This is something I can't figure out. I've built apartment buildings with doors marked as NPC using the hidden/public markers. The doors work perfectly. NPCs spawn and the household sims can ring the doorbell and summon them.

The problem is that the NPCs don't disappear into their apartment doors like they should. They stand around and complain that they can't enter the door. (I get the "broken routing" balloon with a picture of the door). It's very annoying because I have to keep hearing the NPCs complain over and over while managing the rest of the household. What could be the issue?

I've had this occur when I placed public room markers or hidden room markers in an area with a fence that sims can walk through - like brick/wood edging on a roof. If sims can walk through it, they consider it an accessible area and complain when they can't get there. Another problem can be stairs. If you have stairs outside that lead up to a public "lobby" / foyer inside a door or archway, then you have to place a public room marker on the stairway landing outside the door / arch as it is considered by the game to be on another level / floor. You might want to check to be sure that you've not accidentally put a public marker where you wanted a hidden marker or vice versa. I apologize if you already knew these things but I learned them by trial and error while building many apartments. Hope this helps!

I don't have any of these conditions on the lot, but when you mentioned the staircase, you made me wonder if this doesn't have anything to do with the elevator shafts. (Little 2x2 rooms that I have placed elevators in.) I think in two of the situations where the sims complained, the rooms they couldn't get inside were directly adjacent to a shaft. I'll edit all of my elevator shafts to see if that will help the situation any. Hopefully that will solve the problem and if it does, I'll drop by and post a screenshot so others can avoid the problem.

Thanks!

Did you have a marker in the elevator shaft?

None at all, so I'm thinking that could be the issue. I'll try adding markers to see if that helps any.

Yes, you have to have public room markers in each elevator space or they can't be used. I just plop them in there before I add the elevators. Of course, the area where the elevator opens up has to have a public room marker too.

Thanks for the help, everyone! Yes, it was definitely the lack of public markers in the elevator shafts that was the problem. I just tested my world after adding them in and have no more routing issues. Now my one last major hurdle in completing this world is over.