Cannot get game to load

I am having the same problem after an EA app update. Sims 4 worked just fine prior to whatever updated recently and then the screen will flash and then stay white, with no messages, and the game is listed as running. I tried repairing, uninstalling/reinstalling and running the game without any luck. I have tried turning off the firewall. I hope we get answers.

I am also having a crashing issue that popped up today--it was fine yesterday. I can get into my save file but then when I try to either build or play as any family (mine or randoms in the world), the game crashes on the loading screen. I've cleared cache/repaired game/restarted/messed with visual settings/done all the things I'm supposed to do (and I don't even use mods) and nothing is working. The game is effectively unplayable for me right now.

came here to say exactly the same! my game was working fine even an hour ago but now i can't even get past the initial load screen without the game crashing. ive tried repairing and removing cache and they didn't work 

magikturtles​  Thanks for the dxdiag, but I don't see anything obviously wrong.  What antivirus do you use?  Despite the what the message says, this error is often caused by an antivirus blocking the game.  If you want to test yourself, you can disable the AV (temporarily of course), repair Sims 4, and see whether you can play.  As long as you don't do anything else at the same time, your computer will be safe.

If this helps, set exceptions in the AV for TS4_x64, TS4_DX9_x64, and TS4_Launcher_x64, or the entire Bin folder they're in.

Achikasama​ TheCitrusDragon​ edenfalls123​  None of you have the same issue as the original poster, who is seeing the "can't run Sims 4 with the video card in this system" error.  Achikasama​  If you have an HP gaming laptop, please see this post; otherwise please post a dxdiag.  TheCitrusDragon​ and edenfalls123​  Please remove your saves folder from Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 and let me know whether that helps.

puzzlezaddict​ Apologies--I had no idea these were different issues and just made the assumption we were having the same issue. If I take the saves folder out, it works for me to play households and builds, albeit I lose all my stuff. Is that just a loss I'm going to have to accept?

TheCitrusDragon​  The saves crashing the game is a known issue:

Crashes on Mainmenu | EA Forums - 12139111

Some players report that adding back their mods and custom content helps, updated versions where necessary of course.  In particular, one cause of the problem is a missing cc tattoo that a sim had previously used.  I don't know whether that's your issue, but that would be the place to start.

It's also possible that some of your saves are fine, so try adding back one at a time to see whether it loads.  The Main Menu displays the preview for your most-recently-played save, and the game will crash if it can't load the preview, but that has nothing to do with your other saves.

Another potential way around the issue is to create a new save; no need to spend much time on it.  Save your progress, quit, and move your old saves from the old folder to the new one.  Make sure to renumber the newest save, that you just created, if it conflicts with one of your older saves.

Try again to load the game, and if you can get to the Main Menu, use Load Game to select an older save and play it.  If the save is fine, you can continue playing it and save your progress; it might work again.

puzzlezaddict​ Interesting work around. I'll test that out tomorrow. But after examining the crash message and doing some research, my specific problem may well be that my Mac updated right before this problem started to MacOS Sequoia 15.5. The exception is bad access and the termination reason is "Namespace SIGNAL, Code 11 Segmentation fault: 11", meaning (if I'm understanding correctly) that the game is being prevented from accessing the memory associated with my save files, potentially because of something that changed in the update. Thank you for all your help--I really appreciate you taking the time to reply--but unfortunately this issue might be beyond the both of us and I might have to wait (for who knows how long) for an update from Sims or Apple. If anyone else is having the same issue as I am and are on a Mac, that could maybe be it. 

Edit in case it's important: I don't have any custom content/mods and never have.

TheCitrusDragon​  The type of crash, from the OS perspective, isn't usually helpful with this kind of problem.  For example, in Windows, the saves-related issue throws a crash report that says Sims 4 crashed because Sims 4 crashed, and it was an access violation.  An access violation is so generic an error—a program attempted to access memory in a way that is not permitted, so the OS shuts it down—that it can indicate anything from an in-game bug to conflicting software to a hardware issue.

What you've written sounds like the Mac equivalent of the above, which makes sense since the underlying problem with the saves is the same.  "Bad access" is definitely the equivalent of an access violation, and most of the rest describes the memory address and the process that tried to access it and how it did so, and maybe a stack trace thrown in.

That doesn't mean crash reports are never helpful, only that they can't be relied on and are often misleading or far too generic to be of any use.  The practical details are more useful: can the crash be reproduced, can it be stopped by performing a certain action (i.e. removing saves), that kind of thing.

By the way, we have a Mac Tech subforum too, for any future issues you may have:

The Sims 4 Technical Issues - Mac | EA Forums

The person answering most of the posts there is great with Macs and is always up to date on current issues with Sims 4, whether they're Mac-specific or not.