Mass Effect 3 won't launch, no error message given

Hi there--

I have a Mid-2011 iMac with all the options and the latest versions of OS X (10.7.4 build 11E53) and Parallels Desktop 7 (7.0.15098.770637) running Windows 7 Home Premium with all updates installed. Most games work fine. However, I can't get Mass Effect 3 which I just purchased through Origin to launch. The game is not available through Steam and has to be purchased through EA's version of Steam-- they call it Origin.

I get a dialog box for a few seconds that says "Launching Mass Effect 3..." with a spinning cursor (see screenshot). The box disappears and I get nothing further. No error messages of any kind.

As suggested elsewhere online, I've tried every permutation of running Origin and ME 3 as Administrator, updating Parallels and Windows, rebooting, trying to launch ME 3 through Origin and not through Origin, exiting Steam and other utilities before trying to launch, and ME 3 just won't launch.

I have 2 GB of my 8 GB physical RAM allocated to the Virtual Machine and 1 GB of my 2 GB video RAM allocated to it. Intel Core i7 quad-core 3.4 GHz CPU with a Radeon HD 6970M GPU. I see no reason why it shouldn't launch.

Any ideas?

BTW, Parallels has been great for me; the Call of Duty series at 2560x1440 with everything set to max is really awesome. So thanks.

 

FYI, Parallels support promptly contacted me about this issue in response to an email support request. They indicate that it may be an issue with EA and 64-bit compatibility, which seems correct based on the following posts on EA's own forum:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/8241928.page

I sent the email below to EA and will advise what the response is.

EDIT: Strangely enough, the Demo of ME3 is fully functional! I have no idea what the issue could be.

--

Dear EA,

Unfortunately I can't launch Mass Effect 3, whether from within Origin or outside Origin. The screenshot below shows what I get-- a message that ME3 is launching, plus a spinning cursor. Then nothing happens.

In the applications tab of Task Manager, a "LAUNCHING..." application with the Origin icon appears briefly, then disappears. In the process tab of Task Manager, a Mass Effect 3 process briefly appears, then disappears immediately.

I've attached a clean log file for Origin showing me logging in and trying to launch ME3. Lines 105 to the end appear relevant.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on a mid-2011 iMac (Intel Core i7 quad-core) using Parallels Desktop for Mac. Other games, like the ones purchased through Steam (e.g. Call of Duty) work with no problems. Changing the memory allocation to Windows (2 GB RAM and 1 GB VRAM) have no effect.

Other users of Parallels have no problems running Mass Effect 2, but the community of Parallels users doesn't seem to have tried to run Mass Effect 3 because no one has responded to my post in the Parallels Forum about this issue (http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=260537). I have the latest versions of Origin, ME3 (v. 1.03), Windows 7, Parallels, and Mac OS X with all updates applied.

Other users appear to have experienced the same issue on 64-bit systems running Windows directly:
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/8241928.page

The only difference is that I don't get any error messages about compatibility. Please help! Thanks.

 

EA support sent the following email. Unfortunately, it didn't resolve the problem. The demo works fine but the full game still does not launch.

--

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I understand you are experiencing difficulty to launch the game from Origin. Please do not worry as we both will resolve this issue by performing some troubleshooting steps.

To fix this concern, please perform following troubleshoot steps at your end.

End Background Task:

1. Hold down the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys at the same time
2. Click the "Processes" tab.
3. Click on the gray bar in the middle column that says User Name to sort by user name.
4. Do NOT select anything for SYSTEM, LOCAL SERVICE, or NETWORK SERVICE.
5. Click on anything besides EXPLORER and TASK MGR for this User Name or other user names.
6. Click on END PROCESS
7. Repeat these steps until only explorer.exe and task mgr.exe are open for this user profile.

Delete Temporary Folder:

1. Double click on "My Computer"
2. Double click on the C: drive
3. Double click on the "Windows" folder.
4. Double click on the "Temp" folder.
5. Hold the "CTRL" key and tap the "A" key to select all.
6. Tap the "Delete" key on your keyboard and accept the "Are you sure you want to delete these files" prompt.

