Origin

What works

Install, logging in display of your game inventory, selecting stuff to download/install, changing Origin password, installing free (as in beer) games.

Version: 9.1.11.2678 - 0

What does not

Installing paid-for games; it hangs forever at "preparing download".

The problem is with the HTTP requests to Akamai that include an auth token. It's possible to download the zip-files by hand (after finding out what the URL is via WINEDEBUG=-all,+winhttp, no idea what to do with that zip-file then.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Installing addons to paid-for games, in-game features (chat), "friends" stuff, avatars.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Rated "Garbage" because it fails at its main purpose: installing paid-for games. Note: it will sometimes hang at startup, killing all wine processes by hand, then waiting a bit usually fixes this.

Some applications may work better with a 32-bit wineprefix (this is obviously not true for 64-bit games). You may also have to install some native DLLs to get a game working (commonly this is done with winetricks) - some of them may only work in 32-bit mode (these are issues in Wine, winetricks can't do anything about them).

To install Origin in a separate 32-bit wineprefix issue the following commands:

export WINEARCH=win32
export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine.Origin-32-bit
wine OriginSetup.exe

From now on, simply use the Desktop launcher to start Origin. If you want to start Origin from a terminal, you have to export the WINEPREFIX (repeat above command) first whenever you open a new terminal.

It's recommended to use the Origin Desktop launcher.

If you want to start it from a terminal you should first change into Origin's installation directory.

Example for default installations:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Origin
wine Origin.exe

Example for 32-bit installations (see above):

export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine.Origin-32-bit"
cd $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program\ Files/Origin
wine Origin.exe

To avoid this simply disable Origin in Game. Start Origin and click in the menu
Origin
-> Application Settings
-> Origin in Game
-> Untick "Enable Origin in Game"

Symptoms:

• Origin sporadically crashes with "C:\Program Files\Origin\Origin.exe: double free or corruption (!prev)" or "*** glibc detected *** Origin.exe: double free or corruption (!prev): 0x7cf3b940***".
• Origin doesn't show up although the Origin.exe process uses the CPU completly.

This issue is tracked in bug #35041.

Workaround:

Use taskset to force the app on one CPU core only. Execute in a terminal:

taskset -c 0 wine Origin.exe

Be warned that this may decrease the overall performance of games launched from Origin.

This issue is tracked in bug #33159.

There's a patch for wine in this bugreport which workarounds this problem. Please note that it is very "hacky" and not a clean solution (while it solves problems for Origin it may cause other apps fail), so this patch can't be added to official wine. To use it you need to download the wine sources, apply the patch and compile your own Wine.

Symptom: Both OriginSetup.exe and OriginThinSetup.exe fail to install/update successfully since Origin version 9.5.11.2855. You get a message "Error installing Origin: Something went wrong during the installation. Please reinstall Origin" and afterwards "UPDATE ERROR: Your update could not be completed. Please download and install the latest version of Origin from https://download.dm.origin.com/origin/live/OriginSetup.exe".

Fixed in Wine 1.7.55 (2015-11-13, bug #38417).

Workarounds:

• Reinstalling with the full installer obviously doesn't work.
• Download the full Update zip-file from http://download.dm.origin.com/origin/beta/OriginUpdate_9_10_1_1501.zip
  If the link is outdated you have to adjust the version number to the current one, which is printed in the first window that pops up when you start the current OriginThinSetup.exe. Please leave a comment if you find an updated link.
  Then unzip it in the directory of your Origin installation (e.g. ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Origin).
  Thanks Jürgen Doser for the report and tip, and thanks to the following people to keep this info updated: Michael Alexander, Allen, mactrix.

Symptoms:

• At the end of a game installation it may stall at 99% (or even earlier) or on "Installing...".
• After quitting a game you aren't able to restart it again ("Play" is greyed out).
• If you quit Origin after playing you get a warning "Close Origin: It's recommended that you quit [NAME OF GAME] before exiting Origin. Do you want to exit anyway?"
• "Last Played" and "Time Played" are not updated.

Workaround for earlier wine versions:

• In this bugreport you'll find a working patch for wine.
• If you don't want to build your own wine from source, you can use the "kill EAProxyInstaller.exe" workaround:
  Wait for some time for your HDD to stop working (indicating the installation is done) and kill EAProxyInstaller. To do this type the following in a terminal:

      killall EAProxyInstaller.exe

  The game should immediately become ready to play. If you kill EAProxyInstaller.exe too soon, Origin will keep offering to install the game. Killing the process too soon is not harmful and the game can always be installed again.