Sims never complete commands in City Living - Mac [ Edited ]

[NattyElaine]

For some reason, my sims who live in the City Living world won't complete commands. They'll start walking as if they're going to do the task and then they just stop. They don't freeze, they continue to look around, etc. But they don't do anything. This happens in their own world or in those they travel to (although now I can't seem to get them to travel either).

Sims who reside in my other worlds behave just fine, in their world or others. 

I only have a few mods, so I've tried removing those and the issue persists. I've tried creating a backup and starting from factory settings. That eliminates the problem, but I lose all of my game data. I would rather not start from scratch, given that all my other world residents are fine. I've tried adding back my saves, but when I get to the current state, the issue is right back. I've also tried repairing the game in Origin. I've also tried evicting them and moving them into a new place.

Any ideas? I'm using a Mac on Big Sur 11.2.1. 

[Bluebellflora]

@NattyElaine

After your factory reset (presumably a new clean Sims 4 folder and not uninstall and reinstall of the game?) did you move your Mods back in? You wouldn't have lost all your data if you just moved out the Sims 4 folder, all your content will be in that folder.

To properly test move your Sims 4 folder to the desktop so the game creates a new one. Don't move any of your previous content into the new Sims 4 folder, no Mods, no Tray files, nothing. Start a new vanilla game and see if it happens. It's really important to try this because it eliminates a problem with your install or performance issues related to your Mac if it plays fine.

[NattyElaine]

Yep! That's what I meant by factory settings. I never put my mods back in. I only have a few anyway. The problem returns when I put back my tray and save files.

[Bluebellflora]

@NattyElaine

Ok. And what happens with just the Tray folder, or just the save folder from your original Sims 4 folder? Did you test them separately?

[NattyElaine]

If I load just the tray folder, it doesn't give me the option to load my game, and doesn't contain any of my changes to homes or sim households. If I load only my save folder, I can load my game and play with my households and homes. But the same issue occurs. It only seems to affect those who reside in the city living world, though. They'll walk toward something to complete a task and then just stand there before it staring. If I cancel the task and assign another, they'll walk over to that spot, and the same thing happens.

[NattyElaine]

My saves folder had 203 files in it, so I tried moving them over one at a time. It turns out only two will load a game: one for the tutorial (which I don't need) and one for the game I play regularly. I tried playing the one I want both with and without the tray files. I notice no difference with or without them. The issue persists. It still only affects those who reside in the city living neighborhood.

[NattyElaine]

I contacted EA and figured out how to set my saves back to an older point in time. I'm going to try that. The first one I tried fixed one household, but the issue has been going on for longer than they've existed, so I'll probably have to go further back.

[Bluebellflora]

@NattyElaine

Crin has a great page here on help with restoring saves - https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2014/09/save-games/

Did you try resetting the sim? https://help.ea.com/en-gb/help/the-sims/the-sims-4/how-to-reset-stuck-and-unresponsive-sims-in-the-s...

[NattyElaine]

Yeah, resetting the sims never works. I went back to a past save and it fixed the issue temporarily, but it returned. I might have to go further back. Sucks because I will have to forgo a lot of progress made, but oh well. 

[Bluebellflora]

@NattyElaine

good luck!