Sims 3 Black Screen when quitting

[jlyall123]

Hi, I hope someone can help, I have had complete nightmare with Sims 3 for the last week, where as soon as I quit or close any of the windows either in the game or the simpack installer the window goes black with a timer. I thought by leaving this a while things might resolve itself, but after leaving it for over an hour the only way to get rid, is by either force shut down the computer (if in full screen mode) or force quitting the application (if in windowed mode).

I'm running sims through Origin, digital download on a 2011 iMac, with 4gb RAM and over 1Gb of spare HD. All EP, SP and Game are updated to the most up to date patch. I have tried un-installing and re-installing, as per other forums I have also tried turning off memory notifications, plus many other things.

I really hope someone could assist, as I am losing patience...

James mileysad:

[gaa17 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, I don't have very good news.  The exception raised errors and the blacked out saving which I assume looks like this (http://i.imgur.com/4aYHtFf.png) are all related to Cider/memory issues.  Unfortunately, the more EPs and SPs you have, the sooner the errors are going to occur (especially since Pets and Seasons are the two most demanding EPs).  When it's on full-screen and won't stop saving, have you tried to force-quit the application with cmd+opt+esc?  That might help prevent you from having to restart your whole computer.  I will admit though I've only had the blacked-out saving issue once or twice and I can't remember if I was forced to shut down the computer or not.  

So this is going to be a very long post, but I'm going to copy/paste a couple of my Mac blurbs that explain some of the errors and also have helpful links.  There are things you can do to get longer playing time, but it's not going to "fix" the real problem unfortunately.  If you have any questions about anything below or just in general, ask away, and I'll try to help.  I'm not super duper computer-y, but I've been fighting with this game on my Mac for a while.  Good Luck

My Advice for my Mac people:
If you actually want to "play" the game as it's supposed to work, then get a PC or Bootcamp & Windows for your Mac. The game is not natively written for our systems (I have a mid-2009 Macbook Pro). As long as EA uses Cider, a "wrapper" for the game that enables Macs to play Windows games, it's going to crash with memory issues.

Do not follow EA game advisors' advice without taking into account that many times their advice is wrong for Mac users and can harm our systems. If EA's customer support tells you to open Activity Monitor and quit processes - DO NOT DO IT. Your Mac will freeze resulting in you needing to power it off using the Power button which can be harmful. This is the first "solution" they tell all Mac users to do. Just use common sense when it comes to their "advice."

Here are two good posts from the Sims 3 Mac forum that have a couple of useful "band-aids" to get the game to work temporarily:
-- Bluebellflora's Guide: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/658546.page
-- Crystal_Zelda's Guide: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/611723.page

Based on my experiences / trial & error with my Mac...

If "Exception Raised" error happens...
-in the launcher
-when loading a game
-a few minutes into a game
-when a specific animal, clothing, action happens
--> it's most likely due to bad cc, outdated mods, corrupt game stuff in general
--> possible fixes: delete caches, try new saves (move fam. to bin, save in a new neighborhood), find bad cc/mods, manual uninstall/reinstall (esp. if it's after a patch or new EP/SP installation)


If "Exception Raised" error happens...after 15 minutes or longer or when Saving (ex. http://i.imgur.com/h99Dkmf.png)
--> it's most likely due to Cider
--> no solution, look at Bluebellflora's guide for general maintenance advice


Other crashes (that happen with no "Exception Raised" prompt):
-blacked out thumbnails, blacked out graphics (ex. http://i.imgur.com/4aYHtFf.png)
-game freezes (doesn't respond) but background animation and sound still works, i.e. you can see the trees move and traffic sounds in the bg)
-CTD, then Apple Error message with Cider in it's report
-Sims 3 crash logs that say: "Free virtual memory: 0 mb" under “System Info” (ex. http://i.imgur.com/saubd2L.png)
--> it's most likely due to Cider
--> no solution, look at Bluebellflora's guide for general maintenance advice

[jlyall123]

Update to my post, after installing seasons again for the 10th time this week, just got a exception raised error message: - 

unhandled page fault on read access to 0x00000014 at address 0x004175fb. 

PLEASE HELP!!! AGHHHHH!

[gaa17]

How long are you playing for when this happens at saving?  Is it only then or at launch?  Is just the blackouts on Saving or the exception raised error too at different points in time?

Also, your specs aren't that important on a Mac; regardless of whether you play on a super duper awesome iMac from now or Macbook from 2008 the game is going to play the same way because the game thinks we have the 32-bit Windows XP with only 2gb of RAM.   

[jlyall123]

Thanks for the reply, 

If I detail what has happened, it might help. We purchased physical versions of Sims 3 Supernatural and Seasons last week for our daughters. The only other expansions installed previously to this was Pets and Katy Perry's Sweet Treats. Up until then, we have only had a few issues with the game crashing, usually when the girls play for along time without saving the game, this happened very rarely.

We installed Supernatrual, and all working fine. We then installed Seasons, and the game seriously dipped in respect of performance, kept freezing, crashing, etc... When it crashed it left the full screen black with the timer turning, the only way of getting out of this was to close the mac down by holding down the on/off button. I checked this out on some forums and estiblished that this seems to be a recurring problem with Season, the main recommendation was to reduce the graphics settings, which I did, we did not see any improvement. 

