(I'm not sure if I should post in in T.I. or "Bon Voyage Only"... sorry).

Well I made my family go travel do Three Lakes, to stay in the house they had bought,

While the last sim was going to the car there was a Box Error saying something like:

Failed to load animation for the third time or Failed to load animation for 3 times or Animation was requested for three times.

I have read everywhere that when box error appears the best thing to do when "cancel" is denied is to "reset", so I reseted.
The animation made the sim stay in the house while the family had left, but I thought he had only graphically stayed...

When Three Lakes loaded the house, it was in Build Mode - so I decided to leave it, and there wasn't a saving option, it just exited! I assumed I hadn't saved, since I didn't actually click in "save" anywhere.

I went back to the main neighborhod and it said the family was in their vacation house and asked me if I wanted to go there - I clicked to go and again the lot loaded in build mode!

When I access the Three Lakes neighbourhood it shows the house lot as empty.

Please, is there any way to recover the family? It's the main family I play (useless information: I'm actually crying and yes I'm desperate).

Also, I don't have any hacks installed although I have a lot of custom content - I didn't add any, however, since the last time I travelled (with the same family!) until now.
I don't have any pacth either.

Thank you so much already...

That sounds like a mod is not for your set up and it is just now trying to be used.

You need to work through this and it should fix your problem. http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php...lp:Game_Problem
If it does not help you then come back here and let us know what you did and we will see if we can help you better.


If this is to say you have not patch your game then by all means go a get all the patches for your set up.
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?tit...elp:TS2_Patches

marka93, it sounds like they are saying they have no mods.

I would grab the simlogical summoner for your EP set up. Load another house that knows at least one of your lost sims and try and summon that sim to that house. If that works move the sim in, the summoner has a move in feature. Then summon the other lost sims and move them in. If they are all there you should be able to move them out via the paper and move them back to their home lot, or to another lot. Sometimes you have to abandon the home lot when something like this happens.

If your game is not patched, do so. Those patches are important.

You could also try this:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=456244

I did what Mootilda suggested, it worked. Thank you.