Mass Effect Trilogy: ME2 doesn't start with Origin after install

[holger1405]

@DancingClarinet

If your "Binaries" folder is empty the game is not properly installed.

How is the exact path to the "Binaries" folder?

Can you repair the game? (in Origin > Game Library > right click ME2 > Repair)

[7he_IT_Guy]

This is so unbelievably dumb. I installed the trilogy again to get hype for andromeda, and now I'm just salty. Salty that EA/Bioware can't push a simple fix an issue that is 4+ years old to update a filename after character import. I hope Andromeda has better support than this, but who am I kidding, they'll just release some $5 DLC that bypasses the need of import if any (I'm looking at you Genesis DLC). . . Again, really really salty at the lack of a legitimate fix that this has on such a simple resolution.

[CharlieMike56]

So, after 4-5 days of deleting, renaming, editing file names, repairing, and such...

I have come to the conclusion that the original sin was that the configurator, somehow damaged the instance of ME2 that ran after the config.exe was opened, and every saved game afterwards was likewise corrupted.  I have thought to delete the saves from the successful repairs I have had, because of the possibly corrupted saves may be bringing "virus-like" code to the newest install, affecting the install and preventing the freshly installed ME2 from working more than once. That has happened at least 4 times to me after various patches, fixes, etc. All without any lasting success and with several wasted hours of work and game.

The only consistent thing in the event log is the MSVCE80.dll error. 80 instances of failure to launch, after various attempted remedies. All of which stem from a desire to have ME1 saves carry over.

You will notice this is 2017 and the problem has been ongoing since at least 2012, sorta like andromeda distracted everyone from this clusterf*ck or do I merely have to blog/research deeper, longer, harder?

[holger1405]

@CharlieMike56

Did you disabled cloud saves?

If not the corrupt save games will indeed be back in your "Save" folder.

If the Games run after a game repair, the save games are not the culprit, the game repair does not touch the save folder.

The procedure is so:

• Disable cloud saves for ME2 inside Origin.
• Close Origin completely.
• Move all Character folder and the "Player1.prf" out of the ME2 "Save" folder. 

If the game runs after you removed the save files, you can copy them back one by one or in small groups, if you have many to see which save is corrupted.

If this happens regularly I also would consider to run "Chkdsk" on the drive with the save files.

[CharlieMike56]

Danke Sehr, that is exactly how I went about it this past time...

It is running and is "reliable" but I have yet to have it recognize files from 2015 0r 2016...the corruption hit about 1 March...

Thanks again for the guidance...

[holger1405]

@CharlieMike56

You're welcome.

[Snowbaekho]

Agree with you 100%. I own 19 games in origin and I can't remember any of the games just working without having to research to get games to work. I just stop dealing with any origin games. The company is a par with Comcast in my opinion.

[Disarray092]

*If you still have this problem in 2017*
nothing in any thread helped me out, so i tried out my own solution and it worked.

My game would not launch when i pressed play on origin, so i contacted EA support via telephone. It turned out that the files 'EAcore.dll' and 'EACoreServer.exe' was missing. they wanted me to attach Dxdiag and MSinfo to my ticket. However it seemed like my computer couldnt open some files in MSinfo, so i did a factory reset on my computer. (dont forget to backup ME1 save files to a USB or cellphone etc). After i've reinstalled my computer ME2 still didnt have the files, but the game was able to launch anyway.

So i guess the issue has something to do with unupdated computer software.

[Rettznom]

For those of you in 2017 still having this problem:

If you have already tried all the solutions in this thread, and you have traversed the web looking for some kind of solution that will somehow allow you to play Mass Effect 2 again. Then I may have found it. Even after trying everything, when I try launching ME2 from Origin it still doesn't do anything, and when I launch the MassEffect2Launcher it gives me an error saying there is a missing par file and I have to reinstall my game. I have really slow internet and reinstalling a game of this size takes days. However, I just went to my game directory (Origin Games>Mass Effect 2>binaries) and launched the game directly from the ME2Game.exe. Don't launch it from origin. Try launching it from ME2Game.exe.

This worked for me. I'm not sure which step I did on this thread that enabled that to work, but after trying the other solutions, try this one and let me know if it works for anyone else. Then, just make a shortcut on your desktop to that file.

[crackersnjam]

It didnt work the game just says download in Mass Effect 2 launch screen in Origin.