The Sims 3 has stopped working - Windows or computer problem?

[Incognito]

The title is fairly straightforward. I can run Sims with a fairly chunky amount of CC on high settings without any serious lag for an indefinite amount of time - but sooner or later I always get "The Sims 3 has stopped working" and has to close and blah blah. Now, since I don't have any problems actually running the game, so to speak, I'm reluctant to believe it's a problem with my machine. I've tried the usual suggestions, such as turning off DEP for Sims, shutting down all background tasks whilst I'm playing, playing without CC, but nothing seems to work. I have all EPs and I'm fully patched, so this problem is utterly infuriating. Has anyone suffered a similar problem and found a way around it, or does anyone have any useful suggestions as opposed to the nonsense I've been offered so far?

[Eeyore]

You might check your GPU temperature.

[kissing_toast]

Might you have a mirror on your screen every time this happens? That was what was causing my CTDs, took me forever to realize it though. My graphics card was shit.

[Incognito]

You might check your GPU temperature.

Didn't think to do that as I always use a laptop cooler. I've just checked now though using CPUID and my core temps are 43 and 45 degrees Celsius.

Might you have a mirror on your screen every time this happens? That was what was causing my CTDs, took me forever to realize it though. My graphics card was shit.

A mirror? I don't understand how it could be my graphics though when it runs great. My laptop's Windows 7 64-bit, so do you think running it in compatibility mode might solve the problem? I did try it briefly and it didn't crash, but then again it takes about two Sim weeks for it to crash usually so I'm still not convinced that's the answer.

[bitterquill]

Does it do it with both saved and fresh games?

[Incognito]

Does it do it with both saved and fresh games?

Yup. Most of the time it will crash before I have time/think to save, so one time I saved after a few Sim days, shut down the game and rebooted, naively thinking that might make some difference, but it still crashed eventually. It's usually something between one and two Sim weeks into the game when it happens.

[witch]

I save at least every 24 sim hours, more often if I've introduced or changed something significant. This is a pain in the ass with the long save times, but hey, better than Groundhog Day.

[angelic]

I have the same problem and these solutions seem to help:
- Turn off antivirus and firewall when you play
- Turn off network capabilities when you play, if you don't already.
The game still crashes for me, but only after a couple hours instead of minutes.

Edited because you already turned off DEP.

Also, from what I understand it appears to be a video driver issue so you might want to see if you can update your driver. Since the crashes come without warning, I keep my phone near to play games while I save every 20 min or so.

[Incognito]

I have the same problem and these solutions seem to help:
- Turn off antivirus and firewall when you play
- Turn off network capabilities when you play, if you don't already.
The game still crashes for me, but only after a couple hours instead of minutes.

Edited because you already turned off DEP.

Also, from what I understand it appears to be a video driver issue so you might want to see if you can update your driver. Since the crashes come without warning, I keep my phone near to play games while I save every 20 min or so.

I already do all of that, too. Plus everything is up to date.

[witch]

TS3 is also vicious about fragmenting hard drives. I defrag at least weekly.

Sometimes a game reinstall works. Maybe some files have got a bit corrupt or something, who knows, but as a last resort this can sometimes help. I have also recently downloaded a small custom world to see if that makes a difference. I've had CTDs with that, but knew some of them were my fault. e.g. I deleted the science rabbithole by accident, didn't realise what it was.

[Incognito]

TS3 is also vicious about fragmenting hard drives. I defrag at least weekly.

Sometimes a game reinstall works. Maybe some files have got a bit corrupt or something, who knows, but as a last resort this can sometimes help. I have also recently downloaded a small custom world to see if that makes a difference. I've had CTDs with that, but knew some of them were my fault. e.g. I deleted the science rabbithole by accident, didn't realise what it was.

Oh, sigh. Just spent the last few hours defragmenting, uninstalling, reinstalling. I also cleaned out my CC and merged what I wanted to keep. But now I'm so sick of Sims for one night that I can't be bothered to play to test it out.

[Gwill]

I've been having problems with crashes to desktop for a while too.  It started sometime not long before the last patch/pets, I remember hoping patching would fix it.  It comes and goes a bit, some times I save every few sim hours to be safe, while other times I can play for days with no trouble.
My computer certainly can't be described as low-end.  I have an excellent video card, plenty of ram, nicely defragmented hard drives with plenty of room; all new in august and carefully and cleanly assembled and installed by me, so no bundleware or other crap runs in the background.

I play very disinterestedly lately, so I haven't bothered to analyze the problem much.

[Incognito]

So apparently not even an excellent and well managed computer can play TS3. EA insist on spending their time trying to devise new ways to get more money from the masses who are willing to pay for it, whilst adding in features no one has shown interest in (e.g. "social" features in Showtime), all the while ignoring the many problems the game already has. I play very disinterestedly too lately because I know my game's liable to shut down at any given moment. It's clear now why my interest in the game doesn't last for more than a few weeks at a time.

[ingeli]

Try this:
http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Data_Execution_Prevention
OK I now saw that you already did that, but check so you have the right game.exe in the list, I didn't and it gave me crashes suddenly.

[Incognito]

Try this:
http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Data_Execution_Prevention
OK I now saw that you already did that, but check so you have the right game.exe in the list, I didn't and it gave me crashes suddenly.

Ah, thank you, now we seem to be getting somewhere. I have four xcpt files in my TS3 folder, the last two being identical bar the timestamps.

