Re: Sims 4 keeps crashing...

@puzzlezaddict thank you for your explanation. Here are screenshots for Task Manager when I turn on the laptop and dont open any app yet. 

My laptop usually sends notification about out of memory. So I try to keep everything to minimum. I dont know what consumes lots of the memory, thanks a lot for helping me sort it out.

@kanhanah  These screenshots are all of the Processes tab, which shows that your computer is using far too much memory on startup but not really why.  I need a screenshot of the Startup tab as well.

Here is the screenshot for Start-up apps. Thank you for your time.

@kanhanah  Please disable Teams and Microsoft Teams; not sure why there are two entries, but nevertheless, neither one needs to be running on startup.  The same is true for the EA launcher, MS Edge, and whatever those "Update" entries are.  (You might need to disable each one of the nine individually.)  Again, none of these need to be running all the time, and collectively they're eating a lot of memory.

Once you've changed the settings, restart your computer and check the Task Manager's Processes tab again; RAM use should be more like 25-40%.  Then run Sims 4 again and see whether it crashes.  If it does, look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.  Today is on the right.

Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of your most recent crash, specifically after disabling all the apps on startup.  If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here.  If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.

Thank you a lot. Let me try to close the unnecessary app. I will get back to you later. 

Thank you a lot for your help. I check and i think my game crashes due to out of memory. I delete the cc and unnecessary files and it works well now. Have a good day. ❤️

@Elleasia  I can certainly try.  Please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

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

Please also describe the crashes: when they happen, what you see on-screen, a screenshot of an error message if you get one.

Thank you, please see attached. 

It happens once I load my game. As soon as it loads, shortly after it just crashes with no error message.

I have gotten the breaking point error before as well.

@Elleasia  Please restart your computer, don't open any apps, and wait five minutes.  Then open the Task Manager and let me know how much memory is in use.  It'll show as a percentage, which is fine.

If it's more than about 35%, please open the TM's Startup tab, take a screenshot, and post it here.  I'd like to see if there's anything running at startup that's using memory you'd want to be available for Sims 4.

The reason I ask is because breakpoint errors can be caused by the game running out of memory, although that's not the only trigger.  It is however a common one these days.

My memory is at 68%

Attached are the screenshots.

@Elleasia  I'm not sure how your system is using 68% of installed memory just on startup, but that would be enough to cause Sims 4 to run out of memory, especially once the EA App is added in.  The first screenshot only shows Dell OSD (on-screen display) as enabled on startup, and I'd suggest disabling it for now.  It can be helpful at times, depending on how you like to make adjustments like screen brightness, but it's using a significant amount of resources, and I've seen other reports of it causing crashes and extremely high memory use.

Still, that doesn't account for the almost 3 GB RAM being used over what Windows needs for itself.  I'd suspect other Dell software, and McAfee as well.  If you don't have a particular reason to use McAfee, I'd suggest removing it and using Windows Defender instead, which is just as helpful overall and causes fewer problems.  If you do like McAfee, you can keep it; I'm just saying that all else being equal, Windows Defender is the better option.

The goal here is to cut memory use down to somewhere in the range of 35-40% on startup.  If the above doesn't get you there, please 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, check memory use again, and also look through the Task Manager's background processes list to see if anything other than Windows/AMD/Dell software and McAfee are running.  There shouldn't be anything else, but it's always helpful to check.

The clean boot isn't a long-term solution, but if it gets memory use down enough, you can start selectively reenabling services to see what does and doesn't make a difference.  It may be that one or two services make most of the difference, and you can reenable everything else.

Finally, I'd suggest removing or editing your screenshots because they show your email address.

Hello, sorry to bother you but my sims 4 keeps crashing and i thought it was CC so i deleted it but still not working. I checked my memory at its at around 60%. I disabled as many start up apps as I could but still not working idk what else i can get rid of to reduce my RAM.

