Money pop-up freezes game

Hey!

So I tried doing what you suggested. The error occurs when I complete those "tasks" and money comes in. I managed to close the app when in windowed mode and I could use my computer normally. The Sims froze, but the rest of the computer was ok.

@lilicaree  For the Task Manager, you'd want to click More Details to see anything else running.  But that wasn't really the point anyway—you've established that the game itself is freezing, not your system.

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 that doesn't help, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

Hey @puzzlezaddict thank you for your patience. 

I tried playing in a clean boot. The only app that I couldn't disable was an antivirus, so I uninstalled it to test, and the error is still happening. Aside from EABackgroundService, everything else was disabled, and the error still happens. 

I attached the dxdiag to this post. It says that no errors were found, but I don't know if there are other relevant information there.

@lilicaree  Your dxdiag shows that both your laptop's graphics drivers are out of date, and a component of the Nvidia driver is crashing.  Dell offers updates for both drivers here, in the Video category:

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-id/product-support/product/inspiron-14-7472-laptop/drivers

Please download both, and install the Intel driver first, then the Nvidia driver after a restart.  For both, right-click the download and select "Run as administrator."  For the Nvidia driver, if you see the option for a Custom (not Express) install, choose that, and check the box to perform a clean install.  Restart after installng the Nvidia driver and before trying to play, and if you run into the same error, please post a new dxdiag.

I also want to mention that your C drive is somewhat low on free space.  This isn't critical yet because 16 GB free is enough for everyday tasks.  But it's not enough for Windows to install a feature update, and your laptop is one Windows build behind.  So please clear about 10 GB more on C if you can, even if it's only temporary.  The Downloads folder is a good place to look for unnecessary files, for exampel the driver installers you've downloaded once the drivers themselves are installed.

Once you've done that, open Windows Settings > Update & Security, click the box to check for updates, let everything install, restart (whether required or not), and check for updates again.  Windows can often not find certain updates until others have been installed, so keep installing and restarting until you click the button and Windows immediately says you're up to date.

hey @puzzlezaddict !
So, I updated everything I had to on the Dell website, and I managed to clear about 6GB from the C drive (I'm trying to delete more stuff, but from the big files I cannot delete anything else right now, so I'm trying the small stuff). I checked the settings for more updates and I installed everything. Now, no matter how many times I restart, it still shows I'm up to date. 

I tried using The Sims 4 after all of this, and I  managed to play for about 10 minutes, and then it crashed again with the money pop-up. I think it only lasted that long because I disabled the Challenges stuff (the little everyday-tasks that could give your sim points, because that was crashing every time). But yeah, still not working smoothly ☹️ 

Here's the dxdiag

@lilicaree  I'm so sorry for the late reply.  I didn't subscribe to this thread and stopped checking after a while, and then sort of forgot to come back.  I've subscribed now though.

Anyway, your dxdiag lists a couple of generic errors that don't point to any particular cause of the new crashes.  So please do all of these together:

• Play in a clean boot again
• Put the game in windowed mode again; quit and restart the game if you have to switch back from fullscreen
• Put the EA App in offline mode, then take your computer offline before opening Sims 4

If you get another crash, I'd like to see the related crash dump.  Click Windows key-R and copy and paste this:

%LocalAppData%\CrashDumps

When you enter, you'll see a list of .dmp files.  If one of them is from Sims 4 or the EA App, please upload it to a third-party filehosting site (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and link it here.  If you see a crash dump that was written at exactly the time the game crashed, I'd like that too.  But in either case, please only upload a file that has a time stamp matching the most recent crash.

If there is no Sims 4 .dmp file, you can enable them:

• Hit the Windows key, type "command prompt" in the box, right-click on Command Prompt in the search results, and select Run as Administrator
• In the window, paste "reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\devenv.exe" /v DumpType /d 2 /t REG_DWORD" without the outside quotes into the box, and enter
• Launch Sims 4 and wait for it to crash (whether you can play at all or not)
• After it crashes, wait for any crash dialogs to finish
• Then hit Windows key-R and paste "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps" without quotes into the box, and enter
• Upload the last .dmp file to a free filesharing site and link it here
• When you want to undo the auto crash log dumps, open Command Prompt as before, paste "reg delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps" /f" without the outside quotes, and enter.

Hello @puzzlezaddict ! Don't be sorry for anything, you're doing so much more than I could ask for!

Thank you for still being here with me haha

So, I followed all your steps. But when the game crashed, nothing changed on the Command Prompt Window or the Crash Dump folder. So on this Drive link you'll find both the last .dmp file (which was not from today) and some info from Event Viewer that I found. I saw that it reported TS4 errors, but I don't understand enough of this to say whether it'll be helpful or not. Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1axNQLAwlX3Lw5PNI0MSiXrai8K_bfFy4?usp=drive_link 

I'm also uploading a Print Screen from Command Prompt from the 2nd time I tried it.