Stuck on loading screen

Occasionally, when joining a match, I get indefinitely stuck on the map loading screen. While I can hear the game chat or ambient sounds in the background, the map never loads, and I am unable to actually enter the match.

Because of this, the game flags me as AFK, resulting in me being kicked for inactivity. This triggers automatic Competitive bans/penalties (starting at 15 minutes, escalating to 1 hour, etc.) and causes an unfair loss of SR/rank progression.


Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Queue for any game mode (most critically, Competitive Play).
  2. Find a match and transition to the map loading screen.
  3. [Bug] The loading screen persists indefinitely while the match starts in the background.
  4. Receive the inactivity warning text/audio.
  5. Get kicked to the main menu with a penalty/suspension.

Additional Information:

  • Platform: [PC]
  • Frequency: Happens randomly, but frequently enough to ruin the competitive experience and rack up severe penalties.
  • Impact: Unfair suspensions, loss of competitive rank.

Note: My internet connection is stable, and my hardware meets all requirements. This appears to be a server-side handshake issue or a loading asset glitch rather than a local network drop.

Please look into this, as getting penalized for a technical bug beyond the player’s control is incredibly frustrating. Thank you!

1 Like

Same for me .. the only addition on my setup is a router.

1 Like

This happens to me and at least 3 of my friends all the time on console. It’s terrible, at one point I got banned for over a week

never happened to me before except today. Went through bans and then the screen froze on numbani. I heard other people selecting and the music but couldn’t do anything. I could alt-tab and scroll in my browser so the issue must be overwatch. I tried scan and repair from the battle.net launcher and it said starting repair. But it said starting repair when I tried a 2nd time… so does it say starting repair every time?