Game: The Sims 4
Platform: PC (Windows 11)
Account: missHalleslebens
Region/Country: (your country)
Issue:
The Gallery opens and I can see other players’ creations behind the pop-up, but I always get a window saying “Attempting to connect…” that never goes away. The “Connect” button is greyed out and I can only click “Stay Offline”.
In the EA App, on the right-hand side panel I also see “Connection failed – We couldn’t connect you with other people. If the problem persists, please restart the application.” The rest of the EA App works normally: I can see news, the store and my games.
The web Gallery works fine with this same EA account in my browser. The problem only happens inside the game.
Expected result:
The game should connect to the Gallery and let me use all online features without the endless “Attempting to connect…” message.
Actual result:
The Gallery shows creations, but the “Attempting to connect…” pop-up never finishes and I’m considered offline.
Troubleshooting already tried (none of this helped):
- Cleared the EA App cache (including using App Recovery within the EA App).
- Repaired The Sims 4 via EA App.
- Reinstalled the EA App.
- Temporarily disabled Norton 360 (including Smart Firewall and other protections) and made sure EA App and TS4_x64.exe are allowed.
- Checked Windows Firewall and allowed EA App / The Sims 4.
- Reset Windows network settings (netsh winsock reset, ip reset, ipconfig /flushdns, etc.) and restarted the PC.
- Tested with a different Wi-Fi network.
- Deleted localthumbcache.package.
- Removed all Mods and CC (moved the entire Mods and Tray folders out of the Sims 4 folder).
- Renamed the entire “The Sims 4” folder in Documents so that the game created a completely fresh user folder with no saves, no Tray and no Mods, then enabled online features again.
Even with a completely clean Sims 4 user folder and all online options enabled, the Gallery is still stuck on “Attempting to connect…”, and the EA App keeps showing the “Connection failed / couldn’t connect you with other people” message.
Additional info:
- This started recently. A couple of days ago I was able to use the Gallery normally.
- My internet connection is stable and other online games and services work without issues.
Could you please check if there is an issue with my account or with the Gallery / social services for my region? It looks like everything on my PC side is already ruled out.
