Re: sims 3 "origin is required to play this game" error

by read_a_rainbow
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Original Post

sims 3 "origin is required to play this game" error

★★★ Newbie

I have not been able to launch sims 3 for a couple of days now. I always launch through Origin, but I've been getting an error where it tells me I need Origin to play. I have reinstalled sims 3, restarted computer, and cleared the cache. None of the solutions I found when searching for this issue have worked. I've checked task manager but sims 3 doesn't even show up in there when I hit play, but the button in Origin becomes greyed out and the error message pops up five minutes later. 

 

My processer is Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz

 

I have an ASUS laptop with Windows 10 installed, I can't see the version of the game bc of this error, and my computer is three years old and regularly has issues. I have Ambitions and Showtime expansion packs installed.

 

I am extremely bad with computers so sorry in advance!

Message 1 of 5 (666 Views)

Re: sims 3 "origin is required to play this game" error

@read_a_rainbow  When you say you cleared the cache, did you clear Origin's cache?  If not, try doing so now.

 

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/

 

If that doesn't help, uninstall Origin "the hard way" and reinstall it.

 

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/origin/origin/manually-uninstalling-origin/

 

If this doesn't help either, try disabling your antivirus or firewall, just long enough to see whether it helps.  If the game launches, then you just need to set exceptions for Origin.exe and TS3.exe.

 

And if none of this works, please run a dxdiag and attach the results to a post here.  There aren't many system issues that would cause this kind of error, but it's worth checking anyway.

 

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

 

P.S.  Since you launch the game through Origin, you almost certainly have version 1.69.  The only way you wouldn't is if you'd installed TS3 before the patch was released, over three years ago, and had refused to let Origin update the game ever since.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 2 of 5 (655 Views)

Re: sims 3 "origin is required to play this game" error

Hero (Retired)

@read_a_rainbow   Do you know if Windows 10 recently did an update?

Message 3 of 5 (645 Views)

Re: sims 3 "origin is required to play this game" error

★★★ Newbie

Thanks for the response! I did indeed clear Origin's cache as instructed in the link. 

 

I'm a little concerned about uninstalling Origin the hard way myself, since I rely on my computer for a lot of things and am not super confident on my ability to follow all of the steps without messing up and deleting or altering the wrong files. I'll probably get help from someone else on that in the next few weeks rather than do it alone.

 

Disabling firewalls didn't help either, unfortunately. I did run the dxdiag and attach the results, though, just in case. Hopefully the uninstall/reinstall will do the trick, but it'll have to wait until I can get help.

Message 4 of 5 (613 Views)

Re: sims 3 "origin is required to play this game" error

@read_a_rainbow  You have a number of errors related to Windows updates, which you may want to clean up for the overall health of your computer.  But the reason the updates are failing may be that you have very little room on your hard drive.  Try to free up an additional 10 GB or more, for a total of 30 free.  It's also a good idea to make backups of your critical files.  Updating your OS should be fine, but best practice is to make backups just in case.

 

Then you can try to update.  If the usual system update feature in settings doesn't work, you can download and install the new version of Windows 10 from this website:

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

Click the Update Now button at the top of the page.

 

Once you've done that, clear Origin's cache again, just in case there are a few files from the failed attempts to launch TS3.  Then launch Origin again, two or three times, and then run another dxdiag.  I want to see if Origin specifically throws any errors.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 5 of 5 (606 Views)