Bug Report: Forced and Mandated Updates & EA App Behavior re: The Sims 4
REQUESTS FOR THE EA APP (Re: The Sims 4) I posted about this on many platforms, in many comment sections, and many, many people are having these same issues. The number of likes and upvotes indicates an even larger pool of shy, silent, or busy simmers suffering this, too. CORE REQUESTS * Updates to The Sims 4 game must be USER-INITIATED ONLY. * Updates must NEVER be automated, if the EA App restarts, it should do nothing to the game. No auto-updating of the the app or the game. * Updates must remain PERMANENTLY optional. The User should be able to stay on whatever game version they prefer and the game should still launch. * Suggestion: Game fixes to older versions need to be made available. * The EA App must not force updates. Ever, indefinitely. If a player chooses not to update for months, or even years; this must be a clear and fully supported option. THE CURRENT ISSUE: Since this summer, the EA App has been producing so-called “error popups” (several types, seemingly arbitrary, affecting even vanilla players) with increasing frequency. These currently: *Block players from opening The Sims 4 unless they go online in the EA App. *Rotate through random “errors” to push the user online in the EA App. *Once online in the EA App; trigger new “error popups” that specifically force a Sims 4 game update. PS; halting the update causes a new “error” that prevents the game opening, too; so you know that is not an option. I am finding these are not genuine errors; they are deliberate update triggers. While they may technically fall under the EA App team, they directly impact The Sims 4 experience and must be addressed in coordination. You claimed this was resolved 11 months ago. (It was not resolved). Also; EC:204 is only one of three possible popup error codes; none appear related to real system issues. Please eliminate these faux “errors.” This was not resolved by any new EA App version: discussions/ea-app-technical-issues-en/re-resolved---ea-app-error-code-ec204/7566081 SUMMARY You have made it so that updates have become unavoidable for what looks to be around half of the Sims 4 player base. For those subjected to forced updates: *Vanilla players are experiencing frequent game-breaking bugs and corrupted saves, even without For Rent installed. *Modded players; the majority of the community; see their carefully curated setups repeatedly destroyed, driving many players to abandon the game entirely. This summer it is MANY. Even those not using script mods, but only CC for CAS and Build/Buy playstyles. TLDR *Updates must be user-initiated only; never automatic; always optional; never forced. *The game must still launch if the user chooses not to update; even after months or years. *The “no auto-update” toggle is broken; replace it with a clear OPTIONAL UPDATE button. Make sure that update is truly optional. *Eliminate fake error messages that block the game from opening and funnel players into forced updates. *Players must be free to choose if and when they update; even if that is never. The game should still launch and run. *Add support to repair earlier game versions. Do this; and watch user complaints drop by half. Please coordinate between the EA App and Sims 4 teams. Thanks!
NEW EA APP launcher installation may be corrupt started 2-19-2026
Seems EA is back to "its" games again. Starting 12-19-2026 the EA app launcher updated and failed to install and will not reinstall and it does not even install far enough properly to even do a proper uninstall. leaving files and registry trash un-removed. It is one thing to install and have it NOT work. It is another thing to partially install and leave files all over your PC. Good job EA another crappy software product. Last time something happened like this I could not get anything working for almost a year. Good job EA way to break whats not broke on a supposed better update. Now it erased the good WINDOWS EA app installation I had and installed a corrupt installation with bad entries in the the startup (msconfig = startup entries) that I had to keep removing manually because of dead entries and to stop the perpetual re-install loop EA created. The install NEVER completes and dies at about 90% of the installation because it is looking for bad installation paths and and then it remains in an installation loop after launch attempts and reboots. If you are lucky you might be able to perform a partial uninstall removal but it leaves all kinds of trash in the registry and leaves random installation files and folders all over the place. I spent 6 hrs trying to get BF3 working for my nephew and I have never seen such a crappy software package in my life as I have with this EA APP and to roll this out to the public without proper testing is criminal. Talk about unprofessional! It removed critical windows C++ files and never puts them back. I have tried many EA App downloads of various version and installs (which is really useless because they all pull from the same install directories but I wanted to be sure) NONE of them work and I know without a doubt 3 of the earlier version worked fine. I also