Can't get passed loading screen before main menu

@harasnicole  Thanks for the dxdiag.  Please uninstall the EA App with Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine), and download a fresh copy of the installer to use.

Please also make sure Microsoft Teams is closed before you try to play.  Teams is throwing a bunch of errors, and while those wouldn't normally directly affect Sims 4, they could have an effect on the system overall that also impacts the game.  If Teams is set to start with Windows, and you can check in the Task Manager's Startup tab, please disable that for now.

If these steps don't help, 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 let me know whether you can get far enough to start a new save and play in live mode for a bit.

Okay. So, I used Revo Uninstaller to uninstall the EA App and then got a fresh installer. Microsoft Teams is already disabled on my laptop, so I didn't have to worry about that. Once I had the EA App reinstalled, I tried launching the game and got stuck in the perpetual loading screen, so once I force closed the game, I tried doing the other thing of taking the The Sims 4 folder out entirely to start a clean version. Same thing happened. The game launches just fine, but it just won't load to the main menu.

@harasnicole  As a(nother) test, please create a new admin Windows account and try playing there.  Make it local, as in, don't link it to your Microsoft account.  You'll be able to sign into your existing EA account and launch Sims 4 without reinstalling anything.

If you still can't get past the loading screen, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.

Look for any error that happened at the same time as you tried to load Sims 4, specifically in the new Windows account.  If you find one, right-click its name and select "View technical details," then copy the information you see and post it here.  If you don't find a corresponding error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.

Okay. I made the local account successfully, signed into my EA account and was able to launch The Sims 4, and the main menu loaded super quickly. I checked to see if I could access the Gallery, and I was, but I was missing the News tab (I only had the actual Gallery, my profile, and my downloads).

So, I guess, my next question is: Should I still do the Reliability Monitor thing on the new Windows account, or should do it on the main one? Or both?

Edit: I decided to do the Reliability Monitor on the main account first, and found a bunch of errors related to The Sims 4. They all say the same thing: "The program TS4_x64.exe version 1.101.290.1030 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel." I tried doing what it says, but I have no idea what I'm looking for.

Just for "funsies", I decided to turn off my Firewall to see what would happen, and I made it past that first loading screen. When I launched the game after turning off the first time, where it says 'Resume' on the left-hand side, it was blank (couldn't see the last sim I had played with), but the ads were visible. So, I go into the Gallery to see if I can access it, and technically, I could, but all the photos were blank with red Xs in them (as seen in the screenshot attached below). So, I exited out of the game, gave it a few minutes before re-launching the game, and almost everything is back to normal except for the fact that I'm missing the fourth tab in the Gallery, the 'News' tab. Are there only three tabs now? Am I missing something?

@harasnicole  The X'ed out Gallery items has a master thread here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/CURRENT-ISSUE-Anti-Virus-blocking-User-Folder-Screenshots/m-p/9572695

Please try the suggestions in the first post, at least those you haven't done already.

The missing News feed is by design after the Gallery revamp of a few months ago.  EA has said it will return at some point.  Please post here if you'd like to share your opinion:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Feedback/Gallery-missing-news-feed/m-p/12617936#M74225

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Which post am I looking at again?

@harasnicole  For the Gallery issues, you're looking at the first post on page one of that thread.  For the other, there's no fix, so just keep an eye on the thread overall for an update saying the feature is back now, or possibly that it's never coming back.  (I don't know what will happen with that.)  You can post in either thread, or both, or neither, but if you have further issues with the Gallery, please do use that thread I linked.

Oh, no, the Gallery issue was fixed when I had the one small opportunity to open and close the game and then restarted it.

I'm back to the loading issue and not being able to advance to the main menu because I know there's something on my computer that's affecting it, I just can't figure out what it is.

@harasnicole  Did you reenable the firewall?  I believe you said disabling it is what fixed the problem, or appeared to, the last time.  I wouldn't suggest using your computer for extended periods without a firewall, but it would be helpful to know whether this is the trigger.

If that's not the cause, are you currently playing in the new Windows account or the old one, and if the old one, does Sims 4 work in the new one?