Re: The sims 3 keeps spontaneously crashing on my brand new MacBook Pro

@Salso0297  What world are you playing in, and does the game crash in Sunset Valley too?  Does it crash if you put Origin into offline mode before launching Sims 3?

Game crashes in Sunset Valley even after repairing, deleting and installing sims 3 again. It has no mods, no cc, a family is brand new - really weird that it keeps randomly crashing. Any help how to fix it?

@mazeikaite  Please let me know when the game crashes, if there's any pattern at all; or if there isn't, approximately how long you can play before a crash happens.

Please also list the full specs of your Mac: everything under About This Mac including the operating system and except for the serial number; and the expansion and stuff packs you currently have installed.

I currently have Seasons, Generations, Pets, Supernatural and High-End lot stuff pack. Keep in mind even with base game only the game still crashes, and it can happen at any time. Right now i opened the game and it crashed within the first 3 minutes of playing it - just randomly. I have no cc, no mods, installed nraas with overwatch and saver but it barely does anything. 

My specs:

  Model Name: MacBook Air

  Model Identifier: Mac14,2

  Model Number: MLXY3ZE/A

  Chip: Apple M2

  Total Number of Cores: 8 (4 performance and 4 efficiency)

  Memory: 8 GB

  System Firmware Version: 10151.101.3

  OS Loader Version: 10151.101.3

  Hardware UUID: 2E07F455-0D28-5964-B3F7-91BB7D2ADC1A

  Provisioning UDID: 00008112-001A684926F8201E

  Activation Lock Status: Enabled

@mazeikaite  Please try playing while your computer is offline, immediately after restarting it and with nothing else running in the background.  You can open the EA App and put it in offline mode, then disable wifi before pressing Play.

If this doesn't help, move the entire Sims 3 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, then try again to play while offline.  This will remove, but not delete, your saves and other user data, which is fine and actually helpful for the purposes of this test.  Let me know what happens.

If the game still crashes, please let me know whether you use a third-party antivirus or any kind of cleaner app.

Tried playing like this - deleted electronic arts folder and turning off the wifi as well as creating a new family to play with seems to have done a trick for a longer gameplay. However, after an hour or so it crashed yet again randomly. As for the antivirus - I dont have it on my computer. I guess this game is just too broken to be played...

@mazeikaite  Sims 3 isn't so broken as to be impossible to play, even in macOS, but it does have issues that need to be managed.  Do you have any sense of what was going on when the game crashed this time?  For example, what time of day was it, what were your sims doing, what else was on-screen (deer, wild horses, whatever), and so on?

Pets and strays can cause problems when trying to navigate stairs too, which is a problem in any world but especially in Appaloosa Plains.  So it would be helpful to test in Sunset Valley, first with Pets still installed, and later without it.  To uninstall Pets, simply drag the EP05 folder out of the "The Sims 3 Packs" folder, wherever it is on your computer: Applications, Users > your username > Applications, or Applications > EA Games.

The point is, if you can get the game running in a more or less stable manner, you can manage the features that cause problems.  For example, you might find that you need to limit wild horses and deer, which is simple with a mod.  Or you might need to remove the Pets expansion entirely, while the other content is fine.

Hello, 

I am having the same issues where my Mac suddenly crashes after playing it for 30-45 minutes or so. I have the 64 bit version and play via the EA app, I have tried playing in offline mode and the game seems to crash quicker than being in the normal online mode. 

I have an account where I just play the sims and that only nothing else is running in the background and it isn't logged into Apple ID. I have also moved the sims 3 folder onto the desktop. I'm just trying to see if anything else would work to stop the game from crashing, is there a solution to this problem yet?

Here is what my Mac is running on:

Big Sur

iMac (mid 2014) 

Processor: 1.4 GHz Dual-Core Inter Core i5

Memory: 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB

I used to play the 32 bit version before I updated my Mac, I had all the expansion packs and it never used to be a problem but since I'm playing the 64 bit version though the EA app it seems to crash a lot. 

I hope this makes sense? 

Thank you, looking forward to hearing from you 🙂

@hannahwhite99  Your Mac is under the minimum requirement for 64-bit Sims 3.  That doesn't mean you can't play, as you've seen, but the game may not be stable.

What world(s) are you playing in, and what expansion packs do you currently have installed?  Does it help to turn Lighting and Tree Detail (in the graphics options) down to the minimum settings?  Please do so at the Main Menu, then quit to desktop before loading a save.