Game starts, CTD on load (November 17th Emergency Patch, Fresh Install) [ Edited ]

[LittleEmiRose]

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? 1.68.156.1020 (November 17th Emergency Patch)
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Island Living, Get Famous, Seasons, Cats & Dogs, City Living, Get Together, Get to Work Realm of Magic, StrangerVille, Jungle Adventure, Parenthood, Vampires, Dine Out, Spa Day My First Pet Stuff, Cool Kitchen Stuff, Holiday Celebration Pack
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Attempt to load anything past the main menu/opening world screen, even on a fresh installation of the game.
What happens when the bug occurs? The game launches, but when trying to start a new game, edit a build, edit a household, and start playing as a household (basically, trying to use the game past the main menu screen or world screen), this will result in an immediate crash to desktop.
What do you expect to see? The game should not crash ^^
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. Installed the November 17th emergency patch.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor

GPU: NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3090 Founders Edition, 24 GB

RAM: 64 GB of Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 3666 MHz

OS: Windows 10 Home (x64)

Played at 1440p resolution.

I have made sure to have all of latest available drivers for my hardware, and have made sure that I have the latest version of Windows available.

To reiterate:

There are no mods installed - this is a completely fresh install.  In attempts to remedy the crashing, I made a backup, completely uninstalled Sims 4 and all of my packs, then reinstalled everything through Origin.  This should be considered a fresh install of the game, unless something mistakenly didn't get uninstalled correctly.  Though it worked in the previous patch, perhaps this is a new incompatibility with my GPU introduced with the very latest patch?

There is nothing to show of the saves folder, as the game is completely new now.  There is no lastException.txt or lastUIException.txt to be found.

Config.log

lastCrash.rar

DxDiag.rar

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@LittleEmiRose  I'm sorry I somehow missed your reply yesterday.  It's been kind of crazy here lately.

Anyway, the Sims 4 errors in your dxdiag all mention the Nvidia driver .dll, so the first thing to do is to clean uninstall and reinstall the driver.  Download Display Driver Uninstaller from here:

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3300

Get a fresh driver from Nvidia:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/166630/en-us

Next, take your computer completely offline—disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord—and double-click the DDU.exe.  Take note of where the file will land, and click Extract.  If it's easier, you can copy the path and then paste it into the address bar in a File Explorer window.  Open the folder and then launch Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you'll get a message that you're not in Safe Mode.  Click OK, then go to Options and enable Safe Mode dialog.  Here's a screenshot of what your options should look like; make sure the box in red is checked:

Close options, and the DDU, and then open the DDU.exe again.  For launch options, choose "Safe Mode (Recommended)," and then click Reboot to Safe Mode (you'll need your password, so find it before rebooting).  Once you login, you'll see this:

In the blue box, choose GPU, then Nvidia if it's not already showing.  Then click Clean and Restart (red box).

Once your computer has rebooted, now back in normal mode, run the driver install .exe in custom mode.  Select "perform a clean installation" and install ONLY the GPU driver and the PHYSX software.

Reboot again, go back online, and see whether the game works now.

And please test with another clean Sims 4 folder, just to keep things simple.

[puzzlezaddict]

@LittleEmiRose  Just to be sure, did you also remove the entire Sims 4 user folder from Documents\Electronic Arts?  Removing your saves wouldn't necessarily be enough, and the Sims 4 folder itself doesn't usually get deleted when the game is uninstalled.  If you haven't removed the old copy of that folder, please try it now.

Otherwise, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

[LittleEmiRose]

Yes, I was sure to remove everything from my installation folder, as well as from Documents.  I made sure that every file was deleted in preparation for the fresh install.  I have now attached my DxDiag to the original post.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@LittleEmiRose  I'm sorry I somehow missed your reply yesterday.  It's been kind of crazy here lately.

Anyway, the Sims 4 errors in your dxdiag all mention the Nvidia driver .dll, so the first thing to do is to clean uninstall and reinstall the driver.  Download Display Driver Uninstaller from here:

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3300

Get a fresh driver from Nvidia:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/166630/en-us

Next, take your computer completely offline—disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord—and double-click the DDU.exe.  Take note of where the file will land, and click Extract.  If it's easier, you can copy the path and then paste it into the address bar in a File Explorer window.  Open the folder and then launch Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you'll get a message that you're not in Safe Mode.  Click OK, then go to Options and enable Safe Mode dialog.  Here's a screenshot of what your options should look like; make sure the box in red is checked:

Close options, and the DDU, and then open the DDU.exe again.  For launch options, choose "Safe Mode (Recommended)," and then click Reboot to Safe Mode (you'll need your password, so find it before rebooting).  Once you login, you'll see this:

In the blue box, choose GPU, then Nvidia if it's not already showing.  Then click Clean and Restart (red box).

Once your computer has rebooted, now back in normal mode, run the driver install .exe in custom mode.  Select "perform a clean installation" and install ONLY the GPU driver and the PHYSX software.

Reboot again, go back online, and see whether the game works now.

And please test with another clean Sims 4 folder, just to keep things simple.

[LittleEmiRose]

---

@puzzlezaddict wrote:

@LittleEmiRose  I'm sorry I somehow missed your reply yesterday.  It's been kind of crazy here lately.

Anyway, the Sims 4 errors in your dxdiag all mention the Nvidia driver .dll, so the first thing to do is to clean uninstall and reinstall the driver.

---

No worries, the post was down for a while for some reason.

The driver that I had was already from a clean install using DDU.  New graphics card, so fresh install.

I didn't want dismiss your suggestion, so I decided to run DDU for a second time to see if it would work.... Well, turns out, it worked.

I do not know what kind of shenanigans could've happened in the time of doing a fresh install less than a week ago, playing the game with no problem, the new patch coming out, and then the driver suddenly failing coincidentally right when updating the patch, but... that's what happened.  Only reason I didn't try the DDU fix is because I just ran it the other dayyyyy.  I wish the emoticons here could express the emotions I'm feeling.

Your advice worked!  Thanks for getting me to do it through my desire to not be a dismissive *.

[puzzlezaddict]

@LittleEmiRose  I have no idea why a clean-installed GPU driver would need to be clean-installed again, but the errors in the dxdiag were pretty obvious and pretty insistent that something was going on with the driver.  I guess this is just one of those things that happens once in a blue moon, or something.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear it worked, and great that you were willing to try the whole DDU process a second time.  Hopefully this driver behaves itself for a while.