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milkypopp's avatar
milkypopp
7 months ago
Solved

Sims 4 - Steam + EA mix platform technical issues?

A few months ago I've noticed this issue with Sims 4 if you have the game purchased through steam and it auto downloads EA. I've done many technical runs and tried every possibility. 

I've noticed people who purchase strictly through EA do not come into contact with this issue. I have many sims packs on steam + a few on EA, so in my case it runs off steam mainly, but needs EA to run.

  1. Yes, I play with mods. I have also taken out all my mods for this run test + deleted the localcache file every time.
  2. Ran the game without any mods, still would not load the game. The play button for sims on the steam library will be loading the game then it will instantly go back to play. While EA is running in the background. (I have seen a post that said to disable background services via EA, that is auto turned on when installing the EA app, i've also tried this, have seen another post saying disable background downloads, i have ALSO tried this.)
  3. I learned eventually, at this point the only fix for this option is to ultimately restart my PC for this to fix. Which it does fix it and the game runs fine for hours until i close the game and play another game. When going back to sims it will have this issue again of not wanting to open unless I reset the pc. (Please do not say this is a mod issue, I have ran these tests constantly without any mod folder inside my game.)
  4. Force closing EA + Steam and reopening them would just cause the game to say it is already running, which it was not. The play button on steam was there, when I would play it, would say "Game is already running". I would wait a few minutes to see if maybe it was launching slowly, never would open.
  5. I finally found out a second fix for the issue, I would open the EA app > Help > App Recovery. This will clear the cache and restart the EA app. Then I would go to steam, Library > Sims 4 > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of the game files. This will cause it to load for a few minutes, verifying the integrity of the sims 4 files I guess. Then from there I have to force close the steam APP, then once opening sims 4 through steam then will it open again. This is the only fix I have found besides having to reset my whole PC.
  6. Was wondering if it was a firewall issue, so I allowed everything with sims through firewall.
  7. Set the EA app + Steam to run as administrator.

None of these things have helped besides me constantly doing #5, if not wanting to restart my PC every time I want to play sims. I have seen similar posts of this happening to people with no fix outcome. No, I do not use a VPN or anything like that. I have a very good PC, good enough to run this game. It runs every other game fine, I feel like the outcome is a cross platform issue with having packs on steam + ea bought? Not quite sure, but regardless it needs EA to run sims 4. I was so tired of this issue i did a clean install of both apps (Steam + EA) and took the risk of having to uninstall all my other games in hopes it was a bug and needed to be clean reinstalled. But NOPE, waisted hours of my time, and it's quite annoying. This stated a few months ago kind of after that rental update. I've seen some other people complain about this and EA says it's your PC. I run many higher running games on my PC and paid good money for it and this is the only game I have issues with.

Like I said i truly think it's an issue with steam + EA mixing together to run the game, not sure what could have happened as I played the game for months with no issues until recent updates. Tried endlessly to fix it and there is no fix I can find..

pc
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    7 months ago

    @milkypopp  Have you tried specifically killing the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager?  It stays open for me after I've closed the App even though I have background services disabled.

    Additionally, have you checked your antivirus settings for anything that might be interfering with Sims 4, or even temporarily disabled the antivirus to see whether it made a difference?  I obviously wouldn't suggest that anyone go without an antivirus entirely, but it's a helpful test and also safe if nothing else is running at the same time.

    Finally, try deleting these files if you haven't already:

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/PC/CURRENT-ISSUE-Sims-4-already-running/m-p/13785451#M277450

    I have definitely seen a few cases of this in the past couple weeks, but not enough, given the number of Steam users, to suggest that this is a universal issue.  I'm not saying it isn't a problem at all, or even an EA-side problem, only that there must be more factors than simply the EA-Steam tie-in.

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  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    7 months ago

    @milkypopp  Have you tried specifically killing the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager?  It stays open for me after I've closed the App even though I have background services disabled.

    Additionally, have you checked your antivirus settings for anything that might be interfering with Sims 4, or even temporarily disabled the antivirus to see whether it made a difference?  I obviously wouldn't suggest that anyone go without an antivirus entirely, but it's a helpful test and also safe if nothing else is running at the same time.

    Finally, try deleting these files if you haven't already:

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/PC/CURRENT-ISSUE-Sims-4-already-running/m-p/13785451#M277450

    I have definitely seen a few cases of this in the past couple weeks, but not enough, given the number of Steam users, to suggest that this is a universal issue.  I'm not saying it isn't a problem at all, or even an EA-side problem, only that there must be more factors than simply the EA-Steam tie-in.

  • absolvo_cat's avatar
    absolvo_cat
    7 months ago

    While I have not done such a thorough job as OP (wow, you're so patient for sticking through all this!) I am experiencing a similar problem. This has happened to me more than several times throughout multiple updates. 

    1. For me, it started happening again after the basegame + lovestruck update. Since then I have had two separate cases of this. 

    2. Like in OP's case, I click Play on Steam, it thinks for a bit, then resets to Play again. 

    3. Both times I have run a verification of system files. It said some files were broken and apparently redownloaded (what is even funnier, the number of files was different every time, something like 28 and 4). That didn't help. Except this time it also asked for admin permissions (granted) upon launch. Then it reset to Play again. 

    3a. I had first blamed it on my mods, which is totally logical since they break after every patch, so I HAVE removed Mods and cleared the caches. 

    4. I read somewhere that the EA app was broken. So I went on to open the EA app manually. When I pressed Play in Steam, it tried to bring up the EA app, the app said there's an error, I reloaded it somehow (don't remember exactly), and on the second try the game actually launched. 

    5. A couple days later (obviously my computer was restarted since then), same issue. This time repairing files through Steam and launching the EA app manually didn't help. Same issue. So I downloaded it, it gave an error on launch, and suggested I restart. So I did and this time the game worked. Now folks, if you don't do a restart at this step, it will not fix itself. 

    To reiterate: 

    1. Occurs sparingly, but is extremely annoying. 

    2. I have definitely tried launching without Mods. I have cleared cache files. 

    3. Since I have found a workaround, I will not be reinstalling my whole game. I will not be gathering files, creating new saves, anything else. This is informational for other users who encounter this issue. I will not waste my time standing in for EA's quality control which are apparently so overworked and underpaid that they did not test the basic functionality of actually launching the game from a platform that brings the company millions. 

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