sims 4 doesn't load my games or Sims; acts like a totally new game?

@76345a  It sounds like OneDrive may have gobbled more files, this time your saves.  Please check there for your missing content; if you find any, put it back in the local version of Documents where it belongs.

If you don't see your saves in OneDrive, search your hard drive instead.  Open a File Explorer window, click This PC in the left panel, and enter Slot_ in the search field in the upper right corner of the screen.  That should turn up any saves on your computer, and again you can put them back where they belong.

Either way, if you're missing other files, they should be in the same place as the saves are, and you can move them back too.

@76345a  Lots of people have had OneDrive issues of some kind, and usually the easiest intervention is to disable it entirely.  If you don't want to do that, you can instead tell it to stop syncing the contents of Documents:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/choose-which-onedrive-folders-to-sync-to-your-computer-98b8b011-8b94-419b-aa95-a14ff2415e85

Please also let me know whether your system's Documents directory is pointing to OneDrive.  Open a File Explorer window, right-click on Documents in the left panel, select Properties > Location, and you'll see a file path that does or does not include OneDrive.

Just to clarify... PDPDPD is me     pdpdp is One Drive 

Quick Access Documents : NO  points to E:\GAME BACKUPS FROM PDPDPD\pdpdp

this location is on my backup drive

"This PC": E:\GAME BACKUPS FROM PDPDPD\pdpdp\pdpdp\OneDrive

One Drive Documents : C:\Users\pdpdp\OneDrive and shares with \\SIMS\Users\pdpdp\OneDrive\Documents\Electronic Arts 

so it is sharing with itself?

C:\Users\PDPDPD\Documents\  Unsure because it has a sharing                 with \\SIMS\Users\PDPDPD\Documents but no location tab

C:\Users\pdpdp\Documents no location but apparently shares with itself: \\SIMS\Users\pdpdp

So both versions on C: are not communicating.

E:\Game Backups from PDPDPD\pdpdp\pdpdp\OneDrive\Documents  this is a back up drive does that count?  I have several pretty much redundant backups of TS4 on my E: drive.

I like One Drive in that it gives me a terrabyte storage but actually don't like it gobbling my Sims files, as they are ever changing. 

I hope you can figure it out, puzzle lover... it certainly IS a puzzle!

Ea has been sorely lacking with finding out what's wrong.  Last night I waited for 3 1/2 hours for them to call me, gave up! went to bed cross-eyed!

Hopefully I will be better tonight.  Going to read that article you sent now. 🙂  Really, thank you so much.  I'm glad you took this on.

Also included with thos unexractables were localthumbcache and  localthumbcache-sims...I will look and see if there are backups anywhere 

@76345a  This kind of sounds like a mess, to be honest.  Some of it is normal, e.g. OneDrive pointing to or sharing with a couple different locations.  Some of it seems unnecessarily convoluted.  I can try to unpack it with you if you'd like, but the easiest solution might be to create a new admin account and move your files to that one.  That way, you can set it up exactly as you'd like, in terms of both Documents itself and OneDrive, rather than trying to untangle this mess.

Just to be clear, something like this:

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C:\Users\pdpdp\Documents no location but apparently shares with itself: \\SIMS\Users\pdpdp

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doesn't mean the Documents folder is sharing with itself, it means it's apparently sharing with or pointing to some other folder in a separate directory you've created and labeled SIMS.  Perhaps it's on your external drive?

The files you tried to extract are not meant to be read by anything except Sims 4.  They're also irrelevant in that the game will create or recreate them as necessary.

Well, as far as I can see, it's when I did the TS4 update that really messed things up with the green dot and having to sign out to get out of the game.

I had all my sims sorted out well and sent a bunch of them through university ☹️  the houses that I built! arrrrrrrgh!

I will try to stop One Drive from saving and Sims games.

I am so depressed. You can imagine.

I'm glad the files I tried to extract are not extractable!

It's OneDrive. Business applications are not meant to be on gaming machines.

It should have been choosable, not mandatory. I'm 71 I really don't need this mess!

So you think I should just start over again?

Yikes.

If you have any ideas, please write them here.

Thanks for trying.

@76345a  I'm not suggesting you start over with your content, or with a new OneDrive/Microsoft account.  My suggestion for a new user account was so that you'd have all default settings and could configure them in a simpler way than your current setup.  The process would be something like this:

• Create new local account on your computer (i.e. don't sign into Microsoft or anything else)
• Launch Sims 4 once, confirm that user folder is in Documents > Electronic Arts where it should be
• Sign into OneDrive and configure its settings so that it's not allowed to automatically sync Sims 4 content
• If you want, move the Documents directory elsewhere
• Launch Sims 4 again, create a save, and make sure that save lands in the correct location
• Move your existing saves and Tray files to the new account

If you'd rather not do all of this though, we can try to work through your current setup.  It's your choice, obviously, since it's your computer.  And I understand why you'd like OneDrive, but at this point, allowing it to automatically sync anything at all can be more trouble than it's worth.  So even if it's less convenient, it's probably better to at least block it from touching your Sims 4 folder.  You can of course set it up to sync other folders, that's not difficult, and you can manually sync your game content whenever you want.

Ok I have been fiddling around a bit....

I asked Origin to repair my TS4 and lo and behold it gave me this: 

"We detected that the Content Delivery Network used to deliver your game content has a local IP. This can happen when you are using a local cache server to distribute game content locally, for example at LAN parties. In order for local caching to function, you must first disable TLS encryption between Origin and the CDN,  Disabling TLS means your game content is delivered insecurely.  If you are not part of a LAN gaming event or host a local CDN cache server, we do not recommend you do this unless you understand the risks TLSfor game downloads will remain desabled until they are manually reset, or when    Origin client is restarted or a change in network connection is detected.  You can also change this setting manually by navigating to Application Settings>Diagnostics>Troubleshooting.Safe mode downloading." 

Then it gives me a choice to disable safe downloads or "Not Now" 

So if the downloading is coming from my MS OneDrive accountwhich is presumably safe and I do not stray from the game and reset this thingamabob after playing....?  What do you think?