Forum Discussion

Hero+

9 months ago

Unable to start: The Sims 4 is already running - Mac only

If you're experiencing this error message it doesn't mean your game is already running, the actual message itself is incorrect. It means The Sims 4 cannot access the Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 fold...

external drive

launching

Bluebellflora

Hero+

5 years ago

@CrookedTail_19

For this issue you need to move the Sims 4 folder to the desktop from Documents > Electronic Arts then attempt to launch the game so a new one is created.

If it launches ok then copy your saves from the Sims 4 folder you moved to the desktop, into the new Sims 4 > saves folder in Documents > Electronic Arts. Copy the actual save files, don't move over the saves folder.

If you have multiple saves you should copy them individually and test the game loads after adding each one. No need to copy over the save files ending in .ver0, .ver1 etc. as these are backups. Just copy the ones ending .save.

CrookedTail_19

5 years ago

@Bluebellflora , thank you so much for spelling it out for my goldfish brain!!! It worked perfectly. I will be singing your praises for the rest of my life!

Bluebellflora
Hero+
5 years ago
@CrookedTail_19

Yay! Thanks 🙂
- RozRed
  3 years ago
  I've already posted this somewhere else, but I'm going to post this again in case someone runs into this thread.
  For anyone else that had an issue and the solution above didn't work here's something else to try.
  Check to see if you have any antivirus software that you've downloaded to your Mac (I have Bitdefender)
  If you do, restart your Mac and immediately attempt to open the Sims4 before your antivirus starts up.
  You should get the same error message and another message from your antivirus (Bitdefender said that The Sims 4 was attempting to access my files, do I want to allow this)
  Allow the Sims 4 access on your antivirus and click out of the error message from The Sims
  Open the game again and the game should run. If the game has the error again, check your antivirus to see if it automatically blocked it and try again.
  I hope this helps someone!
  - Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    3 years ago
    @RozRed
    
    Thanks for this. So antivirus is attempting to overrule the OS permissions the user has granted? Step 3 indicates this as macOS Catalina and later iterations prompts the user to allow the game access to external volumes and the Documents folder upon installation. That's really poor if so. If the user has already granted permission via Gatekeeper, why is antivirus then demanding the same?