Re: repeated crashing

@puzzlezaddictahh interesting. makes sense from a windows standpoint thanks for deciphering that for me.
to answer your questions, this crash issue has been happening on multiple save files. one was about a week old at most, and the other 3 i was testing to see if it would run right on other saves. i did all the clearing out files and so on that is recommended, and so it's also worth noting i did not have CC or mods enabled or in the files for the game at all for 3 out of 4 times just to be safe. the only time mods and cc were enabled was on the older (week old) save.
i make an effort to close out of every other program on my computer when i'm playing, such as exiting Steam, my non-crucial windows apps etc. so nothing else that i am aware of was running. i even tried going offline on the EA app and disabling the in-game online features a handful of times to reverify it wasn't a server issue.
i believe all the lots i've had it happen on were things i built there in the save file the same day or the days prior to the patch updates that preceded the crash issue. i also never use cc in my builds at all, though i can confirm one crash was due to placing wallpaper. i dont own the for rent pack where the bug has been talked about happening recently, but that can still happen i suppose.
to summarize, my sims wear some minimal and definitely not outdated maxis match cc, and i have quite a few mods but they're all properly installed and updated now. but since it happened even without that at all i doubt that's it.

what would you recommend i do to resolve this issue through windows, is there a way for me to create an exception of sorts so it stops terminating the task?

thanks so much for the help.

@friedn00dles666  There's no way for a regular user to force Windows to not kill a program that commits an access violation.  I'm sure there are debugging tools for developers that get around some of these issues, but you wouldn't want that anyway: an unaddressed access violation could and likely would corrupt your save and maybe other data on your computer, depending on what exactly the game was trying to do.

Where I'd go from here is starting with a new save in a clean Sims 4 folder (move the existing one to the desktop and allow the game to generate another new one), absolutely no content added back in.  If you don't get another crash, you can start moving your content from the old folder to the new one and testing.  If you do get another crash, it's probably a system issue, and we can look outside Sims 4 itself.

Just to be thorough, please clear the EA App's cache:

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/

and repair the game (again) before testing in the new folder.

@puzzlezaddictthat makes sense thanks for clarifying that.
to be clear, the next steps you described i have already done now in total 4 times over the last week. so it definitely did not fix the issue. i also tried a few with no mods at all, and one that was softer on the mods just reinstalling mods that were cleared and confirmed fixed after the most recent patch, and that didn't seem to make a difference in terms of it crashing faster or worse.

the last time i tried the steps you suggested was around 4 days ago now i think, and i was doing just fine in CAS and thought maybe that was it and some file got cleared finally, but then i loaded into the world map, and when i went to load in to play as my new sim in the cleaned new save, the load music got stuck looping when it was time to load the sim's new household lot, and the entire thing crashed again. so i'm definitely pretty stumped.

i've many times had larger legacy saves get corrupt and that's a bit more understandable (tho still always depressing for me lol). but these are saves ranging from 1 week to 5 minutes old. and i just got a brand new computer a couple weeks ago.

is there perhaps an issue revolving around windows 11 specifically, like the game hasn't been optimized for it yet? apologies if that's a dumb question. i have had so many games/applications go through some little issues here and there since windows 11 came out, but never like i'm seeing in my ts4 application.

edit: i did go in and clear the EA cache one more time, just to be perfectly safe. thank you again for helping me troubleshoot this. :'))

@friedn00dles666  Sorry, I saw you'd done a factory reset (in your original post) but had forgotten you'd gone further.  A lot of users factory reset and add back their saves or other data.  At any rate, if you get another crash after the repair, try 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.

There's no particular incompatibility with Windows 11.  From everything I've seen over the last year or so, Sims 4 runs just as well, or just as poorly, in 11 as in 10.  Various resources that Sims 4 uses are also equally compatible with both OSs.  There are some features that are more aggressive in 11 than in 10 and can get in the way—OneDrive comes to mind—but that shouldn't prevent the game from working entirely.

@puzzlezaddict  no worries at all. to be fair i'm shocked the reset didn't work myself as i've been playing since the game released pretty much and have had to do so much troubleshooting over the years.
thanks for sharing the info on trying a clean boot. i'm going to give that a try and will be back with any further information.
is there anything else i should attach here if i experience further crashes?

also absolutely can confirm OneDrive has been a nightmare for me for a couple years now at this point. I have a long standing habit of always quitting all the onedrive stuff before even launching the EA app to open ts4 lol.

i hope this makes sense. thank you so much for the help.

Hi, I have the same computer and the same problem as you!! I've tried literally everything, and nothing is working. Please let me know if you find a solution.

@friedn00dles666  It's odd that you'd get that error now.  It's usually a permissions issue, despite the text of the error message, although it can be caused by mods or a corrupt install.  It's just more common that something is blocking Sims 4's access to the user folder.  What antivirus do you use, and does it help to (temporarily) disable the antivirus?

Please also try playing in a new admin Windows account.  Make it local, as in, don't link it to your Microsoft account; this prevents OneDrive from interfering with the account's data.  You'll be able to launch Sims 4 without reinstalling anything, but your user data won't be available, of course.  You can try it both normally and in a clean boot, in whatever order you want.

@puzzlezaddicti completely agree. i was pretty surprised when i got the error. im going to double check again on everything that i'd put back in my mods folder for if i end up moving those over to a new save. but i couldn't find any culprits in there so far.
i believe i just use the default antivirus for my device, i bought it last month so i still have a deal automatically that assigned me one. so just Windows Security. i regularly keep a check/run scans on my device, and so i'll make sure i try that step as well with the game perhaps interfering.

thank you for the idea about the new admin. i can definitely do that, i can see why that could actually be a solution. I will work on that later today and report back with any changes. thank you 🙂

edit: I also want to note that recently i had been trying out CurseForge to manage a portion of the modding process for my game. is there any chance that negatively impacted my game? i plan to just go back to my old school mod organizing methods because over a decade's force of habit lol but i just wanted to note this as well just in case there's something that could have been impacted.

@friedn00dles666  The main problem with CurseForge, as far as I can tell, is that it offers mods that haven't been updated yet (or CurseForge hasn't received and approved the updates) as if they're fully compatible with the current patch.  So someone can download the newest available versions of their mods and still be installing content that will make Sims 4 stop working.

I wasn't aware that you'd added back your mods already.  In that case, the error may well be mod-related, and I would suggest you not use any mods until the game is stable again.  Definitely avoid CurseForge or any other mod manager that would add to or change the contents of your Mods folder automatically, at least for now.  While troubleshooting, you need to know exactly what's in that folder and why so you can keep track of everything yourself.  There is no mod manager out there that will tell you when you have an outdated or otherwise nonworking mod.