There's nothing worse in The Sims 4 than encountering bugs in gameplay, especially when you've run into something unusual that's difficult to do a Google search about. It's an inevitable thing, though. The Sims 4 is more than a decade old--it's an early PlayStation 4 game, after all--and so some serious creakiness is to be expected. Things just break down and get messy from time to time.
Fortunately, The Sims 4 has been so popular that it'd be tough to encounter a bug that's completely unique to you. At this point, we've got a fairly clear set of steps you can take to figure out what's wrong when your game is just kinda freaking out on you. Scroll on for your best options.
Sometimes your Sims will be going about their business when they just stop responding to orders and seemingly freeze up. It's the most common issue in The Sims 4, and the first thing to try in those situations is to reset the bugged-out Sim in question. To do this, open the cheat console by pressing ctrl+shft+C on PC, or by holding down all four shoulder buttons on Xbox or Playstation. Next, type ResetSim and then the name of the Sim in question--like "ResetSim Dina Caliente." If you've activated cheats (console command "testingcheats true"), PC and Mac users will also have the quicker option of pressing shift while clicking on the Sim, and then choosing the option "Reset Sim (Debug)."
Resetting a Sim clears out all their random impulses from their action queue. Sometimes, Sims just get too many things going at the same time, like a bunch of other Sims trying to get their attention all at once, and it overloads their li'l computer brains and locks them up while they try to figure out what has the highest priority. Resetting will free their mind, so to speak.
Likewise, the cache for The Sims 4 as a whole can become overloaded in the same way that a Sim itself can be, but we can solve that one by clearing the game cache. Clearing the cache on PC or Mac is simple, as it merely involves deleting two files. First, navigate to Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4. Once you're there, you'll delete two files: localthumbcache.package and avatarcache.package.
If you play The Sims 4 on Xbox or PlayStation, clearing the cache is even easier than it is on PC. Just turn your system all the way off--not rest mode--and then unplug it for 60 seconds. This clears the cache for the entire system.
For a lot of Sims PC players, it's tough to imagine playing without mods. But it's those same mods that often get us into trouble, usually when they haven't been kept up to date. And after 11 years, there are a lot of old, abandoned mods out there. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell which mod is causing you problems, or whether it really is a mod that's responsible for your problems at all. So we've got a couple steps you can take to pinpoint whether a mod is the issue, and narrow down which mod it might be.
First, you'll want to test if a mod is the culprit at all by disabling them completely. You can do this by going to the Other section of the game settings, and unchecking this check box:
This is where you can disable all your mods at once.
Save your settings, restart the game, and see how it works. If your bug isn't presenting itself anymore, then it was probably a mod that caused it. Now you'll need to narrow down which mod is the issue. One relatively easy test you can try is to pull half of your mods from the mods folder in your Documents folder, clear the cache, then load your game again. If you still have the bug, then one of your active mods is the problem--and if you don't, then it means one of the inactive ones is causing the trouble. You can continue narrowing it down from there by doing the same thing with the half that seems to have the problem mod, or if you've narrowed it down to your satisfaction, you may want to start removing specific mods you think might be the culprit.
Here is where you can repair your Sims 4 installation in the EA app.
You may have key game files that are missing or corrupted--another occasional side effect of using out-of-date mods. In these situations, you can use the EA app to check your installation directory and replace any crucial files that have gone missing or been corrupted. Just navigate to the main Sims 4 page in the app, and click on the Manage button to the left of Play. Select Repair from the dropdown menu. The EA app will then scan all your base game and DLC files for anything anomalous. This process does not check your mods, only the game files themselves.
There is a limit to how many Sims that The Sims 4 can support at once. By default, the game caps the total population at 200, but you can remove that cap in the settings if you want. But no matter how good your computer may be, The Sims 4 will eventually slow down significantly if you add too many Sims. Even playing on a modern gaming rig with an RTX 4080 and an i9 CPU like I do, The Sims 4 tends to get real creaky when my world's population gets past 750 or so.
The Sims 4 is built to prevent that creakiness from happening by culling unplayed Sim families from the game periodically, but you can also protect a household from being culled by adding them to your list of played households. If your game has way too many Sims, the population could be the source of your problems. Moving inessential households over to the unplayed bucket will allow the game to remove them when or if it needs to. This is only a concern for players who have more than a couple hundred Sims in their game, however.
Lastly, there are two immense community resources you can take advantage of if the above checklist doesn't handle your issues: the EA forums and Reddit. Those have been the two most central discussion hubs for The Sims 4 since it launched--presuming your problem isn't unique to your setup, there's a very good chance you'll be able to find somebody else who's had the same issue in the past.
