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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 7:59 AM Last edited by BamboozledAntelope : 22nd Jun 2019 at 3:39 AM. Reason: Found Solution

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage
Default Snapshots Disappearing from Storytelling (In-Game)
UPDATE 2 - SOLVED*** I know this thread's been dead for awhile, but I found a solution, and since this information was so difficult for me to find initially I thought I might share it here.

The problem: I'd hit the mac open file limit. Basically, macs have a limit to how many files they can load at any given time. When they hit the file limit, they just...don't load some of them. Buy buy Great Uncle Peter.
The solution: I followed muridae's tutorial here: http://modthesims.info/t/showthread.php?t=608063
A little intimidating, but turned out to just be a matter of copy and paste. Some of the images are missing, but I managed to navigate okay.

I'm running on OS High Sierra 10.13.4 at the moment, but I couldn't access the insiminator links, so I just followed the instructions in their thread. Worked like a charm, but I don't know how it will go for you guys on different systems.
****END UPDATE 2 - SOLUTION****

UPDATE *** Just thought I'd update in case anyone came across the thread and wondered how things have turned out.

I couldn't get back to the game until recently, and had trouble getting it to load. It eventually came through for me, and the good news is that the story lines are back to normal. The bad news is that about half of the neighbourhood has ceased to exist. Not dead, not corrupted, just...kaput.

Memories of missing sims refer to them as $Subject, and they've totally disappeared from the neighbourhood, family trees, etc. What I've found snooping around on google suggests that it was an issue with file load limit. I guess my poor old geezer just couldn't handle it, and tried to lighten the load by shredding some of the files. I've had similar troubles with disappearing bits and bobs before, but had since reinstalled and didn't connect the two .

Anyway, thanks to you guys for trying to help. I really appreciate the effort and hopefully I'll be able to avoid this again in the future. Or at least be observant enough to connect the dots.
***** END UPDATE *****


I've poked through a few threads already, but can't find anything about my specific problem.

My snapshots have disappeared from the storyteller mode in one of my neighbourhoods.

The family story lines are still there, complete with text, but the snapshots won't show. The unedited snapshots have also disappeared, and new photos won't log. The camera works (flash and sound effect), but the pictures don't show up.
This only appears to effect one neighbourhood, and the snapshots are still there in my game files (both the storytelling file, and the picture file for the individual hood).
I recently installed new CC however I had no problems the last couple of times I opened the game (after installing), and the storytelling mode was working fine when I first opened the game today. It was only after I remodelled an [occupied] house that it glitched. Said house didn't use any of the CC I'd recently installed, neither did the sims living in it. I quit without saving and tried another house, but found they were affected too.

Any idea how to resolve this, or what might be causing it?
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 16th Sep 2018 at 3:34 PM
I've had a similar thing happen to me more than once. I can only describe some of the things that have happened to me, for you to compare against your case, and maybe even if your problem is different something I say will give you a clue.

Sometimes I hit some maximum data limit in the album; and sometimes, something happens to change the ID number of the neighborhood. No, I have no idea how that number change is triggered, or what the maximum data limit is. (An existing album can also disappear when you tell the sim to arrange a photo album with the Bon Voyage tool, but since this is only happening in the neighborhood folder that shouldn't be the problem.)

Since the snapshots are still visible in the storytelling folder you should be able to test whether one of these things is true by comparing the identifying strings (the apparently random alphanumerics in the first block of text after "snapshot_" in the file name) of pictures you know should be in the neighborhood album with the names of your .xml files, which are the albums. You should be able to use an .xml editor (preferably the one created specifically for Sims 2 albums, found here:
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=60033) to open the webentry files outside of the game, make sure you have the right one, and see if it malfunctions in the reader, too.

Bear in mind that a photo taken by one household can be copied into any of the other albums in the neighborhood using the + tab in the album organizer, and this will create a copy of the picture with the ID of the household it's used in. So if, as is presumably true, you are creating the neighborhood story by using photos taken during play, you'll have a lot of duplicates only distinguishable by their ID strings. The Neighborhood and Subhood ID strings for my neighborhoods can always be distinguished by their long strings of zeroes, so pay particular attention to any of those that have been created recently.

It is also possible for snapshots to become corrupted in such a way that they break the whole album - but not always for both the in-game reader and the .xml reader! I don't know what causes this kind of data corruption; possibly if the game crashes while an album is being saved? I have never successfully figured out which picture was guilty in such a case, but perhaps you can, if that's part of your problem. Presumably it is also possible for .xml files to corrupt, in which case there would be nothing to do but start a new one.

