Sims 3 64-bit crashes immediately after pressing Play on Launcher

@msarrowette  For now, I'm going to stick with troubleshooting the iMac, since it's easier to handle one system at a time.  And you're right, the game should work fine on both computers, although it would obviously run a lot better on the iMac.

Did you add your graphics card to the .sgr files before or after you tried to play?  If it was before, that could be the issue—a stray punctuation mark in the wrong place, or even the wrong type of quote mark, can crash the game.  But even aside from that, you don't need to add your card; the game recognizes an AMD GPU on its own now.

So to keep things simple, please restore the original unedited files.  If you don't have the original copies, delete the new ones and repair the game in Origin (again), which should put back the default versions.  (Please check that they're back anyway, because I don't think I've tested this and am not completely sure Origin does what it should here.)

If this doesn't help, try playing while your computer is offline.  You can sign into Origin and put it in offline mode, then disable wifi and/or disconnect the ethernet cable before pressing play.

If that doesn't help either, please let me know whether you run a third-party antivirus or a cleaner app on your Mac, and if so, which one.

I added the graphics card to the .sgr files after the initial attempts to play failed, just in case that was the problem, though I'd have expected an unrecognised graphics card to just come up at the wrong resolution and with low graphics settings. I wanted to try every test I could though.

I then ran repair after the test to revert the game files back to their original state. I did, of course, keep copies of the unedited versions - but repair seemed a cleaner way of putting them back the way they were. I can confirm that the date stamps on the .sgr files reverted to their original date and time after the repair (4 November 2020), so Origin did its job properly.

I forgot to mention it in my original post, but I'd already tried setting Origin to offline mode, and also disabling Origin In Game. I hadn't disabled wifi, but have just tried again after doing that. It still crashes in exactly the same way, I just get an additional "can't find server" on the Welcome page (which is presumably just the Store and the Sims 4 advertising so not an issue).

There's no third party antivirus or cleaner app on my Macs.

Currently testing on the MacBook Air, as the iMac has the 32-bit version installed at the moment so I can play a bit. For now the MB Air has the base game only, so its Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics card should cope. If/when I progress as far as the Sims 3 menu screen I shall switch testing over to the iMac instead. I have all the necessary information to uninstall the 32-bit version and clean up bookmarked for when I need it.

@msarrowette  Try playing in a new admin user account on your Mac.  Don't sync any data or sign into any other accounts (except for Origin).  Don't even use your Apple ID—this should prevent iCloud Drive from interfering.

You can simply sign into Origin and press Play, but if that doesn't help, repair the game and try again.  And setting fullscreen to 0 is worth doing again if the game won't initially open; the options.ini file is of course only accessible from the original user account.

New admin account created, The Sims 3.app copied from the original /Users/accountname/Applications folder to the one for the new account since the 64-bit version is user-specific, and then I launched Origin, pressed play, updated when prompted, quit the launcher and then ran repair to validate the game. Then I tried to play.

Alas, I still get the same crash and the same error message.

@msarrowette  Are you using a standalone monitor for your laptop, or just the built-in screen?  Do you have any third-party software at all that's installed on both systems?  I have to admit, I'm struggling to come up with more ideas here, especially since this is happening on two different computers.  I'm not saying I'd give up, just that I'm grasping at straws here.

I can also ask if other people have suggestions, but it might take a day for someone to get back to you.

Just the built in screen for the laptop. Keeping it simple.

The iMac normally has a second monitor attached, but I powered that off/unplugged to make sure it wasn't causing the problem. Not sure whether the coding is there to handle multiple monitors or not in the 64-bit version, since I can't get far enough to check; the 32-bit version will launch and play quite happily in full screen mode with a second monitor powered on, but only so far as presenting it as a permanent blank screen. Aspyr's Sims 2 Super Collection handles that better, in that it leaves the screen usable - even though you're going to want to have edge scrolling turned off if you ever click over there, or you fall off the edge of the hood. :-)

As I have a workaround of playing on the 32-bit version, provided I don't go overboard with EPs, I'm in no desperate hurry. Though I'd definitely like to get it working before such time as I'm forced to go to Catalina/Big Sur/next year's macOS. Of course it's possible that Mojave is a factor, though the system requirements state that High Sierra and above are supported.

Sadly there's quite a lot of non-Apple software in common between the two machines, though the majority of that is installed via the Mac App Store, so is sandboxed. The main things that aren't are probably Dropbox, Carbon Copy Cloner and VMware Fusion. And they obviously don't stop the 32-bit version from running.

Thank you for at least trying to grasp at straws on my behalf.

@msarrowette  Someone else had the suggestion to try disabling Origin in-game: hover over your username, select Application Settings, then the Origin in-game header, and disable the option at the top.

You can also try temporarily disabling System Integrity Protection (and I do mean temporarily), just to see whether it makes a difference.  This is obviously not a fix, but it would be interesting to see the results.

@puzzlezaddict - I was already attempting to start the game with Origin In Game disabled. I've now tried it with SIP turned off, and it makes no difference - same crash as before, so SIP has gone back on again.

I had to update Origin to version 10.5.95, and since then the game seems to be in an even worse state in my original account than it was before. Okay, so there's not much worse you can get than "does not even start" but when I trashed my Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder in documents one more time, it did not recreate all the files when the launcher started up. The folder structure seems to be there, but the only files created under The Sims 3 are Sims3LauncherLogFile.log (zero bytes, never updated) and tslus.bin (created when I attempt to launch the game). I no longer get a DeviceConfig.log or an Options.ini. The only files that change timestamp after I press play on the launcher are tslus.bin and Downloads/wl.bin. I don't even get the crash report - the launcher seems to terminate without handing off to the game, and returns me to Origin.

SIP testing was therefore done with the dedicated admin account I created, where I haven't touched the existing Electronic Arts/The Sims 3 folder, and that behaves exactly as it did before. Same crash report as always.

@msarrowette  It's occurred to me that there might be an issue with your account, or rather the status of Sims 3 on your account.  The 32-bit version uses a different authentication method, so the fact that it runs isn't confirmation that everything is fine.  Given everything else you've eliminated, it's worth checking.

Please contact EA customer support, and this time, ask about the status of your Sims 3 product key, not just whether it's on your account but whether it's active, as opposed to disabled or blocked.  A support rep should be able to check, but please make sure they do, and don't let them tell you that this isn't possible because I have piles of Windows threads that say it is.

https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/

If you don't get anywhere with support, please post the case number here.

I currently have a disk related fault with my iMac’s internal SSD which has prompted me to do a clean install of Mojave on an external SSD as part of troubleshooting. Since I had the opportunity to install the 64-bit version of Sims 3 when I had nothing on the system whatsoever except macOS, I tried it. So, while I still don’t know the exact conditions that trigger the instant crash after pressing Play, I can confirm that the game does in fact launch successfully with my hardware (2017 iMac 27” 5K, with Radeon Pro 580 GPU). Under certain conditions. So there’s no problem with my Origin account or Sims 3 game status/product key.

The current plan is to try relaunching it between reinstalling other pieces of software, and see if I can identify a conflict. If so, I’ll report back/report it to EA, especially as @Gegahex‘s issue sounds pretty much identical.

Sadly, in addition to the various known issues with the 64-bit version, most of which I could live with apart from the missing open water interactions, I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it after all that effort. Graphically, I’m seeing a screen refresh issue which rolls down the game window whenever I move the camera around, and it’s very seasick inducing. This is with the exact same graphics settings as I used on 32-bit, where the problem didn’t arise. So, I might yet end up going back to the 32-bit version.