"Could Not Activate" – Battlefield 1 (Trial) despite owning full game [ Edited ]

[Tmpst]

Product: The EA app
Platform:PC
Error Report ID (learn how to create an Error Report ID in the sticky post) cbc34cdf-25c5-458a-8997-bad7cc20f51a
Which client functionality are you experiencing this bug with? Application Navigation
When did this happen? (dd.mm.yy hh:mm) 7.12.22 14:00
Summarize your bug Out of nowhere I get windows popping up telling me that "Battlefield 1 (Trial)" couldn't be activated. I actually played the Battlefield 1 Trial, but that's been back in 2016 before release. I own the full game (pre-ordered it back then), but the window still pops up now and then (sometimes even 3-4 times in quick succession or at the same time).
How often does the bug occur? Often (50% - 99%)
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? I guess one has to have both the BF1 trial as well as the full game on one account, but I'm not 100% sure.
What happens when the bug occurs? This issue returns once every few weeks, but since yesterday I'm getting it constantly. One or more windows pop up, telling you that your current EA account couldn't activate the trial. This behavior seems to stop, if I uninstall the game, but it reappears after installing. The popup might be triggered by opening/closing any game (not just Battlefield 1).
What do you expect to see? There shouldn't be any popups or notifications, since I own the full version and only the full version of the game is installed.

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This is the window that will pop up in irregular intervals, sometimes even up to 6 or 7 times at once:

Just to emphasize this: I own the full game, there's no need for any trial license nor am I aware of anything being installed.

I uninstalled BF1, made sure the whole game folder is deleted, yet I still get this popup now and then.

[woody357ANW]

@Tmpst I guess Battlefield 1 Trial is something that doesn't exist anymore ? No doubt you tried to call EA Assistance, can't tell how you're supposed to fix this on your own, sorry. 

[Tmpst]

@woody357ANW It kind of does exist in the form of the EA Play trial, which I think is still existing. It's kind of built into the full game install after all (separate executable).

I mostly posted this as an actual bug report and it kind of doesn't bother me too much, since I simply close the EA App when not playing.

As another test I just went ahead and renamed bf1Trial.exe just to see if it's related to the file being there.

[Tmpst]

Okay, so renaming the executable "worked". I no longer get the popup (which actually is triggered by the desktop app running bf1Trial.exe up to 5-6 times after I opened the launcher(????). But now instead of showing the error window the app tries to launch BF1 once a minute or so… WTF?

[Tmpst]

Since this issue started to really annoy me today, I went ahead and spied a bit on what the EA Desktop app is doing.

Turns out, it seems to try to read a license file, "1026023_oa.dlf", which I assume is associated with the BF1 Trial. It was missing on my system, therefore the app constantly tried to execute bf1Trial.exe to verify the license.

Luckily, I found said file in an old backup of mine. I copied it to the expected position and the nagging stopped – at least for now.

I'm considering this a workaround, not a solution, but this is really something that should be looked into. One shouldn't be forced to have support remove account entitlements (and potentially screw things up), just because you played a trial version years ago. This is just disappointing.

[ZjemCiKolege]

@Tmpst yesterday I had a window with activation from bf1 every few minutes, which I turned off, it appeared again every few minutes and now after removing bf1trial.exe it starts the game automatically

[ZjemCiKolege]

@EA_Leeuw Anyway for me bf1 start spaming with activation window but i don't have game on steam ;-) https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports-Technical-Issues/Activation-prompt-window-Battlefield-1/m-p/12...

[pastrvmi]

Yeah same exact situation for me unfortunately. I do not have the file that @Tmpst mentioned earlier or at least if I do I cannot find it located anywhere on my PC. A very frustration situation altogether given that I only use the EA App because I have to with Game Pass

[EA_Leeuw]

Hey @ZjemCiKolege,

I have split off your post and made a separate channel of it, as it was off-topic to the other thread.

Can you remember how exactly you own Battlefield 1? Is this via:

• A standalone purchase?
  
  • Via us? Or via a 3rd party store?
• EA Play via EA subscription?
• EA Play via Xbox Game Pass subscription?

[ZjemCiKolege]

@EA_Leeuw 3rd party store disc version and i have gamepass