Game stops responding when using the gallery

stevanya  Can you try using a different network?  For example, if your computer uses wifi, you can set your phone as a mobile hotspot, using data rather than your home network.  Simply viewing the Gallery shouldn't eat much data, and if this helps, you'll know the problem is the network rather than your system.

Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately I still had the same problem when testing using my phone's mobile hotspot. I attempted to start a new game, opened the gallery from CAS, selected households and the game immediately froze/went into "not responding" according to task manager. 

stevanya  Please try deleting Windows temp files, as described in the accepted solution of this thread:

Re: My game won't connect to the internet. | EA Forums - 11829031

If that doesn't help, please create a new admin Windows account and try accessing the Gallery there.  Make it local, as in, don't link it to your Microsoft account or any email address.  Your saves and other user data won't be available, but that's fine for the purpose of this test, which is to see whether the problem is limited to your main Windows account or more global.

puzzlezaddictUnfortunately still having the same problem after testing both of the suggested solutions. I tested once after deleting the Windows temp files and uninstalling/reinstalling the EA app as suggested on the linked solution, and then tested a second time using a new local Windows admin account. I think I may have gotten a few more seconds before the game froze/stopped responding, but not much of a difference. Thank you for your continued help and suggestions. 

stevanya  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.

It would be odd for a system issue to only affect your viewing of the Gallery, but you've already tried almost every standard troubleshooting step here.  I would suggest trying the new Windows account and the different network together though, just to be as thorough as possible.

puzzlezaddict  Sorry for the late reply. I was hoping in vain that the next game update would fix whatever mystery was affecting my game since the last, but no such luck unfortunately.

Attached my dxdiag. I followed your suggestion to try using a local Windows account + my mobile hotspot network together, and the game still stopped responding almost immediately after opening the gallery. Thanks again for your continued help trying to figure this out. 

stevanya  I don't see any new Sims 4 errors in your dxdiag, just some Sims 3 crashes (which I can help with, in the Sims 3 forum, if you're interested), a few generic Windows update errors, and three crashes of what looks like a component of UltraVPN.  If you have UltraVPN installed, please uninstall or disable it, and test the Gallery again.  I would clear Windows temp files, yet again, before testing.

If you've never had it installed on this computer, let me know; the executable may have been installed with something else.

puzzlezaddict  Sorry, here is a new dxdiag from immediately after the Sims 4 stopped responding on gallery and I had to force quit the program from task manager. This was after uninstalling UltraVPN, clearing my Windows temp files, and restarting my computer. 

I can say that after uninstalling UltraVPN, I got about 60 seconds before the gallery/program froze, which is much longer than any of my previous tests. This was interesting to me because the VPN came with my antivirus but I've never turned it on or used it. It always launched on startup and I would quit out of it, but maybe some component was still running in the background? (Sorry, I don't know quite the right terminology). Is it possible that despite quitting out of my antivirus before testing, some of its processes running in the background may be causing my problems? I noticed in task manager that there are at least 3 .exe processes with either the same name or icon as my antivirus running after I quit the program, and that if I try to end the tasks from task manager they either immediately restart or do not allow me to end them. 

puzzlezaddict  It seems that UltraAV anti-virus was the culprit! I've done a good amount of testing to be sure, and my gallery is back to normal operation after uninstalling. My subscription is up soon anyway, so I don't mind investing in another program a little early. Is there any particular anti-virus software that you would recommend that hopefully won't mess with my game? (I used to use Kaspersky, but they stopped operating in the US and passed on the remaining subscriptions to UltraAV which is how I ended up with it in the first place. I hadn't heard of it before either.)

Thank you SO much for your time and patience helping me troubleshoot this problem! It wouldn't have occurred to me that even when I thought I had quit out of the anti-virus and VPN, that they could still be disrupting the game in the background. It was a good lesson to learn, and I'm very grateful for your help.