[ARCHIVED] Game Freeze/ Extended Loading Times/ Save Game Bloating [ Edited ]

[sjr159]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.68.154.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Cats and dogs, city living, dine out, discover university, eco lifestyle, get famous, get to work, island living, journey to batuu, jungle adventure, outdoor retreat, parenthood, realm of magic, seasons, spa day, strangerville, vampires, backyard stuff, bowling night stuff, fitness stuff, movie hangout stuff, my first pet stuff, perfect patio stuff, romantic garden stuff, toddler stuff.
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Play the game in live mode and within a few moments the time on the game clock will freeze.
What happens when the bug occurs? The game clock stops and I am unable to do anything in the game. There is still some movement on the screen such as weather and trees moving. The game is also taking much longer to load and and when I try to save the game the spinning wheel just keeps going round and does not do anything.
What do you expect to see? The game clock to continue in normal time and to be able to play the game.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. Patch on November 10 2020

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Thank you

Edit By Crinrict: Adjusted Title

[crinrict · Accepted solution]

As EA fixed the main issue of this thread, I would ask you all to post in different threads, depending on your issues. I don't want anyone to miss out on help because they post here. There are several issues going on and it's best to keep them seperate.

I've made a new thread for the Father Winter issue here: 

If you need help, please post there: Game Freezing because of Father Winter (Aftermath Patch 1.69.57)

If you have the platform freezes, use this thread: Routing Issues with Platform freeze the game

For other issues, it's best to receive help in the tech forums of your platforms 

Other Issues on Console

XB1 and PS4 have lots of crashing. As I'm not a console player, I don't know the details. Please refer to these thread for details. 

• [Read First][Current Issues] Game Issues or Crashes Patch 1.35 (Dec 7 Update)
• [PS4] Sims 4 Freezing/Random Crashing Endless Loading Patch 1.34/1.35
• [Open][XB] Crashing during travel, save the game, in build mode

If those don't solve your issue, create a new thread in  Technical Issues – Consoles

Other Issues on Windows PC

If you have any of these issues on PC, please refer to the following threads. 

• [READ FIRST] Important Threads and Known Issues
• [READ FIRST] Troubleshooting your Game

If those don't solve your issue, create a new thread in Technical Issues – PC

Other Issues on Mac

If you have any of these issues on Mac, please refer to the following threads. 

• Compiled list of Mac specific issues
• The Sims 4 Legacy Edition thread
• [CURRENT ISSUE] freezing in CAS on Mac with M1 chip

If those don't solve your issue, create a new thread in Technical Issues – Mac

[crinrict]

Update

Yesterdays patch fixed the LE from happening which means no more Father Winters are generated in abundance. 

What does this mean ?

For unaffected games: You can now have Winterfest with Father Winter again but I would still recommend making a backup before the holiday occurs

For affected games: Depending on how badly your save is affected, it may or may not be saved. I'm still testing but so far I'm not having much luck with badly affected saves. Reverting to a backup is the best option still cause fixing saves can be time consuming. 

The patch notes say games should fix themselves over time .. I think this means culling will delete your extra father winters .. if you make it that far.

I'll do further testing. I personally don't need any saves at this point but QA is looking for them, so please send your badly affected ones to SimQARobo

Summary of the Issue

There's several issues going on in this thread. The main one being an endless generation of Father Winters. If you already had one in your save (has to be Clemens Frost), then you should be safe. Do backup before the Winterfest if you decided to follow through with it.

Since the game just creates and creates and creates, the game will start to lag and then freeze. It will use all your RAM (or at least a lot of it). You will have an insane number of Single Sim households in your hidden households (can only be made visible with MCCC).

Another reason for this seems to be routing issues concerning platforms. Sims try to get to a place in a (sunken?) platform and can't cause of MoveObject placement or other reasons and just keep trying and trying until the game freezes.

How do I know if I have the Father Winter Issue ?

