I was actually experiencing the empty library problem shortly before uninstalling/reinstalling--that was what prompted me to reinstall.
For context:
As of last night, I was happily building away in The Sims 4; when I loaded up the game from the desktop shortcut this afternoon, being still logged into Origin from last night, the game menu showed all of my (many) packs as being unowned. So I quit, logged out and exited Origin, thinking the pack list would be reset on reopening the client. Instead, after what appeared to be some intense pondering on Origin's part--it sat on the grey screen of doom for awhile--it finally loaded the Origin menu but told me that the server could not be reached and it could not load my game library: please reload. I reloaded. Then I reloaded again. Still nothing. So I went to the forums and searched for similar issues; that brought me to this thread discussing Origin getting stuck on a grey loading screen.
Since I had spent a tense few minutes staring at that same greyed-out page, I thought clearing the cache as advised there might help. I followed the instructions, rebooted, and tried logging in again. Origin loaded more quickly afterward, which was reassuring--clearing the cache must have done what it was supposed to--but I still got the original error: "Origin servers temporarily unavailable: Apologies for the inconvenience, we're currently unable to retrieve your list of games. Please reload and try again." So the cache was evidently not the root of my problem. Rats.
From there, I tried EA's technical support page, which currently reads, "someone call tech support." Ah, I said to myself, it's one of those days, and I figured I had better just go ahead and post.
Total troubleshooting steps attempted:
- cleared Origin cache
- rebooted my computer
- tried logging into Origin again; problem persists
- uninstalled Origin
- rebooted my computer
- turned off my VPN and downloaded Origin fresh (having noticed in the past that Origin will not allow me to purchase games with VPN on)
- reinstalled Origin
- logged out, logged in, reloaded both with VPN off and on; problem persists
- added exceptions in Avast for the Sims 4 folders and the folder housing the Origin client executable
- set the Origin desktop shortcut to run as administrator
- rebooted my computer again
- repeated the log/load/log out dance a few more times for good measure; problem persists
My game library remains empty. As OP said, everything shows up in purchase history, just not in hand. Going to the store pages for games I own and clicking the "Get the Game" button gives me the options to purchase as a gift or add to wishlist--not to purchase for myself or to redownload these already-purchased games.
I can't find any notice of EA's servers having active issues currently, but maybe they really are? I would be grateful if anyone can suggest more troubleshooting options or offer any insight--at this point I'm not even sure whether this is a problem I can solve or if it's something happening with the server itself.
Thank you.
EDIT: Came back about 6 hours later to find Origin loading properly. Some DLC packs showed as needing to be downloaded again, but quitting Origin and logging back in resolved that. Since nothing changed on my computer during those 6 hours, it seems likely that the server was having problems. Origin's error messages aren't always accurate, but I think this one was. So for the rest of you who are experiencing this issue, waiting a little while could be all you need to do. I hope so, anyway! Best of luck.
