I have a similar problem with Spore Galactic Adventures not working. When I try opening the game through the EA app, it just launches the base game of Spore. But when I try opening it on the desktop, it opens the app with a notification saying that the app needs to restart and update. When I tried this, all it did was give me the default Spore game rather than giving me the option to use the DLC in any way possible. I’m not sure if other players have have had this specific problem, but it seems somewhat similar to what I’ve been seeing when looking for help.
I am experiencing exactly this. I have tried using Steam as a proxy launcher, I've tried opening from the Sporebin folder, but every single time it opens the EA launcher and asks to restart and update. And when you click it, the app restarts but never updates, probably because there is no update. I was able to play last year just fine. Why does EA always have to screw everything up???
For anyone struggling with this, Spore ModAPI helped me launch Spore GA. Somehow, it's able to circumvent the EA launcher. It works perfectly fine. I recommend getting it from a trustworthy source, DarkEdgeTV has several videos on modding and Spore ModAPI is needed for some of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G86pRe8wx2o https://sporemods.carrd.co/
I'm having the exact same problem with Galactic Adventures for four weeks now! I manually updated and reinstalled the app and nothing happened. Like, what the hell? Launchers are a shame to be honest.
UPDATE
Follow FoxenWulf's solution and video.
It worked like a charm for me.
