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talon027's avatar
talon027
2 years ago
Solved

Sims 4 Won't Launch

The Sims 4 will not launch no matter what I try. The problem seems to be primarily with the EA app, since when I launch it in Steam it lists as "running," then opens the EA app which does not run the game. I have tried removing my mods, shutting down and resetting my computer, clearing the cache of both the EA and Steam apps, repairing the game in Steam, uninstalling and reinstalling the game entirely (which worked once, then encountered the same issue when I tried again). I don't know what the issue is, and have been trying different suggested solutions for a week. The game was working last week, and wasn't having any obvious performance issues, so the problem doesn't seem like it's my computer.

pc
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    2 years ago

    @talon027  Please uninstall the EA App with Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine), then restart your computer and reinstall.

    If that doesn't help, please create a new admin Windows account and try playing there.  Make it local, as in, don't link it to your Microsoft account.  You'll be able to (try to) launch Sims 4 without reinstalling anything.  If this works, it points to an issue with your main Windows account; if not, we can look elsewhere.

    Please continue to run both launchers as an admin while testing.

6 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    2 years ago

    @talon027  Try opening both Steam and the EA App as an admin: right-click each one's desktop shortcut and select "Run as administrator."

    If that doesn't help, please try playing in a clean user folder.  Move the entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop; if the folder copies instead of moving, or you get an error when trying to move it, stop here and let me know.

    Otherwise, 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 either, please pause OneDrive syncing, which you can do by right-clicking the cloud icon in the lower-right corner of the screen.

  • talon027's avatar
    talon027
    2 years ago

    Opening both apps as admin leads to the same result.

    I moved my Sims 4 folder out of my documents without issue, then tried to run the game again. It still didn't launch, and didn't create a new folder either.

    I paused OneDrive syncing as well, while running both apps as admin and with my Sims 4 folder on my desktop, but the game still didn't launch.

    If it helps, whenever I try to launch the game through Steam, EA will open a tab showing a loading bar reading "Preparing Game," then it puts me at the EA app's home screen.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    2 years ago

    @talon027  Please uninstall the EA App with Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine), then restart your computer and reinstall.

    If that doesn't help, please create a new admin Windows account and try playing there.  Make it local, as in, don't link it to your Microsoft account.  You'll be able to (try to) launch Sims 4 without reinstalling anything.  If this works, it points to an issue with your main Windows account; if not, we can look elsewhere.

    Please continue to run both launchers as an admin while testing.

  • talon027's avatar
    talon027
    2 years ago

    Uninstalling and reinstalling EA with Revo Uninstaller worked! Thank you so much for all your help!

  • KingRayVeteran's avatar
    KingRayVeteran
    Rising Veteran
    2 years ago

    Dang, I wished these things worked for me. I've tried everything but creating a different user account and trying to start it that way. I do not want to create another account using a different Microsoft account. Not on this machine I don't. I also moved the program files to another drive. And, all the other games I have from EA start fine. What's wrong with The Sims 4? I haven't been able to launch TS4 since early yesterday morning. Tried various things all night and after I woke up. So frustrating, because this is isolated at this game, not any other EA game.

  • KingRayVeteran's avatar
    KingRayVeteran
    Rising Veteran
    2 years ago

    Well, before doing all this, I kind of figured out what to do, but not how to find the corrupt culprit(s) yet. I couldn't rename the game folder because something always opened it after rebooting. So I moved all the contents out of 'The Sims' folder to another folder called 'The Sims Saves'. Fired up the game and it worked, but my original game configuration isn't present to the game. Trying to find/delete the files that went bad is going to be a tightrope. I think I saw years ago some files that get recreated and I must find that post.

    The other suggestions are overkill compared to this simple one first.

    Now the hunt for those TS4 game files I can safely delete without messing up all my Worlds & Sim Families. Almost all of the Worlds are full (99%), so I must put that folder back without that EA app stalling to launch my game. Wish it was more consistent and produced errors about why it can't launch the game + which files are involved. That's an engineering task I know won't happen.

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