The Sims 4 is already running” Error – After Complete Cleanup

Hello,

I previously had a cracked version of The Sims 4 installed on my system. I have completely removed it and installed the official licensed version via the EA App.

However, every time I try to launch the game, I get the error:

“Unable to start: The Sims 4 is already running.”

I have already tried the following steps:

• Uninstalled and reinstalled the EA App
• Terminated all EA-related processes via Task Manager and Command Prompt
• Deleted all folders related to EA and The Sims 4 under AppData, ProgramData, Documents, and Prefetch
• Cleared all registry entries with CCleaner
• Deleted lastsession.lock and cache files under the EA App directories
• Performed a clean boot disabling all third-party services and startup programs

Despite all these steps, the EA App still believes the game is running even though it is not. There are no processes like TS4_x64.exe or EALauncher.exe in the background, and nothing appears in Task Manager.

I would appreciate any help or official guidance to resolve this issue. Thank you in advance.