Typical Symptoms are

• Insane RAM usage
• Save Game bloating (compared to the backups, your save is exponential bigger in size (this is only happening if you actually saved your game in this state)
  
• Loading times are getting insane. Depending on your computer, the save never loads at all
• The time freezes. If your Sim freeze but the time goes on, then you have a dead lock and not this issue.
• You can't click on anything. No menu comes up
• You had a Winterfest but Father Winter never showed up.
• You get a LastException: Exception while updating the sim filter service.. (TypeError: apply_permanent_appearance_modifiers() missing 1 required positional argument: 'additional_flags')

The RAM usage, save game bloat, LE and the Winterfest with no Father Winters are the strongest indications that this is your issues, If you use mods, you can also use MCCC to check the hidden households (you need MC Cheat. Click on Mailbox > MC Cheats > Sims/NPC Household Cheats > Unhide Hidden Households

This is what you should see (depending on the packs you own). You will also see ghost + pet strays appear here. If you have LOTS of male adult Sims as well, then you have the Father Winter Issue.

How do I know if I have the platform routing issue ?

Typical Symptoms are

• RAM usage is steady.
• Save game size is not majorly increasing.
• Loading times are normal.
• The time freezes. If your Sim freeze but the time goes on, then you have a dead lock and not this issue.
• You can't click on anything. No menu comes up
• It only happens in certain households. Others are working perfectly fine.
• If you replace the house with another, the save works fine.
• There are no LastExceptions

Sounds like I have the Father Winter Issue. What do I do ?

There's several things you can do.

1. Load a backup from before the issue if you have any: https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2014/09/save-games/#wiederherstellen (the size of the file tells you which one you should revert to)
2. Try the mod way described in my blog:  https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2020/11/father-winter-doesnt-appear-at-winterfest-endless-generation-...
3. Some folks have also had success with disabling seasons: https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2017/03/disable-single-packs/ (Seasons is EP05). I tested this method and all it does is stop the LastException from happening and hence the new creation of Father Winters. If you only have a few now, this can solve your issue but if you already have 4000-6000 father Winters like some of the saves I tested, then the freezing just came right back. I don't recommend this method as you'll loose everything Seasons on your save, even if you just temporarily disable it to get rid of the LE and then enable the pack again (you do need to save) but I'm putting it here for completion sake. 
4. If you don't have a backup, the best thing to do is, save all your Sims and houses to the gallery and place them in a fresh save. You'll loose all money + relationships outside the family, so that might be a huge issue for legacy saves.
5. Wait until EA fixes this and play another save in the meantime. Depending on how many Father Winters you already have, it's unclear if they can clean the save better then MCCC though.
6. Remove any Winterfests from your calendar or at least remove Father Winter as Tradition.

Looks like I have the platform issue, What do I do ?

Locate any (sunken) platforms in your save and see if anything in them was placed with MOO. Other reasons could be a narrow platform and something that causes the Sims to route there like a speaker on the wall but not enough space to dance.

Try deleting stuff and replacing until you find what's causing. 

It's often somewhere Sims want to go on their own but can't, not user directed.

Unfortunately you can't switch Sims once the game froze and if you have NPCs on the lot, it can be them. Sometimes you get lucky and see which Sim has a stuck interaction in their queue. Go look there.

There's also a dedicate thread for this here: [WORKAROUND] Routing Issues with Platform freeze the game

I'm still looking into this to verify the theory, so if you need help, you can send me your save and I'll take a look. Instructions in my signature.

I don't think I have either of those issue. What do I do ?

Bit unsure how to handle this currently cause there are a lot of issues going on. I think for now it's best to use the tech forum of your platform.to post instead of here. Do state that you don't think it's the Father Winter issue but something else. Make your own thread and provide your specs. Describe what symptoms you are seeing and if you can isolate it to a certain save game, provide that as well.

Credits to kusurusu

[sjr159]

There is no one doing homework and I cannot switch between sims. Pressing ESC does eventually bring up the menu.

[crinrict]

@sjr159 Could you test another save if that has the same issue or if it's just a specific one ?

[sjr159]

I have tried a couple of other save files and it appears to only be this specific one that is having this issue.

[aliciabell12]

Me too. It happens like every 2 minutes. And when I try to save my game it just keeps spinning and I have to restart my computer.

