Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

by colorclaw
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Accepted Solution

Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

[ Edited ]
★★★ Novice

Hello Sims community, I've been having some trouble trying to play the Sims 3 lately on my gaming PC for the past couple days now and have done basically every fix offered yet I still am unable to fix the issue. The problem is that after the launcher I am unable to load into the game past the startup loading bar screen. The intro cutscene and everything else works just fine however the loading bar on the initial startup screen does not move at all, even after 15 minutes it did not budge one bit. I have always played the game on Origin so when I tried about everything to fix the issue there and nothing worked, I bought the game on steam during a sale thinking that maybe Origin was just having problems. This was not the case tho because the same exact issue occurs whether I launch the game via Steam/Origin. Overall I am wondering what there is I can do to fix this issue. I have followed multiple trouble-shooting guides but each one says the same as the last and like I said before I have tried about everything. Lastly, this was the main trouble-shooting guide I followed so anything in here I've most likely already tried. (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=279488894)

 

 

 

PC SPECS:

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080

Message 1 of 6 (696 Views)

Accepted Solution

Re: Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

@colorclaw  Just in case it's this simple, try telling the game to launch in windowed mode.  Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open options.ini, and set fullscreen to 0 (zero).

 

Your dxdiag contains a lot of errors from Corsair software.  While it's not clear at all whether these are related to the Sims 3 issues, the next step is to try shutting down anything from Corsair in the Task Manager, including any background processes.  (Even if the name doesn't include Corsair, you should be able to recognize the logo.)

 

If that doesn't help, please try playing in a clean boot:

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-...

 

When the computer reboots, go through the Task Manager's background processes again shutting down anything that doesn't absolutely need to be running, including software from Corsair, and Razer if you have any of that, and utilities like MSI Afterburner.  If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.

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Re: Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

@colorclaw  That guide is really long (and has a lot of irrelevant or only rarely relevant information), so I'm not going to read the whole thing.  Instead, I'll start with the most basic suggestion, and if you've already done it, just let me know.  Move the entire Sims 3 folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, which will allow the game to spawn a clean folder the next time you open the launcher.  Don't add anything to this folder; just see whether you can get far enough to load a save.

 

If the folder copies rather than moving, please let me know.

 

If moving the user folder doesn't or didn't help, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

 

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

——————————————————————————————————————————

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 2 of 6 (676 Views)

Re: Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

★★★ Novice

Hi, unfortunately moving the folder to the desktop didn't fix it but I was able to run the dxdiag for you

 

 

Message 3 of 6 (669 Views)

Re: Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

@colorclaw  Just in case it's this simple, try telling the game to launch in windowed mode.  Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open options.ini, and set fullscreen to 0 (zero).

 

Your dxdiag contains a lot of errors from Corsair software.  While it's not clear at all whether these are related to the Sims 3 issues, the next step is to try shutting down anything from Corsair in the Task Manager, including any background processes.  (Even if the name doesn't include Corsair, you should be able to recognize the logo.)

 

If that doesn't help, please try playing in a clean boot:

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-...

 

When the computer reboots, go through the Task Manager's background processes again shutting down anything that doesn't absolutely need to be running, including software from Corsair, and Razer if you have any of that, and utilities like MSI Afterburner.  If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.

——————————————————————————————————————————

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 4 of 6 (630 Views)

Re: Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

[ Edited ]
★★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddict So setting the game to launch in window mode as well as deleting any background corsair processes seemed to fix it and I was finally able to load to the play screen, However I am unable to set the game to full-screen mode while in the in-game settings or while editing the options file back to 1.

Message 5 of 6 (615 Views)

Re: Sims 3 loading bar won't progress past startup screen

[ Edited ]
★★★ Novice

I was able to fix the fullscreen issue by pressing alt + enter to manually enter fullscreen but thank you so much for helping me w/ everything else @puzzlezaddict Standard smile

Message 6 of 6 (604 Views)