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Mac M4: Infinite loading screen when entering Manage Worlds and Create-a-Pet
Platform MacBook Air M4 16 GB RAM macOS Sequoia 15.5 EA App Latest version of The Sims 4 Installed Expansions Seasons Cottage Living Cats & Dogs Growing Together Life & Death Businesses & Hobbies Issue After a brand-new installation of The Sims 4 and six expansion packs, the game has multiple loading and world-transition issues. Problems observed Create-a-Pet Creating a cat and clicking the checkmark results in an infinite loading screen. The green plumbob continues spinning and gameplay tips continue changing indefinitely. Manage Worlds Selecting Manage Worlds frequently results in the same infinite loading screen. Travel Many community lots (parks, vet clinic, and other public venues) cannot be entered. Clicking them often does nothing or the game hangs on an infinite loading screen. Residential lots are more likely to load. Cats & Dogs Brindleton Bay is available. I was eventually able to adopt a cat through gameplay, so the expansion appears to be installed correctly. The issue appears to be with world transitions/loading rather than ownership of the expansion. Troubleshooting already completed Brand-new MacBook Air M4 Fresh installation of The Sims 4 No mods or custom content EA App Repair completed Restarted Mac Created a completely new Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4 folder All expansion packs show as installed Issue still occurs Would love a fix as soon as possible since I just spent a bunch of money on this game that now doesn’t function properly. Thank you.
"The Sims 4 is already running"
When I try to open The Sims 4 it won't launch. It goes to my homepage and says "The sims 4 is already running". I've checked in my finder and folders and they all say that there is no activity. It will eventually launch after I tun my laptop off for around 15 minutes . I use a MacBook Pro. This has been happening for long time.
Speechless.
I can't use caps-lock because if i do, I will receive a "it is not nice yelling at people, how woul dyou feel if people were yelling at you?"-email so I'm just hear writing out of frustration. I had an error at the beginning of last month where all my buildings disappeared. Thanks to someone helping me, we concluded that it was because my cloud hadn't update. I took the L and ran with it. So I started playing again. My cloud is fully updated and all downloaded and now after a whole month of playing, all my houses are gone again. 😁 I will not yell, I will not curse, but I thin it is time to find solutions beyond the FAQ. Because this isn't fair, it is painful and really a waste of time, and me trying to explain this here, I will not be taken seriously, but it is only fair to give a headsup. ToKiHyou PS - Your tags are useless, there should be a "my game is fundamentally broken" tag or just "game broken" not I will have to figure out which tag to choose just so this post can be uploaded.Sims 4 continuously crashes to the point I cannot play
I literally just purchased the Royalty and Legacy expansion pack too. So this is frustrating. But after the most recent update, I can't even get into the game to play. I have tried so many different things, I have created a new sims 4 folder, deleted cache, restarted the game, force quit, restarted my computer. I am using a mac book pro with the M3 chip so I know it's not an issue with my computer. I can also see I am clearly not the only dealing with issues. And evidently this update was almost a month ago, and so far there have not been any responses from the EA team about this other than they're working on it? Guys, its been a month. Do something about this. This is ridiculous.Sims 4 continuously crashes after recent update
Since the most recent update of sims 4, I have essentially not been able to play. The game will load to the main menu, and sometimes the household will be present, sometimes its not present at all. I select resume. I am able to start building, but after about 2 minutes, everything stops working. I go to save and exit to restart the game, and I am left on the save screen, until I am forced to force quit the game. Any progress that was made is gone, not that there was much to begin with. I've had these issues before, where the game will crash after I have spent hours upon hours building, however it has never been this bad. Where I can't even get 5 minutes into building. No matter what I do. I don't have any custom content, I don’t have any mods. I am using a Macbook pro with an M3 chip. So, it's not the computer. I have tried repairing the game multiple times creating a completely new sims 4 folder, deleting the cache files and changing the graphic settings to help it run faster, restarting my