Origin clear cache:

1. Log into Origin.
2. Select the Settings option
3. Click on the Delete All Game Installers option
4. Click on Accept to complete the process.

Repair install:

Go into your Origin Client, right-click BF3, click Repair Install, and it will re-download and re-install the game with new patches and updates.

For any help with the steps above, please do not hesitate to approach us. Alternatively, please visit our online knowledgebase here: http://help.ea.com/At Electronic Arts, we value your co-operation and efforts.

Sincerely,
Pratik
Electronic Arts- World Wide Customer Experience

 

Andy,

If you have shared profile enabled for your VM, try disabling it.
Virtual Machine > Configure > Options > Shared Profile

 

Thanks-- it didn't work, but I appreciate the suggestion.

 

EA continues to look into this issue. They asked me to send in diagnostic info by running "dxdiag" which produced the attached log. I hope this problem can be resolved.

 

EA responds that my BIOS is not compatible with Mass Effect 3. I don't know what "single level platform" means, can anyone share any insight? I guess they are saying I have to run Windows directly but who knows. It doesn't make sense because the demo works fine.

--

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I have checked the DXDIAG provided by you and found that the BIOS you are using is not supported by the Mass Effect 3. Therefore, please use single level platform to play the game.

I hope the information provided above resolves the issue. If the problem persists, please update this email and I will look into the matter further.

We at Electronic Arts appreciate your efforts and involvement in our Games and take this opportunity to express our gratitude and extend support throughout. Please feel free to get in touch with us anytime. Also, please access our online knowledge base on: http://help.ea.com.

Regards,
Shresth
Electronic Arts - World Wide Customer Experience

 

Well, that's all she wrote I guess. To fix this issue the Parallels folks would have to coordinate a patch with EA. I don't see that happening. So, word of advice for Mac owners-- don't buy Mass Effect 3...

--

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I have reviewed your email and I understand that you are unable to launch the game. Please let me clarify that the game is not compatible with the BIOS you are running on your PC; however, the demo version can be played on this platform as the demo version do not require any special specs to play the game.

I hope the information provided above resolves the issue. If the problem persists, please update this email and I will look into the matter further.

We at Electronic Arts appreciate your efforts and involvement in our Games and take this opportunity to express our gratitude and extend support throughout. Please feel free to get in touch with us anytime. Also, please access our online knowledge base on: http://help.ea.com.

Regards,
Shresth
Electronic Arts - World Wide Customer Experience

 

Parallels Support has confirmed that there is no possibility of a fix. So this answers the original question. It's too bad, because it looks like such a great game.

 

I am having the same problem. However, here is a video showing Mass Effect 3 running under Parallels 7. So, clearly, it is possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khGkp3YQlSU

 

Macs can play Mass Effect 3

You certainly *can* get Mass Effect 3 to work on your Mac, though I'm not sure what it takes to do so in Parallels.

I'm running Mass Effect 3 on my Mac Pro in Apple's supplied Boot Camp. And I've had an issue you might be interested in.

I was playing Mass Effect 3 on my Mac (Mac Pro, similar to yours) on Boot Camp when suddenly one day it stopped launching.

Same as you. I'd run it, inside of Origin or not, I'd get the loading splash window for a few seconds, and then it would just quit. I noticed that the processes were still running -- Origin certainly *thought* I was playing the game. And here's the key: at one point I was even able to get the thing going again by running through one of the things you had been told to try: run As Administrator. Sadly, that didn't work for very long.

So, what was the problem? After some pestering to EA, it turned out that my installation had gotten corrupted. Specifically, from what I understand, the way the rights and privileges were set to run on the files themselves or something.

I adamantly told EA that I had already tried to Repair the installation. I had even manually uninstalled it and reinstalled it. Or had I..?

