PVZ BFN - issue connecting to ea servers?

need help, it's been like this for over a year now - i boot the game up from steam, everything is fine. i press spacebar to connect to ea servers, it loads for a bit... then back to the title screen with a bunch of text, sometimes it's "could not connect to ea servers", sometimes it's "make sure origin is running". i have tried EVERYTHING i can think of. the game doesn't crash or anything, just keeps sending me back to the title screen with one of those messages. any advice would be so so appreciated