Game freezing at Quit

abbyshire · January 2018

Hi. After taking a hiatus from Sims 3 for a couple of years, I've recently been trying to play it again. It's always worked like a charm for me on Windows 7.... Fast forward to Windows 10. Just in the past couple months, I've googled everything I can about my issue and tried many different recommended fixes, reinstalled base game and EPs a few times, etc., with no luck yet.

Here are the problems I'm having with Sims 3, even with only the base game installed:

Freezing/"not responding" when installing downloaded item from TS3 store: item (supposedly) installs in launcher, get the "successful" pop-up window, click OK on pop-up window, it turns black with spinning blue circle and stays that way. Ctrl Alt Del to stop task, then go back to launcher and it is frozen and needs to be force-quit. When restarting the game, the item was not installed.

Then, I set the Sims3LauncherW.exe and TS3W.exe properties to compatibility version Windows 7. After getting the black screen in the "successful" pop-up, I'm able to Ctrl Alt Del to stop that task, and the launcher is useable (not frozen) when I go back to it, but the item has not been installed.

Basically, store items and worlds appear in my game Downloads folder, launcher freezes at the “you installed it correctly” pop-up, I “stop task” and go back to launcher, item shows the “installed” icon, but doesn’t show up in game. (When I restart the game, the same item doesn’t show the installed icon and it is not installed.)

Another more aggravating issue is:

Freezing upon Quitting game. Save game, then choose Quit from launcher and screen is black with blue circle and stays that way (Save and Quit does same thing). Pressing Ctrl Alt Del brings up Task Manager screen, but clicking on "Task Manager" pops me back to the black-with-blue-circle Sims screen and I can't stop task. The only way around this is to press Windows key and choose to restart my computer. (By the way, when pressing Windows key, I'm able to still close other apps from the taskbar at bottom, but not Sims 3. Can't alt-tab into any other screen or to desktop either-- it just stays on the frozen black Sims screen.)

Changing the game options to Windowed-mode (instead of full screen, which I prefer), at least allows me to use Ctrl Alt Del and force-quit the game without restarting the computer.

Any thoughts or advice?

[Edited to add info about not being able to install any store content.]

igazor · January 2018

In both cases, I have to ask the same question. How long are you waiting on that black screen with the spinning circle cursor? There is always a tremendously long delay before the Launcher/game becomes responsive again after I get a successful sims3pack install, always has been and it seems to have gotten longer over time (and as I've added more content over the years). If I just wait it out, eventually things resolve and become responsive again. Not talking hours here, but many many minutes perhaps.

The black screen on quitting usually happens to me whether or not I've saved but when during the current game session I have not moved the game clock forward. Perhaps I was in session just to build, create/edit sims in CAS, or to look something up, but not really to "play" at that time. Others have reported it more often than that, but the game still manages to quit gracefully after "a while." When in windowed mode, I can always work with other applications (surf the web, etc.) while waiting for either condition to clear up.

Am on Win 7 myself, by the way. And in case the tremendous delay after quitting (not so much after installing something) is due to web data being slow to update, perhaps try playing offline - that is, logged off at the Launcher and in-game levels and keep the TS3 store online shopping experience switched off within Game Options if you don't already do these things.

Compatibility Mode should not be required regardless, and for most players it tends to cause more issues than it solves.

abbyshire · January 2018

Good question. I'd say the longest I've left the screen that way and came back to it (with no change) was probably about 2 hours. I've done chores, ran errands, etc. while waiting for it in the recent past. Maybe for testing purposes, I'll let it go for even longer just to see if it ever stops without my intervention.

abbyshire · January 2018

*sigh* I miss Windows 7 for so many reasons. It was the most streamlined, least bloated, least problematic Windows OS thus far. It's like a reliable old friend.... I should probably just go back to it.

igazor · January 2018

I don't know if this is the case with your current computer, but a lot of players have had trouble in general, not just on sims games, with Win 7 and 8 machines that have been updated to Win 10 -- that is, as opposed to one that is wiped (reformatted) and had a clean install of Win 10 done. Or one that shipped with Win 10 installed at the "factory." And some computers are just not going to handle Win 10 very well at all as they aren't really capable of running it.

abbyshire · January 2018

Thanks so much for your help and info. The current computer that I'm using is a fairly new Sager gaming laptop that I purchased with the "less bloat" option of Wndows 10 (you can choose to either have the whole mess of the OS or streamlined with fewer bloatware apps). Which leads me to ask if you think it could be that I'm missing some system bloatware app? Hmmm.

Or, have you heard about any issues with Sims 3 on a machine with an SSD and an HDD? In my case, the system and Sims game files are on the SSD C drive and the Electronic Arts folder is in the user Documents folder on the D drive.

Aside from these weird closing out task issues, the game runs fine without noticeable lag or glitches while in the game. I know laptops are generally frowned upon for playing Sims, but I played it with all expansions installed (!) for years on my old HP Pavilion laptop without issue as long as I had an external fan going.

