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Fix for the “codes everywhere” bug in The Sims 4

Written by BlackGarden
Lots of users have been reporting a bug in The Sims 4 which, after updates, puts “codes” all over the game where there should be some nice sensible words. You might see things like *** BE97AC03*** all over your game – people with a passing familiarity with programming will probably recognise them as hex strings.

If you’re experiencing this bug, there are two ways to fix it, one is to uninstall and reinstall your game – this obviously can take a lot of time depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

The second option is to follow the steps below. This solution comes from the EA Answers forum where it was outlined by ZeroFish122. Note that this involves renaming and deleting files in Origin’s game installation directory. If the steps are followed incorrectly you might mess up some other game data, and Platinum Simmers accepts no responsibility for loss of data caused by attempting to follow the instructions below. Backing up your saved games is, as always, recommended.

  1. Close Origin by clicking on Origin in the top-left and choosing “Exit”.
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  2. Open the Origin game folder – by default this is C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games
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  3. Right-click “The Sims 4” folder and choose “rename”.2015-02-03_19-38-17
  4. Rename it to “The Sims 4 Backup” and hit enter
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  5. Open Origin again and go to My Games – it will tell you The Sims 4 is not installed, which is exactly what you want.
  6. Click on The Sims 4 and choose “Download”, and go through all the usual terms & language choices.
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  7. When the game says “Downloading 0%”, close Origin again, as you did in step 1.
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  8. Go back to the  Origin game folder, like you did in step 2.
  9. Delete the new folder there that is called “The Sims 4”.
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  10. Right-click on “The Sims 4 Backup” and rename it back to “The Sims 4”
  11. Open Origin again. Origin will now force an update on the game.
  12. When it’s finished, launch the game and you should find those hex strings gone!

Note: EA are actively working on eliminating this bug, and until they do so, the only known fixes are the approach described above and uninstalling & reinstalling. If the approach above doesn’t work for you, you will need to reinstall your game.

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