HELP: Endless Loading Screen

@andromeda_gxq  As a test, please try playing in a clean user folder.  Move the entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, and when you launch the game, a clean folder will spawn with no content.  (Your saves and other content will be intact in the folder you moved but temporarily not read by the game.)  Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just start a new save and see whether you run into the same issue.

If that doesn't help, let me know whether your computer runs Windows or macOS.  If Windows, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

If the new save is fine, copy one of your existing saves to the new folder, but still without mods or custom content, and see whether you can load any household: your main one or others in different worlds.

I did as you told and removed the Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and started the game. No mods added. I created 2 saves and played with them for a while, changing from save to save a few times to see if there were any loading issues. So far no lagging or loading issues. However, with all my previous saves gone, all my sims and lots (that are saved in my gallery library) are also gone. Is that supposed to happen?

After adding one of my original saves, the game opened but took a long time to load and was very laggy. The same happened when exiting, the game took a long time. None of these issues arise with the new experimental saves which I reopened and closed to check. The new saves run smoothly. What seems to be the issue with my original saves?

I am not a Windows user, I use a Macbook laptop.

(Sorry if the reply is late. Thank you for helping me out.)

Edit: The old save I loaded is relatively new, created a few days ago and played for less than 4 hours.

@andromeda_gxq  When you removed the user folder, you removed all your user data, so yes, your saves and saved households and builds were supposed to disappear.  But as you've seen, they're not gone, just separated.  The Library content is in the Tray folder.

You've established with your test that the problem is your save, at least in part.  As another test, please load that save again, except a different household, one you've never played, and see how it runs.  If it's more or less on the level of the new save, try moving your main household to a different lot and see how that goes too.  You don't need to save your progress; this is just for testing.

Please also list your Mac's specs: everything under About This Mac including the OS and except for the serial number.  Additionally, click the Storage button and list the free and total storage.

I loaded the old save and tried to play two other households (ones that I've never played before). One in the same world as my sims (San Myshuno) and another in a different world (MT. Komorebi). Both took a very long time to load.

My Mac Specs:

MacBook Air

M1, 2020

Chip          Apple, M1

Memory    8GB

macOS     Ventura 13.2.1

Displays    Built-in Retina Display

Storage   138.37 GB available of 245.11 GB

Hello! Thank you for replying.

To be honest, I don't know what you mean by "each"? So I'm just going to list some information.

My entire Sims 4 folder in Documents is 59.6 MB, my saves folder is 24.8, my mods folder is 21.7 MB, and Tray is 1.3 MB. Please let me know if this is not the information you are looking for.

So we previously established that the problem was my old save. I have a theory on what the problem could be and would like to know what a more experienced player thinks about it. When I saved the sim from my old save to my gallery library (at this point I still have no mods in my mods folder) I noticed that my sim had a blue icon with a wrench on the top left. I think that when I was creating this sim, I had cc mods that I used in CAS. That may be messing with the old save. 

When I play new experimental saves normally, I have no such issues. I added my old sim to it to see if it would mess with the game and as I sorta expected, the save became unplayable pretty quickly. A lot of lagging and long load times. For now, I think my old save is unsalvagable. ☹️

What do you think? 

@andromeda_gxq 

I meant like this (and I now realise I wrote game instead of save - sorry!):

where you can see the file size of each individual save.

Yes, the blue wrench means the sim you uploaded to the gallery had CC although if you downloaded that sim the CC would not transfer. Could you let me know the name of this sim so I can download it and test in my game? Can you remember what CC the sim was wearing?

All my saves are between 1.6 MB to 2.1 MB. Is that concerning?

As for the CC, it wasn't clothes, I downloaded a bunch of traits (100 traits by chingyu) and aspirations (I think it's by NC4T) so when I first added him to my library he only had modded traits and aspirations. But even after removing all the mods, when I re-uploaded him to my library, the blue wrench remained. I shared my sim to the gallery, the household's name is Standard Model, sim's name is French Fontana.

I don't really use any CC clothes or make-up. I still haven't gotten around to making sense of them.

So, I did as you mentioned, and a new Sims 4 folder appeared. I added my sim to a new save and created a new save without him. The save without him worked completely fine, no lagging issues. The save with him, on the other hand, had the same issues with lagging and loading. Nothing different. :/ 

This same test I did before (idk if you read earlier interactions with user puzzlez addict).

For now, I think I'm ready to move on from this save and just play a new one. RIP to my sim, he was great at fishing and stealing wives. 

Thank you for your efforts!! I really appreciate it. I also feel a bit more confident now when it comes to troubleshooting with this game. I am a relatively new player (started a few months ago) so small insights from experienced players go a long way for me.