@puzzlezaddict 

@pursam51  Are you saying that your RAM use is 60% after restarting your computer and with nothing open (other than the Task Manager), or it's 60% when you're playing?  The latter would be fine and not a cause for concern or a reason for the game to crash.

If your computer uses 60% of its memory on startup though, that could be a problem.  In that case, please open the Task Manager, click the Startup tab, and post a screenshot of the list of startup apps.

Regardless of what you find, please test with no mods or custom content at all, if you haven't already, and let me know whether you get another crash.  If you do, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

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

Its around 60% after restarting computer. I will attach pictures of the RAM and the startup tab. I will also try it with no custom content now and see if that helps 🙂

@pursam51  You can disable both HP services on startup.  They don't need to be running all the time, and if you need either one for whatever reason, you can launch it directly.  The Realtek entry is the audio driver, which you do want running, and Windows security is self-explanatory.

The entry in your Startup tab that's called Program is concerning.  It might be nothing, but it could also be malware, so I'd suggest running a malware scan.  Download Malwarebytes (the free trial is fine) from here:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download

Open it, click Scan (the category, not the button to start a scan) > Custom Scan > Configure Scan, check all the boxes both for all scan types and for all the drives listed, and let it do its job.  This could take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the amount of data and whether the scan finds anything., so you may want to set it to run while you're doing something else.  Please attach its report so I can take a look.

If the Program entry is still listed in the Task Manager's Startup tab after you've run Malwarebytes, right-click it and select Open file location, then list its full file path, as seen in the address bar.  If the path is cut off, which is common with longer ones, right-click the file itself (or anything in the same folder) and select Properties > General, then list the Location.

Please do also post a dxdiag regardless of the results of the above.  I need to know how much RAM you have, and what processor, especially since CPU use is even higher here.  I would also like to look for Windows errors, outdated drivers, or other potential problems.

So sorry for the delayed reply I've been on holiday! I did the malware scan I have attached the results. The program thing is still in my start up but when I right-click it, open file location is greyed out so I can't select it for some reason. I have also attached my dxdiag.

@pursam51  The malware scan looks fine, as you likely figured out on your own.  I'm not sure why you can't "open file location" on that single program, but maybe it's something left over from a now-uninstalled program.  Regardless, as long as it's disabled at startup, it's probably fine to ignore.

The fact that your laptop uses 60% of its installed RAM on startup is not surprising given it only has 4 GB installed, some of which is set aside for the graphics chip.  There's not much you can do here unless you want to upgrade the memory.  That's possible, according to what I can find on the internet, for example adding another 8 GB would cost around $20 U.S., or perhaps a bit more depending on your country.  Crucial is one option, not the only one for sure, but it guarantees compatibility with your laptop:

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/hp-compaq/hp-255-g7-(amd-ryzen)

If this isn't a possibility, the best you can do is disable everything possible before you want to play.  If you don't plan on using the Gallery, put the EA App in offline mode too; this has no consequence on the game itself aside from disabling the Gallery and not tracking your playtime.

Your dxdiag doesn't list any out of memory crashes though, so while the 4 GB RAM is probably an issue, it's not the immediate issue.  Is the game still crashing with no mods or custom content?  Do you currently notice a pattern to the crashes?  It's been a couple weeks, so the details could have changed; I'm only interested in what's happening now, say over the last few days.

I played on it today for quite a while with no custom content and there wasn't any crashes. I was on it for at least half an hour or more so I am thinking it's maybe the custom content causing this? But I have always played with some form of custom content and in the past it used to work fine.

@pursam51  Custom content can break with a new patch, although that's significantly less common than mods breaking.  Still, you can't count on your cc working indefinitely.

Custom content can also increase the game's memory use, depending on the way it's made.  While this is typically not a problem on computers with plenty of RAM, yours barely has enough for the game itself, so adding cc may push it over the edge.  I can't tell you from here whether this is the case, so you'll need to do some testing if you want to keep playing with at least some cc.  You may find that some items are fine and others are not.