(Solved) Sims 4 - Packs downloaded, but coming up as unavailable within the game
Hi everyone! I haven't been able to play the Sims for a while because of this problem and I don't know what else to do. Forgive me if there's a lot of text, I feel including all the details is important.
When the Sims 4 had the update to add Story Progression and new aspirations, I opened it to go play. It seemed to be stuck in an endless loop of loading, so I shut everything down and went to bed. The next day, when I tried to open The Sims 4, it would start loading and crash before ever getting to the Main Menu screen. This happened over and over again. Tired of it, I hit the "Repair Game" option and waited as my game and packs repaired themselves.
After that, the game was able to load properly again--but this time behaving as though none of my packs are available despite being downloaded. The packs appear as downloaded in my origin app, and all the pack folders are present in my Program Files, but when I start the game and try to load one of my saves, it tells me the packs used are unavailable/uninstalled/etc and that a restart is required to be able to play with them. But no matter how many times I restart the game, nothing changes.
I feel like I'm at my wits end and I've tried everything. I've tried:
1. Repairing the game again
2. Restarting my laptop multiple times
3. Logging in and out of Origin multiple times
4. I followed all the steps listed in this post, from someone who seemed to have the same problem I do right now. It hasn't worked for me though: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Downloaded-Packs-appearing-as-not-installed-in-Sims-4/td-p/10695811
5. Related to the above, I've cleared my caches multiple times and it never changes anything
6. I've contacted EA support but they are of little help. They linked me to this, but this process didn't change anything either: https://help.ea.com/in/help/origin/origin/backing-up-and-restoring-your-origin-games/
It's been over a week and I don't know what else to do, and I'm incredibly frustrated that I haven't been able to play because of this. Any help or assistance is greatly appreciated, thank you for your time!
Extra details if it matters:
1. I play The Sims 4 exclusively through origin and all my packs have come from there
2. I removed all mods
3. I use a windows HP laptop
4. Another strange thing that occurs is if I try to look at a packs information, it tells me a connection is required and that I need to go online, even though I'm connected to the internet and my origin app is online. Even if I do select to connect, all it accomplishes is telling me I already own the pack.
@arcadekitten Yup, unfortunately HP doesn't offer any newer graphics or audio drivers for your computer than what you already have installed. You can still update through Windows though. Hit Windows key-X, choose the Device Manager, expand the display adapters section, click on your graphics chip (Intel HD 620), and click the black and green Update button at the top of the window. If anything installs, restart your computer, then repeat the process for all of the entries in the audio and sound tabs. Restart again, then try to play.
Even if nothing installs, it won't harm your computer to run Sims 4; it's just that your dxdiag contains a few errors related to the audio driver, and it and the graphics driver are three years old now (and often bundled together, hence the need to try to update each one). It's possible that changing the AVG settins will be enough, but if not, disable AVG, run another repair, and reenable it.
