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Re: HELP: Cannot start because the below file appears to be corrupted.

@EerieEchoes Please try these steps in exactly this order, even if you've done some of them before:

  1. Drag your whole Sims 4 folder from Document > Electronic Arts to your desktop or rename the folder
  2. Run a Game Repair through the EA App
  3. Launch Sims 4.

If that works, please redownload a fresh copy of one of the problem files and install it in the new Mods folder to test. If that works, you can step through other files gradually.

1 Reply

  • EerieEchoes's avatar
    EerieEchoes
    1 year ago

    Hi! I actually deleted my original post, but somehow it’s still showing up, haha.

    I ended up finding the solution the next day, that's why I deleted the post. No one also replied at the time. It turns out my issue was caused by editing The Sims 4 files while Origin/EA was still running in the background—basically, I was adding and removing Mods with the App open. This was causing file corruption, even though I initially thought the issue might be with specific mods. I researched if any creators I downloaded from had corrupted files, but I couldn’t find any related issues, so I was really confused.

    Eventually, I figured it out by testing things on my own. I moved my entire Sims 4 folder out and started a new save, then gradually re-added my data. Everything worked fine until I reintroduced a specific folder from my Mods that seemed to contain the corrupted file. I deleted that folder, re-downloaded the mods with the EA App fully closed, and everything worked perfectly. Looks like that was the root of the issue! I later found a post where someone mentioned the same thing.

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