@ITurner_Anzac Please try disabling McAfee, if you haven't already. Even though it's not on the list of current offenders, an overzealous antivirus can always cause this kind of issue.
If that doesn't help, try playing while your computer is offline. Restart first, sign into Origin, put it in offline mode, then disable wifi and/or unplug the ethernet cable before launching the game.
If that doesn't help either, please try a clean boot:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-boot-windows-10
You'll also need to go through the Task Manager's background tasks list and end any task that doesn't need to be running, for example MSI Afterburner or similar software. Some of these programs don't respond to a clean boot, so they need to be shut down manually.
Hi @puzzlezaddict I tried disabling the wifi, this didn't work. Whilst offline I disabled McAfee and this also had no effect, but perhaps I need to be connected for this to have an effect?
I have done a Windows clean boot as well, really hoping it was going to work but alas, still no success.
Perhaps I will need to just keep the game permanently on and let it load for 8 hours or whatever it took before? Seems daft though for a modern system!
Not sure if I mentioned before, the screen doesn't freeze, rather the green diamond just spins and the annoying music plays. So it's doing something but won't go past this point. Sorry this is being completely bizarre!!
@ITurner_Anzac You certainly don't need to apologize for having such a strange issue. And you definitely shouldn't have to let the game load for hours and leave it running indefinitely; that would also not be great for the health of either your saves or your system overall, although in the short-term it would probably be fine.
Try playing in a new user account on your computer. Make it an admin account, and be sure to use only letters and numbers in the username, no special symbols, accents, etc. You shouldn't have to redownload Origin or your game, although your saves and other content won't be accessible. (You can move them over later if this helps, but leave that for now.) If you get the same delays in the new user account—you really only need to wait a few minutes, not hours, to see whether this helps—please go the clean boot/no internet route again, just to see whether it helps.
@puzzlezaddict aha finally something worked!! The game loads fine on a new admin account, so there must be something up with my personal account. I played a bit and made some test sims, saved, closed reopened and it works fine and loads within about 5 seconds. But if I switch back to my own account it just sits there. Very strange!!
@ITurner_Anzac It's definitely strange, but permissions can get broken and other data corrupted, often for no identifiable reason. If you want to keep trying to fix your current account, let me know, but you could also just use the new account instead.
One common cause of an admin account not running a game is a nonstandard character (a special symbol, an accent, etc.) in the username. So if your username has one, you can try changing it; that would be an easy fix. Otherwise, it can be a bit more difficult to find the root cause.
@puzzlezaddict I am quite ok using another account, not a problem as I think otherwise it will continue to be a headache!! I'm wondering if it's because I set up my PC with my old hotmail account which is now outlook live, so my account name is my email address even though it just says my name when I login. Who nows?!
Thank you so so much for all your help with this, I will know what to do if anything like this happens again! :D
*knows not nows!! Dear oh dear...
@ITurner_Anzac It's possible the @ in your account name is causing this trouble, although I don't know why it would be a problem some of the time but not otherwise. Origin can be weird like that.
@ITurner_Anzac wrote:
*knows not nows!! Dear oh dear...
We've all been there. You can also edit a post by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner.
Doh! :-P
Community Manager
