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
User crinrict reported that the Paint-by-Reference paintings bug that caused these paintings to go white, erasing the paint-by-reference image, when the game was reloaded has been fixed in January 2026. The bug is still happening when I played Sunday, February 1, 2026, as you can see in the screenshot. Something like half my paint-by-reference paintings disappeared to white when I reloaded my game after having taken the Sims fam to the Finchwick Fair. I also noticed another household had photos that all turned black. I attempted to restore the now blank white paint-by-reference paintings by moving them to inventory and then back to the wall, but no luck - that did not fix the issue.
Below is another screenshot I took the other day when thinking about how important the Paint-by-Reference feature is to the family legacy game play style. My fear is by shutting down the original thread logging this bug under a false Fix tag, the history and longevity of this ongoing bug is suppressed.
I attempted to link to the original thread, but couldn't post with the link. :(
Unfortunately, this bug persists. Here is my statement of impact: The Paint-by-Reference photos that capture the childhood of my Sims children are now white. Moving them to inventory and back Does Not Fix the bug.
I have gone weeks to months without playing The Sims due to this bug disrupting my legacy game play. After the last game update, I mistakenly thought this bug was gone and continued playing a handful of times, seeing my newest Paint-by-Reference family paintings surviving saves and reloading the game. However, when I went to a different House, I noticed all of their old photos had become black. The honeymoon photos: erased. The baby photos of their only child: erased! Now I see that the expressed fix of the paint-by-reference paintings is inaccurate. Moving the photos into inventory and then back into the game does not fix the issue. Previously, the bug only seemed to impact net new paint-by-reference paintings. Now, I see that all of my households have dozens of long time paint-by-reference paintings erased. Paintings of my Sims when they were babies, toddlers, and kids are all gone - only blank white remains. Entire Sim family memories, erased.
I'm at the point that testing and tracking this bug is so labor intensive (and distressing), EA ought to be paying me! Yet, even with the free labor of the people, there is NOT a successful fix to this issue that has been ongoing for months. In my experience, the bug is only getting worse.
My GoodReads couldn't be happier since this Ongoing Bug is pushing me to put down this game indefinitely and pick up a book instead. Maybe I'll get bored enough while not playing The Sims, that I'll start a YouTube channel on my critique of this broken game.
My proposed solution? Number one, fix the bug that makes the decade-long feature, Paint-by-Refence, unusable and the bug impacting photos. And then, provide a Free Release of a totally improved Family Album function and significantly better ways to capture and retain Sim family memories and progress to lesson the pain of having Paint-by-Reference disrupted.
How ironic is it that the defense of not building Sims 5 is the legacy games and longtime players of the Sims 4, while the game is actively erasing all of the memories Paint-by-Reference has provided.
:(
Featured Places
