Is this something I should be worried about, or is it normal?

[CherryFlight]

Kind of iffy on putting this in game help since I'm not even sure it's a problem. But is the headline shown in the attachment an example of the "squiggly lines" mentioned in the corrupted neighboorhood FAQ, or is it normal for computer use? I've never done any of the "don'ts" in the FAQ and this ONLY happens with sims on the computer. (Strangely enough I never played with computers before making this household...)

If it is what I'm afraid it is, but it's only showing up in this one circumstance, do you think I'm still safe? I've never seen any other symptoms of corruption at all.

EDIT: The attachment doesn't seem to be showing up. I'll just post the image here.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5527/tiseethisheadlinet.png

[Saturnfly]

I'm not sure that the squiggles are a sure sign of hood corruption, since there are others who haven't done anything to corrupt their game, and still see the squiggles sometimes.
Then again, those might not be the squiggles, I've never seen them before, but that does look a bit iffy. P:

Hopefully it's nothing serious, though!

[Sims2Playerfan]

Once in an old UNI lot, I had the squiggles show up whenever my sims were in one room, eventually figured out it was a glitchy chair, and after deleting it the squiggles disappeared. I know the squiggles are caused by a sim trying to reference a bad thought bubble (gossip, corrupted memory, etc.) Generally, if taken with other symptoms (the infamous Grow-Up Asp. LTW or child kiss wants) it can mean corruption, but I don't think it is guaranteed corruption. Of course, I'm no expert, and I'm sure Mootilda or someone more knowledgeable will show up to enlighten you further.

[lazzybum]

That looks like a super zoomed in version of this, with different numbers:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/lazzybum/snapshot_15c4c734_56fe05e2.jpg

I've never seen it in a thought bubble though nor do I know how bad that is. Those aren't squiggle lines though since I've seen them before.

[Maboi]

I've had those squiggles show up before. I do know that my neighborhood is corrupted, because I have to enter the boolprop testing code before I interact in my neighborhood.

[Saturnfly]

@ Lazzybum -- Ooh, yeah I've seen that when putting a sink on a custom counter. D:

[Aegagropilon]

I think it has to do with how Mansions & Gardens/Store Edition manages character portraits/thumbnails. I believe that either one of those changed it to where the portraits regenerated differently and the missing texture dealie that the thought bubble calls up is merely the placeholder.

[Amairani]

I noticed strange bubble thoughts too and now wonder if there's a problem with my Riverblossom Hills: a Sim came over as guest, spent his time fishing deep into the night; after the family went to sleep, he stopped fishing eventually (when his motives became too low, I believe), thought of "big ball of black yarn", or so it looked to me in his thought bubble, and left home. Other Sim(s) thought of "black yarn" before in Riverblossom Hills, once or twice, only I didn't pay attention to it back then and can't remember what was the situation that made them think of it.

[maxon]

OK - I think lazzy is right and that's what it is. What that is, FYI, is the default texture the game uses when it can't find the texture it needs but does have other info (I think). I think you only get blue if it can't find anything at all. It's likely down to a number of possibilities. The first and easiest fix to try is deleting groups.cache because the information stored there may be directing the game in the wrong direction. Another possibility is, as someone hinted above, some faulty CC where the recolour of an object hasn't been configured properly or has become faulty. Another possible fix is replacing the objects.package. There are other things too but those are the most likely to help.

Anyway, OP, what you're seeing is not the squiggly lines of doom.

[CherryFlight]

Oh, phew. I'm glad it's not a sign of corruption. I'll try a few of these.

Deleting groups.cache didn't do anything. But I'll keep looking. Since it's just the thought bubbles while using the computer, I'm not too worried about it right now.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

[Dizzy-noodles]

That looks like a super zoomed in version of this, with different numbers:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/lazzybum/snapshot_15c4c734_56fe05e2.jpg

.

I had that when I removed projects from my saved sims folder and my sims were wearing them at the time.

[maxon]

I had that when I removed projects from my saved sims folder and my sims were wearing them at the time.
That's possibly a coincidence rather than a cause - the files in the project folder are not used by the game, only Bodyshop uses those.

[Lerf1950]

The squiggly lines may be a sign of corrupted memories/gossip. The bat box has an option to remove those. You might also run Mootilda's HoodChecker.

The numbers thing on the Sim means a texture is missing or corrupted.