Know What Is Inside Your Game: The Sims 3

Mariesalias wrote:
This is not directly related but I figured I'd ask while I was thinking of it. Does anyone know what it means when the family photo for your save game is blank, even though you have a family?

Well, it shouldn't be happening, and might be an indication the save is getting old in the tooth. But it may be nothing more than a thumbnail issue. Backup your game, first. And then try sliding the Thumbnail folder to your desktop. This will force the game to re-create all new thumbnails for everything. It will take a while for the game to redo them all, so the first time you open the buy/build you will get a pause while it does.

If that doesn't work, then go to the "choose a new family" button and click on it. Choose your same family over again. That will also force a new thumbnail for the family. But doing it that way will cause you to lose your wants and etc, so is not the preferred method. It will likely work, however.

If that doesn't work, then you should consider saving the family to your Library bin, both only as a family and also as a family inside their house. Then try placing them in a new world, both as the family by itself into a different home and also the family inside their home, to see if they show up in that world with a thumbnail one way or the other. If they do, both ways, then you know the family itself is fine, and it is something about the old save.

If they don't, then in that new save, try splitting up the family, moving out just one family member, saving that family member to the Library bin, and then moving them back into the family, immediately. That should cause the game to rethink the family thumbnail. If that works in the new save, then try doing the same thing in the old save. If it doesn't work, then save each family member to the Library bin, individually, and try placing them individually into a new home, merging as you go, until you have the whole family re-merged into a new home. If the thumbnail works, then, try moving the whole merged family back into the old house, and see if you still get the family thumbnail. If you do, then try doing the same thing in your old save, and see if that works.

NOTE: If you have plumbots in your family, before trying anything that involves splitting families, have the plumbot remove all trait chips and store the trait chips in a WA chest. If you do not, the bots might lose their trait chips when the family is split up, depending on how it was split.

Alternately, in your old save, you could try evicting the family while in edit mode (save the blank house to the Library bin, while it's empty), and then putting them immediately back into their home. Or you could try, while in edit mode, moving the family home (with the family in it) to another lot and then back again to the same lot they were in, before. Both of those things should kick up a new thumbnail.

If none of those things work, then try a "save as" of the save, and open the new saved version of your game. That might force the game to rethink the save, and generate a new thumbnail.

If nothing above works, then I would conclude the problem is deeper than a thumbnail issue, and you need to consider the possibility that you should try playing your family in a new save in a fresh world, because the old save is likely already on the long slide toward its demise.