unable to load the city at this time. please try again later

I'm having the same problem others have had. When the game was launched, my friends and I created an online region and we all made cities in it. We occasionally go in and play our individual cities for a while. I was playing my city and added the "Cities of Tomorrow" pack because I had radiation in my city and I wanted to be able to clear it out. I played the city for a couple days and was adding ground scrubbers (which were working). It was nice in that I was finally getting my city clean and could start using the irradiated ground again, but after a couple days, I came across this error and can't get into the city anymore. I can go into my neighbors' cities and view them. And when I look out over the horizon from their cities, I can see OTHER cities, but the area where my city is supposed to be is just empty. It's like nothing was ever built there. I've tried removing the different folders that people have suggested, uninstalling and reinstalling the game, turning off firewalls, and flushing DNS (EA support suggested that, I knew it wouldn't make a difference. I'm a network admin. I know when DNS is acting up). Again, I can go into other cities and see neighbors on the horizon, but my own city shows up blank. Arrrrgh!!!

ID: rcarnevali

Server: North America East 4

Region: TiVopolis

City: Radonville

I have no idea how I exited the city the last time. I may have had a crash on my computer. For some reason, I've been getting a lockup at times. I did notice that Origin updated the next day. I don't see how that could have made a problem, but there was an Origin update. I was really enjoying trying to recover from my nuclear meltdown. I'd like to be able to go back to it. Also, all my friends have neighboring cities. If I leave that region, I won't be playing with them anymore

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@rcarnevali wrote:

... I've tried removing the different folders that people have suggested, uninstalling and reinstalling the game, turning off firewalls, and flushing DNS (EA support suggested that, I knew it wouldn't make a difference. I'm a network admin. I know when DNS is acting up). Again, I can go into other cities and see neighbors on the horizon, but my own city shows up blank. Arrrrgh!!!

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I'm sorry this has happened, especially right when you're meeting the challenge of cleaning up the radiation.  If you locked up during an exit, it's a fair bet that a file was corrupted somewhere. If you're lucky, it's on your end. Unfortunately, if you tried deleting the SimCityUserData file and it still happens, it's a good bet that the corruption is on the server side. Not trying to sound like tech support (flush dns? lol), but just to be sure, I'll list a couple of things to try. You may have already done all these, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try again.

 

First, a few basics. Set SimCity.exe and Origin.exe to "Run As Administrator". (I know it makes no sense, but I have seen reports where it didn't work when people were opening them directly as admin, but it did work once there was a shortcut on the desktop set to do it automatically. Could have been user error, but for the troubleshooting phase, just set a desktop shortcut to run as administrator and open from there.) If you have BitDefender or MSI's sound program Nahimic II, disable or uninstall them. They are known to block SimCity. The usual general stuff - make sure your PC has the latest sound and graphic drivers. SimCity doesn't play well with 4k or dual monitor settings, so check your graphic settings and adjust to 1080p resolution or lower.

 

Check your city after each step:

 

Delete the folder SimCityUserData from \Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\

 

Open Origin, right-click the SimCity icon and choose "Repair". 

 

Run \Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityRecovery\SimCityRecovery.exe. Be patient, it can run for a while and look like it's not doing anything.

 

When you first load SimCity, try going into a friend's city instead of your own. Then go to region view and try to load your city from there. 

 

Do a full uninstall of Origin and SimCity, and use CCleaner to get rid of any remaining registry entries and random files. Reinstall 

 

Some people have had limited luck by moving the SLDelta####.mfs file out of the SimCity Games folder. Make sure Origin and SimCity are both closed first. Go to your Documents/SimCity/Games folder. There should be at least one folder in there, and nested in that are folders for each of your regions. Try sorting by modified date to find the right one. If it works, you should be able to get into your city after you move the SLDelta file (don't delete it!), but you lose all the regional progress. It could be a way to move your simoleans out and send resources to another city, but I don't think it's a permanent solution for actually recovering your city. 

 

 

 

Since you're playing with friends, can they see your city when they're logged in? If they visit your city, is there anything there, or do they get an error, too? If they can see your city, you might want to try to get one of them to send you a copy of their *.mfs file. afaik, it's not been tried, but it can't hurt to see if the regional stuff is stored in a good copy. There's also a metadata file in the misc folder. I viewed it in notepad, seems to have some regional city info, so maybe a friend's copy of that could be tried, too. I wish I knew more about these files, it's not a "normal person" kind of troubleshooting, but since you're a network admin, you can probably safely play around with some of these config files and see if you can find an answer. That is, if it's worth the trouble to you. If you find anything, reply back - it would be really helpful info for other users with the same issues.

me too ☹️

• Your Origin ID: BouobiePillow
• Your City Name: The USSR
  The Region Name: Europäische Union
• The Server Name: Oceanic #1
  
• How did you end your session last time you were playing the city: Could not complete a mission for "Buy power off your neighbour". Restarted the game and started getting the error. Also. One of the other players (who i was on discord with) had some problems with packet loss and DC'd

Hi @arghurous - if you're having trouble with the tutorial, try repairing your game through Origin. 

