More Awesome Than You!

This is Jared Marley.
(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/6243/realjared.png)

This is not Jared Marley.
(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7995/notjared.png)

Anyone else seen something like this, or know how to fix it? Every sim who knows Jared has him show up like this in their panel or when they have a thought bubble about him. As far as I know, this fake Jared does not even exist, or I've never seen him at least.

Clear your cache?

Which one?

Wipe them out. All of them.

There's only one file under Caches...Sunset valley.objectCache.

Edit: Oh, wait, duh. Under My Documents not Program Files. I'm so used to going to Program Files instead of Documents now.

In your My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder there are 4 cache files. They are the files Pescado is talking about.

After I recovered from my temporary stupidity, and deleted all 4 cache files, The Fugly is still hijacking my sim's portrait.

Does the portrait correctly refer to your sim, or is there some other cloned Jared Marley?

Yeah, that's him, except for the picture.

Edit: There are no clones of this sim, that I'm aware of, and I'm getting the panel picture from his live-in girlfriend.

Well, I'm completely baffled, so meh.

Yeah, so is my programmer boyfriend. He says that it would probably help you to know that his own profile pic is working properly, it's just how everyone else views him.

Edit: He also says that since deleting caches didn't fix it, the data on this sim is probably corrupted. Does this mean he's just a lost cause?

I guess he's the "default" Sim who shows up when portraits get corrupted?  I've had him stand in for several of my Sims, that exact same guy.

Try regenerating a sim's portraits by using a mirror?

I'll try this in a few hours and report back. Right now, my turn on the gaming computer is up.

I've had this happen to a number of sims, but only when they are off at work. When they come home and change out of their work clothes, the portrait goes back to them and not Mr. Mustache.

This seems to be a "feature" that just sometimes happens. It seems to fix itself after some time.

This. When I noticed this my sim was on call, when he first got home, Fugly was still in portrait. Making him change into his Everyday clothes fixed it. This has to be the most retarded bullshit ever.

I don't think it's a retarded "Feature", I think it's just a placeholder because the game doesn't freeze the game while mere thumbnails are being processed, so it just throws something up. The alternative is that the entire game freezes up ala TS2 while the thumbnail and textures are loaded. You can see this effect at work when you suddenly zoom to a random spot in town and everything is first monochrome, then in low-detail, and then finally sharpens out into how it normally looks. Splotch did this also.

I've had this problem also. A placeholder image is all well and good, it's not the first game I've played where that happened, but it really bugs me when this guy shows up for my FEMALE sims. Holding an autograph session with my sexy (a.k.a. slutty and wearing skimpy outfits) female sim and having everyone think of her as Mr Pasty Moustache Guy is... wrong. -_-

Regenerating the thumbnail does seem to work, though, so... *shrug*

Well, if freezing is the alternative, I guess I prefer Mr. Pasty Moustache Guy.

I strongly suspect that the two share a common library.  Which gave us both the elaborate options for textures and pudding faces.

 - Gus

How come it shows empty portraits/bubbles in my game then when it's processing?

Yes. That seems to be the default thumbnail used when the real sim's thumbnail doesn't set. Clearing caches does nothing. This happened for me with a black, balding sim named Scot Williams. I eventually killed him, since he obviously was a spy.

EA obviously should've made a better default thumbnail than that to avoid confusion.

That reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/dmedrc.jpg)

That's the same dude who replaces my female sim's portrait, too. He happens to be my sim's new boss in the medical career in Riverview. The old boss died, my sim received a promotion, and presto—one fugly-looking new thumbnail… After a few more promotions, though, my game corrected it. Very funky.
Of course, he's still her boss, which is saddening.

Use AwesomeMod or another mod to enable debug commands and refresh the thumbnails (refreshsimthumbnails, refreshhouseholdthumbnails, refreshlotthumbnails).  That should fix the issue.

