Sims 4 error - already running.

[Tiffanyalyssa23]

Hi there - I recently updated to EA last week (out of fear of losing all of my content, mods, saves, etc) since they would not provide a date that origin would expire. I ran the sims 4  last week after switching to the EA platform, and it worked just fine. 

However, when trying to play today, I've encountered the error that states "The sims 4 digital deluxe is already running". My game is not running according to the task manager and I do not have any anti-virus software, nothing on my computer changed from last week to this week.

Is there a fix for this? I have to say after using Origin for several years, I have never had issues and the first week of EA I run into a big one. Please help! 

[puzzlezaddict]

@Tiffanyalyssa23  Please try the suggestions in this article:

https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/crin-error/game-already-running/

If they don't help, let me know what antivirus you use and whether OneDrive is running (even if you don't actually use it) and how full it is.

[pharpe311]

Same issue with all EA games.  The fixes in the link (from 2015) do not help.  AV turned off, running as admin, all folder permissions checked.  

[puzzlezaddict]

@pharpe311  The article was written in 2015, when this first emerged as a Sims 4-related issue (and Sims 4 was released in late 2014).  But its author keeps it updated as new information is available.

If you're having the same issue with multiple EA games, it would be better to post in the EA App forum:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports-Technical-Issues/bd-p/ea-app-bug-reports-en

One thing you can try in the interim is playing in a new admin Windows account.  Make it a local account, as in, don't sign into Microsoft, and don't sync with any other services you normally use.  The point here is that if the games work in the new account, you've established that the problem is something about your main account, not your computer overall.

Common culprits include OneDrive trying to sync your data while full, and therefore blocking any new data from being written to Documents; and borked permissions on the Documents directory.  For the first, get rid or OneDrive or stop it from syncing the contents of Documents; for the second, the takeown command, as described here, can help.

[pharpe311]

Thanks.  I've tried creating a new admin account and that didn't work either.  I don't have OneDrive.