Game unplayable after exiting build mode

Hi everyone! I'm hoping I can get some advice on this.

After the new patch update that goes with Eco Lifestyle (which I don't own, for clarification), I haven't been able to play my game.

First, it was glitchy as all hell when I tried to do anything. Sims that had previously had jobs were suddenly unemployed, moodlets had no icons, I couldn't switch between Sims, and Sims weren't following my directives. You get the picture - complete mess.

I play with a fair few mods so my first self-guided solution was to go and update all my mods that were updateable post patch update, and delete the rest. I also moved the Mods folder to the desktop, and then trashed the localthumbcache.package file in the Sims 4 folder.

There was a significant difference in gameplay, but with only one exception (that I can decipher, given the limited capacity to play through): when I go into build mode within a household, I can't get back into live mode once I'm done. It provides me with no information bar, and I can't get into any menu or even go back into build mode. I always end up having to Force Quit the game. This means I can't save, which you can imagine is very frustrating. I've attached a screenshot of this, if it helps any of you figure out the issue.

I feel like there might be a glaringly obvious solution but I'm a casual Sims player so my knowledge of troubleshooting the game is lacking. I just bought Tiny Living on sale as a birthday gift to myself so I'd really like to actually play this stuff pack.

Any help is welcome! Thank you in advance 🙂