
Game won’t start
These troubleshooting tutorial is also valid for other games like Fifa or Battlefield. Most of the troubleshooting steps are not game-dependant. Just leave everything Sims related out if you play a different game.
Problem
- I try to start my game but nothing happens at all
- The game starts but all I get is a black screen.
- Game starts in small window and doesn’t react
- Game hangs on loading
Cause
There are many causes to this issue. Defective hardware, conflicts with other programs or firewall and Antivirus blocking the program are only a few.
Defective registry entries and missing rights can also be the cause of this.
Workarounds
Here are a few things you can try before looking for help in a forum
The game never worked
- Start Origin and the game as administrator
- Use ccleaner to clean your registry.
- Delete the Origin cache files.
- Check your hardware, esp. chkdsk, to make sure your hard drive doesn’t have any issues
- Make sure your antivirus software/firewall are not blocking the connection. It’s not always enough to create an exception especially if the program has already blocked the game. Check your firewall/antivirus software’s manaul on how to proceed. Comodo Firewall or Sophos seem to be notorious for blocking. Add the following programs to your exception list: authorizationUI, TS4.exe, TS4_64.exe, Origin.exe
- Start the game in windowed mode. If the game runs, lower all settings and put it back to full-screen mode.
- Eliminate issues with Origin
- Deactivate Origin ingame
- Reinstall Origin and the game and make sure they are on the same drive, preferably c:
- Repair the game through Origin
- Clean Boot your PC
- Play in offline mode
- Make sure that you don’t have programs that have a known conflict with Origin
- Update your graphics drivers.
- VPNs can lead to potential conflicts with the game
- Make sure your computer fulfills the requirements of the game.
- Make sure your Windows is updated
- Make sure the game is updated (Right-click on the Game in Origin and choose Search for Updates).
- Network Troubleshooting:
The game suddenly doesn’t start anymore
On top of the things above you can also try this
- Reset your user files
- Deactivate newly installed programs
Self-Diagnosis
Windows lets you check on critical events to see if you have a known issue which can be solved easily. Starting with Windows 8.1 the errors can also be seen in the DxDiag files.
Below a few common errors with potential solutions
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Further Reading

