- For information about Crashes to desktops, see Crash to desktop.
A Game Crash can occur when something goes wrong in the game. In this process, the player will return to Windows or Mac OS 9/X.
Cause of Crashes
There are many possible ways that the game can crash. Some glitches can cause the game to crash or freeze.
Custom content that is not from EA (IE, ModTheSims, Simmergirl, etc.) can cause issues if they are incompatibile, even Maxis[TS][TS2]/EA[TS3] content can have issues. As of The Sims 3: High-End Loft Stuff, players are advised to disable custom content when they install an update or a new version of The Sims 3.
Loading content saved in a later version may cause an older game to crash. For example, content made in a The Sims 2: Seasons game can crash a The Sims 2: Pets game. Likewise, lots made in The Sims 3: Generations can crash The Sims 3: Late Night when placed.
The Sims
The game can crash and if it does, it will usually display the program error message such as "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" (Windows 95/98), "Sims has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience" (Windows 2000/XP) or "Sims has stopped working" (Windows Vista/7/8)
The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories
When The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories crashes, the message "The application has crashed. The application will now terminate." will be displayed, clicking OK will usually close The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories.
The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval
No message is displayed when The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval crashes. The file "xcpt computer_name yy-mm-d hh-mm-ss.txt" will be created, although a program error message may show up in some cases, such as when a pre-made Sim in the Create-a-Sim menu depends on custom content that isn't present in the game.
In The Sims 3: Late Night (6.0), the game would crash if the player places a new lot in Bridgeport, edits it and goes back to Edit Town. This was fixed in 6.1 and in The Sims 3: Outdoor Living Stuff.
Placing a lot made in a later version or newer game can cause an older version of The Sims 3 to crash. For example, placing a lot made in Generations will crash Late Night if it does not have the Generations update.
When the Generations update was released, a user could encounter a random crash with a popup of some numbers and an option to debug it with the game transferring to a window, even if the user did not run in Windowed Mode. Clicking either option caused the game to crash and the user would go back to the desktop. This was fixed in the Town Life Stuff patch.
Game Freeze
On the console versions, the game will freeze. When it freezes, it will usually stop working and repeat the same sound. For example, in The Urbz: Sims in the City, the game will repeat a sound when it freezes. In some games, a sound may not be played even if sound was playing before the freeze. The game may freeze if the disc is removed in PS2 games. In the case of GBA/DS/3DS games, if the Card/Game Pak removed from the slot. The game may also freeze if the disc is dirty or scratched and unreadable.
| DS Game | Behavior |
|---|---|
| The Urbz: Sims in the City | Game Freezes with a repeating sound. |
| The Sims 2 | The message "The DS Card has been removed." will appear. |
| The Sims 2 Pets | Game Freezes and no sound will play. |
| The Sims 2 Castaway | Game Freezes and Graphics on the Touch Screen will be messed up. |
| The Sims 2 Apartment Pets | Game Freezes and no sound will play. |
| The Sims 3 | Game freezes and no sound will play |
In The Urbz: Sims in the City for DS, performing glitches such as the Gator glitch and traveling in a Time Machine with a Pet will freeze the game.
In the DS version of The Sims 2, some users reported of the game randomly freezing.