computer, checking for updates, testing without bringing any saves over to the new folder, and absolutely nothing has worked. I literally just got back to playing sims after a few weeks of not playing, because I got a build idea, purchased the new royalty and legacy expansion pack, and now I can't even play it. I don't know when this most recent update was. But I evidently am not the only one who is having so many issues, as when I googled if this was an issue for other players, I am seeing that many other players are having their game crashing on them too, and so far, nothing has been done in I don’t even know how much time. When will a new update come out that will have fixes for this?Can't save game/taking forever to save
Ever since the July 21st update, when I go to save my game, I get stuck on the loading screen and have to restart the game, losing everything I just did. On the rare occasion my game does save, it takes over an hour, and that's after only a couple minutes of playing the game. It could just be the laptop I have not being powerful enough for all my cc, but I didn't have trouble with it before this lastest update. I turned off the new auto save option thinking that was the issue, but I still got stuck on the loading screen. I've honestly been too upset to even play my game since the update. I'm really hoping this problem can be fixed, otherwise my game is practically unplayable.New laptop (MAC), previous packs won't download
I previously purchased and installed several expansion packs on another computer (Horse Ranch, Get Famous, Cats & Dogs, City Living). On my new Mac, these packs show up correctly as owned in Marketplace > My Collection, with a "Not Installed" status, but I'm unable to install them: the "Install" button stays inactive no matter which pack I select. The base game runs fine, it's just these specific packs that won't download. Has anyone dealt with this before? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.Crashing Issue
My game was working normally yesterday (playing offline) and I decided to go ahead and update today to the latest patch. Now, the game will not open at all with a "initialization error at start" message. I have tried removing all mods. Visiting the activity monitor app and removing anything EA or Sims related, and I have tried repairing the game. Nothing works .
The Sims 4 fails to launch, game window created but never renders
Issue: The game will not launch. When starting via EA App or directly via the executable, the process starts, the dock icon shows the loading spinner, and system logs confirm the app creates windows and registers normally with macOS — but no game window ever actually renders on screen. After roughly 10-15 seconds the process silently quits with no crash report generated in Diagnostic Reports, and no error logged by the game itself. Steps already tried (no change in behavior each time): Full clean uninstall and reinstall of the game Removed all custom content/mods (tested with zero mods — same result) Reset in-game graphics settings (deleted options.ini) Ran the app under Rosetta Repaired the game via EA App Confirmed no crash logs are generated in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports Confirmed via log show that the process creates windows and registers with the system, but stops producing activity shortly after with zero logged errors or faults Suspected cause: Based on other reports from players on macOS Tahoe 26.x, this appears to match a known Metal graphics driver rendering incompatibility between the current Sims 4 build and the newest macOS version — the game creates its window but never successfully renders to it.The Sims 4 will not launch on MacBook Pro M5 (macOS Tahoe 26.3)
Hi, I'm hoping someone can help because I've exhausted all of the normal troubleshooting steps. System Information macbook pro m5 macOS tahoe 26.3 EA App Version 13.754.0.6267 The Sims 4 Version (latest update) Problem When I click Play in the EA App: The EA App minimizes The Sims 4 icon briefly appears in the dock The game never reaches the loading screen or main menu After a few seconds the dock icon disappears No error message is displayed The game launnched successfully once on this same Mac about 2 or 3 weeks ago (I went as far as CAS), but didn't play and since then it has never been able to launch again. Troubleshooting already completed Removed all Mods and Custom Content Confirmed the game is launching with Modded: False Deleted localthumcache.package Repaired the game Completely uninstalled and reinstalled The Sims 4 Completely uninstalled and reinstalled the EA app Renamed the Sims 4 Documents folder so the game created a completely new one Launched with a completely fresh Sims 4 folder Verified documents permissions Restarted the Mac multiple times Tried