🔨 "CAS Unlock" Sims vs "CAS Unlock" CAS Overrides ☢️ A follow-up and a note on Custom Content.
My Let's talk "CAS Unlock" Collection - https://../1206184?view=condensed
I want to be very clear about this. "CAS Unlock" SIMS are not the same as "CAS Unlock" CAS OVERRIDES. "CAS Unlock" CAS Overrides are fine!
I should probably move the quotation down to include the word "sim". Doing so would avoid the confusion with "CAS Unlock" CAS Overrides...
<SHRUGS>
Like I've said numerous times, I'd be less irritated by "CAS Unlock" sims if some of them didn't appear to be buggy and broken, or if simmers properly tagged their "CAS Unlock" sims - though there's the additional caveats to consider that I included in my "follow-up" post. To me, personally, the risk outweighs any benefits of "CAS Unlock" sims, especially when "CAS Unlock" CAS Overrides already exist in the wild and effectively do the same thing for anyone who can use mods.
I don't say these things with the express intention of shaming anyone.
If you like and use "CAS Unlock" sims, and even uploaded "CAS Unlock" sims in the past without tagging them properly, this isn't an attack on you, and you shouldn't take it as such, because I accept and acknowledge there is little to no documentation concerning "CAS Unlock" sims like mine that I've seen, that you could've possibly read, before encountering me - and that's not to say that everything I've said on the topic is 100% accurate, because there's a fair amount that I still don't understand.
The toxicity I might use when discussing this is meant to convey my raw and unrefined reaction to the situation - if I and others had screamed at the top of our lungs about the potential dangers of TS4SCRIPT and PYTHON, would the safeguards that are only now being put in place AFTER the malware incidents have existed BEFORE? I know that's not on me, but I can't help but wonder, and it affects the way I look at other things, because I remained silent about my concerns for years, and it bit us in the arse anyway.
Maybe all of this is me overcompensating again, but I'd rather do it now, than "wait and see" what happens later.
⋆⋅ I DON'T "FREAK OUT" FOR NO REASON:
The above Bug Report on Answers HQ is almost a year old and it's still tagged as [OPEN]. You'll find me and a former member of the r/Sims4 moderation team in there sharing our findings, because we tackled the "bug" on our own before realizing it was "a thing".
Some older Lots in the Gallery were broken so badly back in late 2023 - due to an official EAxis update that changed something with the way object placement works - that they cause the game to CTD (crash to Desktop) or "hard lock" into an endless loading screen, with the only solution being to manually crash the game via Task Manager or power off your device if Task Manager won't work for you.
A [hardlock] occurs when a game becomes stuck and completely unresponsive because of a glitch. A hardlock can be so bad that it basically makes it impossible to keep playing a game entirely. - https://www.makeuseof.com/softlock-hardlock-in-video-games-explained/
It's one of those "bugs" that there seems to be no solution for because the game has fundamentally and permanently changed, and that change is the cause of the "bug".
Pray "CAS Unlock" sims never become so broken that they start crashing the game, because the Gallery is INFESTED with them.
But fret not, I'm finally giving this some more attention - even though I have other things to do - and eventually I will flesh out those DIY "disinfection" guides.
I'm finally giving this some more attention because I became aware that my old Patreon post and my old comments on Reddit from earlier this year were being found and read, and I had more information to share and more troubleshooting to do than what's contained in those posts, and this is one of those obscure things that I've personally found no information about anywhere other than the response I got from the S.A.D. Discord Server (Sims After Dark).
⋆⋅ CAN CUSTOM CONTENT SPREAD THIS: NO!
There is no custom content that I know of that can spread the "CAS Unlock" sim code - it is code/data that attaches to your sim and saves to your sim's household data. This is actually how I'm able to sometimes correctly identify "CAS Unlock" sims on the Gallery before downloading them - the file size is larger than it "should be".
⋆⋅ "CAS UNLOCK" CAS OVERRIDES:
A "CAS Unlock" CAS Override is the equivalent of any CAS Override you can find on the internet from any mod creator, including me, right here on this Patreon.
A "CAS Unlock" CAS Override can be removed by simply removing the PACKAGE from your Mods folder (and deleting your localthumbcache.package - always delete your localthumbcache.package after modifying your Mods folder).
If it breaks because EAxis fundamentally changed something - like a few items in my EP16 CAS Overrides broke because EAxis changed the resources - they can be deleted or fixed, and just like that, the problem is gone. No "jumping hoops" anywhere.
⋆⋅ "CAS UNLOCK" SIMS:
A "CAS Unlock" sim requires [SOME SHENANIGANS I STILL DON'T KNOW YET AND DON'T REALLY CARE TO KNOW YET] in order to create.
To remove the "CAS Unlock" code from a "CAS Unlock" sim, you have to:
Live Mode "disinfect" by way of "moving out" sims from infected households then saving them back to the Library or Gallery.
Mod Sim Presets with your SIMINFO resources.
Neither option is without it's "caveats" - a caveat is an unintended thing that requires further consideration before taking action - and this is why I view "CAS Unlock" sims negatively.
