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McKenzie4291's avatar
McKenzie4291
New Novice
17 days ago

Can't play game

I bought and downloaded the new sims 4 life and death expansion pack and now I can't open my sims 4 game and play. As soon as I click to load the sims 4 it freezes on the green icon before it can pop up and then the whole window closes and I get a pop up on my computer that says "unable to start: initialization error at start up." My game worked just fine until I downloaded the new expansion pack. I tried removing all of my mods and cc, it still didn't work. I then tried moving my whole sims 4 folder out of the EA folder and I put it on my desktop and tried to open the game again, after that, the opening screen gets a little farther before it freezes and again closes out with the same pop up error message. Any ideas on what I did or how to fix it? Also would love to not loose my current saves and progress....

  • McKenzie4291  This error is typically antivirus-related, so please set exceptions in yours for TS4_x64, TS4_DX9_x64, and TS4_Launcher_x64; or the entire Bin folder they're in.

  • puzzlezaddictI'm not computer savey, but I don't know if I have an antivirus set up... I tried to find it if I do, on my computer but all I found that was close to an antivirus is PC health check or windows security. I looked in both and have no idea where to find exceptions or any of that.

  • McKenzie4291  You may simply have Windows Defender, which doesn't usually cause problems with Sims 4.  But Controlled Folder Access (a feature of Defender) can block Sims 4, so please change its settings or disable it—just CFA, not Defender overall.  Here's how:

    https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/03/windows-10-defender-controlled-folder-access.html

    If you do have a third-party antivirus, you should see that in the same location in Windows Settings.

    If this doesn't help, is OneDrive running on this computer?  That could also trigger this error.  Look for a cloud icon in the lower-right corner of the screen, and if you don't see it, open the Tray (^ icon) and look there too.  Right-click the cloud icon and select Pause syncing, choose whatever time frame you want, and try again to play Sims 4.

  • puzzlezaddictOk I got all the way through the directions on the link you sent me but then when it gets down to the add an allowed app it just wants me to select a folder but I can't add the sims 4 folder or the ea one. I have no idea how to add just the TS4_x64.exe and when I tried typing that into the search bar it says that folder doesn't exist. So I have no clue what I'm looking for or adding on that part. 

     

    I do have the OneDrive and I did select Pause syncing and tried to play but it still freezes and wont open.