Forum Discussion

New Novice

21 days ago

Solved

The never-ending loading screen

I recently bought a brand new laptop and reinstalled the whole game from scratch on it. The loading screen just stays on forever and eventually I have to open Task Manager to get out of the game. I've read other threads about this issue and have followed a lot of the advice there. I don't have any mods installed. I've deleted the thumbcache file, totally deleted OneDrive from my computer (not that I ever even activated it on my new machine), turned off various gaming settings in Windows, repaired the game through the Origin app, and completely removed and reinstalled everything twice. I have no idea what else I should do at this point. I'd love to hear any ideas. Thanks.

launching

never cc or mods

puzzlezaddict
20 days ago
MadameQCat If the path to Documents is C:\Users\your username\Documents (exactly that, nothing else and nothing missing), then that part is fine. I think that's what you're saying, but I want to make sure.

Your dxdiag doesn't list any Sims 4-related errors, which could be because they're crowded out by other errors, but it's also possible that this issue isn't creating any errors at all. That, in turn, could be due to an antivirus blocking the game. So please make sure yours isn't interfering with Sims 4. And double-check what you're running—it's possible your laptop came with an AV pre-installed that you're not aware of, and that you might not want to use at all.

If you see any recent actions involving Sims 4, set the appropriate exceptions/exclusions. You can also disable or remove a third-party antivirus and use only Windows Defender, either as a test or permanently.

If that's not the issue, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor. Click 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 open Sims 4. 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.

4 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
21 days ago
MadameQCat When you say you deleted OneDrive, did you actually move the Documents directory out of the OneDrive folder? If not, if OneDrive is gone but Documents is still directed there, then that would explain why the game can't load—it may not be able to fully write to this folder. Point is, please find the location of Documents and we can go from there.

Search in Windows for Command Prompt, open it, copy and paste this command, and enter:

reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "Personal"

The path should be C:\Users\[your username]\Documents. If it's anything else, let me know what you see. You don't have to list your actual username, but please leave the rest intact.

If that's not the issue, please provide a dxdiag. Click Windows key-R, enter dxdiag in the run box, wait for the scan to finish, click "Save all information," and save the file to your desktop. From there, you can attach it to a reply using the paper clip (Attachment) icon included with the other formatting buttons.
MadameQCat
New Novice
21 days ago
puzzlezaddict Thank you for responding. I actually never even bothered activating OneDrive on this computer, so I'm not sure if the files would have been directed there when I installed the game.
Here is what the query result was (with my name\Documents removed from the end)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
Personal REG_SZ C:\Users\
I've also attached the DxDiag.
DxDiag.txt174 KB
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
20 days ago
MadameQCat If the path to Documents is C:\Users\your username\Documents (exactly that, nothing else and nothing missing), then that part is fine. I think that's what you're saying, but I want to make sure.

Your dxdiag doesn't list any Sims 4-related errors, which could be because they're crowded out by other errors, but it's also possible that this issue isn't creating any errors at all. That, in turn, could be due to an antivirus blocking the game. So please make sure yours isn't interfering with Sims 4. And double-check what you're running—it's possible your laptop came with an AV pre-installed that you're not aware of, and that you might not want to use at all.

If you see any recent actions involving Sims 4, set the appropriate exceptions/exclusions. You can also disable or remove a third-party antivirus and use only Windows Defender, either as a test or permanently.

If that's not the issue, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor. Click 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 open Sims 4. 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.
MadameQCat
New Novice
19 days ago
puzzlezaddict I did a little digging on my machine and found an antivirus software I wasn't aware I had. I uninstalled it and that did the trick. Thank you so much for your help with this!