I have been running Sims 2 (Ultimate Collection) on my Windows 10 laptop happily for several months without any problems. Now, all of a sudden, I am unable to take camera snapshots. I press 'C' on the keyboard (or click on the camera icon), I hear a click and see a flash, but when I open my family album (Story Mode – F4) there is no new photo there. All the old snapshots and associated text is still there though. The problem happens in all neighbourhoods and all households. Upon inspection, the picture does not appear in the Storytelling directory in the My Documents folder either.

I tried testing video capture as well but that no longer works either. I get the error message: "Error recording video capture file. Your movie could not be written to disk. Check to make sure you have enough disk space and correct read/write permissions". I have 736 GB of free space on the hard drive, and the read/write permissions have not been changed. As a further test, I tried running Sims 3 and the camera and video capture is still working fine in that game (which is run from the same hard drive and My Documents folder).

I have not installed any new software recently, nor have I done any updates or made any changes to settings or software on my laptop.

I have stepped through the entire Mod the Sims Problem Resolution process (testing the game without custom content – did not solve the problem, removing my user files – did not solve the problem, deleting cache files – did not solve the problem, and so forth) and I am now at the point of facing an entire reinstallation of the game.

Before I do, however, I was just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and found the cause, or have any other suggestions for me to try.

System details:
O/S: Windows 10 Home Edition
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX1070

Ta muchly.

SimBeej66

Might be a Win10 update that has helpfully changed the persmissions for you.

Do a backup of all the files you don't accidentally want to lose (in the "The Sims 2" folder, or its like for the UC in Documents) and then try to repair your game with Origin. Could be some unhelpful update messed up things for you.

Is it possible to reach a limit on the number of images saved? I know 10 creates new problems with most updates though. (:

I'm assuming you're looking in this path (N00X being the appropriate neighborhood)
C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2â„¢ Ultimate Collection\Neighborhoods\N00X\Storytelling

and not this one:
C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2â„¢ Ultimate Collection\Storytelling

It is weird that the pics aren't showing under storytelling, though. As I said above, fixing the game through origin might help.

Did you look in the Storytelling folder inside the neighborhood, though? The MyDocuments/Storytelling folder only shows the last photo taken - though it's true that you should be seeing those pictures there.

I have a problem occasionally where the storytelling album reaches critical mass or something and won't show in the game anymore, though I can open it in the .xml reader I downloaded here at MTS. What happens there, though, is that I can still see all the old pictures, I can still take new pictures, and I can still make a new album continuing the story. It also happens to different families at different times, not all at once like that.

In your place, I'd check the permissions first, download the .xml reader to test that the existing albums are still readable that way, and load a neighborhood that's never been played before to check whether new pictures can be taken there. Those three things should give you enough information to determine your next step in testing.

I have the same problem. But i have windows 7.

If I try take a picture with Luminous Pro Antique Camera ( Artist Career Reward) and put it on the wall appear the last photo i took.
I save the game files and I reinstall it . I put the files again in the game but I have the same problem.

Well, the antique camera is different. The .jpgs for that aren't stored in the Storytelling folder, but in the lot files.

I'm sorry you went to all the trouble of reinstalling your game. That only helps if the problem is in the game installation files, which is almost never the case. If you go to the Game Help FAQ you can learn to troubleshoot and perhaps solve your problem that way.

You've reminded me, I must go and extract those.

UPDATE: I have tried everything I could possibly think of and nothing has worked. In desperation I uninstalled the game (including all expansion and stuff packs), then reinstalled after a restart and ensuring all the old stuff had been removed. I was sure that starting with a clean game, freshly installed with no mods or anything at all would fix things. It did not - I still can not take any snapshots. Worse still, all of the albums that come with the pre-installed families (e.g. Pleasant, etc.) are blank. I have no idea what is going on. It must have been a Windows 10 update or something that has made something go awry. I will keep trying to work out what the problem is. If I find a solution I will post it. Very sad and frustrated, I love Sims 2 and have been playing it since it was first released.

What happens when you try to open your old albums with an .xml reader?

I had a similar problem a few years ago. I use Windows 7. It turned out it was the antivirus software I was using at the time. It was leaving locks on files. My main problem was not being able to make back-ups, because files were still open, but for a few weeks I couldn't take in-game pictures with the "C" camera, and the game didn't make the pictures of new CAS Sims that the game normally makes automatically either. I was regularly having to reboot the computer to release the locks, and then manually delete temporary files that had been left all over my Sims folders. Eventually I really needed to unlock and delete one of these files without rebooting and I posted in the technical help section here in MTS. Nysha recommended a program called Unlocker, and it did the job. See my old thread (now archived) here.

Later I changed to a different antivirus program (because my ISP stopped giving that one away free) and I've never had the problem since,

Thanks for the tip - I have never had any problems with the anti-virus program in the past, but when I disabled it and loaded the game - hey presto, I was able to take snapshots again.
If it is a case of locks being placed on files, how will I know which ones to unlock, though? Hmm, I might just have to always disconnect from the Internet and disable my anti-virus software every time I play Sims 2. I will give that a go, I hope it works. I have downloaded the Unlocker software you suggested just in case.

If anyone else has this problem and comes across this post, I am using Avast Internet Security and it is the latest update (to version 17.6.23.10) which has caused the problem. Try disabling your antivirus software when running Sims 2 - that seems to be working for me.

Thanks again.

Cheers,
SimBeej66

Just add your Documents/ EAGames/The Sims 2 folder to your exclusions list in Avast.

Yeah, I thought that would work, too. But, weirdly, it did not - only when I 'disable' all Avast shields completely does the problem go away.
Thanks for the post, though, and to everyone else who responded.

SimBeej66