Any update on this @CommunityTeam? It has been over a week since this post was made and there is still no mention of any form of the promised compensation for our lost time and lost progress.

The patch worked for me, I can finally get in now. Thank you devs!

I agree with this, and I'm glad they're trying to fix it and taking the time to test the patch properly this time, but it is still very frustrating that we're unable to play (or at least unable to play on our main server) the game that we all paid for or currently pay for. I hope they compensate us for this and maybe do something to let us catch up on Galactic Seasons too.

That is not the issue. You can remove it yourself, like Owen said, but the actual problem is the game trying to load with the wrong graphics settings. Removing the splash screen will not make it any easier for your GPU to handle all those high quality texture files. Let's be patient now and see if this planned fix works. Considering they only figured out what the issue is today (or over the weekend when they were probably off work), it is probably best that they are taking another day before implementing it, hopefully to test it and make sure the fix does not cause any new bugs. We're not all going to die if it takes them another two days or even a week to fix the game. I'm frustrated about this too but calling it a death sentence is a little dramatic. There are other games, or books, or movies and shows you could enjoy in the meantime. They didn't lock us all in Shadow Town.

We figured out that there is a bug where the game is forcing everyone to use the highest texture setting on the character selection screen, and that this is most likely the root cause of our game crashing/freezing issues. If the developers are reading our feedback they will know this too. But figuring out which piece of code is causing the game to ignore texture settings on that one screen, and how they can fix it without causing other issues, is more complex. We also figured this out on Friday and over the weekend, so this is basically the first day they can work on the issue. I'm annoyed about this too, but it makes sense that they haven't created a fix yet.

I already tried to do this but my computer does not have this option in BIOS so I cannot test it.

Yep. I feel fairly confident we've pinpointed the main issue here, and hopefully they can fix this bug soon. I really want to get back to playing with my friends on Star Forge, and to be able to do galactic seasons.

Ok, went back and double checked my client_settings file. I didn't modify the current file, but it also doesn't have that line in it. I added the line before since you suggested it as a possible solution, and it didn't force low texture quality on the character select screen, so it didn't fix this issue. But I think after deleting the file (another proposed solution I tried that did not work) it didn't create that line when it generated a new client_settings file. Not sure whether this is intended but for me it is irrelevant until the issue of textures being stuck on high is solved. I am not going to try readding "MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256" to the file since I already tried that and it didn't affect textures on the character select screen, so it isn't a fix for the problem we're having now and I do not have the flickering bug. If you want to test it, go ahead, but that isn't something that affects my machine.

This is incorrect. I just tested it on one of the servers I can still log into. I am currently able to change my graphics settings to 'high' ingame. This does change all settings including the texture quality, contrary to what you are saying here, and I do not have flickering issues when I do this. My computer can handle the high settings without crashing once past the character select screen, but it started to heat up so I turned the settings back to low again. And no, I have not altered that line you mentioned in my client settings file. However, none of this applies to the character select screen. When I try to change my texture quality setting in preferences on the character select screen, it reloads the graphics but does not lower the texture quality at all. On that screen specifically, the game is always loading with high texture quality. This is, again, a software issue. The game is not working as intended. The fact that better graphics cards can handle the game not working as intended does not make this a hardware issue.

We know we can't run the game well on ultra high settings on our computers. That is only an issue when the game ignores its own graphic setting options and forces us onto higher graphics settings. This appears to be an issue with the game ignoring graphics settings during the character select screen and putting them on the highest setting even when we set it to the lowest option, which is a software problem. Assuming this is in fact the issue, it probably is also affecting some people with older/lower performance computers who don't have Intel integrated graphics, just in less dramatic ways like longer load times that don't stand out enough to get forum threads dedicated to them.

This might be relevant. I'm curious whether anyone having this bug is either A. NOT having the issue with a second server that has >17 characters (since that is the lowest number I've seen quoted as being a problem) or B. IS having the issue with a server they have <15 characters on (the highest number that worked for me. If anyone is in either of these situations that might rule out the number alone being a problem. I can't test your suggestion, unfortunately, I am poor and only have this one computer with integrated graphics. But I agree it's worth trying even if it probably isn't causing the issue. The issue seems to be related to number and/or complexity of characters and character data, not subscription status itself. Being a subscriber (or having been one in the past) lets you create more characters. And Stefan and I proved that we can still log into other servers as subscribers, just not our main servers where most of our characters, items, and game progress are. So unsubscribing alone is probably not going to get you back into SWTOR as you will still have the same characters. Yes, I am still having the issue too. They said they are trying to fix it, but it is currently the weekend so a fix likely won't happen until Monday at the earliest. For now, email them your DxDiag files and wait (or use the internet connection trick to play on another server for now if you want).

I have 15 characters on Satele Shan and am able to play there despite having integrated graphics and not being able to play on my main server of Star Forge. If X characters is the issue, 15<X<29. I have other timed run achievements but not that one. Sent them a DxDiag file. I really hope you can resolve this soon so I can play with my friends again. They are all on Star Forge and that's the server I can't get into without encountering this load screen freezing issue.

I tested this theory today with the Copero SH on Darth Malgus. I logged out inside the stronghold, quit game, then restarted it. Logged back in with no crashes or freezes. Also, as someone who was previously a victim of the stronghold infinite loading screen bug multiple times, when that bug existed it applied only when logging into the specific character, not when logging into a server from server select.

I tried to change the BIOS VRAM setting but my computer's BIOS does not have that option so I'm not sure whether it would work. I do not want to mess with registry if I can avoid it, since I know enough to know that modifying the registry is dangerous but don't know enough to do it without corrupting my windows install or other files. I also would like to reiterate that I am currently having no issues playing on any other server besides my main server (Star Forge), so I am fairly confident the issue is with SWTOR and/or its files/settings, not my machine.

I tried to do this. It still crashed when I tried to load into Star Forge.