@StrangeAngels Thanks for the information. I was hoping one of the suggestions would help, but it's still good to know they didn't.
Do you have an antivirus or firewall that could be blocking a proper install? You can disable it temporarily, just long enough to install the base game. If that works, just set exceptions for Origin.exe and TS3.exe.
It looks from your screenshot like you don't have Origin Access. Did you before? Even if you own the game outright, it's possible that an expired Access subscription is causing issues. I ask because someone else with the same problem, and the same version 0 showing in the launcher, does have Access.
Anyway, if it's not your antivirus/firewall that's causing the problem, let me know, and I'll pass this along to one of the EA community managers in the morning.
Hello Puzzledirect, I didn't ever have a problem with antivirus all this time, but if the current update says I need to add an exception I will do. Also is it necessary for me to have to pay to play Sims3 via something called Access? This I've not got and wondered if this is the thing now?
@StrangeAngels You don't need to buy an Access subscription to play Sims 3. If you don't already own it, you can use Access to play TS3 and many other games, but that's different from owning the game outright.
Origin has frequent updates, and often enough, one of them creates an incompatibility with an antivirus or firewall. These programs also have updates, often tightening restrictions and blocking certain Orign features they previously allowed.
Anyway, please let me know whether temporarily disabling the antivirus helps, and I'll ask someone from EA about this issue.
Well I owned the game on Origin before anything like access was featured back in 2012, I've been playing it through them.
Anyway I tthought I had it just now. it was the controlled access folders in windows security that was not allowing the files and apss and services through, so I tried it again after adding exclusions and got the launcher to work but it acted as if the game was playable bringing up a black window like usual then it froze until I pressed the windows key and it went beck to taskbar and another smaller window appeared on the desktop saying " Unable to start game, service initation failed (0x065d0274)
Now when I google that message, it says its either registry or illigit download of game, well its not either with me. I bought the game via paypal legitimatly through Origin at the beginning of 2012.
And secondly I've run cc cleaner multiple times already and fixed registry.
I even tried an old method of deleting the electronic artss folder in my documents and then launching the game and seeing if that worked. But no comes up with the same error now about service initiation.
Image attached.
We need something like this but an updated version to solve all this mess.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/FAQ-Current-Patch-1-67-Manual-links-and-more/td-p/67858
@StrangeAngels Okay, there's one more easy step to try: enabling .NET framework 3.5. It would have had to be enabled by default when you were playing before, but perhaps a Windows update turned it off. Here's how to do it:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/install/dotnet-35-windows-10
If this isn't the issue, please run a dxdiag and post the results here.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
