Game freezes on loading screen after latest patch (date of posting 6/4/2016)

[Daljos]

Exactly as the title says, the game won't load up. It just freezes on the loading screen and won't do anything. Since there is no actual way to contact any technical support for assistance in attempting to fix this, I figure I'll just ***** here about it and shoddy customer service in general.

[dr_mike]

Here's what you should have done.

 

Try forcing the repair first - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729911

 

If that doesn't help, try a force on the graphics - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=595963

 

Feel free to leave out the ranting that you use to cover your need for handholding and let us know how things come out.

[Daljos]

Fun fact, I did those already. So you can forget the condescending attitude and me needing hand holding. I have also attempted reinstalling the game.

 

If it's important, the game becomes completely unresponsive once it hits the loading screen, I have to use task manager to actually close it.

 

Also, Customer support outside of the game is actually terrible. There is no clear path to any sort of support outside of the game, just a link saying "go to EA!" which when you go to, just tells you to either use in-game support, or phone them, and I refuse to pay out more than I already have and do on this game for a service that should be free. Also, also, there's no E-mail before you bring that up. And Yes, I am angry about this state of affairs. I the fact that a new patch has issues isn't what bothers me. It's the state of out of game customer support that bothers me.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Daljos

[ScuLanducen]

This is happening to me as well, game was fine last night. I've tried fixing graphics, repairs, and even a clean install and nothing is fixing it.

[kenmc]

Same thing happened to me last night after I patched. Went through all the steps already mentioned, and nothing worked. In the end I managed to fix it by disabling avg. Haven't had a chance to check if adding swtor to the exceptions would work as well. Pretty stupid that this popped up all of a sudden, though not sure if it's avg or swtor that is the culprit.

[Dalekgod]

It's been happening to me today, and I don't even use AVG (I'm a windows defender guy). On the very few occasions the game actually loads, and gets to the character selection, I can't load any of my characters without the screen going black and quitting to desktop, or just stuttering really bad, and making character progression impossible.

 

So I don't think it is AVG. It may just be a very buggy patch we just got.

[OwenBrooks]

Now listed in the known issues sticky here

 

Symptom: No server list or game not launching - with AVG.

Workaround - disable "link scanner surf-shield" before playing.

 

Bug Report Forum is the wrong place to post this type of issue see this post here

Edited April 9, 2016 by OwenBrooks

[Dalekgod]

It's doing the same thing - even without AVG.

[OwenBrooks]

It's been happening to me today, and I don't even use AVG (I'm a windows defender guy). On the very few occasions the game actually loads, and gets to the character selection, I can't load any of my characters without the screen going black and quitting to desktop, or just stuttering really bad, and making character progression impossible.

 

So I don't think it is AVG. It may just be a very buggy patch we just got.

 

Make a thread here and post a dxdiag per here

 

Initial impression is for you this maybe video driver related

 

Try a game repair though just in case

 

Non-Streaming launcher - Log into the launcher but don't click Play. Check for small letters "ST" in the bottom left corner.

If this is NOT present, With the new launcher after login , select the username pulldown on the top right and select settings, then press repair.

 

Streaming launcher - If the letters "ST" is present, close the launcher, right mouse click on the game shortcut,

select open file location and delete the BitRaider folder. Then start the launcher

Edited April 9, 2016 by OwenBrooks

[Dalekgod]

Owen, I've been playing SWTOR on my current laptop since late Feb. - Early March, and it worked fine. Until the latest patch. My drivers aren't the issue. I wish tech support folks would stop suggesting this. If it was a problem with the drivers, I would know - I used to build custom gaming rigs. That having been said, It goes without saying that I am just looking for a definite answer, and whenever someone in tech support blames anything on the graphics drivers, it shows me just how much they don't know what's actually going on.

 

I use Win10 64-bit, and my graphics is an onboard intel chipset (that can run FFXIII and Deus Ex Human Revolution and WoW with no glitching whatsoever). It has been able to run SWTOR with no problems until now.

 

I don't use AVG, so what is really happening here? My drivers are updated, so it's not an issue. I know for a fact that there have been many people reporting that 4.3a has more bugs than a bait shop.

 

As paying subscribers, is it too much to ask for a WORKING game? Or is EA going to let this one go the way of Star Wars Galaxies?

[Dalekgod]

I already tried the repair option. It did nothing to fix the issue.

[OwenBrooks]

black screen appearing is invariably tied to the video driver question now is why, can be a setting , can be a file issue, can be a bug in the driver, need to start eliminating possible causes.

 

Lower all gfx settings to low and see if this still persists initially

 

This is the wrong thread and forum to be posting in as your issue is not related to the OPs issue.

 

The intel drivers are already listed in the known issues sticky here

although not for your current symptoms.

