AoE2 Client hangs for a long time after starting local AI game (PC)

:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

:point_down: These details are CRITICAL; DO NOT skip them or your issue may not be reviewed.

  • GAME BUILD #: 10944061
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

:point_down: DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL (below). LIMIT TO ONE BUG PER THREAD.

Game hangs on post-loading screen for 3-5 minutes or more after launching (local game with AI). This only started happening after the latest update. Before that, it might have been on the screen for a few seconds at worst. Now it hangs there so long that I originally thought the game had frozen and I had to end task it. I only realized later on that if I just left it there it would eventually start the game, but only after waiting a good bit of time.

I tried reinstalling the game and going to default settings, no change. I don’t use any custom hotkeys or mods.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

:point_down: How often does the issue occur? CHOSE ONE; DELETE THE REST!

  • 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS)

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

:point_down: List CLEAR and DETAILED STEPS we can take to reproduce the issue ourselves… Be descriptive!

  1. Start a game

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

:point_down: What was SUPPOSED to happen if the bug you encountered were not present?

Not take upwards of 5 minutes to start a game

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

:point_down: ALWAYS attach a PICTURE (.jpg, .png, .gif) or VIDEO (.mp4, YouTube link) that highlights the problem.

This screen shows up after the loading screen that shows the skirmish game attributes and player info

:arrow_forward: GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)

:point_down: Attach a SAVE GAME (.aoe2spgame) or GAME RECORDING (.aoe2record) of the match where you encountered the issue. Link it below if using an external file service.

Hi @chimpanvi
Do you have GPU driver up to date?

Yes, it is up to date. It still hangs for a long time before the game starts.

I have the same issue, nothing I found helped. Reinstall, update all drivers, windows, compatibility and so on.

I don’t think they care, to be honest.

I’ve noticed it depends on the configuration of the game. 4v4 Black Forest takes a god awful long time to load after they pushed the update preceding my post. Oasis doesn’t take too as long to load. Some water maps as well.

I wish the devs would take more of an interest in the litany of bugs they keep introducing every time they release a new version. These issues stack up after a while and make the game quite annoying.

I have this issue too, I love waiting 5 mins for a match to start and encountering random lag spikes throughout.

How embarrassingly incompetent do the devs have to be to screw up the performance of a 20 year old game this badly? I registered just to +1 this thread in the vain hope that this issue will be fixed but given it was reported in April, I doubt it’s even on their radar.

Of course, even the act of registration here was painful… why can I not just register with an email address and password like any other forum on the internet? First you force me to log in via Steam account then I have to CHANGE my Steam username because your prudish Victorian era censorship doesn’t like it. And only then can I create an account normally.

Everything about this is pure pain.

1 Like

Can you guys please give this a look? The game loaded fine before an update in April, but after it hangs for way too long. This seems like a really aggravating thing to have to deal with when it’s obviously an accidental bug from changes made.

Also hangs for a long time after clicking “yes” when restarting a 1v1 game against the AI.

Is your HDD or SSD working correctly? Can you disable Nvidia, Steam and Discord overlays? Are you clicking repeatedly in the loading screen?

It’s an NVMe SSD, and it works as expected. There are no overlays going, and I don’t click on the loading screen because it wouldn’t do anything but cause the “Window is not responding” prompt to come up.

I didn’t do anything different when this started happening. The only thing that changed was that an update was released, I updated the game, and then every time after the loading screen (as seen in my screen capture above) would just sit there for anywhere from 1 - 5 minutes, depending on the map/player count. Larger maps / more players seems to cause longer load times.

for me game freezes quite often since 93001 patch, where:

  • in mid match the game halts for 2 seconds then restores
  • after finishing a game, clicking leaving in stat screen can result in game freezing for like 20 seconds, if i touch nothing it eventually restores, but for the first time i clicked a bit too much and it crashed

Any updates on this???