I was instructed to uninstall both ME3 and the ME3 demo. The demo was working, and I thought that could help, but they wanted everything gone. After the uninstall, a reboot, and then they actually wanted me to turn off all anti-virus and firewall software on my Windows 7 install. Wow could I so not believe that. (Interprocess communication inside ME3? With Origin? Who knows?) Anyway, I have an internet connection that is ok, but it still took about 45 minutes to then DOWNLOAD the game. For some reason, the download/install process is becoming more unified, yet the whole Repair thing is supposed to do this yet is different somehow. Anyway, I'm sitting here dumbfounded as my firewall is down, waiting for this thing to finish. It does, then starts downloading the extras (Ashes, Music..) I hit play and..viola! ME3 working in Boot Camp on my Mac!

Now, I don't know about how to do this in Parallels -- I've run ME2 in Parallels and I've run Dragon Age 1 (but Dragon Age 2 does the same as ME3, but DA2 also works in Boot Camp).

I don't have time right now, but it might be worth investigating if you can try the uninstall/redownload (but NOT repair) in Parallels. I hate to make you go on a wild goose chase especially seeing as this probably won't work. I'm guessing the reason they said that they only support a single platform BIOS (a Mac's Boot Camp emulates the BIOS) has to do with addressing the graphics as directly as possible, but it might not. Anything's possible I suppose. But I would say only do this if you have a bunch of free time and don't care about security for an hour or whatever (I was downloading at about 3.5 MB/s), and keep in mind that it's about 99% unlikely to work. But if anyone tries this, let us know!

But you *can* definitely run ME3 on a Mac, you just might have to run it on Boot Camp. (I also use that BootCamp partition as a virtual environment in Parallels, that is, Parallels can see a Boot Camp partition or entire disk as if it were a VM file, but for me right now it won't run my ME3).

Anyway, hope that helps a little. There are a bunch of games out there that we might want to have under a Boot Camp because of this -- and then use Parallels to VM the Boot Camp partition for the rest of the applications we use.


Happy VMing,

Coder

 

Nuked ME3, Origin and everything else related I could find and did a redownload and reinstall: same as before.

I really think the problem is Origin and not ME3 proper. May have to try Boot Camp.

 

When you reinstalled, were your firewall & anti-virus turned off?

Even if so, Let us know if you have problems with BootCamp. Because I can run it there.


Coder

 

Yep: no virus/firewall. I've been emailing EA about is, and they suggest uninstalling and reinstalling in a new account. I will give that a try.

 

Ah, sounds like the only way is Boot Camp, then. (At least for now!)

 

Still going around with EA tech support, but I noticed something. I was poking around in C:\Users\All Users\EA Logs and found some log files, all with the same error. Just to be sure I tried to launch ME3 again and generated this log.

[05:15:29]------------ Opening Log --------------
[05:15:29]License Failure 3

 

I can't get Origin to work either -- it crashes my Parallels 7 -- iMac, my app is Wintel so I can't use my Mac side.

 

dpickett:
That license error is really kind of interesting. Remember when I was saying that I got things to work a couple times by Admin access? I wonder if what's going on here is an access protection thing to prevent other issues. Seems kind of odd that EA would say that don't support VM environments when their previous titles clearly did. (Unless they're just having a heightened concern about piracy on VMs.) Parallels does seem to try to make some of these apps work in time, I wonder how they'll approach this application should they choose to. Would be interesting to know what they're working on.

kessler10:
I have not seen this before; you might have a situation that Parallels (or Origin) should know about; you might have to do a reinstall.

 

Parallels 7 / Origin

OK, thanks, I'll call EA.

 

Just turned off UAC and ran ME3 as an administrator, and got the same error.

This reinforces my suspicion that the issue isn't ME3, but Origin. I've played both ME and ME2 on the same VM. The only difference I can really think of is those don't require Origin to run. While googling around I found quite a number of regular Windows users who were having similar issues running on actual installs.

If I can find the time this weekend I will install Bootcamp on an extra drive and see what happens.