[Info] The Sims 4 macOS Catalina Troubleshooting [ Edited ]

[amm4797]

I’ve always had my Sims games stored in an external hard drive. I have about 200 GB worth of space on the external hard drive. Ever since I updated to Mac Catalina, Origin claims that I can now no longer save to the external hard drive because it is not mounted. Everything is connected properly though.

My impatience prompted me to hit restore default, but I really don’t want to have my Game Library on the internal drive, since I only have 29 GB of free space on there.

Every single time I press “Change folder” on Origin, it just leads nowhere. I understand that this is an OS issue. It won’t let me change the folder for Game Installation. This is really aggravating.

UPDATE 10/18: It still doesn't work. I've chatted with two representatives and no solution worked. They've basically told me to twiddle my thumbs and wait for an update. One said the update would occur in a few hours (this was on Monday...), but nothing has worked since I chatted with him. This is really frustrating...

Solutions they have told me to try:

1. creating another user and try changing the location [failed]

2. restarting in safe mode and trying to edit the location there [failed]

3. downloading a legacy file of Origin [failed]

Does anyone have any solutions? Please oh please oh please? I just want to play the games I purchased. They have worked totally fine before the update.

[DeeTheLana]

Sims 4 won't run 

"Unable to start:

The Sims™ 4 is already running.

[ed35e0ea:29f00e76:00000000:18a1dd51]"

I'm on a Mac and have been playing this game for over a year now, when suddenly this happens. I have over 750 hours on the game and really wouldn't like to lose all my progress. 

I've deleted and reinstalled origin, as well as restarting my Mac, but it still won't work. 

Can someone help me?

[charloune291294]

Hi! I moved the UserData.lock file and the game finally starts, however I lost all content and families in the game. If I move it back to the folder, the game does start anymore. Any advice to find my game as before or have I lost everything? Thanks!

[lorrytangerine]

@yvettej18 I tried this and it didn't work for me...

[annie_grace27]

I've got the error that says Sims 4 already running as well. I managed to fix it a week ago (After upgrading to catalina) by deleting the user data file but this deleted all my saves. I've just got the error again and I want to fix it without it deleting all my saves.

[annie_grace27]

@annie_grace27 I've tried all the solutions on page 1. And tried to move my sims 4 file to desktop, open Sims to main menu, etc., but it won't even get to the main menu without saying it's already running

[84954]

I was so desperate when it didn't work.

This worked for me!

Thanks a lot.

[UnikaBeauty]

@EA_MaiThanks the troubleshooting worked for launching The Sims 4 but Im still not about to load my saved progress or save new games. When will an update be available? I hope the new University pack is giving to us free for all the trouble!

[RedheaddLass]

Thank you so much for posting all those possible fixes!

This is the fix that worked a treat for me..

I’m unable to load my The Sims 4 save files after updating to macOS Catalina - what can I do?

Try generating a new The Sims 4 folder (in /Documents/Electronic Arts) by renaming the current one and restarting the game. Make sure to rename The Sims 4 folder, not just the saves folder. Once that’s done you can move your save files into the newly created /The Sims 4/saves folder.

I updated my Mac to macOS Catalina 10.15 tonight and tried to open Sims 4 straight away I was getting error message 'Unable to start. Sims 4 is already running'.

I tried everything, I spoken to 3 different EA support team members on chat and unfortunately they weren't much help. 

I found your list and tried disabling the in-app game setting and nothing, then when I deleted/moved the userdata.lock file, I was able to start the game but all my saves were gone I've put hours into my current game save so I am not losing it - haha!! 

Then I tried the suggestion above and it works amazingly! I can start the game and I have all my saves there too! If anyone else is struggling like I was I'd definitely recommend trying this fix! Kudos to who found this workaround!! 

[bateskatie]

After updating my Macbook Pro to macOS Catalina version 10.15 my game was refusing to start. It kept on popping up with a "Sims is already running" error code. Which is untrue. I tried uninstalling and installing both Sims and Origin, this only helped in that now I can open my game but now I cannot save. When I try to save a I get an error code of "game failed to save. Error code 0". I have tried deleting the userdata.lock file to no avail. This is incredibly frustrating!