After the latest patch, the game loads endlessly after choosing the character. I tried to restart the PC and to check files but nothing. I've tried to disable Real Time Protection for Windows Defender, and the issue disappeared.

I can't keep playing with the antivirus disabled, so please fix it asap.

Hmmm, Windows Defender seems to cause issues (even for players who aren't using Windows Defender, it just happens to be bolted in with Windows, lol).

Try this and see if it fixes anything.

• Search for the Windows Security App (Not Windows Security Settings)
• Select Device Security
• Select Core isolation details
• Ensure Memory integrity is Off

Hopefully, that was the problem. If not, at least it prevents an issue that some other players have encountered.

@FANtasyStarOnline Sadly it was already off by default. On the internet someone said you literally had to deactivate "Real-time protection", but as you can understand it's dangerous, plus it's annoying to toggle on and off at every session.

@Skærs Oh drat. Ensure memory integrity was already off, huh? Yeah, I wouldn't disable realtime protection.

Ok but i can't login and i'm missing lots of events and stuff in the player shop, can't someone help me? This very problem happened since 2015 and reappeared from time to time, why isn't there a fix??

Have you tried setting the game's "gameguard" subfolder as an exclusion in Windows Security? From what I have seen, this issue is usually because gameguard itself is being blocked from running properly by Windows Security.