Been having this problem since the Genesis update also. My laptop is new and relatively well-specced, this is 100% a game/server issue (my assumption would be game itself considering the fact friends of mine will boot into the exact same servers without any issue whatsoever).
The issue is just as you and others here describe - black loading screen until a timeout error occurs. You then attempt to connect again and are let in first time. Then, providing you don't change ANY part of your lobby like the game mode, the party, etc. You can play fine. If you join a friend's party, the game will freeze - back to main menu, back to a black loading screen until a timeout occurs... If you change game mode, same freeze, same kicking to main menu, same waiting for a timeout to be allowed in on second attempt.
My thoughts are that this could be a bad communication between setting up a lobby and actually connecting you to it. It's a bit of a coincidence that the first loading until timeout is roughly the same time it takes for you to be disconnected from your lobby due to inactivity. The game seems to set up a session for you and have trouble linking your game to it - it's then upon that session closing that you're kicked and returned to the main menu with the timeout error, which you can then "Continue" as normal and connect to a session. As for the issue with changing game mode or joining a friend's lobby, I'm stumped, but again the game freezes for roughly the same amount of time it takes you to be kicked for inactivity. Perhaps all of this is authentication failure.
Very frustrating that it takes me up to half an hour to even get into the game every time I want to play since I only play with friends. Have to plan ahead any time a friend messages me asking if I want to play a couple games.
I'm happy to provide recordings or screenshots of this whole process if necessary. As others have said, it does seem to be a relatively widespread issue so others may have already done so.
I might add all the usual "fixes" don't work as others here have also tried - fixing game files, updating Windows/GPU etc., checking disk errors, checking network errors, clearing socket settings/resetting DNS... It does seem to be server-side with the error timings I've mentioned.
Thanks for everyone that keeps contributing to this thread, it makes me relieved that we might eventually get a fix
Just a few more points from my own perspective:
1) I thought perhaps it was a networking issue, but one of the people in the reddit threads I linked to was playing from the same house (and therefore connection) as their brother - who was apparently still having some issues but not nearly as bad. Likewise switching servers had no discerable effect
2) Launching via Origin rather than Steam has definitely helped for me. It certainly hasn't solved it, but it means I can more reliably get to lobby without waiting for the timeout/error. But other users I linked to were already using Origin - and still have the problem.
3) Even when I get into the game it's unplayable - my frame rates seem noteably lower 60-80 on RTX 2080 TI (Changing from lowest detail to highest barely touches the fps). This should still be more than playable in my experience but it /feels/ much worse - which I guess is the stuttering people are referring to. I tried updating gfx drivers to the latest ones (471.11 from my current 460.79) but this seemingly made it even worse and so I rolled them back
4) One thought I did have, given this patch has brought back the old maps is that I was one of the people who used to crash out mid game in...I wanna say season 1/2/3 (?). In the end this was solved by adding an AVX instruction offset in the bios. I doubt there's any connection, but thought it worth mentioning given the old maps are back and I would assume the stuttering / preloading and even not loading into lobby are most likely gfx related on the assumption it isnt a network issue.
Happy to provide more detail on request
