repeated crashing
definitely not just you. my game has been crashing for bizarre random reasons since the updates a few days ago now. last night trying to enter lots in sulani crashed it. then trying to load a househo...
Forum Discussion
@friedn00dles666 This is an access violation, which means that the faulting module (TS4_x64.exe in this case) tried to access system memory in a way that Windows did not permit. Windows detects the violation and terminates the program. The problem here is that access violations can be caused by almost anything, from mods and custom content to in-game bugs to conflicting software to a hardware issue. So the error itself isn't helpful other than confirming that this was a Windows shutting down the game kind of crash rather than some other kind of problem.
To start with, did this particular crash happen in a new save or an existing one, and are you currently playing with any mods or custom content? Were you running anything else (other than the EA App) while you played? Are you using a premade house, one you built or renovated yourself, or one you downloaded from the Gallery?
@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to summarize, my sims wear some minimal and definitely not outdated maxis match cc, and i have quite a few mods but they're all properly installed and updated now.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:
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.
Community Highlights
- EA_Cade11 months ago
Community Manager