managed to get an MSI.exe installation of EA APP and I was able to get the the EA service loaded but it would never connect and authenticate to EA hence even that did not work so this implies there has been a change in EAs link authentication process between this newest and the last EA APP versions (which basically means there is nothing any of us can do about that) I even went back to the old manual Origin Installation and it was able to get the EA background service installed working but then EA along came the forced installation to blow it all up again. and remove everything on its forced update and left me back in the installation loop. I have tried running the install as admin and in various compatibility modes, tried installation repairs (it to loops) , checked the ports they were good but no data was moving so I suspect the installation never gets far enough to create the port communication protocols completely and this is also because it never seems to install the EA background service fully either. So it all comes back with the same and no luck same results. Tried manually blowing away all the files I could find in the file system and the registry the tried 3x ...no change. Scoured EAs website for a cleanup tool like they had years ago and nothing.. My God! who built their help site. The colors are so dark you cannot even read the pages. It is impossible to read or even put in a case. Brilliant move EA. (Was this your intent to begin with?) I am able to get to the BF3 gateway website and access my online web BF3 profile and everything works fine on that side. Heck ever punkuster was working but without the EA launcher you cannot get authenticated into EA to launch anything in the software library. It just fails because it is an incomplete corrupt installation and therefore not connecting to EA hence the Game apps will not launch.. So it is crystal clear this is a failure with the EA App specifically.. All the web access and web plugins function normally.. So it is not the OS, or the Browser or even my system files. it is the EA APP that is the problem. I have scoured the web and there are MANY MANY MANY MANY complaints of various issues all related to the same EA app problem. I have found no clear fixes. anywhere and EA support has been next to nothing. No fixes , no support phone number, no chat, no response, no nothing. They left the EA customers to their own discoveries to try to fix the problem with zero support. Pathetic! I suspect this is their FORCED answer to ending support for earlier windows editions which is ridiculous for a web interface product. All you need is a login web site the people can authenticate to and not a separate installation app. EA come to the the 21st Century we are waiting on you. So you sent out bad software and then ostracize people who have been customer for years. POOR POOR POOR! I know this will be the last EA product I will ever buy considering how they throw garbage out after we pay top dollar and don't even support it. My god.. EA wonders WHY they are losing so much market share and why people are moving away from their products. Ie their last BF6 release for example. I cannot imagine why with this garbage support. I must say this has been frustrating to be left hanging by EA like this..... Guess I go tell my nephew to go to the store to go pick out something other than an EA product since it does not look like this game or any others he plays will be running any time soon. Way to lose another customer EA. Keep up the good work!
EA App Malfunctioning and Sims 4 Crashing
If I can even get my EA to launch without it telling me multiple times that it cannot connect to the servers, my Sims 4 game will last for less than five minutes before crashing. I do not have any mods nor CC, and I have cleared my cache. I have restarted my laptop twice now, and ran the App Recovery option on the EA app. I have no idea what is going on and I am unbelievably frustrated.
Error Code 105
This only started happening a couple of days ago, and searching the reported bugs has shown me nothing. When I go online within the gallery within The Sims 4 and try to see everything others have uploaded, I get a message saying I'm offline and need to connect. To which I click connect and go online. However, once I've done this, the game freezes and then the EA launcher starts flashing with the following error (see attachments). My game stays on but runs very slow and won't show anything other than what I have saved to my gallery. This happens no matter if I go to the gallery via build & buy or if I just go to the gallery via the start up screen. This has never happened before so I'm unsure how to fix it.
App not opening
Hi everyone, for the past 2 days, my EA app has been refusing to open. It will load like its opening, then the log in screen will show up for 5 seconds before an error comes up for about 10 seconds then closes. (I've attached a screenshot - this comes up even when I try to open errorreporter, so i cant even talk with the EA team). I've redownloaded EA, restarted the app and my laptop, I've tried all the suggestions that other sites have told me to do. Please help!!
