\*I just want to start by prefacing this post by saying: this is just in case someone else gets stuck with the same problem I did and have just spent the last 12 hours or so trying to find a fix.\*

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TL;DR: Reinstall the game (without DLC's). > shut the console off & power cycle it for 20 minutes. > Launch console into safemode & rebuild the database. > Enjoy your (hopefully) fixed game.

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So, I have seemed to have joined a relatively small minority of players who have encountered a strange connection error where the game would refuse to connect at the start screen. Press 'X' (I'm a PlayStation user) would show up, and upon pressing it, the aquila would pop up, do its animation for a few seconds, and then the vast majority of the time it would freeze including the background animation. Sometimes, it would return error codes (see photos), most of them pointing to a network error/timeout issue. I assumed at first there was a problem with the servers, so I checked online for any reports, but there was nothing. All my other online games were working fine, so it wasn't PSN. 

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This was when it got weird, I hotspot my phone to see if it would work and the game connected & loaded just fine. Jumped back to my internet, and it still wouldn't load. I shut everything off, including my router for the night and went to sleep, figured I'd try again in the morning. Nope. Same problem. Worked on my phone, not my internet.

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Cue me going down a rabbit hole for hours trying to eliminate any possible cause: I restarted my router, restarted my console, cleared the temp software cache in safemode, restored the license, tried port forwarding, I even reinstalled the game. Nothing worked. I was trying to work out how I was going to contact and tell the Focus Entertainment support team and tell them "Hey your game doesn't work, but only on my internet!" Without sounding like a complete technophobe. But I figured I'll look over their FAQ section for troubleshooting before I do.

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The thing that actually worked; First I reinstalled the game, for the \*second\* time, only this time I excluded the DLC's (not sure if this helped or not, but it ruled out another problem maybe). Once it was done, I shut down the console and unplugged it for 20 minutes to do a power cycle. After that, I launched the console into safemode (hold the power button until you hear the second beep) and rebuilt the database. Let it reboot, and then finally, \*FINALLY\* the game started working again.

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This post will undoubtedly fade quickly into obscurity, but if you're here from a Google search looking for a solution, I hope my experience helps you save a few hours of tearing out your hair trying to fix this extremely bizzare issue.

Game freezing on the start menu/not connecting on my own internet. (And how I managed to fix it.)