How to fix the blank UI bug in The Sims 4 limited-time events
No tasks showing for the latest in-game event in The Sims 4? Here's some things you can do to fix that.
The Sims 4 has been experimenting with limited-time events for a few years already, but 2024 saw EA seemingly settle on a formula they'd like to continue going forward. In total there were three such events in The Sims 4 over the course of the year – Happy At Home in the summer, Reaper's Rewards for Halloween, and Cozy Celebrations for Christmas – with the latter two both extending beyond log-in rewards and instead requiring you to complete some quests in order to gather up those sweet exclusive goodies.
If you've participated in either of these goal-oriented events, you're likely already aware of the dreaded blank UI bug, even if it hasn't happened to you. The exact reason for the bug's occurrence is still up for debate, with everything from bad interactions between the event and your mods/CC to saving and quitting in the middle of a quest or even "you paused too quickly after a loading screen" being theorised as potential culprits.
At the end of the day, though, the why of the bug is really EA's problem rather than yours. While they work out how to prevent it from happening in the future, though, you can follow these steps to fix the recurring blank UI/"no tasks" bug in The Sims 4 events.
How to fix "no tasks" bug in The Sims 4 events
The "no tasks" or "blank UI" bug in The Sims 4 has so far been observed in both the Reaper's Rewards and Cozy Celebrations events. When it occurs, players can still see the event icon in the upper left-hand corner of the screen while in Live Mode, but no task list appears, and thus the event quests can't be completed, so you can't claim the rewards.
If you're experiencing this problem, there's a couple of steps to take first and foremost:
- Wait a few moments. It sounds too obvious to be true, but the UI for events in The Sims 4 seems to lag a bit compared to the rest of the game. Quite often, if you don't see the task list pop up immediately upon loading a save, just giving the game a minute or two to catch up is all that's needed.
- Disable your mods and CC. Official additions to The Sims 4 aren't tested against every piece of fanmade content, and the rapid-fire pace of events makes this fact stand out more starkly than ever. Disabling your mods/CC and then attempting to complete the event quests in a fresh save has solved the problem for a lot of players.
However, if the issue persists after trying both of these, PC players have a work-around with a high success rate that they can try – although it still isn't a guaranteed fix, and console users might have to skip straight to repairing or uninstalling/reinstalling the whole game, unfortunately.
If you're on PC, it's a good idea to start by backing up the UserSetting.ini file, and then delete the accountDataDB file from your Sims 4 folder. You can then replace the new UserSetting.ini file in the TS4 folder with the one you backed up earlier and reload the game – you should now be able to see the correct event quest tasks, without having lost your progress on previously-completed quests.
Just be sure you've made that back-up elsewhere on your PC so that you can place it back in once the accountDataDB file has repopulated, or else you'll lose your time-limited unlocks from previous events when you wipe that file.
To be honest, it's worth backing up this file every time you complete an event, just to make sure you don't lose those time-limited rewards to a future issue.
It's not quite troubleshooting on the same level as this, but if you want more ways to tweak your Simming experience, be sure to check out our The Sims 4 cheats list!