Another thing: Do you have both snapshot and thumbnail files of each picture? The snapshots are what show in the organized album; the thumbnails are what shows in the organization tabs.

Bear in mind that you can restore photo albums from your neighborhood backups just like any other data. So that's another avenue of experimentation. Much easier to recreate the most recent couple of entries than an entire album.

I hope something in there is helpful. If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 17th Sep 2018 at 3:29 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
I've had a similar thing happen to me more than once. I can only describe some of the things that have happened to me, for you to compare against your case, and maybe even if your problem is different something I say will give you a clue.

Sometimes I hit some maximum data limit in the album; and sometimes, something happens to change the ID number of the neighborhood. No, I have no idea how that number change is triggered, or what the maximum data limit is. (An existing album can also disappear when you tell the sim to arrange a photo album with the Bon Voyage tool, but since this is only happening in the neighborhood folder that shouldn't be the problem.) ...


Thanks for the suggestions .
There's been some interesting developments, actually. I realised I hadn't checked on any of the families in the sub hoods, and opened the game to do so. I was pleasantly surprised to find that none of the sub hood families seem affected (though the neighbourhood stories weren't so lucky). I then double checked the family I was playing yesterday: The snapshots//thumbs have reappeared in the organisation tabs, but the family story has been deleted entirely.
I'm not as bothered by this. It's a casual play hood with a lot of families, so my main concern was not being able to remember where I was up to, rather than wanting everything nicely documented. I could be wrong, but I feel like it's less likely to be a problem with files if things are changing back and forth (?) I think I'm going to snoop around a bit more, maybe check for signs of corruption before I try the editor you suggested. I am, how do I put this, less than confident in my technological skills. And my computer's an old Mac, half of which doesn't always work like it should. It's possible I had something else running and it was just too much for the poor thing.
Thank you all the same for taking the time to help, I will keep this in mind.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 17th Sep 2018 at 4:44 AM
Another thing my (Windows 7) computer does randomly is lag on showing changes in file configurations, and it has been known to choke on the number of snapshots I take in the game and refuse to see any of them in Windows Explorer, the default browser. If I come back again the next day it's fine. So if Macs are prone to similar problems, it might well be that.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Top Secret Researcher
#5 Old 17th Sep 2018 at 9:30 AM
Quote: Originally posted by BamboozledAntelope
Thanks for the suggestions .
There's been some interesting developments, actually. I realised I hadn't checked on any of the families in the sub hoods, and opened the game to do so. I was pleasantly surprised to find that none of the sub hood families seem affected (though the neighbourhood stories weren't so lucky). I then double checked the family I was playing yesterday: The snapshots//thumbs have reappeared in the organisation tabs, but the family story has been deleted entirely.
I'm not as bothered by this. It's a casual play hood with a lot of families, so my main concern was not being able to remember where I was up to, rather than wanting everything nicely documented. I could be wrong, but I feel like it's less likely to be a problem with files if things are changing back and forth (?) I think I'm going to snoop around a bit more, maybe check for signs of corruption before I try the editor you suggested. I am, how do I put this, less than confident in my technological skills. And my computer's an old Mac, half of which doesn't always work like it should. It's possible I had something else running and it was just too much for the poor thing.
Thank you all the same for taking the time to help, I will keep this in mind.


I do play on an 2011 iMac and to my knowledge this has not happened to me, but it might have as I don't pay any attention to the Neigborhood Story thing and I rarely ever use the in game Picture taking thing...when I do it is to satisfy a want to take a picture on vacation, but then I never pay any attention to the pictures that I have taken in this way on my Mac.

All that said I did notice that sometimes odd things will happen to game files on a Mac....if it has run into the Maximum Open File Limit that all Macs have. I came up with Warning Signs to look for in order to figure out that you have this problem. Mac Misbehaviour with Crashes and the Maximum Open Files Limit

Your problem is not one of the warning signs that I know of, but I wanted to share my research on the subject. Go and look at what I found and if you have had some of the things that I mention are happening to you, then you have too many files in Downloads folder and you should look at the URL in my signature.

Like I pointed out I don't know if your problem with the pictures is related, but you should be aware of the Mac's Maximum Open Files Limit and that Macs can have weird hard to diagnose problems relating to it. So let me know if you do have the problems that I outline in post that I am linking.

If you need help let me know in this thread or PM me.

for info on changing the Mac Open File Limit check out my post here http://www.insimenator.org/index.ph...html#msg1628939
Curiosity killed the cat,
but satisfaction brought it back.
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