Forum Discussion

New Traveler

8 months ago

Solved

Game Won't Connect To Gallery While Using DX11

Happy Holidays everyone.

While this isn't an urgent, game breaking bug, it's seriously annoying me and I've been having the issue for a month straight. I have to alternate between DX9 and 11 just to be able to access the gallery in game. I also get the Sims Delivery error. It has no connectivity issues on DX9, and DX11 also connects just fine running on my laptop, but my desktop hates it, for some reason. Below are a list of the things I've tried:

*DNS Flush/Network Reset

*Connecting to the Ethernet

*Uninstall and Re-install

*Allowed the app through Firewall

*DEP isn't an option on my desktop setup

*Booted the game offline, minimized, went online through EA App, re-opened game.

*Ran everything as administrator even tho I am the administrator.

*Completely removed the EA folder and allowed the game to generate a new one with no mods or CC

*Updated computer and drivers

*Cleared App Cache

My PC Specs:

*AMD Ryzen Cezanne 8-Core Desktop Processor

*Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Dedicated

*64GB RAM

*2 TB SSD/ 1TB HDD

I'm at my wits end and have no idea why it won't connect to the gallery in game.

cc or mods removed

ea app

updates

WoohooJuiceSim
3 days ago
Good evening, 8 months later, lol! I still have yet to solve this issue. Other things I've tried:
Clean Reinstall of the EA App
Switching DNS Servers
Still no luck so far. I'm all out of ideas. I constantly have to switch between 9 and 11 to take advantage of online features and it's quite annoying.
Also! I ran the Windows System Files checklist and came out with a clean bill of health. My internet works fine and is connected, the EA App is online, but once I'm in game it refuses to connect to my network.
UPDATE:
Literally just fixed it minutes ago and am ashamed that it took me this long to figure it out. So my laptop has older software and tech that allows apps to automatically hook DX11 for internet connectivity. However, my desktop has a super duper sneaky antivirus that will block apps that use online services. It was buried so deep in my firewall. I have no third party antivirus and heavily monitor which apps are allowed and for some odd reason it took me 8 months to finally find "The Sims 4 Firewall Block" on my Windows Defender Firewall.

7 Replies

WoohooJuiceSim
New Traveler
3 days ago
Good evening, 8 months later, lol! I still have yet to solve this issue. Other things I've tried:
Clean Reinstall of the EA App
Switching DNS Servers
Still no luck so far. I'm all out of ideas. I constantly have to switch between 9 and 11 to take advantage of online features and it's quite annoying.
Also! I ran the Windows System Files checklist and came out with a clean bill of health. My internet works fine and is connected, the EA App is online, but once I'm in game it refuses to connect to my network.
UPDATE:
Literally just fixed it minutes ago and am ashamed that it took me this long to figure it out. So my laptop has older software and tech that allows apps to automatically hook DX11 for internet connectivity. However, my desktop has a super duper sneaky antivirus that will block apps that use online services. It was buried so deep in my firewall. I have no third party antivirus and heavily monitor which apps are allowed and for some odd reason it took me 8 months to finally find "The Sims 4 Firewall Block" on my Windows Defender Firewall.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
8 months ago
WoohooJuiceSim Out of curiosity, does the entire PC lose internet access, or is it only Sims 4 that can't connect in DX11 mode?

Please also run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:

Click Windows key-X

Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered

Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter

The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here

After it reaches 100%, click Windows key-X again

Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”

Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter

Post the message you receive here

Restart your computer, open Windows Settings > Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards.
WoohooJuiceSim
New Traveler
8 months ago
Good morning! Thank you for the suggestion. I went and checked and it looks like it's already disabled by default. So basically the entire time I've had this setup, it's never been turned on. Out of curiosity, I did go ahead and enable it, and added the respective folders to it, and ran into the same issue as well as it blocking some EA App features I couldn't locate exactly. Ugh. Something's gotta give! I'm always open to more suggestions and will try them. Thank you and Happy Holidays!
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
8 months ago
WoohooJuiceSim Try disabling Controlled Folder Access, which is part of Defender, but it's not necessary to have CFA running in order for Defender to do the rest of its job.
WoohooJuiceSim
New Traveler
8 months ago
Okay. Just searched high and low for an antivirus software on my desktop, and no luck. I just have Windows Defender. I did go ahead and allow all executables and the EA executables, but still no luck. Now I’m really at a loss, lol,
WoohooJuiceSim
New Traveler
8 months ago
I don't believe I have any antivirus installed on my desktop. But I'll double check and see! Thank you for the suggestion, I'll go ahead and try it now
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
8 months ago
WoohooJuiceSim When you say you allowed the game through your firewall, did you check your antivirus as well? They're not usually the same or at least don't share settings. The reason I ask is because the DirectX 9 and 11 versions of Sims 4 have different executables: TS4_DX9_x64 and TS4_x64, respectively, so it would be easy for an antivirus to block one and not the other. And of course if you only allowed the DX9 version through your firewall, that would explain the issue as well.