If you get a buggy one, there is no simple "kill switch" that gets rid of the "CAS Unlock" code - and there's the possibility they can all become outdated and buggy in the future, but I can't say with 100% certainty because I don't yet know why some of them are buggy.
You can't type in a cheat to de-activate this !@#$. You have to "jump through hoops" to get rid of it, and anything I have to "jump through hoops" to get rid of is a negative.
We can argue that some complex third-party mods are like this - once they're included in a saved game, removing them can break the saved game - but the difference is that I'M MAKING THE CONSCIOUS DECISION TO DOWNLOAD THE MOD WHILE UNDERSTANDING SOME OF THE RISKS.
☢️ When I go to the Gallery and download a household, I'm playing Russian Roulette, because this !@#$ is everywhere and hardly anyone has the !@#$ing decency to tag their uploads appropriately - and that's if they even know that their sim/household is "CAS Unlock", or understand what it means, or know these things can bug out!
Look at this !@#$ - https://simscommunity.info/2022/08/07/the-sims-4-unlocking-all-cas-items/
This bit at the end is misleading. Removing the "CAS Unlock" sim is irrelevant because the "CAS Unlock" code has already infected your sim/household!
You can simply remove the Sim as soon as you’ve placed her down as a part of your own household. This Sim will automatically unlock all the CAS items as soon as she’s been placed down so there’s no need to have her around. You can do so by either editing her out through “Modify in CAS” (with the cas.fulleditmode cheat), removing her immediately if you’ve just started creating a household or evicting her from the Manage Worlds options. The Sim will unlock all the lockables for all ages and fashion choices.
You know what happens in Live Mode when you add these sims to your household then delete them or evict them? You get rid of the sim, sure, but the "CAS Unlock" infection stays behind in your household.
Here's the most recent SC_Admin "CAS Unlock" sim. Comments claim she's outdated. I'm going to add her to my Live Mode household, then I'm going to remove her by following the instructions in the post linked above:
🎙️ WHOOMP! DEER SHE IS! - Why is this the only "official" upload for this song? The lip-syncing is horrible, but they're kids so it's fine. I'm not gonna hate on a bunch of kids. The only controversy I can find about KIDZ BOP is that they've done censored versions of inappropriate songs kidz shouldn't be bopping to, like "Whoomp! (There It Is)"... !@#$ MY LIFE! 😹
Let's hop into CAS! 🤪
Now let's delete her by following the "cas.fulleditmode" instructions!
She's gone, but look ma, I still have my unlocked items! F.Y.I., Scarlet isn't amused by having to go through this bullshit again.
To verify Scarlet is in fact infected, I'm going to save this "instance" of them to my Library. Ignore the "Modded" flag.
Now we've left Live Mode and entered "New Game" CAS. Take note of the larger file size of 36 KB and ignore the "Modded" flag.
The items are still "unlocked" because this "instance" of Scarlet is indeed infected.
Here's one of the items that gets "buggy".
Here's my older Library save of Scarlet. Take note of the smaller file size of 7 KB. The "CAS Unlock" code contained in SC_Admin's "CAS Unlock" sim is 29 KB.
Here's that shoe again. The black swatch needs no "unlocking".
It's possible that my assessment of "buggy" is incorrect, and these items I see "duplicated" and "unlocked" and defaulted to not-the-default-swatch, are "unlocked" because they're used in Career outfits and Career outfits are included in most "CAS Unlock" sims. However, if you find a few more "CAS Unlock" sims, you might notice the "unlocked" variant of this particular shoe is missing.
Look, look, see, see, NO !@#$ING SHOE! Did EAxis' Grimterns eat it?
Let's verify in Live Mode that the "unlocked" variant of the shoe is in fact not on Scarlet with the Grimterns added to my household.
I don't see no "unlocked" variant of the shoe. Do you?
The regular variant is still there though, because of course it is!
Usually I want to understand things fully. To do that I'd have to learn how to and then create my own "CAS Unlock" sim - and I'd probably have to make other "CAS Unlock" sims under different game versions - then do hours upon hours of testing to see if they bug out... or I could just go scorched Earth and destroy every one I encounter. One of those two options takes a lot less time and feels very satisfying, especially for an issue like this that's not considered "critical" by anyone, even me - seriously, I'd rather spend my time trying to solve the automatic outfit switching thing that EAxis broke, but nothing I've seen makes me think it's something we can solve on our end.
⋆⋅ IN CLOSING:
No one seems to like it when I refer to "CAS Unlock" sims as an "infection" / "infectious" - S.A.D. didn't seem to like it either - but that's exactly how they behave, so that's how I will describe them.
I've been very polite up to this point - more polite than I usually am - about "CAS Unlock" sims, because I WANT TO BELIEVE™ that most simmers probably don't understand this !@#$, which is partially because no one has taken the time to properly explain this !@#$.
Let's keep things cordial, shall we?
Does anyone have the answers to the "why" and "how" questions? I certainly don't. Not yet anyway, and I probably never will, but I did find one solution (Live Mode), then devised my own (Sim Presets).