Sims disappeared after loading household

Yup, seems to be happening to a lot of people right now, including me. They really did not test this game out before re-releasing and all the problems that are happening really proves that. Nothing surprises me with greedy corporations though! 

This... is... terrible!

$Subject is a definite sign of a neighborhood corruption. This is the character file linking error as either:

• Character File has been deleted and thus it has lost a reference.
• NeighborID decided to point to an incorrect or missing character file.

Which one could it be I don't know. One fun side effect is that if you create more sims, one of these sims may eventually appear in these memories instead of $Subject.

I am not an expert in this and I wish April Black looks into this. She has made a deep dive into The Sims 2 corruption, proving that it is not as easy to corrupt neighborhoods as players previously thought. Before players were to be afraid to play the game even.

The Legacy edition seems to be trying to corrupt the neighborhoods according to reports. And neighborhood corruption can't be fixed with uninstall and install: you must get third-party programs to do that. Or start a new neighborhood as it's localized to only one neighborhood and its sub-neighborhoods.

i tried to fix it with SimPe but thats not working eiter, because my sim is not even listed there anymore... its just UNKOWN

We shouldn't have to get third-party programs just for the game to work though... EA should have dealt with all of this before re-releasing the game. I wanted to play this game so much (as did so many other people), but what's the point if it doesn't work properly? Yes, it is terrible and unacceptable. 

And that's the annoying part: it was way harder to corrupt a neighborhood before.

Before, reports like that were really rare. If you really wanted to see $Subject, you'd had to delete character files manually from the File Explorer. Other than that, it was mostly caused by removing custom clothing, careers, majors, foods, NPCs etc.

Yeah, this is unacceptable. We should report as much as we can, as this is a really great game and it's a tragedy when it's overshadowed by bugs.

For now, my only recommendation is to not play it seriously: try different playstyles, life states, gameplay objects etc. The more we can report, the better. I do hope that one day this edition gets fixed enough that people can play it.

Edit. Oh, and people report that both of these games run better on Steam than on EA App... Ugh...

I can ease your mind by at least saying that it does not run better on Steam than EA. I am in the boat of Sims 1 not being able to open, so I tried downloading it on Steam to see if I could at least play - nope. 

I had accepted that fate and decided to play Sims 2... dogs and family members always go missing, game crashes, all furniture disappears when loading into lots, etc etc full of bugs and problems. Again, uninstalled and went to Steam. Same issues. I'm glad some are having good luck with Steam but I have found a lot of people with issues like mine that go to Steam and have continued (or the same) issues as the EA app.

Overall, EA is a freaking mess and fully at fault for throwing out unfinished products... surprise surprise... I have refunded all orders successfully and learned my lesson. 

Adding, I have run diagnostics, updated drivers and windows (didn't have any to update), tried all the fixes and suggestions in the community to get either game to work with no luck. At this rate, I would be better off buying the CDs secondhand and an ancient computer to run old games if I want the nostalgia that bad...

Thanks for letting me know!

Ugh... Why, EA? This was your best move against the upcoming competition and you ruined it all.

Didn't want you regretting not buying it on Steam thinking you would have better results! 

Agreed... Imagine dropping the ball this bad on a gold mine. Anyway, Paralives is hoping to release sometime this year. Fingers crossed for more simulation games to come out to compete with EA and to take their loyal fanbase away. 😇 

Yeah, like SamMills221 said, it definitely doesn't run any better on Steam, as that's where I got it. I actually just refunded it because I just can't get myself to play a broken game. Maybe if they actually fix the issues, I'll buy it again, but otherwise no. EA could have really done some good here, but they screwed up. Again. Good luck in your gaming adventures though!