Some days I just hate mods.

[divingmedic]

Was kinda burnt out on Sims 4, been playing a lot of adult visual novels last few weeks. Latest EA Sims 4 update bricked my Sims 4 game. So I uninstalled the game, reinstalled, game was still screwed up. So I nuked all the mods, reinstalled them. Still f'd up. So I guess its, installing 5 mods, start the game, run it, so and so on till I find the mod f'ing things up.  Just ranting so don't bust my balls.

[SilentAegis]

Ah... the joys of troubleshooting...

 

In all seriousness, here's some tips in case you aren't aware that will hopefully save you some time, assuming you haven't already found the cause.

 

By "mods", I hope you mean actual gameplay mods and not just custom content. Assuming you're not, I highly recommend organizing your mod folder (especially the ones with script files) as these mods are usually the ones that will completely mess up a game. CC like clothing, hair, skins, etc don't really cause these problems as they hardly interact with the game. The update didn't brick your game, a mod did, and it will always be a mod that does this, so you didn't have to uninstall and reinstall, that was unfortunately a waste of time. Not a judgement, just something you can remember the next time this happens.

 

Depending on how many mods you have (and assuming you're not talking about CC), that could take time, so I recommend the 50/50 method. Uninstall half of your mods, launch the game. If the game is working, the half contains your faulty mod, so install half of the uninstalled half and see if the game breaks or not. If the game is not working on the initial uninstallation of half of your mods, the faulty mod is obviously still installed, so you can uninstall another half. 

 

If my unsolicited advice helped you, I'm pleased it did. I know how annoying and time-consuming troubleshooting can be. Many here do, heh. If not, apologies and good luck. 

Edited June 8, 2023 by SilentAegis

[travelmedic]

Whether it's Sims 4, Skyrim, Fallout or whatever, I think we all feel your pain on this one.  Mods are both a blessing and a curse.

 

Still, I can't imagine playing without them...

[divingmedic]

1 hour ago, SilentAegis said:

Ah... the joys of troubleshooting...

 

In all seriousness, here's some tips in case you aren't aware that will hopefully save you some time, assuming you haven't already found the cause.

 

By "mods", I hope you mean actual gameplay mods and not just custom content. Assuming you're not, I highly recommend organizing your mod folder (especially the ones with script files) as these mods are usually the ones that will completely mess up a game. CC like clothing, hair, skins, etc don't really cause these problems as they hardly interact with the game. The update didn't brick your game, a mod did, and it will always be a mod that does this, so you didn't have to uninstall and reinstall, that was unfortunately a waste of time. Not a judgement, just something you can remember the next time this happens.

 

Depending on how many mods you have (and assuming you're not talking about CC), that could take time, so I recommend the 50/50 method. Uninstall half of your mods, launch the game. If the game is working, the half contains your faulty mod, so install half of the uninstalled half and see if the game breaks or not. If the game is not working on the initial uninstallation of half of your mods, the faulty mod is obviously still installed, so you can uninstall another half. 

 

If my unsolicited advice helped you, I'm pleased it did. I know how annoying and time-consuming troubleshooting can be. Many here do, heh. If not, apologies and good luck. 

I use Vortex to load my mods, no unzipping or such, just drag and drop, it sorts out my conflicts also. was running about 170 mods for Sims 4 and probably half is CC ( hair, clothing, buildings, Sims other people made). I'm semi retired so I have time to sort it, just a PITA.

[divingmedic]

56 minutes ago, travelmedic said:

Whether it's Sims 4, Skyrim, Fallout or whatever, I think we all feel your pain on this one.  Mods are both a blessing and a curse.

 

Still, I can't imagine playing without them...

Yeah, I went to jump on Skyrim last week and went through and ran updates on my mods now I can't get the sex scenes to work. I'm having a great week,

[Faolon]

Easiest way to do things, imo:

 

Start by organizing everything into their own folder. Wicked Whims should have its own folder. Animations for that mod should be in their own folder. Clothing should have its own folder. I find further separating clothing by creator helps a lot. If you want to be way more OCD than that and add Shoes, Tops, Bottoms, etc folders to each of these, be my guest.

 

This makes it easier when something breaks. You can just remove everything, then put each folder back, one at a time, until you find the cause. Sure it may be more work in the short term, but in the long term it'll save a ton of time.

Download mods like Better Exceptions by TwistedMexi: https://www.patreon.com/posts/better-v2-03-52688481

If there's an issue that will pop up. I find that it doesn't just find game breaking issues, sometimes just a hiccup in the game can cause it to pop up. But you can view the full report and decide for yourself. If there's an actual issue, it usually provides all the info you need somewhere in the report.

 

Download Sims 4 tray importer. (Dude's old website was hacked, and has a message on his new one to be careful about what you click, so I'd rather not directly link to it to be safe). This is a good tool for figure out what CAS mod is causing issues, since sometimes you can't tell. Your sim just has those black and white squares with question marks and stuff all over them and you don't know why. Or maybe there's a mod item that keeps appearing on your townies and you don't know what it's called or where to find it. Simply make sure the sim with the broken mod is saved to your library. If it's a townie, go into CAS for them and save them to library. This will allow that sim to appear in Tray Importer. One of the tabs available in this mod lists every item that sims is wearing. Just clicking on the name will show you the CAS icon for it. This has helped me find out which mods needed deleting so many times...

Edited June 10, 2023 by Faolon

[deathbywesker]

In addition to Faolon's post, I also recommend using GameTimeDev's Mod Manager: Website (latest version) or 

Mod The Sims. Unfortunately, this doesn't detect broken mods but it does help organize your mods folder. Hope this helps you out. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by deathbywesker

[hughraphael]

Any time that you update, remove or add mods, remember to delete the localthumbcache.package file. You may also want to delete avatarcache.package if you updated or removed custom content.

 

These files are located in your My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4 folder on PC.

 

It won't eliminate all cases of mods going wrong, but it does at least ensure that the game isn't hanging onto old versions of stuff in the cache.