Do squiggly-lined speech bubbles strictly indicate neighborhood corruption or could they indicate something more benign?

I was so careful this time

Corruption

Did you perhaps download any lots?

Yes, quite a few recently (from here). Could it have happened because I don't use the clean installer...? (Coz I'm not 100% sure what it is/does... But now I regret that).

Is there anything I can do to salvage it maybe?

If you don't use Clean Installer it will probably be corrupted since the builder has placed the lot, built on it, shared it and then there is some kind of character files left or something. Imagine you moving a household to another neighborhood in The Sims 2, it's exactly the same and causes corruption. I want you to get Clean Installer now

Don't know if you can fix it, you could try to run the HoodChecker and then click '' fix '' or '' back-up ''. Not sure if it does anything though but you should give it a try.

I doubt that downloading lots from MTS has caused your corruption, OP. You should not move inhabited lots to the lot bin and thence to another neighbourhood. Clean Installer is very easy to use and I would recommend it

Squiggly lines do not mean corruption by themselves, they mean your sims have memories without proper connections. This can be fixed, either by using SimPE to make/repair proper connections for their memories or one of the memory clean up utilities, like that on the batbox.

Squiggly lines CAN be a SIGN of corruption as you usually get them (though not always) when you delete sims and their connections to other sims get severed and then either get wrongly attached to other things in your neighbourhood or left dangling. But in itself squiggly lines are not corruption. You can get squiggly lines for other reasons than deleting sims. If your neighbourhood is corrupted though, there are usually other signs too such as random jumping or errors with sims and/or inappropriate wants and fears and LTWs like toddlers having a fear of having a baby.

Well - fundamentally, squiggly lines mean the game didn't know which image to use. There are even a few things which will always show up as squiggly lines, because EA forgot to create an image for them. Corruption, busted memories, deleted sims, badly made CC... lots of things can cause squiggly lines.

I got this yesterday, when my sim could not put toys back into the toy chest...like she was whining about not being able to reach it. Your thoughts?

I get it fairly often when a sim can't find the way to something too. Sometimes they have the "route blocked" symbol and sometimes they have wiggly lines. Or they get it when looking out of the window.

I always thought the window looking thought bubble was a rain image.

Yeah - I could have said that better. They're not connecting to the thing they are supposed to be showing. Or it might not exist.

Another instance where you can get squiggly lines is in player owned restaurants. I had that once when I forgot to edit the menu. By default everything is on the menu, including custom foods and the stuff from the vending machines I had placed down. And I believe a sim´s favourite food (the one they order via chef´s choice) is determined the first time they sit down in a restaurant. If the game picks a dish that has no icon for your sim´s fav food, it´s the squiggly lines for you.

I got squiggly lines once and reported it here. I got similar replies to the ones here from maxon and Nysha. I went on playing and haven't seen them since. Try to do the same, OP, and not worry about it. One instance of squiggly lines isn't a good enough reason to throw away a neighbourhood that you're enjoying. If you do have bad memories, HoodChecker should be able to identify them and probably remove them.

Even if your 'hood is corrupted, it's not necessarily the end of the road. Peni knows she has corruption both in Drama Acres and Strangetown. But she goes on playing them. mirjampenning had corruption so bad that some Sims disappeared. She turned it into a murder mystery and went on playing. I reckon Peni's Drama Acres and Strangetown and mijampenning's Csonka Canon are some of the most interesting Sims neighbourhoods out there. Of course you may be unlucky and have a neighbourhood that becomes unplayable in days, but don't give up before you have to. Use the HoodChecker and make frequent backups.

I have occasionally had squiggles because of CC. I wouldn't say it was badly made. The creator of one item based it on the fingerprint gun. Since the item isn't fingerprinting a Sim, I get the squiggly lines instead. The creator reported it years ago, many, many people have used it for years with no ill effects to their game, almost no one is concerned about it. You know about these lines ... or should ... at the time you download the item because the creator specifically mentions it in the description. And this squiggly rarely comes up in the game, unless your Sims are really fixated on this item!

