The Sims 4 January 2026 Patch Notes: What’s New & Fixed
▼ Summary
– Fixed multiple issues where in-game photos, paintings, and portraits would turn blank or black after being saved, placed, or reloaded, with most fixes preventing future occurrences.
– Addressed a significant bug where Sims at work or school were not gaining needs due to a problem with Away Actions, restoring periodic motive gains.
– Improved infant care by removing a delaying idle animation and making the “Pull to Stand” milestone easier to unlock with a new crib interaction.
– Resolved various object and sorting issues, including fixing maids vacuuming puddles, updating tags for kids’ activities, and correcting hair and clothing textures.
– Fixed several specific bugs, including the Gallery upload error, werewolf texture issues, and problems with small business employees leaving early.
The latest update for The Sims 4 delivers a substantial set of fixes and quality-of-life improvements aimed at resolving long-standing player frustrations. This patch tackles a wide array of issues, from visual bugs and gameplay interruptions to deeper system corrections that improve overall stability. Players can expect notable fixes for broken photos and paintings, improvements to infant care, and adjustments to small business operations.
A persistent problem where memorial portraits and graduation photos would display as blank has been resolved. This correction ensures future photos taken in existing save files will appear correctly, though it does not restore images that were already broken prior to the update. Similarly, photos captured with a phone or camera will no longer turn black after being mounted on a wall, placed in a Sim’s inventory, or stored in a chest, provided the issue hadn’t already occurred. The same preventative fix applies to celebrity autographs. For creative Sims, “Paint by Reference” paintings and copies made with the “Create Copy” interaction will no longer turn into blank white canvases, with some of these fixes being retroactive to repair affected items in old saves.
Several annoying visual glitches have been cleaned up. An issue causing werewolf offspring to appear with black textures and missing pelts upon aging into a Teen has been addressed, with the game now generating the proper pelt when entering Create-A-Sim. The team also made progress on fixing eyelids that don’t close completely during sleep. For Gallery users, the top-reported server error while uploading has been resolved, a problem that primarily affected console players but could also occur on PC.
Gameplay receives meaningful tweaks, particularly concerning infant and toddler care. Sims were sometimes standing idle while holding infants, delaying their response to queued interactions; this idle animation has been removed. Unlocking the “Pull to Stand” milestone for infants was unnecessarily obscure, as they needed to be near specific objects. To make this clearer, a new greyed-out interaction and tooltip now guide players to place the infant in a crib, where a manual “Pull to Stand” interaction is available once the infant is ready.
The patch also rectifies a significant bug introduced in a previous update where Sims at work or school were never gaining needs due to a change in how “Away Actions” functioned. This has been corrected to restore normal motive gains. Furthermore, the “Fight” interaction will now only appear between Sims who have a negative relationship, rather than being universally available.
Object functionality and sorting see several updates. The Lump of Clay now properly sorts as a Kids Activity and provides Creativity skill gain for Children, while the PenguinVision Children’s Television Set is also tagged as a Kids Activity. The Stack ‘o Books object is now correctly sorted and fully functional as a bookshelf. In a welcome change for homeowners, Maids and Butlers will now correctly mop up puddles instead of pointlessly attempting to vacuum them for hours.
Various other fixes polish the experience. An issue causing sand sculptures to auto-generate or deteriorate incorrectly during rain has been fully resolved. Several lots, including Hindquarter Hideaway and Dachshund Creek, had their preview cameras obstructed by trees; these environmental objects have been scaled down or removed. A problem where open street objects were being incorrectly ‘shelved’ when traveling to apartment buildings has been fixed, preventing potential clutter.
The update also includes numerous smaller corrections and additions. Specific clothing items, like the yfTopEP20VNeckTee, no longer have visible seams when worn by Gallery Sims. Missing CAS items, such as the cuBodyEP20RashGuardLogoNavy variant and the EP14BangsMedium hair for Child Sims, have been restored. The previously hidden puMakeupFacepaintEP19Floral asset for toddlers is now available. Imaginary Friends will no longer reset and vanish from the Relationship Panel after returning from another lot.
For entrepreneurs, Small Business Employees will no longer leave only a few hours after opening a 5-star business. The system now prioritizes keeping employees on the lot for the entire open duration, asking customers to leave first if the lot becomes too crowded. Finally, a case of potential save corruption related to Custom Venues saving Roles with Romantic Orientation criteria has been addressed.
(Source: Sims Community)