Game Wont Launch

Hi

Have you got anti-virus software on your PC? If so, you may need to go into its settings and check that it allows the Sims through the firewall etc so that the game will launch. Depending on your choice of anti-virus, then it should be straightforward enough to troubleshoot how to allow programs through its firewall by googling it. 

I have to do this every time there's an update or my game simply won't launch. 

Hope this helps. 

@RegularEggKing  What antivirus software are you using?  This does sound like an antivirus issue, and a few of the programs now require extra steps aside from simply adding an exception for Sims 4.

@RegularEggKing  Please make sure you've adjusted all of the Avast settings described in this article:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2020/10/add-exceptions-to-anti-virus-programs.html

If that doesn't help, move your entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, and see whether the game opens.  If it does, a new folder will be created with no content.  Don't add anything to it yet; just see whether you can get far enough to start a new save and play in live mode for a bit.

If that doesn't work either, please create a new admin Windows account on your computer and try to play in that.  Make it a local account, as in, don't sign into Microsoft or any other services.  You'll be able to login to your current Origin account and shouldn't need to redownload anything.

@RegularEggKing  It's possible that the permissions for Documents or a subfolder became corrupted; the new account has its own fresh Documents directory.  It's also possible that OneDrive is interfering; you didn't sync your new account with OneDrive.  If you ever tried to move the location of Documents in your old account, it's possible that something went wrong with that move, but again it would only affect the one account.  There are probably other possibilities I'm not thinking of as well.

I'm happy to try to keep troubleshooting this issue with you if you want.  The first step would be to disable OneDrive in your main account, that is if you use it.  If the game works, you can reenable OneDrive and change its settings.

If that doesn't help, or you don't use OneDrive, please let me know whether you've ever tried to move the Documents directory.