Need Error Help

[sydneysagee]

Okay, so I've been playing sims 3 since it first came out, and I have bought most of the EP's and worlds, I currently have Showtime installed, it was working fine until last night, when I decided to clean up the game a bit, removing caches and unnecessary files I may have downloaded, randomly the game crashed last night after the clean up, (maybe an hour after clean up) It was late so I just went to bed, but this afternoon I went to play and it crashed before the EA splash screen could pop up, I went to restart it and I got the infamous "there was an error during start up, please see log for more details." I noticed, people are claiming this is a "patch" problem, but in all honesty, I haven't patched my game since before I got showtime. (when it first came out) so I don't see why the patch would be acting up now.

Did I maybe delete a file I wasn't supposed to? Is uninstalling and reinstalling the only option? Or will that not fix it at all? I'm getting mixed messages about this fix, it's kind of frustrating.

[cathyknits]

There have been a couple patches put out since Showtime - a good first step might be to make sure you've got the most up-to-date patch.

[Pam]

Okay, so I've been playing sims 3 since it first came out, and I have bought most of the EP's and worlds, I currently have Showtime installed, it was working fine until last night, when I decided to clean up the game a bit, removing caches and unnecessary files I may have downloaded, randomly the game crashed last night after the clean up, (maybe an hour after clean up) It was late so I just went to bed, but this afternoon I went to play and it crashed before the EA splash screen could pop up, I went to restart it and I got the infamous "there was an error during start up, please see log for more details." I noticed, people are claiming this is a "patch" problem, but in all honesty, I haven't patched my game since before I got showtime. (when it first came out) so I don't see why the patch would be acting up now.

Did I maybe delete a file I wasn't supposed to? Is uninstalling and reinstalling the only option? Or will that not fix it at all? I'm getting mixed messages about this fix, it's kind of frustrating.

Welcome to our Forum!

Have you tried starting the game more than once?  And you get this same error each time?  Do you have any mods or third party content installed?  When was the last time you did a clean re-install?

Also, please note that we don't allow all capitals here.  I modified your subject line accordingly. 

[sydneysagee]

There have been a couple patches put out since Showtime - a good first step might be to make sure you've got the most up-to-date patch.

Welcome to our Forum!

Have you tried starting the game more than once?  And you get this same error each time?  Do you have any mods or third party content installed?  When was the last time you did a clean re-install?

Also, please note that we don't allow all capitals here.  I modified your subject line accordingly. 

I have tried to start it up about six times, and each time that happens, I also tried to update it, and it says it's up to date and the last time I re-installed it was right after Generations came out. I don't use mods, only one I use is for super speedy skills, I'm afraid something like this might happen if i use real mods, but I don't and it still happened lol.

and thanks, I was just frustrated and hadn't realized, I had used angry(capital) letters. lol

[Pam]

I have tried to start it up about six times, and each time that happens, I also tried to update it, and it says it's up to date and the last time I re-installed it was right after Generations came out. I don't use mods, only one I use is for super speedy skills, I'm afraid something like this might happen if i use real mods, but I don't and it still happened lol.

Have you tried a factory reset?

[sydneysagee]

I tried, but it wont even let me launch the game, I even tried to play under a different user name, and it did the same thing. Maybe when it crashed last night it corrupted a file or something?

[Flynn Arrowstarr]

Welcome to the forum.

If it's crashing before the game even starts, it may need a complete re-install. Please see Pam's thread Start from the Beginning - Uninstall and Reinstall for the how-to.

If you're playing on a Mac, then there are instructions for a reinstall in Slingsby's Complete Re-install on a Mac thread.

Please make sure you make a backup copy of your The Sims 3 folder so you don't lose any of your saved games. Hopefully you'll be back to playing Sims before too long.

Flynn