ctrl + alt + esc and win button not minimizing The Sims anymore - Help?

flowerofavalon87

Hoping someone can help me here, as I can't contact EA help at the moment (different time zones), and I apologise if there's already a thread for this, I couldn't see one...

So just the other day I opened the game as usual, after it had updated with the latest (September) patch. And I went to minimize the game using ctrl + alt + esc, as I usually do without a problem, but this time it wouldn't minimize. It just brings up a white, windowed screen of the Sims with nothing but an x to click on. If I press the windows button, it brings up the same thing but with the windows toolbar as well, like this:

But it won't let me click on anything other than the Sims icon. I've tried bringing up Task manager as well, but that also can't be clicked on and it stays behind the Sims window. I've also tried to change my settings to Windowed mode and Windowed Fullscreen mode to see if that would help, but it just defaults back to Fullscreen without giving me a choice to keep the settings or not. I tried to repair the game in Origin and restarted the comp, but it's still got the problem...

Is anyone else having this problem since the last patch?

Also worth noting, I accidentally updated Win 10 with the Creators update, which I didn't want, so I rolled back to the previous version, which I don't know, maybe that caused the problem? It all happened around the same time as the patch...

Thanks in advance for any help

rosemow

Hello
I am sorry that you are having these issues

If you have cc/mods in your game, move your mods folder to the desktop. Then start the game and see if the issues are still there.

Try resetting the sims 4 folder, and starting a new save game, and test to see if the issue remains. To do that, move your sims 4 folder ( that is in Documents -Electronic Arts - then the sims 4 folder is there ) to the desktop. Then start the game, and a new sims 4 folder will be generated.
Start a new game, play for a little while , and then test to see if the issue occurs when you do the same things in that new save game.
Exit the game and then copy back the "options.ini" or "options" file and the "saves" , "screenshots" "tray" "custom music " and "mods" folders from the desktop sims 4 folder to the new sims 4 folder, replacing the new generated file/ folders with the old file/folders from the desktop sims 4 folder.

flowerofavalon87

Thank you for your suggestions @rosemow

I don't use mods or cc, so I skipped that step. But I tried the new save game suggestion, and unfortunately that didn't solve the problem

rosemow

I am sorry that you have this issue
Try using alt + tab
Or use the windows +M keys and see if the isssue remains.

You can use windowed mode by doing this
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/the-sims/the-sims-4/playing-the-sims-4-in-windowed-mode

flowerofavalon87

Thanks again @rosemow The windowed mode thing worked, which is great! I think I probably still need to contact EA, because it still glitches when I try to go back to fullscsreen mode, something's obviously not quite right. But windowed fullscreen mode is a good fix for now. Thank you so much for your help!

rosemow

You're welcome