The EA App is Stuck On Preparing [ Edited ]

[opposingsolo6]

Hello,

If anyone can help me that would be amazing!

2 days ago (after not playing for months) I tried to open up the Sims 4 in Origin when I saw that I had to switch over to the EA app. When I switched over, everything seemed fine until I saw at the button right corner of the Sims, a grey clock. I changed my wifi connection and then I was able to download it (so I thought). After being stuck on the preparing bar for 15 minutes, I tried clearing the cache, making space on my pc, restating my computer and the ea app, and trying to run it as an admin. Right now, I’m going on 3 hours of it saying preparing and nothing as happened. The Sims 4 (plus some add ons for the game) is the only thing I have. I’ve made sure that my computer hasn’t gone to sleep to see if that was the case and it wasn’t. If anyone could help that would be great. 

(cm edit - updated and merged threads)

[916b440868cdef5e · Accepted solution]

So my daughter had this same / similar problem. I'm going to tell you the solution we found, but first let me say the fact that no one from EA or elsewhere posted this as a solution as it almost appears as if it should be a known issue is pathetic, but typical and expected from EA.

Anyways here it is. We had the problem on her computer with a Sims 4 update just being stuck on "Preparing" forever. As in hours. No progress no error, it was just stuck there. We tried reboots, we tried clearing cache, etc... nothing worked.

FInally I poked around in the app settings and found a check box / slider bar to enable automatic downloads and downloads in background. Immediately after enabling both it went from preparing to downloading and the update installed successfully.

Why would you need this on? Doesn't make sense. Why would manually selecting to update with these settings off cause it to fail? No idea, and it doesn't make sense. But crappy software works in crappy ways.

I don't know if this will work for others, but it worked for us despite making no sense and after hours of frustration and annoyance.

[DeceivedComet19]

Product: The EA app
Platform:PC
Error Report ID (learn how to create an Error Report ID in the sticky post) 959999f6-8561-4d6e-a1bc-66ac46c2cd10
Which client functionality are you experiencing this bug with? Download Game
When did this happen? (dd.mm.yy hh:mm) 17/01/22
Summarize your bug When trying to update the Sims 4 through the EA app, the update gets stuck at "preparing update" and won't progress past that stage.
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Try to install the new update on the Sims 4
What happens when the bug occurs? The update gets stuck on the "preparing update" stage.
What do you expect to see? To be able to update games I own

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I have already tried to fix the issue by clearing the cache multiple times, going offline in the app and online again, running the app as an admin, uninstalling and reinstalling the app, turning off all non-vital background programs except for the app, and none of these have fixed the issue.

[DeceivedComet19]

Update: I realized that the EA app had downloaded to my C drive (which only has 12 GB of space) despite me trying to download it to my D drive (which has 120 GB of space). I finally got that fixed and it is now downloading the small bug fix with a time estimate between 6 minutes and 14 hours. On Origin this kind of update would only take 3 minutes. Honestly, this is still pretty unacceptable for a launcher required to play any EA games and feels like a major downgrade from Origin. Also before anyone mentions ISP, mine has a download rate of 90 mbps.

[loulo9919]

Did it fix it? I'm having the exact same problem with it being stuck on "Prepping update". My files are saved on an external hard drive so could that be the issue?

[DeceivedComet19]

@loulo9919I guess it doesn't matter where the game files are, what matters is which drive the EA app is downloaded to. 12 GB of memory must not have been enough for the EA app to be able to download an update even though my game was on a larger drive. But yeah, I finally got the small bug fix downloaded though it took an hour to download.

[exclusivedai]

How would i do that ? because i’m currently having this issue and not sure what to doo 

[DeceivedComet19]

Bumping because I never got a response and the EA app not being able to update with 12 GB of memory, and then taking an hour to apply a small update with 120 GB of memory, a computer with 24 GB of RAM, and a 90 mbps downloading internet speed is still an unacceptable level of service from an app necessary to launch games.

[shoefetish30]

I had the issue today and cleared my EA App cache as instructed in the link below. That resolved the issue and the update was finished in less than a minute.

Clear cache to fix problems with your games

[DeceivedComet19]

I had tried that and it didn't work. Again it took an hour for the Sims 4 to install a patch update when similar updates took ten minutes at the most on Origin.

I am already dreading the big update in a couple of weeks.

[simplayer5000]

I'm having this exact problem today. Whatever the problem is, clearing the cashe, even UNINSTALLING everything to do with EA games and reinstalling everything (including the app itself) doesn't work.