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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Aug 2020 at 10:25 AM Last edited by sillysoraya : 26th Aug 2020 at 9:01 PM.

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default In game camera screenshots no longer save anywhere
Hi everyone, so I've just discovered a problem I've never had/heard of before.

It seems my game is no longer saving in game camera screenshots, be it taken in the neighbourhood view or in lots. They don't show in the family album or in the neighbourhood's storytelling folder, although the webentry files still show. This is happening in old neighbourhoods and brand new ones. I'm not certain when it started as I didn't realise they weren't saving until now. This is on a game with all expansions installed from disc. The last photo I took is also not the one showing in the main sims 2-storytelling folder either.

I've tried deleting the group.cache and accessory.cache files, and also deleting all the old screenshots from my older neighbourhoods in case it was a space problem.

Any ideas? Thank you.

Edit: I solved this, please see my post further down the page
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 12th Aug 2020 at 5:19 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 12th Aug 2020 at 7:07 PM.
You're absolutely certain you're looking in the
"...Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N00X\Storytelling" folders (each individual neighborhood folder have their own Storytelling folder)
and not the
"...Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Storytelling" folder?

And that you're looking in the right neighborhood folder?
And that you're using the C-button to take the pictures?

Have you sorted the pictures by date? They sometimes like to get mixed around by names.

Have you recently changed any settings, or the place your game is stored, or any of the sort (or is your game saved in a different location than the basic default C-drive)?

Have you had possibly related problems, like the game not finding the Downloads folder or other things not showing up properly, things like that?
Mad Poster
#3 Old 12th Aug 2020 at 5:34 PM
I've had issues with how the game camera saved the shots and always just use the print screen key on my computer keyboard and open up Paint to save to my chsen location and I also play my game in Windowed mode so I can take advatage of the print screen and paint saving.It's a much better way to take in game pictures and always know how to find them and verify that they've been saved.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#4 Old 12th Aug 2020 at 10:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
You're absolutely certain you're looking in the
"...Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N00X\Storytelling" folders (each individual neighborhood folder have their own Storytelling folder)
and not the
"...Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Storytelling" folder?

And that you're looking in the right neighborhood folder?
And that you're using the C-button to take the pictures?

Have you sorted the pictures by date? They sometimes like to get mixed around by names.

Have you recently changed any settings, or the place your game is stored, or any of the sort (or is your game saved in a different location than the basic default C-drive)?

Have you had possibly related problems, like the game not finding the Downloads folder or other things not showing up properly, things like that?


Yep, definitely the right neighbourhood storytelling folders. They aren't showing in any of them when I take photos in any neighbourhood, be it ones where they have before or brand new neighbourhoods. Also the last photo (in the sims 2/storytelling folder) is an old one from May.

Definitely using C to take the photo, it does the flash, but then is not in the family's album and not in any folders anywhere. And I haven't reinstalled the game on this PC for 8 years, still in C drive. Downloads folder is in the right place, nothing seems to be missing in game etc.

Would a changed camera mod do it, do you think? I check the cameras folder but looks like only changed the CAS camera in the last few months.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 12th Aug 2020 at 11:10 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 12th Aug 2020 at 11:23 PM.
Check if the pictures have somehow blundered into the wrong folder, in here:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\EA Games
(path could be slightly different, I'm on Win10, but it's in Users/Public or something similar - you'll find it by clicking the C: drive).

Windows 7 and above make an extra EA Games folder in this location (usually empty, usually not actually recognized), but there have been cases where files have ended up there.

---

You can try without the camera mod (move camera files to a folder on the desktop, move in the backup files, test - reverse if it doesn't work), but I don't think it should have an effect. I had a look through all the camera files and there's no save paths for the ingame camera or anything that oculd explain why it's not working.

I have one of Gunmod's camera hacks, and it hasn't affected C-button pics in my game as far as I know, at least not for my previous three computers, because I know pictures were autosaved from CAS and such (but I haven't used C-pics for a very long time because they're too low quality for my use).

---

Can you maybe copy in the info from the "VideoCapture" file in the Config folder (Documents/EA/TS2 location)? It's got some basic info on settings for video/photo capture ingame. Could be something there. It can be opened with Notepad.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#6 Old 13th Aug 2020 at 8:40 AM Last edited by sillysoraya : 13th Aug 2020 at 12:52 PM.
Nope no extra ea folder in public at all.

Ooh, I just thought, I got a new graphics card around the time the last photo was taken, and would have edited the graphicsrule file to recognise the card! Not a clue what line would affect screenshots though I just used the new graphicsrule maker from april 2020 to make a new graphicsrule file, and yet still not screenshots are showing up anywhere after taking them.

Anyway, here is the videocapture file info:

[Config]
PreferredCodec=VP61
# Folder is relative to Res/Userdata
Folder=Movies
FilenameBase=movie
NoFillFrames=0
AudioStereoOutput=0
AudioRateDivisor=4

GlobalSettings = reset, vbr:1, fps:10, keyinterval:30, mode:1, datarate:0
SmallSettings = size: 128x128
MediumSettings = size: 320x240
LargeSettings = size: 640x480
LowQualitySettings = minq: 6, maxq: 16, mode:0
MediumQualitySettings = minq: 4, maxq: 10, fps:15, mode:0
HighQualitySettings = minq: 2, maxq: 8, fps: 30, keyinterval: 60
SmallLowSettings = datarate: 75
SmallMediumSettings = datarate: 150
SmallHighSettings = datarate: 300
MediumLowSettings = datarate: 150
MediumMediumSettings = datarate: 300
MediumHighSettings = datarate: 600
LargeLowSettings = datarate: 300
LargeMediumSettings = datarate: 600
LargeHighSettings = datarate: 1200

AllowAntialiasing=0 # some drivers have issues with capture when AA is enabled

[Codecs]
0=VP61 # On2 VP6.1
1=VP62 # On2 VP6.2
2=VP60 # On2 VP6.0
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#7 Old 18th Aug 2020 at 9:45 PM
For anyone else with this problem in future, I managed to fix it with a new graphicsrules file using the graphicsrules maker here: https://www.simsnetwork.com/tools/graphics-rules-maker

I also refreshed my 'The Sims 2' folder in 'My Documents' to recreate all the game files
Mad Poster
#8 Old 18th Aug 2020 at 11:36 PM
Could be a reference in the old file or some such, or a random bug in the folders. Either way, glad you got it fixed.
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