sims 3 island paradise stuck "preparing"

[ZoeyHappyHugs]

its the only DLC i bought on the origin app the rest are physical copies and it wont download im so frustrated!!!!! ive tried clearing cache files and app recovery and installing origin to see if that would download the game but it worked once and ea uninstalled it again and now it wont do it again!!!!    

[Drelkag]

I've had this problem trying to install Sims 3 from the new EA desktop app. The base game and every expansion besides Into the Future, Island Paradise, and I think University (there was 1 more) kept getting stuck on preparing. The Origin fix worked for me.

1) I downloaded Origin from https://www.dm.origin.com/download

2) I let everything that installed on the EA desktop app install there.

3) When I reached the expansions that were stuck on preparing, I closed the EA desktop app. Don't cancel the installs.

4) I installed and opened Origin and signed in. There's a big popup to download the EA desktop app, but if you leave it open you'll see all the installed games verifying then start downloading the ones stuck on preparing:

5) After they install with Origin you can close Origin and open back up the EA desktop app. The expansions were still stuck on preparing for me on the EA desktop app, but I cancelled them and they still showed up fine in the Sims 3 launcher. All should be good after that.

[puzzlezaddict]

@cassadony and @ZoeyHappyHugs  I've merged your posts with another thread about this issue.  Please see the accepted solution on page one for a possible workaround, specifically the Origin part.

[JesstoSims]

How did you re download origin? As far as I can tell it's not available for download anymore, at least on windows, therefore this fix won't work. Am I missing something?

[puzzlezaddict]

@JesstoSims  There's a download link for Origin in the post above yours.

[Xila31]

Thank you! This worked and finally Origin would reinstall on my PC. Sadly, this only fixed one of 3 problems. Pets is installed. Now, if only I can get my store content to install. But worse, if only pushing play on Sims 3 launcher didn't only open the EA App, and pushing play on EA didn't only open Sims 3 launcher. The game itself won't actually open and play. Maybe someday I will get to play Sims 3 again, but I am not uninstalling it after this ordeal. 

[puzzlezaddict]

@Xila31  I can try to help with this issue if you'd like.  Please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

[gbpaard]

I'm having problems installing The sims 3. I have all expensions but when i download all the expensions are under the sims 3 except Island Paradise and Pets. When i try to download they just stay on "preparing" for hours and then it says there are problems with the download and that I need to wait for a couple of minutes but that does not work. Anyone know how i can fix this?

Picture of what i mean below. Not sure if i was clear enough, sorry

[puzzlezaddict]

@gbpaard  I've merged your post with the master thread for this issue.  You can try using Origin, as described a few times in this thread.  Origin doesn't work in Windows, but it might download your missing packs in the background even as it's prompting you to switch to the EA App.

Other than that, you'll need to wait for EA to fix the issue, which should happen at some point.  There's no word on when though.

[nmcpie]

I'm also having this problem but with Ambitions. It originally happened with a bunch of packs as i bought several at once. All of them besides ambitions ended up successfully downloaded after a few cache clears and restarts. Ambitions was the first one i purchased. Supernatural, the last one i purchased, had no issues whatsoever and did downloaded without trouble. I have tried restarting my computer, clearing the cash, signing in and out, restarting the app, and even doing the origin thing. All that happened when i installed origin is that i ended up having to wait for all my games to redownload on the ea app for over an hour after unsuccessfully downloading anything on origin. I am not trying that again. When i click on ambitions, the button to download does not appear, as it did with the other packs before they magically fixed themselves.