Expansion packs (various) - "update failed" error during install
Apologies in advance for the length of this question and the copious amounts of details, and most especially if I'm repeating a question that has already been solved. I've been searching the forums for a couple hours, trying to find other instances of my exact problem, or even similar problems and trying the solutions that worked for them, and now I'm kinda at my wits' end.
We are running Windows 7, are decently advanced PC users (so please don't be afraid to get technical in your attempts to help us), and we (allegedly) have The Sims 3 base game, and expansion packs Ambitions, Generations, World Adventures, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, and Seasons. We have bought everything on disc, so we have eight physical discs and associated cases and keycodes.
Here's the problem. As of yesterday, we had all those expansion packs EXCEPT Seasons installed and working perfectly. We bought Seasons yesterday and tried to install it. Before installation, it pops up saying "The Sims 3 needs to be updated," so we tell it to update, which gets to work for a few moments, and then pops up with the error "Update failed," and aborts the setup process.
This same thing happened the first time we tried to install Supernatural, and some googling led us to uninstalling The Sims 3 and all expansion packs, reinstalling them in release order, and voila, Supernatural updated correctly and installed. Now that we have six expansion packs - well, seven, if we ever get Seasons to install - we reeeeeally didn't want to uninstall and reinstall them all.
So we went googling for another solution, and found out that sometimes downloading the latest patch can fix this problem. We live in a rural area, our download speeds are laughably slow, and we have a monthly bandwidth cap, so this wasn't an attractive solution either. I went with it anyway - it took about six hours to download the 1.3 gig patch, but finally it finished. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem.
Frustration and woe! We decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the manual uninstall process detailed here: https://help.ea.com/article/manually-uninstalling-the-sims-3 - first for the expansion packs (using the links at the bottom of that page), and then for the base game.
Then we started over again, reinstalling everything in release order. This time, we got to the Supernatural disc, and once again the update failed, and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Once again, we uninstalled everything, and started over from the beginning. We got to the Pets disc, and the update failed! Shouts of dismay, cries of frustration.
Chasing more possible solutions found on this forum, we tried uninstalling just the base game, reinstalling the base game, and then putting in the Pets disc and running the update. Once again, it has failed.
So, before I go through the giant hassle of manually uninstalling everything again, and reinstalling everything, I am here to beg and plead for some help. Please help me, Sims 3 Community, you are my only hope.
Tonight, I am going to the home of a friend who has marvelously fast, bandwidth-cap-free internet, and I am toting my entire desktop computer setup over there with me (she only has a laptop and lacks an external keyboard, monitor, mouse, etc), and I will extend my patience with some adult libations whilst I attempt to manually uninstall everything again and use her super-fast internet to download that patch again and try, try again.
Meanwhile, any suggestions you might have are eagerly anticipated and cheerfully welcomed. At this point, obviously, I am willing to try anything and everything, and I am starting to wonder if perhaps performing an exorcism on my computer and waiting for the right moon phases and astrological omens for optimal installation will work better than the system that EA has designed.
Thanks in advance for reading this, and for any help or commiseration you can offer.
So, in case any other poor soul has this problem, or in case EA wants to go ahead and take note of this and perhaps FIX THIS PROBLEM so other users don't encounter it -
Here is what we did to finally fix it. In case you're counting, I worked on this maybe two whole hours on Friday, a solid TEN HOURS of my Saturday, and finally, finally it's done.
We manually uninstalled EVERYTHING. All expansions, Sims 3 base game, EADM, Origin - EVERYTHING. Then, we reinstalled using the discs, and got as far as we could with the disc updates and installations until one finally said "update failed" again - this time, I think it was Showtime, not that it matters at this point.
Once we got the "update failed" error message, we downloaded the newest version of Origin, installed it, and then IN ORIGIN, went to the Origin menu, chose "Redeem Product Code" (first option in the Origin menu), and entered the product keys for Every Single Expansion Pack we own. Once those were all entered, we used our friend's super-fast, wonderful internet to download the expansion packs we hadn't been able to install because of that whole "update failed" error. Then we used the Sims 3 launcher to patch the game.
And then, hurray, FINALLY, it worked. I've successfully moved our saved games back into the proper location, started the game, loaded a saved game, everything is working wonderfully.
But seriously, EA - some of your LOYAL, MONEY-PAYING customers don't have decent internet connections, and every single last one of your customers deserve to not be forced to jump through these hoops. We really, really, REALLY should not have to haul our entire computer system to a friend's house to download the expansion packs for which we have purchased installation discs. This is just simply ridiculous and unacceptable. It should not be easier to pirate your games than it is to install them from the discs. Please, please, PLEASE address this problem.
I hope you're listening, EA, because I will definitely be taking this experience into account when I consider whether or not to buy any further expansion packs or any other games that you publish.
