PC/WINDOWS/ORIGIN Infinite loading screen

[jadesbeach1]

This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I've been playing for more than a few hours, painstakingly leveling from toddler to a young adult in preparation for university, and I'm stuck on the loading screen after enrolling in university. I have a ton of packs, plenty of RAM and no mods/cc anymore, I disabled them & I believe I deleted them weeks ago. Please help, I was so pumped for this pack but after all the work I put in getting here I'm just... upset? underwhelmed? overwhelmed? I'm not sure. I'll take any advice, and I'll let it continue loading, but it has been loading for about 20 minutes at the time of writing this post. The loading screen is still moving as if it's just regularly loading, still, has tips coming up on the screen, so I know it isn't frozen, but it's stuck!

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@jadesbeach1  I don't know that there's an exact amount of time you should wait on a long loading screen, but I start to get nervous when it's been twice as long as the normal loading screen, and start to think about a force quit at about three times the normal amount.  You could also check the Task Manager to see whether the game is responding and values are changing, but that's not an exact comparison.

For the freeze itself, it happens.  Save often, use "save as" to rename your save, and perhaps save sims to the library on occasion if you want to make absolutely sure you don't lose them.  Sometimes a freeze is a one-time occurrence, and sometimes it's evidence of a bigger issue.  If it happens again wtih the same travel transition, then it's worth troubleshooting, but otherwise, I'd just chalk it up to a long play session and the game not yet having everything ironed out.

[jadesbeach1]

At what point should I just give up and close the game? Again, the loading screen is behaving normally and has not registered a crash, just still hasn't loaded in, it's probably been about 35-40 minutes now?

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@jadesbeach1  I don't know that there's an exact amount of time you should wait on a long loading screen, but I start to get nervous when it's been twice as long as the normal loading screen, and start to think about a force quit at about three times the normal amount.  You could also check the Task Manager to see whether the game is responding and values are changing, but that's not an exact comparison.

For the freeze itself, it happens.  Save often, use "save as" to rename your save, and perhaps save sims to the library on occasion if you want to make absolutely sure you don't lose them.  Sometimes a freeze is a one-time occurrence, and sometimes it's evidence of a bigger issue.  If it happens again wtih the same travel transition, then it's worth troubleshooting, but otherwise, I'd just chalk it up to a long play session and the game not yet having everything ironed out.

[jadesbeach1]

I did end up force quitting sometime after and repairing the game. I'm going to chalk it up to a long play session mixed with a new pack! I've never gotten a pack this early before the bugs were ironed out!