Already cleared caches, uninstalled/reinstalled Origin, but can't sign in to game! Not solved again.

hummingbird41556

I already did what will be suggested for me, so don't waste the time posting that I need to clear caches. I already did. In fact, I cleared all caches, for Edge, Firefox and Chrome. I uninstalled and reinstalled Origin, which I can sign in to, btw. I restarted the computer, twice, and tried again. I still cannot log in to my Sims 3 launcher or game. I have stuff from the store that I apparently missed downloading and installing last time I did a total reinstall of the game, and I cannot download or install these items because. . . You guessed it! I can't log into the launcher! I just wanted the dairy back, really! I'm frustrated with Sims 3 right now. I want to play, but if stuff is going to be missing, or my daughter and I can't send gifts back and forth because I cannot sign in, it kind of frustrates me. What else do I need to do? WHY is this game doing this, again? It seems like it is doing this to me about every three months. This just started on April 2nd. . . If you have suggestions for things I haven't tried yet, let me know. I sure hope I don't end up uninstalling all my Origin games, again!

igazor

I totally get why you are frustrated, but please understand something. The people you are reaching here on this forum are your fellow players. We did not do this to you and sorry, do not deserve to be scolded or reprimanded if something we suggested didn't work.

I know you don't want to hear about this anymore, but on the caches you did not specifically mention Internet Explorer and you did not mention cookies. The game and its Launcher do not use the caches and cookies of the other browsers (there was some discussion about Edge but nothing conclusive), it uses the resources of IE as per its programming even if you never use IE itself or have the entire browser hidden away.
https://kb.wisc.edu/page.php?id=15141

I'm also puzzled because what we gave you to do the last time reportedly did work. So something changed since then?
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/913305/sims-3-wont-log-in-to-launcher-or-in-game#latest

The next thing to try is to contact EA/Origin customer support. Although Origin is working for you, it's still possible that your account needs to be reset or checked for problems on their end for some reason.

hummingbird41556

Since I don't use IE anymore, I always forget about it. Thanks. When I clear the caches, I do include cookies as well. And I use REVO Uninstaller to uninstall Origin. I was kind of surprised when THAT didn't work. What wierded me out about this one was I WAS signed in to the launcher, and game, then realized one of my store items was missing (The Dairy), and tried to redownload it. That was when everything went crazy and nothing worked.
I don't know why nothing I try is working. I'm about ready to uninstall everything, again. Seems like sometimes that is the only way to fix this mess. I will first try to clear the IE cache, again. Maybe that will help.
It seems like I am always having to reset a password, remove or repair something in my game, or not play. I do appreciate the attempts to help. I know it isn't anyone here's fault. I also know, a lot of times, people don't read the entire posts, which is why I asked not to be told the same thing again.
I reread the remarks from the last time, and noticed the comment about the cat's look, That's Luna *Eclipse*. She was my one-eyed cat and always looked that way (I lost her February 2016 to old age, she was 16). She was the sweetest thing, though she was a bit brutish when she wanted something. I still miss her, but my kitten, about six months old now, helps a lot. Maybe I should change to her for my pic. LOL She's a gray and orange kitty, but if you think Luna looks like she means business, Little Diva DeAnna's markings really make her look grumpy! LOL

igazor

I'm sorry for your loss and I am sure that Luna was every bit as sweet as you said, but we really didn't have the background story to work with until now. So I guess that was a first impressions thing.

One of the reasons that many of us don't "feel" the almost constant need to clear IE caches and cookies as we play is that we don't even want to play logged in. There is nothing about the "online" features of TS3 that does anything for me, for instance, except raise the amount of overhead and processing that an already somewhat unstable game has to carry. The only time I ever log in at the Launcher level is when I want to install a new EA store purchase, and I have so much of the store now that such would be hardly ever.

But if these features are an important part of the game for you, I can see where it would feel like yet another thing to have to fix constantly (if that's what it is again, this time). Maybe you could get into the habit of always clearing IE's caches and cookies before or after every play session?