As others wrote, certain CC foods can cause the same problem. And ... well ... I don't think it's necessary to repeat previous posts.

An occasional squiggly alone is not an issue. It's a concern in context with other potential corruption problems. In short, keep an eye on your game as you're playing it. Are the squigglies happening more often, even though you haven't downloaded anything new that could increase them? Are you seeing other subtle signs of corruption? I get the looking out the window ones sometimes as well. I don't know if it's because of the CC item, and can't really test it because it happens only very occasionally. I can't tell the Sim, "You MUST think about this item!"

If the hood is indeed corrupt, you have a choice: Play the hood till it's ready to implode (and take measures to try to delay/avert it), which can take anywhere from moments to years. I had a user-corrupted hood ... yup, I did it because I didn't know any better about certain actions ... and it took more than three years before the hood started putting out its version of death gasps .... disappearing Sims, subject memories in the memory panel (because of disappearing Sims), etc. On the other hand, some hoods corrupt quickly.

Or reset/delete the hood. Up to you. Sometimes, you're tired of it, anyway. I've done that. If it's a Maxis hood, give tarlia's clean hoods a good look. (http://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/118101.html)

And a bit of advice re lots and lot content: I always test new lots in a junk hood. That alone may not prevent nasties such as the Super Duper Hug Bug, but certain other problems can crop up. And if a lot is really borked, , you just get rid of the hood. And for goodness sake ... yes, yes, yes ... always run a lot through Clean Installer first. No exceptions. No, "but just this time". No. Always. And if you see a character (usually in red) in the content list, beware! Do not load that character. Period. If the lot is doing weird things to your junk hood, well ... it IS a junk hood. Junk it.

Many people even back up the game at intervals and go back to a good copy in the case of a Super Duper Hug Bug or other problem. Great idea! And as others would write, seriously, seriously consider loading "No Sim Loaded" from Boiling Oil. I wish I did before I would up with a Super Duper Hug Bug lot. (http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/thread-1665.html) That can kill the nasty bug before it even decides to infest your lots.

Yeah - "badly-made" as in "in this respect they didn't do a complete job" - which doesn't necessarily mean that the CC isn't awesome in other ways and totally worth having and using.

Squiggly lines is like a cough. Having a cough IS a symptom of disease, but you also cough when you choke, which isn't a disease. Squiggly lines is the same - it is a symptom of corruption, but isn't limited to corruption.

Sometimes, squiggly lines don't mean anything except that the pixel is rather confused by the circumstances.

Case in point: I recently played a lot in Thalia which had a massive fire outside the house. It burned up all the vegetation, the road overlay-anything that could be burned. Once out, there were a lot of ugly black ashes all over.
I sent the occupants out to clean up the awful mess, and they all had 'squiggly lines' in their thought clouds-which doesn't mean that the neighborhood is corrupt (I've made sure of that), but that they could not move very well within the bounds of those masses of ashes.

So there's that. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you know.

Thanks so much guys Feeling much more hopeful now! I'll give the Hood Checker a whirl though, just in case

I thought it was streaks on the window.

I see whis squiggly lines in the new created neigborhood without cc at all, when my sims use scanner career rewards in the objects i think it not always bad sighn. Just game dont have images on this objects or something like that. Its realy funny i think.

I wonder if it's also when they get blocked by an invisible object. Some objects can remain and block sims - disease markers, jump rope "don't walk here" markers, various other interactions like that, and with the burned items - they were trying to think about the item but now it wasn't there they couldn't pull an image.

That's why some very neat sims, who are bored, will wash those streaks off the window.
I think our thoughts on this were quite reasonable.

Totally agree with this. Toss out a (possibly) corrupted neighborhood only if you can't solve the issues anymore.
My corrupted Csonka Canon Hood went on for almost two years and even now there still are possibilities to work out the problems to delay the completely unplayable part of it. The thing is that I, at the moment, don't feel like going on that course. So, for now, I kept the hood files on an extern memory to try again later.
In the mean time, I started a fresh hood.