November 2024, having the same issue for the past 2 weeks. Never had it before. Now on PS5, can't properly play with friends (terribly frustrating).
Short situation recap with various symptoms at each stage:
Playing on PS5 on Belgium GCE servers
- It starts with launching the game; I've had different unusual errors such as the "retrieving matchmaking list" and "initializing" messages displayed for much longer than usual, the "unable to connect to EA server" despite no server issue being recorded anywhere, and sometimes simply the game won't get to the Title Screen without any information. Most unusual is a Playstation message saying "Communication features for this game have been turned off ; you are not authorized to use communication features for this game" something like that right before the game launches. Usually shutting the game down and relaunching works around the problem.
- If I make it passed the Title Screen, then I get unusual loading times in the lobby (top right corner animated bars over the coins shows the game is not ready). Then it's the "View stats" profile item over the character that takes way longer than usual to load. Even if solo I have to restart the game again sometimes to get the game going.
- Now for the worst part, when joining or inviting friends, various issues occur; I'll see my friends legends with a Level 1 and default skins, showing we are not synced properly; OR, the "ready" item won't sync and my friends will say they see me Ready when on my side I don't see it or the other way around; OR, the match will launch but only the party leader gets to actually enter the match and not guests. Finally, when trying to requeue (usually after a lengthy match) the party leader cannot requeue with the group.
This has made the experience very frustrating and I was hoping season 23 would fix the issue but no luck so far. Please help !