Source
Fortunately, The Sims 4 has been so popular that it'd be tough to encounter a bug that's completely unique to you. At this point, we've got a fairly clear set of steps you can take to figure out what's wrong when your game is just kinda freaking out on you. Scroll on for your best options.
Reset your Sim(s)
Sometimes your Sims will be going about their business when they just stop responding to orders and seemingly freeze up. It's the most common issue in The Sims 4, and the first thing to try in those situations is to reset the bugged-out Sim in question. To do this, open the cheat console by pressing ctrl+shft+C on PC, or by holding down all four shoulder buttons on Xbox or Playstation. Next, type ResetSim and then the name of the Sim in question--like "ResetSim Dina Caliente." If you've activated cheats (console command "testingcheats true"), PC and Mac users will also have the quicker option of pressing shift while clicking on the Sim, and then choosing the option "Reset Sim (Debug)."
Resetting a Sim clears out all their random impulses from their action queue. Sometimes, Sims just get too many things going at the same time, like a bunch of other Sims trying to get their attention all at once, and it overloads their li'l computer brains and locks them up while they try to figure out what has the highest priority. Resetting will free their mind, so to speak.
Clear the cache
Likewise, the cache for The Sims 4 as a whole can become overloaded in the same way that a Sim itself can be, but we can solve that one by clearing the game cache. Clearing the cache on PC or Mac is simple, as it merely involves deleting two files. First, navigate to Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4. Once you're there, you'll delete two files: localthumbcache.package and avatarcache.package.
If you play The Sims 4 on Xbox or PlayStation, clearing the cache is even easier than it is on PC. Just turn your system all the way off--not rest mode--and then unplug it for 60 seconds. This clears the cache for the entire system.
Check your mods
For a lot of Sims PC players, it's tough to imagine playing without mods. But it's those same mods that often get us into trouble, usually when they haven't been kept up to date. And after 11 years, there are a lot of old, abandoned mods out there. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell which mod is causing you problems, or whether it really is a mod that's responsible for your problems at all. So we've got a couple steps you can take to pinpoint whether a mod is the issue, and narrow down which mod it might be.
First, you'll want to test if a mod is the culprit at all by disabling them completely. You can do this by going to the Other section of the game settings, and unchecking this check box:
This is where you can disable all your mods at once.
Save your settings, restart the game, and see how it works. If your bug isn't presenting itself anymore, then it was probably a mod that caused it. Now you'll need to narrow down which mod is the issue. One relatively easy test you can try is to pull half of your mods from the mods folder in your Documents folder, clear the cache, then load your game again. If you still have the bug, then one of your active mods is the problem--and if you don't, then it means one of the inactive ones is causing the trouble. You can continue narrowing it down from there by doing the same thing with the half that seems to have the problem mod, or if you've narrowed it down to your satisfaction, you may want to start removing specific mods you think might be the culprit.
Here is where you can repair your Sims 4 installation in the EA app.
Repair installation
You may have key game files that are missing or corrupted--another occasional side effect of using out-of-date mods. In these situations, you can use the EA app to check your installation directory and replace any crucial files that have gone missing or been corrupted. Just navigate to the main Sims 4 page in the app, and click on the Manage button to the left of Play. Select Repair from the dropdown menu. The EA app will then scan all your base game and DLC files for anything anomalous. This process does not check your mods, only the game files themselves.
Consider culling Sims
There is a limit to how many Sims that The Sims 4 can support at once. By default, the game caps the total population at 200, but you can remove that cap in the settings if you want. But no matter how good your computer may be, The Sims 4 will eventually slow down significantly if you add too many Sims. Even playing on a modern gaming rig with an RTX 4080 and an i9 CPU like I do, The Sims 4 tends to get real creaky when my world's population gets past 750 or so.
The Sims 4 is built to prevent that creakiness from happening by culling unplayed Sim families from the game periodically, but you can also protect a household from being culled by adding them to your list of played households. If your game has way too many Sims, the population could be the source of your problems. Moving inessential households over to the unplayed bucket will allow the game to remove them when or if it needs to. This is only a concern for players who have more than a couple hundred Sims in their game, however.
Consult the community
Lastly, there are two immense community resources you can take advantage of if the above checklist doesn't handle your issues: the EA forums and Reddit. Those have been the two most central discussion hubs for The Sims 4 since it launched--presuming your problem isn't unique to your setup, there's a very good chance you'll be able to find somebody else who's had the same issue in the past.
Source