Photos turning black (Patch 1.121.342/2.28)

Unfortunately, I believe the new update is fixing the issue causing photos to turn black. I don't think they're able to restore photos/paintings that have turned black, as they're essentially lost to the void/deleted.

The only fix I've heard of to restore them, is to recover an old save file before your pictures turned, and then shove them in an inventory, or save, then exit to main menu (I believe), unfortunately I'm pretty sure pc players are only able to do that. 

I fully understand though, when Growing Together came out, I shoved a while bunch of photos into a box and they all turned black. Incredibly stupid and frustrating.. 

Thankfully I restored a back up file and the older save is just fine.  I sent the link to the damaged save file to EA_Solaire.

This patch broke more than they promised to fix. 

I have never had an issue with black photos until the newest update yesterday. Every photo on the wall taken by a Sim is now black. 

I'm afraid you have misunderstood how this bug occurred, based on all my own testing + the testimony of players, the bug specifically affected unloaded households. This is why rotational players where particularly likely to experience this problem, while people who only play one household might be lucky to avoid it.

The bug appeared to trigger during saving the game, where pictures not currently loaded into the game (either on lot or in Sim's inventories) would fail to be saved properly, leading to missing data. Once the save file is then loaded, the pictures would be blank due to missing data. This also caused save files to noticably reduce in size.

The real issue here is lack of communication from the developer + the huge delay in rolling out a fix. Even if it is fixed now, it will have huge ramifications for players for a long time.

Right, this bug has been an issue for years, way longer than the Jan update. It's happened to me on every legacy sim game I've made at some point or another. :/

My photos & paintings works fine after the update. Here's my suggestion : Don't play your saved game file from January, it was the January update that caused the global black photos and blank paintings(there's a bug report post talking about it with 26k views) and those existing black photos can't be fixed even after the recent update.

So you have to load your game save from last year, if you don't have any backup save then unfortunatly you need to start a new game. I think any saved game data before the January update is good to play now, I'm currently playing my last December saved game and I don't encounter any black photo issues so far.

My photos are turning black on my PS5. Can you please assist because I don't have CC or mods. I also have this under my main save. I even tried making copies of the photos & they're all black! Thanks in advance 

Hi h1tchj​ 

I merged your post with the main thread. Could you please provide your save to EA_Solaire. If you have a backup from before they turn black that would be great.

Also answer the questions in the first post. Thanks.

Could you please all read the first post and provide the info asked there.

There have been two specific causes identified but there seem to be more.

Please make sure to send your saves to EA. Best saves you haven't loaded with the current patch and that weren't broken before this patch. Photos broken before this patch won't be restored unless you have a backup.