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dslepenk's avatar
dslepenk
Seasoned Adventurer
5 years ago
Solved

Constant crashing after Cottage Living installation - please help!

Hello,  I downloaded Cottage Living this past week and tried the game out this weekend. The first day, there were no major issues. I noticed that there were lags when switching into build/buy mode a...
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  • dslepenk's avatar
    dslepenk
    4 years ago

    @puzzlezaddict I found a solution! 

    Basically I just stopped playing Sims for a while due to the crashing, but during this time I remembered that when I got the new expansion pack I also used Sims 4 Studio to update my mods. I had updated my skins to make them compatible with the recent update, but after this update the crashes began. 

    I went back to the original versions of the skin files and re-downloaded those instead and the crashes have since stopped. It looks like the files which were modified using Sims 4 Studio were for some reason breaking the game. This is odd because I've never had issues using Sims 4 Studio before, but I'm glad to have finally isolated the issue!

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago

@dslepenk  Around 7 GB of mods and custom content is totally fine; I was asking about the size of the save file itself, as in, Slot_[number].save inside the saves subfolder.  But if your game is mostly running well and only crashes after a couple hours of gameplay, the save file size is probably also not relevant.

It's pretty difficult to troubleshoot a relatively rare crash like this.  If you notice any pattern in-game, for example if the crashes happen when your sims travel or switch to a certain outfit or use a certain item, that's useful information.  If you have a recent lastcrash.txt in the Sims 4 user folder, as in, one with a post-patch date on it, you can upload it here: copy and paste and put a spoiler tag on it, or create a .rar file and attach it, or delete the first line or two and attach it as a .txt.  That file might not contain any useful info either, but it doesn't hurt to check.

dslepenk's avatar
dslepenk
Seasoned Adventurer
5 years ago

@puzzlezaddict got it - thank you for clarifying. The game file itself (under Slot_00000004) is 54MB - much closer to what you mentioned. 

The time of the crash does seem to be pretty random. On my crash files, the files are listed as being created at: 

1:43 PM
4:46 PM
5:19 PM
5:46 PM
2:13 AM

Some patterns I noticed - two of the crashes happened in Sulani, but at unrelated events. One was just my Sims visiting the beach and swimming around; the other was my Sims at a wedding during sunset. Not sure if the conditions / times of day in game matter, but I do have Seasons installed so maybe that impacts things - during the first time it was raining, which I know can strain graphics cards but I usually don't have any trouble. Also I guess public lots are ones where new Sims could spawn and that could cause the code to break? In these cases, my Sims were traveling but they had already been at the lot for some time. 

The other two times just happened on the 14 Nettle Lane lot during regular gameplay. The game would kind of stutter and stall out and then exit without any error message. The odd thing was - when a crash would happen, sometimes another would follow soon after (within 5-10 min) but then the game would run smoothly for hours. Again, I've never had an issue like this before without it being caused by an outdated mod, but then the crash would happen pretty much immediately in my game and was relatively easy to troubleshoot using the 50/50 principle.

Maybe important to note that I had switched active families and lots because I know sometimes specific lots / families have caused crashes for some users but the crash happened to me with different families, lots, and worlds. 

In terms of my mods like I mentioned, I mostly have CAS and build/buy which I regularly update with Sims 4 Studio. I also use the following Script Mods.

These ones I tested and did not have the game crash while playing without them, but it's hard to tell if it's because of the mods or because the game just didn't hit the error: 


- No Weird Outfits by sims4me

- Zero_RoM_NoSituationOutfitsMagesHQ (keeps the mages from wearing weird outfits)

- cyclelegs_no_house_fires_UP_Zero (keeps things from catching on fire)

- LittleMsSam_MoreBestFriends (this one is updated after the patch release)

These ones I removed and the game did crash with them removed, so I don't think they are causing the error: 

- MSSwiperNoSwiping 

- PlantSims_no defult hair by g1g2

I actually have several error files saved that I'd be happy to share - I tried posting as a spoiler tag but I think it was being flagged as spam, so let me try to attach some.

Also, my partner worked in video gaming and mentioned that they had an issue where the Windows 10 time being set to a different time zone than their gaming platform would cause their game to crash. I actually had my time off by an hour, so have changed it - it could be a complete shot in the dark, but who knows! 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @dslepenk  I don't have any information about your particular category of crash, as listed in the lastcrash.txt.  But the interesting thing is that all three crashes have the same ID, and most of the stack is the same too, which suggests that the same process is responsible for at least these crashes if not all the others.

    I wouldn't expect this to have anything to do with the demands the game places on your hardware.  If the graphics card or its driver crashes, it's very clear in the dxdiag.  But most of the time, the only result would be that your framerates would drop as the card had to work harder to render each frame.  The same is true of the processor: your game might lag, but the CPU would just take a bit more time to get through its load.

    I still think this is mod-related at least in part, but the issue may be something happening behind the scenes that you'd never see.  The problem of course is figuring out what.  You might get lucky and notice a sim showing up on the lot at the time, or maybe the crashes happen at the same sim-time, but other than that, you'll probably just need to experiment.

    I'd guess that the mod that affects the sages' outfits is probably not related since they probably weren't around, but for the others, you'll need to consider whether they might have been doing anything in those moments.  I'm sorry I can't offer better guidance than that, but I'm not a modder, let alone a software developer, and without more information, I'd just be speculating.

    It is of course also possible that this has nothing to do with mods, but without any documentation, I really don't know.

    • dslepenk's avatar
      dslepenk
      Seasoned Adventurer
      5 years ago

      Thank you so much for your suggestions - I wasn't sure if the mods are causing it, because in the past when I had issues with mods the game would crash very early on during gameplay. But what you are saying makes sense - and it also clarifies why maybe I was able to play for a few hours without any crashes. Basically the situation that triggered the mod and may have caused my game to crash may not have happened, is this correct? 

      With this in mind, I'll try to take the mods out again and play for a while without them in game. I hope it's not the one that stops fires from happening because this was a massive bug for me; any time my Sims would be near a fireplace or a fire it would catch on fire (even if I had upgraded the fireplace). But my main suspicion is the one that prevents weird outfits from generating - my guess is maybe the game tried to generate a random Sim with an odd outfit and this conflicted with the code somehow. 

      I actually played in the Magic Realm for a while during that game and no crashes occurred so I think you're right and it's probably not the mages. 

      So I'll try a two-pronged approach: I'll continue removing mods and testing them, and I will also keep a careful log of what happens before a crash. Either I can get it to stop happening, or maybe post more information that can help us identify a cause. 

      Thank you again for helping me. 

      • puzzlezaddict's avatar
        puzzlezaddict
        Hero+
        5 years ago

        @dslepenk  Yes, you're correct, or at least I also think that this is a case of a specific sequence firing at seemingly random times and causing the crash.

        If you play with no mods and get another crash, upload the lastcrash file again, and I'll compare it to the others.  If the crash is the same, we'll know it's not due to your mods, and you can put them back in if you want.  I'll also try to find out more about that specific category, but that's difficult to do unless you've confirmed it's not mod-related.

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