The Sims 3 Inconsistently Won't Launch

As a note, when I raised this issue a while back on Reddit, someone suggested that it's a lingering process interfering. I've checked and nothing TS3-related is running between attempts to launch the game, and I've already cleaned my PC's cache with programs like Fortect and CCleaner, but to no avail.

Edit: I'd like to note that switching to compatibility with Windows 8 randomly made it start working, but I doubt that it will open up again if I decide to close my game and then open it again. Really strange how inconsistent it is because I've tried Windows 8 compatibility both yesterday and earlier today, with the game freezing at the black screen as it opens.

wafumayo​  Did you install the game  through the EA App?  If you did, the next time this happens, close the EA App, then look for the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager, and kill it if it's there.  I've seen scattered reports of games not launching with this service still running after a previous session.

From now on, please don't use CCleaner or anything else that removes temp files, at least not until the game is working again.  Your dxdiag lists no Windows Error Reports at all, which would be odd and perhaps a sign of a system issue if you hadn't deleted the associated data.  But CCleaner can remove this data.  The thing is, the data is useful for diagnosing system issues.

So if this happens again and killing anything EA- or Sims 3-related doesn't help, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.  Today is on the right.

Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of your most recent attempt to open Sims 3.  If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here.  If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.

Hello! Apologies for the late reply; I was busy with work.

I've tried opening the game multiple times today over the course of two hours, but the Reliability Monitor doesn't show an error for The Sims 3 around any of the times I opened it up. However, when I scrolled back, I saw a few reports from my previous attempts to open it up and so I'm hoping this will work instead.

I'd like to note that I've also excluded Sims 3 and all my expansions from my DEP, which worked. But then after work, I tried to open it again, and it was back to the usual problem of "the game will load and then turn unresponsive after a little while on the black screen."

Reporting that after I systematically removed some of the files in my DCCache folder, the game consistently loads now. It takes longer to load than it did before, but at this point, I'm so glad it OPENS that I don't really care (outside of the longer wait time giving me a little fright every time).

It's still so odd that the game was inconsistent about working + after looking in the file I got rid of, it was all stuff that I've had in my game for like literal years. But it's always been a weird game, I suppose. I'll leave this open for a little while longer just in case something else crops up. Fingers crossed, though.

wafumayo​  The late reply isn't an issue, especially as I've recently only been on the forums inconsistently myself.  I do see that you appear to have an odd install, with the faulting module here:

D:\The Sims\Base Game\Game\Bin\TS3W.exe

If you changed the "The Sims 3" folder name to "Base Game," that could confuse the App.  Additionally, TS3W.exe, with the W, is the executable for Steam installs and disc installs that don't require the App to open.  An App install uses TS3.exe instead.  So I don't know why this .exe was running at all, unless you were trying to open the game from a desktop shortcut that pointed to it rather than TS3.exe.

As you may know, DCCache holds bundled content installed through the launcher, both Store and custom items.  It is definitely odd that the game would work only some of the time with this content present—usually it's an all-or-nothing proposition.  But if the game is working fine now, and you don't miss the content or would be fine reinstalling it, then that's your answer.

In case you're not aware, the game reads the files in DCCache in sequential order, for each file type, and stops when one number is missing.  So if dcdb2.dbc is missing, the game will read dcdb0 and dcdb1 but not dcdb3 or higher.  This would have no effect on any .ebc files, and vice versa.  The files that end in .dbc are custom content, and the .ebc files are Store content.

The point is that if the corrupt file were, for example, dcdb5.dbc, removing any .dbc file numbered 0 to 4 would also prevent dcdb5 from loading.  But the files 0-4 might be fine, and removing them wouldn't be necessary in that case.