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honeyybucket's avatar
honeyybucket
Rising Scout
11 months ago
Solved

Sims 4 Won't Launch on Windows 11

I have updated my drivers (uninstalled the old ones), repaired the game, cleared my EA App cache, and deleted the CC that I thought was causing this problem. I still can't get it to launch!

  • @honeyybucket  The fact that your game launched properly when you moved the user folder means the problem is something in that folder.  So you'll need to sort through its contents to find the culprit.  Test your mods and custom content first.  You can start with this list of mods and cc known to be broken:

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/Mods-CC-Issues/Broken-Obsolete-and-Updated-Sims-4-Mods-1-108-July-23-2024-Game/td-p/13891143

    For everything else, you'll need to test yourself.  The 50/50 method can make the process a lot more efficient.

    https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content#The_50.25_Method

    Once you've done that, you can move over the contents of saves, Tray (saved households and builds), Screenshots and Recorded Videos if you care about those, plus the UserSetting.ini file for the login rewards.  The rest can be discarded.

    It's not directly related to your Sims 4 issue, but I also wanted to say that your C drive is very low on free storage.  It's time to start moving some data to D, which is just as fast as C and has plenty of space.  Aim for at least 25 GB free on C, so 15 GB more than now, although more is better since it means you won't have to do this again as soon.

3 Replies

  • @honeyybucket  All the errors in your dxdiag are from failed Windows updates, so it's best to clean those up first.  Please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:

    • Hit Windows key-X
    • Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
    • Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
    • The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
    • After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
    • Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
    • Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
    • Post the message you receive here

    Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates.  If any install, restart again afterwards.

    For the Sims 4 issues, please try playing in a clean user folder.  Move the entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, and when you launch the game, if it launches, a clean folder will spawn with no content.  (Your saves and other content will be intact in the folder you moved but temporarily not read by the game.)  Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just let me know whether you can get far enough to start a new save and play in live mode for a bit.

    If that doesn't help, let me know what you see when you try to launch the game, for example an error message or a brief black screen.  Please also 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 attempt to launch Sims 4, specifically after you've done the steps I listed.  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.

  • honeyybucket's avatar
    honeyybucket
    Rising Scout
    10 months ago

    @puzzlezaddictI meant to do this and reply much sooner, but I was traveling.
    I completed the updates and the scans, when the sfc /scannow completed, it gave me this message: "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

    I moved my Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and managed to launch the game and play in live mode with a clean user folder. I checked on perfmon /rel and there were no errors.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    10 months ago

    @honeyybucket  The fact that your game launched properly when you moved the user folder means the problem is something in that folder.  So you'll need to sort through its contents to find the culprit.  Test your mods and custom content first.  You can start with this list of mods and cc known to be broken:

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/Mods-CC-Issues/Broken-Obsolete-and-Updated-Sims-4-Mods-1-108-July-23-2024-Game/td-p/13891143

    For everything else, you'll need to test yourself.  The 50/50 method can make the process a lot more efficient.

    https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content#The_50.25_Method

    Once you've done that, you can move over the contents of saves, Tray (saved households and builds), Screenshots and Recorded Videos if you care about those, plus the UserSetting.ini file for the login rewards.  The rest can be discarded.

    It's not directly related to your Sims 4 issue, but I also wanted to say that your C drive is very low on free storage.  It's time to start moving some data to D, which is just as fast as C and has plenty of space.  Aim for at least 25 GB free on C, so 15 GB more than now, although more is better since it means you won't have to do this again as soon.