Unable to start because game data is missing

@smooshnoosh  Pleasae move the entire Sims 4 user folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop.  Then try to play.  If the game loads, a clean folder will spawn with no content; you can worry about adding back your saves and other content later, but for now, just make sure a new save works.

if you get the same error, please let me know what antivirus you use.  Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

@puzzlezaddict Hi, thanks for responding.

When I tried to move the file onto my desktop, I get an error saying Error 0x8997916A: the cloud file provider is not responding.

I did close Origin to see if it would fix that but it did not.

I am using Windows Defender Antivirus.

I have attached the DxDiag to this post.

@smooshnoosh  It sounds like OneDrive might be the issue here: the error you got means it's having trouble syncing, which could also mean Sims 4 isn't able to write to a synced folder like the user folder in Documents.  Anyway, try pausing OneDrive's syncing:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-to-pause-and-resume-sync-in-onedrive-2152bfa4-a2a5-4d3a-ace8-92912fb4421e

Once you do that, it's a good idea to disable its syncing of Documents entirely, since that's likely what caused the problem in the first place.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/choose-which-onedrive-folders-to-sync-to-your-computer-98b8b011-8b94-419b-aa95-a14ff2415e85