Unable to Create Crew in Need for Speed Heat (PC)

It's an ancient game (by today's standards), and EA has already long ago announced it's distancing from the NFS franchise in lieu of working on Battlefield. That being said, the only fix I've found that still works somewhat consistently is trying to do any text offline in solo mode, but this isn't effective every time (or even the majority of it seems). But that's old games. They stop getting support.