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bonesisthebones's avatar
bonesisthebones
Rising Newcomer
1 day ago

Hotkeys won't work

(1-29-2026) Hi, my hotkeys in the sims 4 don't seem to work at all.  The hotkeys that aren't working are the (WASD), the (<,>) and the arrow keys, and they aren't working in build mode. All my other hotkeys (ERTYUGBKLK) are working though. I've restarted my laptop (PC, Windows 11) already many times. Uninstalled the keyboard, verified the steam files (I use steam not the ea app) and I've uninstalled and reinstalled the ea app.  I have also changed the window sizing. I searched through the game settings many times. Nothing has worked at all.  This is the first time this glitch has done this. I don't want to uninstall my games and packs and then reinstall them, but if I have to I will, but if anyone has any other ideas, I would like to try that first. 

Thanks

ea app
steam
updates

1 Reply

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    22 hours ago

    bonesisthebones​  It's possible another app is running in the background and capturing the nonworking keys.  So please start by disabling any apps you use that come with overlays: Steam, Discord, etc.  Disable the EA App in-game overlay as well, under Settings > Application.

    If that doesn't help, please try playing in a clean boot:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

    The one service to leave enabled is the EABackgroundService, which the EA App needs in order to run.  Disable the rest as described.

    When you reboot your computer, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down any service that doesn't absolutely need to be running, for example anything from MSI Afterburner to RGB software might still be enabled.  If you accidentally kill a critical process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.

    Don't open anything other than Sims 4 and the EA App while testing, not even a browser window.

    If this helps, you can selectively reenable services until you find the culprit, then either leave that disabled or (if it belongs to an app you want to keep using) let me know what it is so we can try to fix the underlying issue.

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