 

Current known issues with the latest Intel Drivers are in the spoiler

 

 

Game may exit if quality settings are set to high on Hitman Absolution on 4th/5th Gen Intel Core Processors

 Two active taskbars may appear when DisplayPort monitor attached to the system is unplugged while in extended

desktop display configuration

 Graphics corruption may be observed in Battlefield 4*, Battlefield Hardline*, GRID Autosport*, Metal Gear Solid V*,

EVE Online*, Angry Birds*, Total War Shogun 2*, Bioshock 2*, Just Cause*, Just Cause 3*, The Witness*, Dragons

Dogma Dark Arisen*, Tron Evolution*, Warframe*, Oil Rush*, Toukiden Kiwami*, F1 2015*, Doom 3*, Doom 4*, Might

and Magic Heroes VII*, Worms Revolution*, Reign of Kings*, The Witcher 3*, Catzilla*, Blackguards Cemetery*,

Civilization V*, Rise of the Tomb Raider*, Mortal Kombat X*, Monster Hunter Online*, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst*, Star

Wars The Force Unleashed 2*, Fallout 4*, XCOM 2*, FIFA 16*, Act of Aggression*, World of Tanks*, Ark Survival

Evolved*, Netflix* with Edge* browser, 3DMark11*, Kishonti* benchmark

 Crash or hang in Grand Theft Auto V*, Jedi Academy*, FIFA 16*, Mortal Kombat X*, Call of Duty: Black Ops III*,

Dying Light*, Diner Dash Hometown Hero*, Dark Souls 3*, Batman Arkham Knight*, Vendetta Curse of Raven’s Cry*,

Jedi Academy*, Warhammer*, Kishonti CompuBench* benchmark

 Game may return to desktop during gameplay on Fallout 4*, Lego Jurassic World*, The Witcher 3*, H1Z1: Just

Survive*

 Lighting may turn off and on frequently and randomly in Final Fantasy XIII*

 Display flickering may be observed while adjusting brightness on the main menu of the Rage* game

 Blank screen may occur in Angry Birds* when going from window to Full screen

 Blood is blue instead of red in Far Cry Primal*

 Assassins Creed Syndicate* may stop responding

 Game gets dimmed on Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars*

 Blue screen or error message may occur in DayZ* game

 Screen may not rotate in full screen mode and other miscellaneous issues with screen rotation

 Flickering may be seen on GFXBench 4.0*

 Jerky video playback when external display is plugged or unplugged

 Unable to play back Amazon Prime video after resume from S3 or S4

 

 

If you want help happy to help in a new thread here

 

But the fact your getting to the character select screen eliminates a lot of standard causes and issues like with AVG mentioned in this thread certainly isn't one of them. Sometimes symptoms appearing are a secondary affect and only testing and elimination is the way forward

 

I can only go off what you describe is occurring and remotely is difficult at best, so no detail is unimportant

Edited April 9, 2016 by OwenBrooks

[Dalekgod]

I understand the process of trial and error. But the game worked just fine last night, and decided to start doing this today - even when I tried setting the gfx to low. When I was able to actually get past the dodgy loading screen issue - which was twice. And the lowering of the gfx had no effect. Like I said before, this latest patch is buggier than a bait shop. Alderaan is a deathtrap, with unkillable low-level enemies, rakghoul plague carriers that somehow can knock you from a flying thranta, and now I can't even load my character on Alderaan. It drops out and quits to windows when I do that now. This is on Jedi Covenant, by the way. I know Bergeren Colony is having similar Alderaan issues.

[OwenBrooks]

The current issue with Alderaan on BC should just return you to server select

 

But if your issue extends to all characters on all servers , and starting the game is also problematic then I think your clutching at straws with one character that maybe related

 

What you posted below is what I based my initial recommendation on, and i am not seeing any others with this exact issue currently.

 

"On the very few occasions the game actually loads, and gets to the character selection, I can't load any of my characters without the screen going black and quitting to desktop, or just stuttering really bad"

 

Last post here in this thread for me, not wanting to get tied down into a debate.

 

If you want assistance with this , this forum isnt the place

 

Delete the file called diskcachearena just in case, there is a outside chance the games cache is glitched

Edited April 9, 2016 by OwenBrooks

[Daljos]

Attemped to deactivate AVG still no luck on that end, so the game is fubar for myself and several others, and as somebody mentioned, some of us are paying subscribers and we're paying for a service that is currently not functioning. What kind of compensation can we expect for the lost time? Because now it's been days.

 

Edit: attempted one last time and magically it works, so at least I can play again, I am still however very dissatisfied with this turn of events. Considering AVG is a fairly popular anti-virus program how did this latest patch completely break things? where was the quality testing?

Edited April 9, 2016 by Daljos

[OwenBrooks]

Considering AVG is a fairly popular anti-virus program how did this latest patch completely break things? where was the quality testing?

 

Only posting in regards to AVG , the issue currently occurring is an AVG issue so you will have to ask AVG here about quality testing.

 

The current issue also isn't confined to SWTOR , it is also known to be doing the exact same for ESO currently see this thread posted 24 hrs ago here

 

The issue is specific to "link scanner surf-shield" found in the web tab and can be unticked for now

Edited April 9, 2016 by OwenBrooks

[Daljos]

In that case I apologize and shall direct my bile towards the appropriate target.

[OwenBrooks]

If you have unticked/disabled "link scanner surf-shield" in the web tab , something more may be going on then just AVG

 

You can uninstall AVG and see if things behave to be certain, but only the above is needed in solving the AVG issue from what I have come across so far.

 

If your issue continues after uninstalling AVG then best creating a thread at EA ANSWERS HQ the forum there is also able to insert screen grabs and attach files like dxdiags etc

Edited April 9, 2016 by OwenBrooks

[LJGEdits]

This is a bug I had before, and it has a really easy fix. I am guessing you have AVG antivirus, correct? AVG somehow conflicts with the game, so you have to uninstall AVG to get it to work.