When loading into my game from my last save from last night (January 12), all my photos across the save are there. Now when I try to save today after the update, upon logging back into the game all t...
Ideas
EA_Solaire
Community Manager
Community ManagerHi all,
We wanted to provide an update here as we know this issue has been frustrating, and these pictures represent important moments in your Sims’ lives that matter to you. Before we go into more detail below on the nature of black photo issues, we do have a fix confirmed for the issue reported in this thread that will be released with our next Base Game update on February 3rd.
What causes black pictures?
Black pictures are a symptom of different issues, not one single bug. Most of the black picture issues you’ve seen recently trace back to changes made around The Sims 4: Businesses and Hobbies. Before Businesses and Hobbies, the game saved all custom images (i.e. tattoos, custom CAS paints, photos) - both ones still in use and images you had used before, but have now replaced - directly in your save file. This kept pictures safe, but it also caused save files to grow very large.
In Businesses and Hobbies, we introduced optimizations to reduce save size by removing custom images that are no longer in use. While this helped performance and storage, it also introduced new edge cases. In some situations, images that were still being used were mistakenly removed. When that happens, the game no longer has the data needed to display the picture, resulting in a black image.
Why does this bug keep reappearing?
There are many ways that different systems use custom images in The Sims 4. This means a fix to resolve black photos for a specific scenario won’t resolve the issue elsewhere in-game. Even when symptoms look the same, the underlying causes can be different.
Can already broken pictures be restored?
It depends on the type of issue.
- If the image data was permanently deleted there is no way for us to restore it. Once that data is gone, it’s unrecoverable.
- If the image still exists but isn’t displaying correctly (what we call a “blank picture” issue), those can sometimes be recovered through fixes.
This difference is why some fixes apply retroactively to older saves, while others only prevent the issue from recurring in the future.
We know pictures are deeply personal to how many of you play, and we’re continuing to treat this as a priority area. Thank you for your patience, your saves, and your detailed reports, as they directly help us track down these issues and improve the game.
I agree with the comments that said you guys need to treat this as urgent and give it an emergency patch and NOT make us wait until the next planned update.
I also agree with the commenters that said the fact that you guys are pushing another new pack even though you JUST promised us you were taking time off of that to FIX THINGS (many of which have not only NOT been fixed but have been made WORSE) is reprehensible. Legacy gameplay is so severely broken in so many ways that you've told us to pretty much stop doing it, but now you want us to shell out $40-80 (depending on where we live) to play legacy style?
I'm honestly disgusted, disappointed, and actively seeking an alternative to the sims because I don't have any faith in the dev team after we were promised you were taking time off making new packs to fix stuff and that turned out to be a big fat lie. It's one thing when a patch is supposed to fix something and it doesn't. I get it, code it complicated and I doubt you're trying to lie in that case. But to tell us you're taking time off to work on fixes and then four months later you've got new content to shill out to us? You've been working on that this whole time, while pretending to care about the game breaking problems your longest standing customers have.
I've loved the sims since the sims 1, and these issues could have all been avoided if you guys had taken the time to fix issues as they came up, BEFORE churning out the next expansion, instead of adding more floors on top of a crumbling foundation. You chose greed instead. But that pales in comparison to the slap in the face I felt seeing the ad for the next expansion come up so soon after you assured us you were taking time off to dedicate yourself to fixing problems.
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