day by either doing other task or end the shift early and go home. The suspect should be on the lot the next day. If not follow the solution below.
  • Increase the amount of Sims allowed on a lot. You need a mod like MCCC for this
  • Check the map and try to interact with stuck Sims.
  • The following steps should help if the suspect is a policenen themselves. The problem shouldn’t occur anymore but there have been newer reports. I’m going to leave the solution for further reference.

Do the following steps to use the cheat console

  1. Open the cheat console with ctl-shift-c
  2. Enter the cheat you need in the entry box which appeared in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Hit ENTER
  4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for every necessary cheat.
  5. After entering all needed cheats, close the cheat console with ctl-shift-c

With the following solution, you should be able to close the case and move on. The faulty suspect can’t be saved (only a library copy).

You also need to know who the suspect is and be able to meet him. It’s very likely he’s now a policemen himself, most of the time the chief of police.

Now you need to find out if the suspect is a random Sim or one that is living somewhere or that you even like a lot. If you do like him, I suggest, you save him to the library.

  1. Save your game under a new name so you have a backup
  2. Find out if the suspect is already living in a household or not. Change to the household manager and check all families. If the suspect is part of a household, you can skip steps 3-6.
  3. Play at work until your shift is over. Just fulfill the other stuff. Also make sure you befriend the chief of police
  4. Once back home, invite the Sim over to your house
  5. Open the cheat console and type: testingcheats on
  6. Shift-click on the Sim and choose Add to family
  7. Go to manage world and start the household manager.
  8. Split the faulty Sim from the household into a new one and then delete that new household
  9. Go back to your home lot and play until you need to go to work again
  10. Join your Sim at work
  11. The option to issue an APB should now be back but you’re not done as you would just go look for the same Sim again that no longer exists in your game
  12. Make sure testing cheats is still active and if not, reactivate it then shift-click on your Sim.
  13. Choose: Detective Day Event – DEBUG: Get New Case Event (this will give you a new case)
  14. Shift-Click on your Sim again and choose: Detective Day Event – DEBUG: Apprehend Suspect Event (this will give you two new clues to the new suspect)
  15. Add new clues to the board and do whatever you normally do to get new clues. If necessary, travel to the crime scene again. The old ones will stay in your notebook. Ignore them. Only the new ones count. Keep continuing to get clues until you have at least 3 or 4 new clues
  16. Issue another APB and go find your new suspect
  17. Arrest him and hope he doesn’t become a Sim with a role again.
  18. After closing the case, your notebook should be blank again.