I've got several family ghosts and pets in one of my games and was hoping to resurrect them with ambrosia.
But none of them will eat it!

After some research, I thought it might be because the household was full, with 8 sims and 2 pets.
So, I moved out two of the sims with one of the dogs.
I've had ambrosia in the fridge, on the kitchen counter, and even on the floor for the pets.
But when the ghosts appear, they just ignore it.

And clicking on the ambrosia to serve it only gives me living sims in the house to serve it to.

My most recent research said the ghost has to be part of your household and playable, but I found out that's not accurate.

As a plate of ambrosia was on the counter one night when a playable ghost from another household floated through the wall and ate it!

So, can anyone confirm if the family ghost has to be playable to eat the ambrosia?

I have a philosopher's stone on the lot, so I could bind each one and have them eat it.

But I was hoping they'd make the choice on their own.

I don't know if the ghost has to be playable, but I was having the same issue. When your sim cooks ambrosia you have to put it up for leftovers because for some reason the ghost won't eat it. I think you won't even be able to click on it. So, I just used Master Controller to add the ghost to the family and make sure you have Nraas Mover allow more than 8 sims in household. You have to click on the lot of the household you're playing -> Nraas -> Master Controller -> Add Sim -> Sim of Type (And) -> Dead. It will give you a list of every sim that has ever died in your world. Just choose who you want. They will be automatically added to the household and you then make them eat the ambrosia from the refrigerator.

The ghosts in question are family ghosts, the past two generations and the founders, but the odd thing is that only four of them have ever shown up on a regular basis, and the other two haven't shown up since the spouse passed on!

But the two ghost cats show up pretty regularly, but how would a pet eat leftovers!?! LOL

I really appreciate you replying so I'll see if leaving it in the fridge prompts any of the others to eat it on their own.

If not, maybe they just don't want to come back as living sims!

Well, the mystery continues...
In another game, I've got a sim that can make ambrosia, specifically to resurrect a gold digger's spouse.

So, I had her make a plate and take it to the cemetery.

The first two gray ghosts that materialized headed for the rocking chairs and pretty much ignored the ambrosia.

Then, right before dawn, one of them dispersed back to her grave and the other one stood up and took the plate of ambrosia!
I was so excited to see her sit on a bench and start eating it, only to have her set the plate down after two bites and return to her urn!

So, I just left the plate of ambrosia there to see if it would tempt any others besides my active ghost who tried to eat it several times.

And low and behold, one night a pink ghost popped out and headed straight for it, ate the rest of the plate, and was brought back to the land of the living!

So, I guess it helps if the sim died of starvation, whereas all of my family ghosts died of old age.

But with one of the gray ghosts actually attempting to eat it, I'm thinking patience is the name of the game.
And will truly show if any of my family ghosts desire to be living sims again.

I'll be leaving some out on the floor, on the counter, and some in the fridge as leftovers for increased chances of a ghostly taker.
And see if other sims eating prompts them to join in.

I have only dealt with ghosts in my game a few times. Most of the time I play a tad more "realistically" (other than my gay male sims having babies) and while I do have a handful of ghosts in the cemetery from tombstones I've place of my family members, I pretty much pretend they aren't there and most of them rarely seem to leave the cemetery, thank goodness. I do have a supernatural game I play from time to time, anything goes in Moonlight Falls

That said, the few times I have wanted ghosts on my lot and wanted to bring them back (like if a teen dies or a YA parent) I never had much issue with them eventually eating the ambrosia. I'm not sure why? Sorry that's no help. But I did have to tweak things. It often took a few nights of them showing up to do so, but eventually they did eat it. What I did was leave the plate in the plot area near the tombstone and fenced it in so the active Sims wont put the plate in the fridge or try to eat it themselves. It seemed to work best if I place it on a small table with a chair inside the fenced plot. Just remember to leave room for them as you would a live sim so they can sit and eat. Also remember; You do have to remove the fence once they are alive so they can get out.

Sometimes I've noticed ghosts will show up with a few needs needing to be met, hunger seems to appear after a few days of showing up, but not the first few days unless they died of hunger obviously. Anyway, since Ambrosia doesn't spoil it stays good until they eat the stuff. The longest I ever waited was about 3 sim weeks. I have very long lifespans so that isn't a big deal with my games. I know you said you leave it sitting all over, but my best bet was to leave it near their headstone. A couple of times they even haunted the plate instead of eating. LOL Or just use MC on the headstone to bring them back, but I know that isn't as much fun.

JohnL83, Thanks so much for your input!

I've got all the family urns on tables, some on the main floor, some on the 2nd floor, and even two out in the barn.
The two pet urns are on the main floor as well.

Making a small fenced in family cemetery with a table and chairs and a couple of inviting dishes of ambrosia sounds like a great idea!
I'll even put one on the grass for the ghostly cats.

And I'll remove all the rocking chairs as they head straight for them otherwise.

I'll definitely test it out and let you know if it works!

It finally happened! One of the family ghosts picked up the plate of Ambrosia off the floor!

It was supposed to be a plate for the ghost cat, but I'm not going to quibble about it. LOL

He ate the ambrosia, was brought back to life and, just as he was cheering, my game crashed.

I loaded the game back up and sighed as I had to replay that entire day. (I know, I know, save and save often---words to live by)

But, miracle of miracles, the same family ghost appeared and grabbed the ambrosia off one of the counters.
Not only that, but as my ambrosia-making current heir was hugging his newly revived Grandpa, the ghostly male Founder came into the kitchen and grabbed ambrosia too!
Two family ghosts brought back to life in one night!
After all these weeks it seemed like a miracle.

Then one of the ghost cats was hanging around, so I had my one of my sims feed ambrosia to the cat!

I had planned on letting the ghosts, sims and pets, eat it on their own, but since the male Founder was a cat lover, I brought back his daughter's cat.

I've fed Ambrosia to inactive ghost long time ago. Leave the gravestones at home back yard. then leave just one Ambrosia on counter just before 12 am. And let the active family go to sleep. The ghost comes out of the stone, then start hanging around the house, then finds Ambrosia. I served 3 Ambrosia for 3 nights, the 3 ghosts took one each. But actually, it took a week because they didn't come out every night.