Thanks again for your vast knowledge!

igazor · January 2018

There is nothing wrong with playing this game on a laptop, it's just that laptops require stronger components than desktops do to get the same or similar performance out of them.

There is also nothing wrong with having an SSD/HDD combo. But how large (in GBs) is this SSD? If it is too tight on space, then the game should have been installed on the HDD instead and the user Documents folder in its entirety, thus including the user game folder, should have been redirected at the Windows level to the HDD also. If 128 GB or smaller, both of the above practically become a necessity to allow Windows the space it needs to operate on that SSD. If 256 GB it's almost a toss-up although there will still be frequent struggles to keep enough free space going, if the SSD is larger than that then the entire install and Documents folders could have stayed on the SSD.

I cannot answer the Win 10 "less bloat" streamlined option question but sounds like that wouldn't make much difference here. Paging a Win 10 expert for more assurance.
@chesterbigbird

abbyshire · January 2018

Hi. To answer your question, the SSD is 475 gb capacity with 295 gb free.

igazor · January 2018

Unless I am missing something then, there isn't any reason why the user game folder needs to be on the HDD.

abbyshire · January 2018

I was able to experiment a little more tonight and it turns out the location of the EA folder (on C vs D) sadly doesn’t make a difference in this issue, nor does disabling full screen, disabling memories, disabling the shop and online notifications, and playing offline. So irritating. That was a good tip about playing to advance the in-game clock before quitting (because I’m always in build mode creating or redoing something), so I even made sure to do that. I’ll just have to keep experimenting and post a solution if I find one, in case someone else has the issue.

Thanks again for your input!

igazor · January 2018

This may not help at all, I do seem to be batting a zero here, but there is one more thing you might try if you don't already do this. Delete the FeaturedItems folder in its entirety. Create and save a text document in Notepad, Wordpad, doesn't matter, call it FeaturedItems, and with extensions showing in Windows lop off the resulting .txt or .rtf or whatever extension. Put that document in your user game folder.

Since the game cannot attempt to inject it's "Featured" stuff into what is really a document and not a folder, and it cannot create a new folder since an object by that name in the right place exists already, if this is possibly the cause of these black screens on quitting, it may help.

abbyshire · January 2018

Thank you for the latest idea but that didn’t work either. Another thing I tried was to quit to the Main Menu and try to exit that way, but it still froze with the black screen. I’m running out of things to try.... I’m not even playing the game anymore because I feel challenged to find out what the problem is and fix it, haha.

Not to mention, it’s a bit of a boring game without being able to install any store venues or worlds.

It was interesting that back in Fall 2016, some Sims 4 players were experiencing a similar issue:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/919091/game-crashes-upon-save-exit

phoebebebe13 · January 2018

@igazor did you cover one drive or possible windows creator update for windows 10?

@abbyshire Sims 4 is programmed completely differently than the sims 3. The sims 4 reasons for crashing would have nothing to do with the sims 3

igazor · January 2018

OneDrive didn't seem to be a likely culprit here as we have already been talking about Documents folders on C vs. D. But yes, if the "Documents" folders in question are really within OneDrive's directory or control, then that could be a contributing issue.

On the Creators Update, yes that could also be a factor. Not sure if this is still up to date information now, but we have this helpful post:
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15902876/#Comment_15902876

abbyshire · January 2018

phoebebebe13 wrote: »

@igazor did you cover one drive or possible windows creator update for windows 10?

@abbyshire Sims 4 is programmed completely differently than the sims 3. The sims 4 reasons for crashing would have nothing to do with the sims 3

@phoebebebe13 Yes, I realize that, but many in the Sims 4 thread seem to attribute the problem with Windows 10 and possibly the Win 10 Creator Update, which I found interesting and have been looking into. Thanks for the OneDrive tip, but it’s not an issue in this case.

@igazor Thanks for that link!

phoebebebe13 · January 2018

@abbyshire the sims 4 sometimes has issues with saves that has nothing to do with windows 10 though both 3 and 4 have issues with one drive and creator update

I know there is a thread in here somewhere on fixes for creator update. @igazor may know where that thread is

igazor · January 2018

phoebebebe13 wrote: »

I know there is a thread in here somewhere on fixes for creator update. @igazor may know where that thread is

Already provided, refresh your screen and scroll up.

abbyshire · January 2018

You guys are probably tired of seeing my responses

, but there was a new development! After following @Dusty_Boots instructions in igazor's link, I was able to play the base game without freezing on quit! Everything worked as normal (in windowed-mode only, not full screen mode) and I could download and actually install items from the store. YAY! Thank you guys for your help!

However, when I tried enabling any EP (only tried up to Late Night), it still froze at quit just as described in my original post. So odd.

I think what I'll try next is to uninstall everything, reinstall, then see if Dusty's instructions work and take it from there.

Thanks so much for the tips, info, and links provided by both of you, @phoebebebe13 and @igazor .

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Game freezing at Quit

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