That was my thought when I first saw this thread.  (Long way for saying "This."  :D  )

I was hit by fugly moustache guy last night. I'm glad I'd seen this thread earlier.  I noticed that it was after I've been playing a lot of hours, likely without a recent save.  It occurred to me that might have something to do with it.

Weird I thought that as well.

I have yet to see Mr. Moustache; the portrait just doesn't appear for me until the game gets around to generating one. You would have thought they'd use a silhouette or something less confusing though...

This has got to be the funniest story mode bug i have ever seen. It was hilarious. Usually sims get married, obese or just grow old but this was really funny. My sim's coworker Heather something in the politics career was a normal adult female one day and the next thing you know, i was checking out my sim's relationship panel and she's become an adult male with a freaky orange mustache and she still had the same name so it's definitely a bug :P Still is hilarious though.

EDIT: Apparently Mr.Mustache has been stealing other townie portraits as well : http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15471.0.html (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15471.0.html)

So he's some sort of superhero, then?

She is obviously a spy trying to infiltrate the government.  :P

I was going to create a new thread, but this seems related.  I created a new, empty hood with the Pleasantville sims form TS2, and Mortimer Goth's portrait keeps defaulting to his TS3 child portrait.  It's creepy as all hell.  Is this the same issue?

I don't know whether it's the same issue or not.  However, I played Mortimer from childhood through death, and his portrait did that constantly.  This hasn't happened to any of the other couple of dozen Sims I've played.  When I got Fugly Moustache Guy, it only happened over one playing session with one Sim, and has not happened again.

I had that problem too, but it eventually just...stopped. I really don't know why. I have yet to see Fugly Moustache Guy, but I'm kind of looking forward to it.

My Sim is in the Medical Career and her portrait turns into that "Fugly Pudding Faced Man" as well every once in a while.

I just used awesomemod to make Bella move in to the active family, her portrait reverted to that of a child's.

When I got that guy for my paper delivery kid, I thought "Game Over".  Glad to know it's not the first symptom of a BFBVFS.

I am having the same problem happen. Anytime my Sim goes off the lot to work or the gym and etc his portrait changes to that ugly mustache guy. It's very disturbing. After he comes back home it will eventually correct itself, but it doesn't do so right away. I've tried changing his clothes and appearance, but it just keeps happening anytime he leaves the lot.

I'm telling you, he's a spy. Kill him.

I considered killing him, but he's my legacy heir's spouse. Hopefully his spawn won't inherit his portrait...lol..or worse yet... hopefully they won't have the genetics of his false identity.

I have yet to see FMG.  The creepiest thing is that my Mortimer is a new sim created as an adult in CAS in an empty neighborhood.  He never even was the child that appears in his portrait, nor does that sim live anywhere in the neighborhood.  I don't know where it's coming from.

But I love him.

I had this guy showing up in my game too. Not all the time, only when my sim - a woman - was working at the hospital and only after she made it to world renowned surgeon.

I think it could be the cause of some work outfits - see, your female sim had this in the same point of her career that smellyarmando's sim. Gotta check it in my game.

Yes, I believe it is/was related to the medical career.

At first my biggest concern was "Will this guy appear forever in my sim's genealogical tree?"
When I figured out he only appeared when my sim was working I thought I would make her quit her job a few days before she die (so he wouldn't be in her tree).
But then she became an elder and the guy vanished… and she's still a world renowned surgeon. But he's no longer there when she goes to work.

Nope. Mine was a rock star.

When I loaded the game up again my sims portrait was fine anytime he went to work. He was in the Science career track (until he retired recently).

That's a last level too.
Sorry I can't help... but I'm glad it's related to their careers and won't mess up the family trees.

Why make it so complicated? It likely just is a placeholder thumbnail for when the game is lazy, and it always sorts itself out eventually. I really don't think there's any reason to think it's a BFBVFS, it's just an annoyance.

Complicated? No. Understanding things is fun.

This guy was annoying but after a while he was just hilarious. Having a guy with a moustache where a female sim should be is hilarious.

(he appeared to me yesterday, again, complaining about the unread newspapers in the McDermott's farm)