I'd say the best fix is to bypass the launcher altogether.
It only adds another step to the game launch, so not sure why you'd even want it.

I've had this bug for a long time now: whenever an NPC witch arrives on a community lot, they're supposed to do their weather spell (which they do), and then summon their cat. But for me, the cat summoning spell always fails for them - no errors, just fails. Regular witches can still summon cats. I'm so sure I've seen this discussed some time ago but I forgot what the solution to this was, and cannot find it. Does anyone know what causes this and what could be the fix?

So sugoisama, what mods do you have? Like do you have one that makes reagents required for the head witches? And I read some posts on Midgethetree's tumblr where Midge says that nostrayrespawn modifies the appello catticus amicus spell so NPC witches can’t summon familiars. I would think it's some kind of mod that's preventing it.


But I have a question, too! Does anyone know if sims can't sit properly at a counter corner? I was testing my contest build (I'm so glad I did this, as I saw many silly little things that need fixing, almost none of them what I was worried about and wanted to test, of course! I can't believe I forgot how fickle sims are...). Anyway, I'm trying to make sure all my dining seats work, and while the corner seat is technically functional, sims pull out the chair to sit and eat there and keep their plate in their hand (instead of placing the plate on the counter). I'm wondering why. Is it cuz I made it a counter, connected to the stove?

I've had that happen before too (and it was on a contest build too! LOL!) It might be the fact that it is a 'cornered' counter? I don't really remember what the cause was. (And I haven't built a cornered counter again.)
But, what I am replying here - is to say, in your contest build, you can have "decoratively placed" chairs - so long as one of them actually works, and you're good.
Just be sure to let the judges know that there are purposely deco-only chairs, and they won't take off points.

Thanks, CatherineTCJD! I wasn't too worried about losing points because I do have a table. It's more that I wanted everything to be functional, if possible. I'm thinking that since I went for no cc I might as well upload it and I wanted to make sure everything works as intended. (This is what I meant about silly little things not working as I expected. Sims had no problem using the trash can in the pic, for example, but for some reason, a plant next to the bed meant they couldn't use that side. )

Anyway, I think it is the corner, because when I rearranged the furniture to make the counters normal/straight, they could sit... but then they couldn't reach the plate to clean it up! I did play around with the layout and see it there were other options to make it usable, but I'm liking this one the best, so deco counters it is!

I think I'm done testing for now. I'm just going to pull out my Life Stories bundle and take pictures. I have a suspicion that the wood flooring I'm using is from LS, so I want to double check before I upload my pictures.

I find if you put the plant on a table by the bed they can then enter the bed from that side.

This still isn't really functional. When they pick up plates on those island counters, they have to stand on the other side of the counter to do that, which they obviously can't do in this layout, because there's another counter there. So that's probably why the game prohibits them from putting the plate on the counter in the first place when you place it like that. With this layout, they would put plates on the counter, and then be unable to pick them up later.

Yeah, that's what I experienced. To eat, sims place the plate on the counter from behind (where the barstool is). Put for some reason, to clean up the plate, they pick it up from the other side of the counter. And they can't get there, thinking it's blocked. I find this behavior strange because I know I've seen an arm-stretch animation somewhere else (large restaurant tables, maybe?) and would think sims could do it here. But I don't think Maxis really intended to connect counters in this way.

I also don't think it really makes sense in the original layout I used, with the stove connecting to the corner counter--if the sim can sit down and eat with the plate in their hand, logically they should be able to place the plate down and sit there normally, again maybe doing an arm stretch to reach the plate for clean up.

But, well, I guess it's just one of those TS2 quirks.

This made me realise that I hadn't seen NPC Spectral Cats for ages either.

So I opened up nostrayrespawn and there is a BHAV in it dealing with Spectral Cats.

I thought that it was saying something about a witch not being able to summon without a certain skill level, but that's just a guess.

Can anyone else tell what it says?