Sims 3 crashing. [SOLVED]

I have recently downloaded the complete collection off of this website and installed the base game+all EP's up to Seasons(no SP's). When I create a new game, I normally can play without any trouble for 1-2 days(real time days, not sim days), after that my game starts crashing to desktop. Here are the steps that I have tried to resolve the issue:

1. Double checked all of the install instructions, reapplied the patch and the crack just in case

2. Added all of the .exe files relating to the Sims 3 as DEP exceptions

3. Applied the 4Gb Ram patch

4. Forced the game to recognise my video card

5. Tried playing in windowed mode

6. Tried lowering the graphics

7. Tried to remove all of the CC. When I first installed the game and created a new family and had all my CC in game, after 2 days of playing well, the game started crashing within 5 minutes of loading the save(most of the time it would happen in 3-4 minutes). I have removed all of the CC and tried running it without it - I played for about 30 mins without problem, then decided to check with CC. I was slowly adding my CC back, carefully selecting the items I KNOW work without any problem and testing the game after every "CC injection" for at least 30 mins, it worked without problem. I wasn't sure about a couple of the mods that I had(namely Grims AutoSave and a couple of Store items I downloaded from here), I decided that I didn't want them all that desperately, so I haven't added them back. As the game stopped crashing within 3 minutes I assumed it was all ok. I started a new game and again I was able to play without any trouble for 2 days, when I was saving every 30-40 minutes. On day 3, my game started crashing again. Now, it crashes within the first 15 minutes, usually at around the 10 minute mark. Clearing cache and deleting files from the Currentgame and Thumbnails folders makes no difference in regards of how quickly the game will crash

Whenever I try to analyse crash logs with FordGT90's Crash log analyser, I get a warning that expansion packs need updating, but using your ultimate patch says my game is completely up to date. Looking at the logs myself, I could see that before I tried to remove all CC, this was what game-generated crash logs were telling me most of the time:

[Exception info]
date: 2017-02-01
time: 22.01.35
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x000003fc
address: 0x005c75e7 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3W.exe":0x0001:0x001c65e7

After removing and re-installing all CC, the crash logs started giving this as the most common reason for the crash:

[Exception info]
date: 2017-02-02
time: 21.03.38
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION writing address 0x00000000
address: 0x773ee41b "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll":0x0001:0x0001e41b

Crash logs also show that memory load never exceeds 64%, most of the time it's at around 50%, a few times it was even as low as 35%. I have no other programs running when I am playing Sims, I make sure to shut everything down.

I run the game on my late 2013 13" MacBook Pro Retina using Parallels. The virtual machine has Windows 7 Ultimate, I assigned it 6gb ram, 1024gb graphics card memory, it has enough hard drive space. All of the drivers are up to date. I understand that this isn't the best of setups, but as I have mentioned, I had it running great on this machine before and since there was no damage done to it and a hardware check comes clean, nothing has really changed. I have tried playing the Mac's native version before, but found it to be too glitchy(though I am considering going back to it as a last resort now). 

I am incredibly frustrated and almost ready to give up on it, but I wanted to try fixing it just one more time as I have had Sims 3 run perfectly on this computer before, I just deleted it as I wasn't playing it for a while and wanted to free up some memory to play other games for a bit. 

I apologise for a really long post, but I wanted to ensure that you can see all the steps that I have taken. I couldn't find any definite information regarding the access_violation errors, everyone seems to interpret them their own way. I am really hoping that someone here would be able to help me out... I am considering just going back to playing Sims 2, but I wanted to play a storyline that would work much better in Sims 3, hence why I am not over it just yet

Ɛɗιη wrote:Hello,


Welcome to the forum.
Perhaps it is useful for you to run Errortrap from Nraas to get a clearer error log concerning these crashes.


Other than that, you seem to have done everything that can be done so far.


Edit: It was just pointed out to me that this might also be useful in your particular case.

Hi!

Thank you for replying to me  I have tried the Errortrap and *something* seems to have happened. The first day I tried it I had 0 problems with gameplay whatsoever, I was able to play for a few hours without it as much as lagging, let alone crashing. I thought that that would mean the end of my troubles, but sadly it doesn't seem to be so... The second day that I was playing the game started crashing. Granted, it wouldn't be 10 minutes in, so I could still get some decent gaming time and save a few times in-between, but it is still annoying that you never know when the game will just quit. After one the crashes all of my .sims3pack CC was deinstalled(!) and I know for sure I haven't done that. The default error logs are the same as I mentioned in the original post, the ones from the Errortrap don't seem to suggest anything specific either. I decided to double-check if maybe the game is running out of RAM when it crashes, so I played in windowed mode and left the Task Manager in the background so that I can see the RAM&CPU charts and both suggested normal load, no sudden spikes before the crash or anything of sorts. 

I do know of Bootcamp, I used to be a mac tech person in my company, so I had to get that done on a lot of computers  My problem with it is that I have a relatively small hard drive(256 gb as per tech specs, so we're talking maybe 210 of actual free space after you exclude the OS & essential apps) and bootcamp space isn't easy to reclaim, unlike with a virtual machine... it's also impossible to increase it without re-starting the process, so that leaves very little wiggle space for every day storage needs(though maybe I'll get desperate enough for Sims one day to try that out ). As I mentioned before, the configuration that I am using now worked very successfully before and I am honestly stumped as of why it wouldn't now. I am considering trying to install Sims on my bf's PC and transferring all my saves and CC to see if the game would continue to crash there as well

Just wanted to post a quick update - for some unknown reason the game seems to have sorted everything out itself  Since my last post I have just been trying to play it and see if maybe there are some strange graphic glitches with CC, stuck sims or something like that, and for some reason my game is functioning perfectly now(I only have a slight problem with my firefighter career, but I am afraid that was my fault). I am convinced that ErrorTrap is behind this, but perhaps there was an exception that it wasn't able to get around at some point which caused the crashing and it finally managed it after a couple of tries. I would again like to thank you [url=/u1470]Ɛɗιη[/url] for suggesting it to me, I am glad that I can finally proceed with my story