Infinite loading before Continue — Steam and EA app — no crash

Hi,

Apex Legends is stuck on the initial loading screen with the spinning circle. The “Continue” button never appears, so I cannot reach the lobby.

The game is NOT frozen: the loading animation continues, and pressing Esc opens the exit menu normally. There is no crash or error message during normal loading.

The game previously worked on this PC. I first encountered this issue on November 11, 2026. It happens through BOTH Steam and a separate, freshly downloaded EA app installation, using the same linked EA account.

Troubleshooting already tried:

• Verified the game files through Steam.
• Reinstalled/repaired EA Javelin Anti-Cheat.
• Updated the NVIDIA graphics driver and restarted Windows.
• Renamed the Saved Games\Respawn\Apex folder so the game generated fresh settings.
• Disabled the Steam overlay.
• Uninstalled FACEIT Anti-Cheat and stopped the Vanguard driver.
• Disconnected Cloudflare WARP.
• Changed DNS to Google DNS and flushed the DNS cache.
• Signed out of Steam and signed back in.
• Downloaded and installed Apex separately through the EA app.

None of these resolved the issue.

Connection test:

If I disconnect my internet while the circle is spinning, the game displays “Unable to connect to EA Servers” and a Retry button. After reconnecting and clicking Retry, it returns to endless loading.

Diagnostic findings:

• While Apex is running, sc.exe query EAAntiCheat reports RUNNING with exit codes of 0.
• The EA app logs show a valid game license and successful SDK authentication-code requests: GetAuthCodeCallback: [Success][0].
• The latest EA app game sessions show normal exits rather than crashes.
• These findings have not identified why the game cannot proceed to “Continue.”

System:

• Windows 11 Pro 64-bit, build 26200.9974
• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, 8 GB VRAM
• 16 GB RAM

Has anyone experienced this exact issue, particularly with the game remaining responsive and “Continue” never appearing? Could an EA community manager advise which additional logs would help identify where startup is getting stuck?

I can provide diagnostic logs privately if needed. Thank you.