[Bdmils]

I am having problems as well since the patch/update. My game seems to pause/freeze 1 to 2 minutes after entering Live Mode or could be triggered sooner by interacting with certain objects like going to the fridge to eat, clicking on the mailbox, clicking on TV. The pause isn't obvious because you see the Sims standing there moving slightly, looking around occasionally. Car traffic is still passing by and the tree's moving, but the in-game clock/time is stuck. It stays like this whether i click pause, game speed 1x, 2x, or 3x. This happens every time I start the game and get the following message.

The Sims 4 has stopped working
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.
Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available

Details:
Windows 10: Up-to-date
Game version: 1.68.154.1020 64-bit
Expansions: Cats and dogs, city living, dine out, discover university, get famous, get to work, island living, jungle adventure, outdoor retreat, parenthood, seasons, spa day, movie hangout stuff, toddler stuff.
No mods,
Scripts not allowed

Troubleshooting Performed
I closed out the game started again - problem persists
Restarted my device - problem persists
Uninstalled Sims 4 along with all expansion packs, deleted Sims 4 folder in Program Files (x86), the re-installed using Origin client - problem persists.
Disabled my A/V (BitDefender) (just to test/experiment)
Launched game in offline mode - problem persists

Game was working fine before the update on 11/10/2020.
Any help would be appreciated

[crinrict]

@sjr159 Would you mind sending me your save ? Instructions in my signature

EDIT: Looks like there's some major save bloating going on in that save. Also get a last excpetion

My guess is that cause is the same as the crashes. Do you have lots of RAM ?

For me it went up to 16  RAM usage and then crashed when trying to save.

Also when I did manage to save your game it went from 73 MB to 109 MB without doing much.

I will forward your save to EA.

[Cvanrijn]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? Nederlands
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.68.154.10202
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? everything except eco lifestyle, starwars, knitting, Moshino, laundry, vintage glamour, kitchen accessories, perfect patio and luxury party stuff
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Starting the game to see that it doenst remember the settings for fullscreen. It keeps opening in window. And after playing for 15 min
What happens when the bug occurs? When i start the game it doenst remember my settings. it opens the game in window instead of fullscreen. Also after playing for 15 min it doesnt respond to keyboard commands. Some with tremendous latency. In game mouse commands are ignored i cannot switch from one member of the house hold to another.
What do you expect to see? I expect to see that the game responds well to mouse and keyboard commands. This was never an issue before the latest update from 10-11-2020. After installing this update these problems occured
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? No

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After installing the update from 10-11-2020 the problems began. 

Keyboard and mouse commands are not responding in game. i have no trouble with keyboard and mouse commands in other games or programms on my laptop

Dont think my system/laptop is the problem as it occured right after the update

I have a Acer Nitro AN515-43

AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10GHz

RAM 8BG

[cokonuut]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.68.154.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Discover University, Island living, seasons, cats and dogs, city living, get together, get to work, realm of magic, vampires and moschino
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Play the game for about five minutes
What happens when the bug occurs? The game lags. I can't switch control between my sims or make them do stuff. Pausing the game doesn't work, neither does saving or exiting the game. It get's stuck
What do you expect to see? I expected the game to not lag and to be able to switch control from one sim to the other. I expect to be able to pause the game time. I also expect to be able to save my game and exit it without having to shut my whole computer down.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. I removed my mods, installed the patch re-put my mods (cc clothing) and sentiments didn't seem to work. I removed my mods (again) and repaired my game (from Origins). This problem occured after I started to play with the new patch and the repaired game, whitout my scriptmods installed.

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The game will first start to lag. At first I thought the issue was related to the game speed but I retried with only playing on normal speed and it happened again. 

What happens is that I cannot change sim or even control the sim I am currently selected on. The option wheels won't come up for objects, other sims or the sim I am on. The sims will either stand still or autonomously start doing things.

I first tried to save the game and it got stuck, I waited for around 10 minutes (it usually takes me less than 1) and decided to open task manager on my PC, which didn't work. I just couldn't see the task manager window only my game stuck on saving. I then closed my PC.

I tried to play again after rebooting my PC, I played for 5 minutes and the same thing happened again even on normal speed this time. I tried to pause and it wouldn't, it only did once I pressed esc. Then I tried to just close the game all together and it got stuck again. I waited for, again, around 10 minutes with the game freezed before closing my PC again. 

I didn't change anything on my PC or to the game since the update and I had my mods out and my game repaired once it occured.