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WhileThe Sims 4has been around for a while now, it still experiences its fair share of bugs and crashes. It can be more than frustrating when you’ve invested countless hours into a save file, only for it to freeze or crash while you play. But while the frozen screen of death can seem like a final goodbye for your save file, it’s not the end.
There are a few tricks you can use to manually save your game during a freeze, or recover saved data after a crash. So, the next time your game decides to take an involuntary pause, don’t panic.
What To Do When The Sims 4 Freezes
If you’re reading this article, odds are that your game decided to take a breather without your permission. The post-game-freeze panic can be intense, but all is not lost. Even if your game is frozen, you canstill save and recover your files.
Keyboard Commands To Save The Game
One of the easiest ways to save The Sims 4 from a sudden brain-freeze is touse the command Alt + F4on your keyboard.
Using Alt + F4 will automaticallypull up the game’s exit and save menu, giving you the options you would usually have when manually trying to save or exit the game.
Youdon’t needto type Alt + F4 in the game’scheat bar. You only have to press the commandson your keyboard. This command isPC specific.
Game Commands To Save The Game
Another way to force a save while your game is frozen is to use the game’scheats bar.
To do this, pressCtrl + Shift + Con your keyboard to open the cheats bar.
Click on the Cheats Bar toenter the word ‘quit’and then pressEnter.
Using this cheat has the same effect as using Alt + F4 and willopen the exit and save menufor you to exit or save your game as usual. However, this cheat will pull up thefull Sims 4 menu, including all settings. Alt + F4 only lets you save or exit.
This option is only available if you are still able to open the cheat bar while the game is frozen. TheAlt + F4method can be used atany point.
How To Close A Frozen Game
Sometimes, The Sims 4 can get so frozen that not even a solar flare could save it. When this happens, your only option is toclose the game manually.
Sometimes, you’ll be able toclose the window(if you are in windowed mode) andexit the game as usual, but other times, you may not be able to close the game at all.
To get around this error, you may use the keyboard commandCtrl + Alt + Deleteto pull up thePC menu.From here, select the option’Task Manager.‘When you’re in Task Manager, you willsee all active tasksthat your computer is running.
Select The Sims 4byright-clickingon it in the Task Manager list and choose the option to’End Task.‘This willforce a shutdownof the game.
Your gameprogress will not be savedif you have to force a shutdown.
How To Recover A File When You Can’t Save
Even though you may not always be able to save your game upon shutting it down after a freeze, you might still be able torecover old manual savesor autosaves.
Luckily,The Sims 4launcher has an option in place for exactly when this happens.
When you start up the game, select the option to’Load Game.‘From here, you will see alist of all of your saved worldsand files.
Choose the Floppy Disksymbol beside the world you want to recover. From here, you will see alist of all recoverable savesfor that game. Choosing whichever file you want willcreate a new save slotas a recovered version of the save.
The word’recovered’ will be addedto the end of the save slot’s name.
This method also works on console!
How To Repair The Game When All Else Fails
When even your last ditch effort just doesn’t cut it, you may need to start thinking about a long-term solution. Some games willcrash or freeze repeatedlyand the only way to fix them is tocompletely reinstallthe game.
If you’re on a console, you cantry deleting the gameand re-downloading it from whatever source you acquired it. Thisalso works on a PC, but if you are usingSteam,you can choose toverify the game files, thus repairing any damaged or corrupted ones you downloaded or missed.
Torepair a game on Steam, select the following options:
After you have followed the above steps, Steam willre-scan your game filesand make sure that they are alldownloaded and installed correctly. This may fix whatever is causing your frequent crashes or freezes.