Reinstalling the game should always be a last resort. It rarely fixes anything as its not the TS3 program files themselves that "go bad" or misbehave as the game gets played. With no more patches coming out, those actually don't change.

hummingbird41556

Well, time to try the "change password" option. . . Clearing IE caches and cookies didn't work this time!
The only reason I even sign in to the browser is so I can send stuff to my one daughter that still plays, and for my store stuff (I own the entire store, and *thought* I had installed it all.) I will never earn the stuff we are supposed to have by doing the shows for other Simmers. I've never had an interest in that, and memories of bad things in Spore haunt me to this day because of the garbage other people's creations brought to my game. LOL Funny, but that actually does play a part in why I don't send or receive a lot of performers!
Anyway, time to reset my password, again. I really wish EA had fixed this game before moving on to the next one. Of course, they never fixed Makin' Magic in the original game before moving on to Sims 2, and never fixed all of Sims 2 before moving on to 3, so I guess we see a pattern here. LOL
Thanks, again, for the help. Going to try changing the password and then clearing caches, again. I might even throw in a computer restart. LOL Hopefully, it won't come down to reinstalling the game. Sometimes that helps, sometimes it doesn't. Either way, I really don't want to redownload all that store stuff again, so I will try to avoid that! (I have a backup copy of the store stuff, but obviously something was missing from it or this wouldn't have been an issue to start with.) I'm still trying to figure out how I got signed out while I was actively PLAYING the game! That is really odd. I do remember signing in, and opening my game and checking for gifts from my daughter. And then decided my family needed the chickens and cows. The chicken coop was still in the game, but no sign of the cows. I went to my purchase history, signed in there, and started to download. . . Launcher pops up, claims I am not signed in and won't let me download my dairy. I just wanted to relax, and play my still favorite game! Yes, I still had the game open at the time I tried to download. I even checked the Downloads Dashboard, and the dairy didn't show up there as needing to be installed.

hummingbird41556

Just thought I would update. . . I can once again sign in, though it took several attempts at clearing caches, uninstalling and reinstalling Origin, I even threw in a "remove the Sims 3 folder from Documents". Once I started the game again, after all that, I can suddenly sign in. Of course NOW I have to re-install all that store stuff. Good thing I love this game, or I'd probably have given up on it by now! (I also still play Sims 2 once in a while, and would play the original games if it would run on my Windows 10 computer)
Thank you for reminding me how to fix the issue. It didn't actually work right away, took a bit of redoing it several times, but finally, I am back to playing my game!

hummingbird41556

Adding "solved" to the title

igazor

It's possible that there have been issues on EA's end on and off all this time, which might explain why clearing the cache and reinstalling Origin suddenly helped again where it might not have before.

On your store content, have you tried copying the DCCache folder from your previous game folder into the new one? If the content comes over seamlessly, then you don't have to reinstall everything. But if store content is where you were originally having problems anyway, it may not be worth it to even try at this point.

hummingbird41556

I have actually done that in the past, but since it was store stuff that was missing, I figured a fresh reinstall of that might be in order. I started on that last night, using the backup copy of the downloaded stuff. If that doesn't work. I'll have to redownload everything, and I do try to avoid that. LOL
I did a total restore (wipe the hard drive and all!) on my computer a few weeks ago, so it kind of surprised me that I started having trouble this soon. You might be right, maybe it was something on EA's end, this round. Oh well, I have fresh games to play, since I chose not to back up anything that might be corrupted.

hummingbird41556

AND. . . It started again. I had just finished installing everything I had already downloaded. I finally decided to try to get my Milkin' It Dairy Corral back and, my sign in information is not working. I decided to try to download something else that I already own, and. . . My sign in information isn't correct, even though I am STILL logged in to the launcher and still logged in to the Sims 3 store. I'm heading over to Origin to ask for help now. Obviously, this isn't something wrong on my end, at least I don't think it is. Thanks again for the suggestions, time now, to see what their suggestions are at Origin.

hummingbird41556

The helpful people at EA/Origin help suggested many of the same things everyone else does. Sadly, since I had already tried everything on their list, it came to changing the password. I managed to sign back in to Origin and the site, but the launcher won't accept the password. I cleared IE cache and cookies, again, and all the other browsers' cookies and caches. I'll be uninstalling and reinstalling everything while I wait for a response from the "specialist team" on my issue. Seriously, all this because I decided to let my family, which now has to start over, have a cow? It's almost too funny, if I think about it for long.

igazor

Your family shouldn't have to start over. You should be able to capture your Saved Games and move or copy them into a fresh TS3 user game folder in Documents when all is said and done.