Exit SimCity. In Origin, right-click the SimCity icon and choose "Repair Game". Origin must be online to see this option. Once it completes and says the game is ready, try again.

In addition:

• Set SimCity.exe and Origin.exe to "Run As Administrator", and that they are added to your antivirus and firewall exception lists
• If you have BitDefender or MSI's sound program Nahimic II, disable or uninstall them. They are known to block SimCity.
• Make sure your PC has the latest sound and graphic drivers, and that Windows is patched and updated
• SimCity doesn't play well with 4k or dual monitor settings, so check your graphic settings: adjust to 1080p resolution or lower, change your monitor settings to single mode

If you still have trouble, reply back with any error messages and attach a copy of your dxdiag. How to DxDiag

Lost two of my cities I just built over the last week. I am so sad, not sure if I should continue playing this game or not...

• Your Origin ID: hczxpaul
• Your City Name: Geo.rakuen
  
• The Region Name: Yui
  
• The Server Name: Asia 2
  
• How did you end your session last time you were playing the city: Sent 10m simoleons to another city, could not load the city after it

• Your City Name: Geo.bodypark
  
• The Region Name: Yui
  
• The Server Name: Asia 2
  
• How did you end your session last time you were playing the city: Quit the game using "quit simcity" in the menu.

Hi @hczxpaul - This error is almost always due to corrupted data on saving the game. If the data corruption happened on your side, you may be able to recover the city. If the data corruption happened on the server side, there is unfortunately nothing that can be done and usually results in the loss of the affected city. 

To try to fix local corruption, follow these steps:

1. Exit SimCity and Origin completely. 
2. Delete your SimCityUserData folder. Default location is \\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityUserData You can rename the folder, or move it to your desktop as a backup just in case first. No need to worry, the game will recreate this folder when you log in again. 
3. Launch Origin "As Administrator" (Right-click Origin.exe, choose Compatibility tab, Check the box next to "Run this program as administrator")
4. In Origin, right-click the SimCity icon and choose "Repair". Origin has to be online for this to complete. Let the repair run until completed.
5. Launch SimCity "As Administrator" and check to see if you can load the affected city.

If the issue still exists, exit completely out of SimCity and Origin. Navigate to \\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityRecovery. Right-click SimCityRecovery.exe and choose "Run As Administrator". Be patient, this is a targeted reinstall and can take some time to complete. 

In the future, when you send items from one city to another, be sure to wait for the message that the resource has been sent. With most commodities you can see a truck carrying the resource out of the city, I don't think there's any visual with the simoleans, might be a mayor car? It can sometimes take a while for the server synchronization to catch up - regional view will show the arrow with the gift going to the other city. Once the server knows the gift has been sent, then load the receiving city and wait for the message that the gift has been received. I've had it show up within 30 seconds of loading the receiving city, but also can take up to a few minutes. 

Corruption such as this can happen if there is an interruption in the synchronization process, or if something like antivirus or firewall is preventing communication, so always run Origin.exe and SimCity.exe "as administrator". Be sure both are added to exception lists for antivirus and firewall. Try using a wired connection instead of wifi if possible, to reduce data communication errors. Good luck and Happy Building!

Thanks for the tips, but I tried all before and nothing helps. BTW, clicking SimCity\SimCityRecovery only brings me to a EA page with "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!" message. I would be happy to rebuilt those cities if EA could at least wipe out and reset those cities. Sadly it seems like its not the case. Leaving two huge empty slot on the region just hurts everyone's feeling who was playing in the region as my friend and I was dedicating so much time wanted to build a nice one.

I totally understand, @hczxpaul  I wish there was something I could do, but even back in the day when the game first launched (and this happened a LOT), I don't think the devs could roll back very many of the cities. 

(thanks for the note on the SimCityRecovery - I have found that the game installs a shortcut on the menu, which is a link to a page that no longer exists. I think if you go to the actual SimCityRecovery.exe file in the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityRecovery you can run it from there)