One of them displays this:

[Exception info]
date: 2011-12-19
time: 17.26.03
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00007061
address: 0x00007061 <unknown module>

Which MTS tells me is a DEP error, despite having all and any Sims .exe files added to the list.

Another, this:

[Exception info]
date: 2011-12-20
time: 20.36.17
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000014
address: 0x00d229f5 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3W.exe":0x0001:0x009219f5

I have no idea what this one is referring to.

And the last two, this:

[Exception info]
date: 2011-12-28
time: 15.57.08
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000030
address: 0x00d22aef "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3W.exe":0x0001:0x00921aef

Which a quick Google search suggests may be linked to borked CC corrupting my save, which I don't understand since I fixed all of my CC, don't have much of it now anyway and I still get crashes even with new save files.

[ingeli]

When I changed so that the file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3W.exe" was the one named for DEP, then the crashes stopped.

[Incognito]

When I changed so that the file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3W.exe" was the one named for DEP, then the crashes stopped.

Is that the only file you have named for DEP? Because I have that in the list, but I also have all the others too - TS3EP01.exe, 02, etc.

[ingeli]

I may have some of the others named also, but not all of them. I have all eps and sps, but I did not list them all. I also use FPS-limiter. When the crashes happened for me, I first checked very thoroughly if something was up with the temperature and such, but there was no connection. As said, once I had the right file listed in DEP, they didn't happen anymore. I have a good comp and W7. Since the beginning of S3, the exe-file needs to be in DEP for it to run, without it, I get random CTD within 60 game minutes.

[angelic]

Hmmm... well one thing that happened for me is that at first the DEP prevention didn't work even though I added all the .exe files, so I just filled in the "essential Windows products and services only" bubble instead. It makes your computer a bit more vulnerable but if you think you're still having DEP problems its worth a shot.

[kissing_toast]

Try playing without AM's story progression and see if that helps, it did for me recently. I usually don't play the game much but the last time I was I noticed I had story progression off, so about an hour after I turned it on I got a ctd and they kept coming. As soon as I turned of Am's and started using Ea's they went away. I don't know how important that is to you or not or if you're even using it but maybe that'll help.

[Incognito]

I've tried everyone suggestions, but tonight it crashed within seconds of playing. I was able to fiddle around in buy mode for ages, but once I switched to live mode it only took seconds.

[ItchyNScratchy]

Incognito, I'm having the same exact problems. I've done everything I've seen suggested. It's definitely a Post-Pets-Patch problem because I never had any problems prior to the patch. Deleted all cache as usual, turned off the intarwebz, deleted the FeaturedItems thumbnails, changed the DEP for all Sims 3 games, defragged the machine and did a Clean Disk, and even downloaded Twallan's Master Controller to reset lots/sims/etc. I didn't have any sims congregating on any lots, but I reset things anyway. Shoot, I even reset the family that I play just in case. CRASH.

I don't run any mods except for Twallan's mod (which is updated for the 1.29 patch) and the newest AwesomeMod. Other CC that I have is just store junk, and I don't have a lot of that.

I made sure that my graphics were updated, all my Windows updates are up to date, and I honestly am at a loss. I've no idea what to try next. All other games that I play are fine, and Pets was running perfectly before this dumb patch. Immediately after I got the patch, the game began crashing.

And yes, just in case you're wondering, I DID remove mods and junk before I installed the patch, so I know that's not an issue.

I guess this is just another instance of EA PHAIL and another wait. I just hope that we don't have to buy the next EP to get a "fix" for this mess. Maybe I shouldn't say that; EA might get the lame-brain idea to try it. /sigh

[floopyboo]

I've found that turning off the internet connection from the gaming computer has resolved both my crashing issues and my lagging issues. I also don't have the featured items folder repopulating itself any longer. YMMV.

[ItchyNScratchy]

Turning off the internet and deleting the FeaturedItems folder has seemed to help some. I tried every fix that I could find on EA's forums (including changing the DEP for all Sims 3 games, defragging which I already do regularly, cleandisking, deleting cache which I always have done before playing, updating drivers that needed updating, etc.), and nothing worked for me. Sadly, I'm not the only one who has tried the suggestions and still had crashing as a result. I had to wipe the game from my computer, reinstall and avoid the 1.29 patch, which is perfectly all right with me because it means I can play.

Now the game works perfectly fine--no freezing, no lagging, no shutting down. Unfortunately, that means that I can't use AM until EA releases another patch and Pes updates again.

[Noromarc]

Incognito, are you playing in windowed mode? I run TS3 on a W7 64b system with low-level nVidia video cards and 8GB of RAM, always windowed on a second monitor. The game began crashing randomly after latest patch. An apparently stable solution is to set compatibility properties of TS3W.exe to "Disable visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition" in the configuration area, plus "Run as administrator" in privilege level area.

I did run CLA, Dashboard, RigFixer just in case, manually tested most recent .package additions and updated mods, all to no avail until I tried the compatibility settings yesterday evening. So far, the settings above seem to have solved the random crashing and freezing, with only one stall that lasted half a minute or less in the most problematic town I have.

Edited to update:

Apparent stability lasted for three days (roughly eight or nine hours of game playing) and problems began anew. There was an announced graphic card driver update which is installed now, however the game still crashes randomly. I am sorry for offering a misleading solution. I will test for much longer before ever attempting to do so again.