Please help - Paul.dll crashing my game.

[ShayyBayy]

I have had the sims 3 and EPs for over 2 years now, on my other computer they run just fine. 

i recently got a new computer, 2 actually; the one I had before was Asus with Windows 8 and ran the game flawlessly, but whenever I try to install an EP it crashes before even opening the game. 

I gave up for awhile and just played the base game, (the base game works PERFECTLY, high settings and everything.. its ONLY the EPs that will not work.) but after university came out, I wanted all of the EPs I paid for (over 200 dollars worth). 

I tried installing late night today, and when opening the launcher (i've NEVER been able to patch the game through the launcher) I patched late night manually and everything seemed fine - went to run the game and BAM "TS3E303 has stopped working" appears before even LOADING the game. I have not tried with any other of my EP's yet, because I assume they will all do the same. 

I have been working on this for 8 hours so far and NOTHING. 
I have changed the DEP to accept the late night executable file 
I have used a registry fixer/cleaner 
I have google nonstop to try to fix this issue 
I have taken my mods folder out 
I also went into my game bin and copied "paul.dll" and copied it into the sims 3 university's game bin, to no avail. 
AND I HAVE REINSTALLED ORIGIN AND THE BASE GAME ABOUT 8 TIMES. It DOESN'T work. 

I don't know what to do at this point - talking to EA reps does my head in because they explain the simplest of things and when nothing works they result to "uninstall and reinstall" which CLEARLY doesn't work. I don't think they know anything about the game to begin with. 

So please can someone here please know what to do, I'M AT A LOSS and about to just give up playing my game because of these errors. 

The error - "TS3EP09 has stopped working." 

These are the details: 
Problem signature: 
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH 
Application Name: TS3EP09.exe 
Application Version: 0.0.0.0 
Application Timestamp: 00000000 
Fault Module Name: PAUL.DLL 
Fault Module Version: 4.1.1.19 
Fault Module Timestamp: 4c4dcdca 
Exception Code: c0000094 
Exception Offset: 0001bd7b 
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3 
Locale ID: 1033 
Additional Information 1: ee1b 
Additional Information 2: ee1b5f09a3af73d335568e0e62f0011b 
Additional Information 3: 58e6 
Additional Information 4: 58e6f7a5273050f3082f7f1ab16b9053

[sponeil]

 I'm having the exact same problem. Trying everything from reinstalling to disabling DEP to compatibility mode changes to switching drivers. It crashes in Paul.dll silently as soon as I click the Play button from the launcher.

[crinrict]

I would delete that file that you copied from whereever you copied it from. Do not make changes to the installation folder unless you know what you're doing.

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Did you try the factory reset described in this post: http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/FAQ-Troubleshooting-Steps/td-p/714/ ?

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Could you post your Computer's DxDiag?

To gather a DxDiag on your computer, please follow the steps here: http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/HOW-TO-DxDiag-for-Sims-3-PC-Only/td-p/1049584/

[tornnight]

OMG. I Finally Finally figured this out.

OK. So I have a Intel Core-i7 4770k processor which has variable speed control depending on how hard it is working. Various other people have processors that do the same thing.

Mine happens to default to 800MHz when it isn't doing anything and up to 4300MHz when it is fully active.

Turns out that EACore.dll doesn't like it if the CPU/Processor is reporting a very low speed.

Anyhow, I forced my processor to run at a specific speed e.g. 3500 MHz which was reported in (My Computer -> Properties)

Note that the reported processor speed is what is important. The FAR RIGHT number in the "Processor:" line.

And then Origin Works!

Sims 3 Works and connects to Origin

This fixes the following bugs that are over the place.

Crashing dlls/executables

PAUL.dll

EACore.dll

OriginLegacyCLI.exe

And even some login issues some people have.

Multiple tools that Origin uses goes through EACore.dll so this is a cause for many different types of failures.

I found my way to this solution because someone else was having login issues with his AMD 955 processor and found out that switching in another processor with fixed timing fixed it.