I decided much to the girls annoyance, to uninstall the game and start again using the physical discs, installed in the correct order, making sure the game was played between installs, installed all of the patches/updates got to seasons and again performance dropped, crashed, black screen. Difference now, from the instant I installed the original game disc, upon quitting the game the black screen would appear and this happen on every installation, as I said in my 1st post if this was on full screen i have to shut the machine down, or if i'm in windowed mode I am able to force quit the game. I decided to see if this was a problem with other elements of the game and decided to install Barnacle bay,Riverview and a few other EA created content, all appeared to install ok, until I selected ok and the dreaded black screen appeared, I left this about 20-30 minutes and as this is only a window I was able to force quit. The content is not installing into the game.

I uninstalled everything again and using the digital copies on my origin account, I downloaded and installed again as above, same problem, although seasons seems to be performing better, but on saving and quitting, we get the black screen.

To answer your questions, It doesnt matter whether we play the game for an hour or 10 minutes the game saves, we quit the game and we get the black screen. The game is saving because the changes we are making are there when we restart the game. 

The execption errors, are vary rare and not sure if they are related to the same problem.

Thanks for the advice on how cider works, I didn't realise this.

If someone can help you would make two little girls very happy, as they are off school and looking forward to creating vampires in the snow and sunbathing ghosts.

Thanks James mileyvery-happy:

[gaa17 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, I don't have very good news.  The exception raised errors and the blacked out saving which I assume looks like this (http://i.imgur.com/4aYHtFf.png) are all related to Cider/memory issues.  Unfortunately, the more EPs and SPs you have, the sooner the errors are going to occur (especially since Pets and Seasons are the two most demanding EPs).  When it's on full-screen and won't stop saving, have you tried to force-quit the application with cmd+opt+esc?  That might help prevent you from having to restart your whole computer.  I will admit though I've only had the blacked-out saving issue once or twice and I can't remember if I was forced to shut down the computer or not.  

So this is going to be a very long post, but I'm going to copy/paste a couple of my Mac blurbs that explain some of the errors and also have helpful links.  There are things you can do to get longer playing time, but it's not going to "fix" the real problem unfortunately.  If you have any questions about anything below or just in general, ask away, and I'll try to help.  I'm not super duper computer-y, but I've been fighting with this game on my Mac for a while.  Good Luck

My Advice for my Mac people:
If you actually want to "play" the game as it's supposed to work, then get a PC or Bootcamp & Windows for your Mac. The game is not natively written for our systems (I have a mid-2009 Macbook Pro). As long as EA uses Cider, a "wrapper" for the game that enables Macs to play Windows games, it's going to crash with memory issues.

Do not follow EA game advisors' advice without taking into account that many times their advice is wrong for Mac users and can harm our systems. If EA's customer support tells you to open Activity Monitor and quit processes - DO NOT DO IT. Your Mac will freeze resulting in you needing to power it off using the Power button which can be harmful. This is the first "solution" they tell all Mac users to do. Just use common sense when it comes to their "advice."

Here are two good posts from the Sims 3 Mac forum that have a couple of useful "band-aids" to get the game to work temporarily:
-- Bluebellflora's Guide: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/658546.page
-- Crystal_Zelda's Guide: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/611723.page

Based on my experiences / trial & error with my Mac...

If "Exception Raised" error happens...
-in the launcher
-when loading a game
-a few minutes into a game
-when a specific animal, clothing, action happens
--> it's most likely due to bad cc, outdated mods, corrupt game stuff in general
--> possible fixes: delete caches, try new saves (move fam. to bin, save in a new neighborhood), find bad cc/mods, manual uninstall/reinstall (esp. if it's after a patch or new EP/SP installation)


If "Exception Raised" error happens...after 15 minutes or longer or when Saving (ex. http://i.imgur.com/h99Dkmf.png)
--> it's most likely due to Cider
--> no solution, look at Bluebellflora's guide for general maintenance advice


Other crashes (that happen with no "Exception Raised" prompt):
-blacked out thumbnails, blacked out graphics (ex. http://i.imgur.com/4aYHtFf.png)
-game freezes (doesn't respond) but background animation and sound still works, i.e. you can see the trees move and traffic sounds in the bg)
-CTD, then Apple Error message with Cider in it's report
-Sims 3 crash logs that say: "Free virtual memory: 0 mb" under “System Info” (ex. http://i.imgur.com/saubd2L.png)
--> it's most likely due to Cider
--> no solution, look at Bluebellflora's guide for general maintenance advice

[jlyall123]

Hiya, Thanks for the advice, I have opted for bootcamp and windows 7. Just installing the game as i'm replying. Fingers crossed this works..

Thanks Again

James

[hales2295]

I have this issue you also, and I have found the best way to quit it without the black screen! When you go to quit the game instead of choosing Save and Quit, Save the game and then click the option Open Dashboard Menu. This then exits to the menu where you are out of the sims 3 game and don't have to power down your computer compeltely! Hope this helps!

[yourmaster14]

This happened to me, but I can't force quit. I don't know what to do, please help me.