As said prior, uninstalling and reinstalling the game and its packs if this is what you meant is almost never the solution. It's not the Program files that are misbehaving, it's some combination of Origin, your game folder in Documents (which is expendable), yes IE caches/cookies, and things on EA's end.

hummingbird41556

The final suggestion from the people at EA/Origin was that I might have to do a total restore of my computer. . . Uhm, I just did one about three months ago, thankyouverymuch. . . LOL Still, I can't help but wonder if it would help. I have literally done everything asked, up to now. My game launcher will sometimes let me sign in and download my store stuff, and sometimes it won't. Right now, I'm finishing up making sure everything is downloaded. After that, I don't even care if it signs in anymore! I only do computer restores in January. Already did one for this year, and that's enough for me! LOL (Started doing that when I had to replace a hard drive one January.) I believe that most of the problem is probably on EA's end, to be honest. My daughter told me yesterday that she can't always sign in, either. Different computer, different account, she's hardwired to the internet and my desktop is wireless.
The only reason it would make any difference once the store stuff is installed is if we wanted to send each other gifts or do the Showtime things, which I would do, but I don't think anyone is participating in that anymore. Know of any good and safe mods that will let me have all the stuff I paid for with Showtime without having to go through the tedious process of sending and receiving Sims to perform?
I can copy and paste the emails with their suggestions, if you would like. who knows, it might help others.
Oh yeah, I know my family didn't have to start over, but I wasn't very attached to them, yet, so I tossed them away. Going to start a new family, or maybe a single sim when I start playing again this afternoon.

Hawkflight1066

Right now I can't sign into the launcher, and I'm getting the invalid e mail address message when I get through the first loading screens. It happens. It's EA, not my game. Eventually it recovers and works right. Could be tomorrow, could be a few night's time. The vagaries of EA just have to be lived with and ignored.

james64468

Hawkflight1066 wrote: »

Right now I can't sign into the launcher, and I'm getting the invalid e mail address message when I get through the first loading screens. It happens. It's EA, not my game. Eventually it recovers and works right. Could be tomorrow, could be a few night's time. The vagaries of EA just have to be lived with and ignored.

Please try what I I did earlier this month. Even if you don't use internet explorer. Sims 3 uses some of the Internet explorer resources. Go to internet explorer. Click on Internet options. Then go to advance tab. Click Reset. put the check in Delete personal settings. click Reset and okay. It should solve the problem. Then you need to restart the computer. After that you might have to reenter your info.

Meela_Pasht

I don't know what EA did but they broke the plumb launcher possibly with the last Origin update! grrrrrrrrr. Please fix the plumb thing! Geez you just couldn't leave well enough alone. You had to track everything and everyone. Well, if you permanently broke it, that isn't going to make me start playing Sims 4.

hummingbird41556

The only way they are going to fix the issue is by admitting it is at their end. I have done everything they asked me to do, other than restoring the computer. Most days, lately, I can sign in, now. Once in a while, for a day or so, I can't. The most important things I get from all this is clear ALL browser caches, and don't forget IE, whether you use it or not. Change password. Uninstall and reinstall Origin. The thing that finally fixed it for me was when I actually tossed out the entire folder in Documents for Sims 3. Once I did that, everything seems to be working again. However, I also had just cleared the IE Cache, ran my computer maintenance, did a disk defragment, and restarted the computer, TWICE, because Windows 10 chose exactly that time to update. LOL Hopefully, my game will not lose any more of my store stuff, and I can continue to play. I actually didn't even try with the Sims 4 "event" this year, and was quite relieved that my Sims 3 game is working, for now. Anyone want to send/receive performers? When my game is working, I'll gladly receive performers. I don't happen to have any of them right now, my future performer is only a toddler at the moment. LOL As long as my store stuff stays put, sending/receiving performers is the only other reason I need to be logged in.

ciane

I have read that, as a last resort, try resetting IE to its default setting. Don't just clear caches, history, and cookies. Find the restore to default option and click that. This may not help, but it wasn't mentioned, so I offer it as another simple possibility to try.