Couldn't think of a properly descriptive title, so I included a picture (the kids are ugly, cause they only just aged right before the pic was taken). The sims will only use the two outermost chairs, no matter what I do.

I've tried placing the table in both directions up against different walls in the kitchen. I've tried placing it both normally and right in the middle with setquartertileplacement on. I've tried different dining tables and different chairs and even tried removing the lamp (when you've tried all likely possibilities, you try some unlikely ones). I have of course also tried with no CC of any kind in my game (obviously including mods).

I've also tried Walk Around-blocks, which sort of works in terms of getting them to sit/eat, but sometimes gets them stuck in-between the chairs when they try to leave.

I can't recall ever having had this problem before. Any ideas?

I would try replacing the table and dining chairs with new ones because it sounds like the objects becaome glitched and are unusable.I had that happen once and it's happened with other objects like a fridge and I had to replace the glitched objects.

"I've tried different dining tables and different chairs"
It was the second thing I tried (first was simply moving the tables and chairs). Doesn't work. :/
Also, the unused chairs are usable. As I wrote, I tried using walk around-blocks and they made the sims able to get to the chairs, but then they instead got stuck between the chairs or inside the table, when they stood up to leave.

Moving the table one square away from the wall (toward the right side in the picture) would work. Then they can access all the chair from both sides.

Up against the wall usually causes trouble in some direction or another. Occasionally sims will scoot in (I think they're more likely to do it in booths, maybe also if there's a table in front of a three-seater), but not sure if there's a logic to the when/why and what makes them do it. Sometimes they just really don't want to scoot in.

Personally I make sure all chairs are fully accessible (one empty square) from at least one direction even if the table is against a wall (I prefer putting tables in areas with plenty of space so sims do a minimum of foot-stomping or musical couches, and I'm just happy they don't do the whole musical beds/toilets/OtherButtResingItems dance like in TS4 - I'll rather have them standing around eating ...).

It's never been necessary before though, which is what confuses me. I've never needed to put my dining tables in a big, empty, square room in order for the sims to be able to sit in all the seats.

Here's a screenshot of a sim family I played back in the day, showing the same wall-table-chair set-up. The two chairs they're sitting in are in the same positions as the two that this family can't get to. It's all very weird.

Could be the tables, or where they choose to sit down first. Have you tried to make sims sit down in the inner chairs first? Maybe kids have issues but not adults?

Also, do you have any mods that modify tables or chairs (like slot addons and things like that)? Could maybe be an idea to try without those just to test if they're interfering.

Do you know if you've added or removed any EPs/SPs since that picture?

Could be an idea to try without any cheats activated. Chairs can be rather moody around the cheats. If you place a table with chairs around it, the chairs should if placed properly (in live mode) scoot under the table when you hit play. If they don't, something is wrong with the placement (you probably know this already).

Those Maxis chairs are known for giving issues, or at least the "I'm stuck between two chairs' hand-wavy issue. They use those chairs at the Blue Water Ramirez (sp?) house which was my first experience of it. So that is a thing.
The other is not as far as I know, but I tend to avoid those chairs, more trouble than they are worth.

I tried with various tables.
None of them are able to sit in those two chairs at all.
I tried without any CC at all, including without mods/hacks of any kind.
The problem happened first when I played the CD-version of Sims 2. I then installed the UC and the problem remained unchanged.
No cheats were enabled and the chairs all scoot in just fine. Guess this is just one of those weird Sims 2 quirks that can suddenly happen. Maybe the lot is corrupted. Some worrying glitches have been happening in that house recently...




I tried with both Maxis and CC chairs and it didn't change. Also as shown in the image in my previous reply, those are Maxis chairs as well and it worked without a problem back then.

I just posted here in case someone said "Ah HA! I know exactly what that's caused by. Here's what you do: Blah blah", but fortunately it's not exactly a game-breaking bug or anything, so I'll just move the table out and deal with it just looking kinda awkward, lol.

Thank you everyone who tried to help <--- Love that sheep...

I know I've seen it happen, but I can't remember anything about the spesific circumstances (Must be CDs because I've barely played with the UC, and I had all the CDs since 2009 so either I'm vaguely remembering something before that, or have seen it happen at some point after). I just know that more often than not they'll refuse to sit at partly unaccessable chairs, so I make sure they're all accessable. I tend to have large families, so they usually need two extra chair spaces at the ends anyway, and then I might as well make sure they have a clear spot (I like having a bit of extra space for photoshoots).

I also have tables away from the wall and put chairs at each side of the table so that one would have extra chairs at both ends and it would be away from any walls.I had a glitch like that with a fridge force me to move my family to another house on a different lot and I had to put that new lot down as the only other choice would've been moving back into a tiny starter home wwhen they were almost ready for starting a family so I set up a starter home on a larger lot and they delayed starting that family to rebuild a bigger house first.The house I upgraded them to ended up that the copy of it placed was glitched.

If you have the Stuck Object Remover mod, you might try laying a few down in the room. Sometimes tiles get weirdly reserved for some interaction or other and messes up any objects put in the area.

There are two types of Maxis chairs. Wide chairs and narrower chairs. Narrower chairs allow sims go around them to sit as seen on screenshot, wide chairs don't allow. As I like to make 4x5 dining rooms, I need to use always narrower chairs and I am familiar with this.

^ You happen to know which ones they are? If there really are differences between the chairs, it could be very useful to have a list (and also for cloning purposes for CC, or for editing options).

Can't find any differences between clones of the chairs (but depends where the differences are, because I'm not an expert on BHAVs and BCONs and global data all that. Maybe someone else can figure it out?).

Well, you need to look at chair legs. At image http://prntscr.com/vt61sp
First chair has wide legs and second is narrower. You see difference in lines.

Unless the chairs go by the exact footprint or bounding mesh or some such, I'd think the difference were hiding somewhere else in the files. Usually the actual mesh doesn't matter that much because the boundaries are often controlled by something else (like the footprint), though I'm guessing the default ones have stricter rules to go by than CC.

The chair leg method could probably work on EAxis chairs, but maybe not on CC. Also, in SimPE comparing chair legs is really difficult... :/