launchng the game directly from the application instead of using the EA app Booted into Safe Mode and tested there Uninstalled curseforge Confirmed the game is installed on the internal SSD No mods or CC are present anywhere Minecraft and other applications work normally. Crash information The sims crash report consistently shows the game failing during intialization before reaching the main menu Relevant information LoadingScreenActiveFlag: 1 Modded: False Architecture: arm64 Apple Silicon (M5) macOS Metal The stack references Metal/AGXMetal during startup Additional information No apple crash report (.ips/.crash) is generated in DiagnosticReports The game process appears to terminate before it fully starts. Has anyone else experienced this on an M5 Macbook Pro running macOS Tahoe 26.3? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Game Window won't go Full Screen
Hi! I haven't had to do this before but I cannot seem to figure out what's wrong on my own. Basically when I went to open my game last night the game screen wouldn't open to full screen (the top bar of my desktop was showing as well as the dock at the bottom). I always play full screen on my laptop and so I'm not sure what the problem is. When I tried to go into Game Options it said that I was in full screen mode and the mouse was acting as if I was as well. Every time I tried to change it or even go into Window Mode to see if that might help, the problem just got worse. I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, sorry. It's just frustrating because everything I've looked up and tried hasn't worked. I don't know if it's a problem with my game or possibly my laptop? It's just a MacBook Air 2020 and Sims is the only game I have on it. Nothing's wrong with the actual game play or save files, just the screen being the wrong size and the pointer... A screenshot of what I mean when I say it's all out of proportion. Usually when I play you can't see the dock or the top bar part at all. And I have to hover the mouse down before I'm able to click on the option I want...my household keeps getting deleted.. saves corrupted???
Hi guys, I’ve been trying to solve this issue all day, and I seriously don’t know what could be causing it. Earlier today, when I was playing the game, I aged up my newborn Sim and held Shift on him to modify him in CAS. However, instead of seeing my whole family, a randomly generated Sim appeared (like I had just started a new game). When I exited Create-a-Sim, the entire household was completely gone. Whenever I hovered my mouse over their lot, it would glitch and get filled in by their neighbors. I tried going into my save file, and I was able to get them back, but it happened again when I entered Manage Worlds. The entire household would just disappear. So, I assumed it was my mods, and I removed my entire Mods folder. This allowed me to use the Shift + CAS cheat with my household still there. After figuring out that the issue was caused by one of my mods, I downloaded the Better Exceptions mod and deleted all of my corrupted mods, ONLY FOR MY GAME TO DELETE MY HOUSEHOLD AGAIN. I’ve been dealing with this for seven hours. Someone please help me!
Mac: Save loads normally but Save & Save As always fail (Error 21)
Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help because I've spent the last couple of days troubleshooting this very thoroughly, with the help of ChatGPT, and I've reached the point where I think this needs someone with Sims-specific save expertise. I think this may be an unusual save corruption issue rather than a standard Error 21. I'm on macOS. The problem My main save (around 29 MB) loads perfectly and appears completely normal. I can: Play normally for as long as I want Switch between multiple households Travel between worlds Enter Build/Buy Enter CAS Interact with Sims normally Everything appears to function correctly The only thing that doesn't work is saving. Both Save and Save As immediately produce: Error Code 21 The game failed to save. Error Code: 21 The save has several years of gameplay (it's my primary save and contains almost all of my Sims history), so I'm trying everything possible before giving up on it. How this started My game had been working normally until a series of events happened around the same time. I had recently moved my Mac's data into iCloud as part of setting up my computer again. I then attempted to place a household from the Gallery. After placing it, I discovered that it required the Lovestruckexpansion pack, which I do not own. Shortly afterwards I began experiencing Error 801, along with obvious world corruption, including: missing lots floating apartment objects missing buildings broken world terrain At that point the save was clearly unusable. To recover, I restored my Sims 4 folder