File too short error message

After erasing the files I also had to disconnect from internet and agree to create a new profile. I guess in my situation it was the online save that got corrupted. 

installa ea app su un altro pc sostituisci i dati cloud con i dati  locale

la soluzione indicata non funziona ho provato varie volte a cancellare user data da programm data anche nel cestino. ho risolto installando nuovamente su un altro pc su cui era presente plants vs zombie e sostituendo (quando te lo chiede) i data locali a dati su cloud. poi tornato sul nuovo pc, miracolo! funziona

Thank you this helped me as well!

Thanks Player o8rqt63i that worked me too, it's a shame the staff here didn't think of that, & seemed to care less about helping too. Maybe they should do away with saving userdata in the cloud on this game.

The guy with the Steam account gave me an idea.  So, I disconnected "Origin cloud saving" (right click on the game in Origin, click settings, then shut off cloud saving), then deleted the userdata folder, then restarted the game.  When it started, it didn't go out to the cloud (which causes it to obtain corrupt user data).  Therefore, it didn't have corrupt user data when it rebuilt the userdata folder. Then the game launched.  My kid made a new user and has to start over.  But whatever, he's 4 and he's happy and now he doesn't have to use my phone to play PVZ. He can use his mom's computer again.

GOTY edition does the same thing. I have been a senior software engineer for 20 years. I've tried deleting the .dat files (the whole userdata folder). I've tried repairing the installation via the Origin application by right-clicking on the game and clicking Repair. I've tried rebooting after each step. It's just lazy programming and inability or unwillingness to fix their own bugs. It regenerates a userdata folder with broken .dat files.  One of them is 0KB. That file is too short. It's the last file that was created.  Apparently my kid made a new user and the game closed without properly saving the file. I see some other user, in the past, using Steam, disconnected their Steam account before launching and then it didn't regenerate/recreate the broken .dat files. But I can't do that same fix here.  This is broken.  And it is a big bummer because I have a 4 year old that's been asking about it every single day for the past 13 days and I finally took an extra hour to really look at it.