Sims can't gain any skills

I recently cleaned out my mods folder to only the bare essentials, updated to the latest version of the Sims (I was several updates behind) and started a new game. 

My sim can snowboard, and once she did it the first time, I got the notification that she had gained her first skill level. I checked her skills but it wasn't there, so I cheated it, and then she carried on snowboarding and the skill wouldn't increase at all. I reset the sim several times, reloaded the game, and nothing changed. After testing, I realised it wasn't just the snowboarding skill: she can't gain any skills, although sometimes she gets the first level. She cannot increase at all from level 1 without cheating. 

I started a second save, this time a programmer, same problem with all skills tested, gaming, knitting, and dog training. 

It makes the game completely unplayable because there's no progression and I can't see that anyone else is having this issue.

I deleted even more mods, deleted my cache, repaired the game in Origin, all of the suggested troubleshooting methods. Nothing worked. 

I am playing the latest version of the game. Other functionality seems to be fine. No errors come up and it doesn't crash.