from a backup that I had stored on an external hard drive and copied my recovered saves into that installation. After doing that, the world corruption disappeared. The game now loads normally and appears completely healthy. However, ever since recovering the save, it has consistently produced Error 21 every time I attempt to save. What I've tested I've spent quite a bit of time trying to isolate the cause. I've confirmed the following: No mods or custom content installed. Brand new games save normally. The game itself appears to be functioning correctly. The problem only affects this save. Multiple households inside this save all fail to save. Build/Buy works. Create-a-Sim works. Travelling between worlds works. I restored older backup versions of the save (ver0/ver1/ver2), but they all produce the same Error 21. The biggest clue I've found The most interesting thing I've noticed is what happens when I choose Save As. The game immediately throws Error 21. It never creates a new save slot. No new Slot_0000000X.save file appears in the Saves folder. The timestamp on my existing save also never changes. There are no new LastException files created when the error occurs. Because nothing is ever written to disk, it almost seems as though the game is failing before it even begins the save process, rather than failing while writing the save. Things that do NOT appear to be the cause: As part of troubleshooting, I've ruled out quite a few common causes: Mods/CC Game installation General save permissions (new saves work normally) A single household (multiple households fail) The save simply being unreadable (it loads and plays perfectly) My question is has anyone seen Error 21 where: the save loads perfectly, the world appears completely normal, gameplay works indefinitely, but both Save and Save As fail immediately, and Save As never even creates a new save file? I'm particularly interested in whether anyone has seen this after recovering from Error 801 or after placing a Gallery household that required a pack that wasn't installed. I'm also happy to upload a copy of the save if anyone is willing to inspect it. Thank you! FYI, I have backups of the save, so I'm comfortable sharing a copy of it privately if that helps diagnose the problem.Small Businesses Disappearing
I have no mods of any sort but just bought a bunch of packs during the summer sale. I was playing with new businesses and realized that even though I frequently save my game they were just disappearing from the lot completely. I also couldn't move my family into lots. It also happened with a whole new family that I started in his vet business. :( I tried "repairing" the game, and some "tricks" I looked up online but it doesn't seem like anything is working.Most of my DLC won't download
I used to play the sims 4 on PC on steam and purchased a decent amount of DLC on it, however I've recently had to switch to mac and as the sims 4 does not work on steam while on mac so I have had to switch to the EA app. This shouldn't be a problem as my accounts are linked and as an image included shows, the app acknowledges that I have purchased the DLC that I own. However it will not let me download most of that DLC, only letting me download kits not my stuff packs or game packs or expansion packs. I've tried raising this issue before but the recommendations did nothing as they packs that I can't download don't show a install option. This problem is really weird because as I stated before it doesn't affect kits only other DLC which shows that the problem isn't just steam purchases being rejected by the EA app. The DLC I own that is NOT working is: Expansion packs: Growing Together, High School Years, Cottage Living, Snowy Escape, Eco Lifestyle, Discover University, Island Living, Get Famous, Seasons, Cats & Dogs, City Living, Get Together, Get to Work Game packs: Dream Home Decorator, Realm of Magic, Strangerville, Parenthood, Vampires, Dine Out, Spa Day, Outdoor Retreat Stuff Packs: Crystal Creations, Home Chef Hustle, Paranormal Stuff, Nifty Knitting, Tiny Living, My First Pet, Toddler Stuff, Bowling Night, Vintage Glamour, Backyard Stuff, Kids Room, Romantic Garden, Movie Hangout, Spooky Stuff, Cool Kitchen, Perfect Patio, Luxury Party The DLC that I own that is working is: Kits: Storybook Nursery Kit, Rivera Retreat Kit, Cozy Bistro Kit, Castle Estate Kit, Book Nook Kit, Greenhouse Haven Kit, Basement Treasures Kit, Little Campers Kit, Blooming Room Kit, Industrial Loft Kit, Courtyard Oasis Kit, Country Kitchen Kit I have been considering purchasing more DLC recently but have held off out of concern for my current DLC not working and not wanting to spend money when money that I've already spent not allowing me access to the stuff that I own.
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