Disappearing family pictures

My game crashed this afternoon while trying to open a Pleasantview lot. I deleted groups.cache with no results. I renamed The Sims 2 folder to start a "clean" game. The game froze. I removed, then reinstalled, the last stuff pack (kitchen & bath) and the game appeared to be fine. I added back custom content (including hacks from here and TwoJeffs). I was able to open all the lots without problem.

I then added a new neighborhood with a university to create YA. The CAS process seemed fine until I closed and went back to University NH view. There was no picture in the family bin - just a swatch of plaid color. I was able to move the toon into a dorm but again no family picture when looking at the lot from NH view. I checked the family bin of the base NH and all the families were there except for Critturs and Roseland - the bins for those 2 families were empty (though I could move them into a lot by clicking the empty slot). I went through the same process a couple of times (after removing recently added hacks) but had the same problem with empty family bins for Roseland and Critturs (and any newly created Sim).

I have all expansions and most of the recent stuff packs.

I hate to reinstall everything, but that's my next step unless someone here can give some advice.

Kitte