Gallery stuck trying to connect, no events tab

I've been playing the Sims 4 for about 6 months. I've never been able to connect to the gallery which never bothered me too much. Now I'm wanting to play the blast from the past rewards, but I have no Events tab on my main menu. 

I have good internet connection, and new releases update immediately, but I apparently just cannot connect to their servers for events or gallery. Any ideas of how to fix this? I'm on Windows 11, downloaded the game through Steam. No mods, no CC, I made sure the settings were turned on to allow connection. 

Please help!!