Game gives a black home screen

Hi,

Since the last update, including the two fixes from the past few days, my game gives me a fully black screen when I load into the home menu. It has made the game completely unplayable.

I have mods and CC; I have removed those, and it still happens. I have verified the files on steam and done a repair game on EA. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled the game, and it has not fixed this.

Please help

puzzlezaddict
1 month ago
Tashamcs02 Do you have any mod-related files in the saves folder? Please check even if you think not. And if you use ReShade or GShade, try removing it.

If that doesn'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. 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've moved but temporarily unread by the game.) Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just see whether the problem is gone.

If it's not, please provide a dxdiag. Click Windows key-R, enter dxdiag in the run box, wait for the scan to finish, click "Save all information," and save the file to your desktop. From there, you can attach it to a reply using the paper clip (Attachment) icon included with the other formatting buttons.

5 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
3 days ago
Tashamcs02 I'm confused here. You told me in your previous reply that a clean user folder didn't work, but now you're saying that sorting through the files inside the user folder fixed the issue. If these files were the problem, the clean folder would have worked... unless you didn't try it? Or you moved a different folder instead? Either way, you'd have saved me some time if you'd tried my suggestion as written.
Tashamcs02
New Novice
3 days ago
I had to go file by file to fix it.
I placed the file onto the home screen and then opened the game to create a new one. I then went into the old file and placed my saves one at a time into the new folder and removed any that gave me a black screen, then I did the same for my mod folder.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
1 month ago
Tashamcs02 Your dxdiag doesn't list any errors at all, which is unusual—even a clean install of Windows should have a couple. Are you using some kind of cleaner app to delete temp files? If so, please disable it while we're troubleshooting. I might need to see some of this crash data that's being removed.

Regardless, please try again to play, and if you get another black screen, look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor. Click 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. Today is on the right.

Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of your most recent attempt to open Sims 4. If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here. If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.

If you don't see an error, please shut down your computer, unplug both monitors at both ends, and reseat the cables, making sure they're fully inserted. I'd actually try with just one monitor first, than the other (and not connected to the same GPU port), if only to cover all your bases.
Tashamcs02
New Novice
1 month ago
Hi!
I moved the Sims 4 folder to my desktop, and it still came up as a black screen.
Heres the dxdiag. Thank you for your help
DxDiag.txt69 KB
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
1 month ago
Tashamcs02 Do you have any mod-related files in the saves folder? Please check even if you think not. And if you use ReShade or GShade, try removing it.

If that doesn'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. 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've moved but temporarily unread by the game.) Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just see whether the problem is gone.

If it's not, please provide a dxdiag. Click Windows key-R, enter dxdiag in the run box, wait for the scan to finish, click "Save all information," and save the file to your desktop. From there, you can attach it to a reply using the paper clip (Attachment) icon included with the other formatting buttons.