If your session is stuck on Preparing your PC or you're sitting in a long queue, this article tells you what's normal, what's broken, and what to do next.
What you're seeing
The session-start flow has three stages, in order:
- Queue. You're waiting for a free virtual PC. The launcher shows your position in the line.
- Preparing your PC. A machine has been assigned to you. The system is loading drivers, mounting your installs, and starting the streaming service.
- Connected. The session is live, the Catalog opens.
Each stage shows a different message in the launcher. If you've been on one stage for a long time, the diagnosis depends on which stage.
Queue times — what's normal
Queue is busy when usage is high. Rough expectations (in US Eastern time):
| Window | Typical queue |
|---|---|
| Overnight to early morning (00:00–10:00 ET) | 0–10 min |
| Daytime (10:00–17:00 ET) | 5–15 min |
| Peak evening (17:00–23:00 ET) | 15–30 min |
Queue is not charged — your balance only ticks down once Stage 3 (Connected) starts. So a long queue is annoying but not expensive.
If you've been in queue for more than 45 minutes, that's outside the normal range — see "Queue is too long" below.
Preparing your PC — what's normal
This stage takes about 1–3 minutes on a healthy machine. If you've been on Preparing your PC for more than 5 minutes, something is wrong.
What's happening behind the scenes: the assigned machine is being prepared (drivers, last-session cleanup, your Steam/Epic install volumes mounted). Most failures here are because a specific machine is misbehaving — not your account.
What to do if it's stuck
Press F5 in the launcher. This refreshes the connection. It often kicks the session back into motion.
Wait 5 minutes, then click the recycle bin icon next to the start button. This deletes the assigned (broken) virtual PC and asks for a new one. You'll go back into queue, but on a fresh machine — usually the second machine works fine.
Restart the launcher. Close it completely, reopen, sign in, try again. This forces a clean handshake with the server.
Check the dashboard for an Active Session Card. If you restarted the launcher and the session was already partway through, there might be an Active Session Card with a Resume button — click that instead of starting a new session, otherwise you'll queue twice.
If none of these work after about 20 minutes from your first attempt, write to help@loudplay.io with the date and approximate time. We can look at the session record on our side.
Queue is too long (45+ minutes)
A genuine 45+ minute queue is outside the normal range. Two things to try:
- Refresh the launcher (F5). Sometimes the queue display lags behind the actual position.
- Close and reopen the launcher. Re-handshake with the server. If the queue display was wrong, this resets it.
If neither helps and you're definitively in a 1+ hour queue, that's something we want to know about — write to support with the time you started queueing.
Why does this happen at all?
Each virtual PC is real hardware. We have a finite number of them. When more users want to play than there are free machines, you queue. We add capacity in response to demand, but capacity changes are slow (we have to provision real GPUs in a real data centre), so peak hours sometimes squeeze.
This isn't going to be solved by any setting on your side — it's a supply problem. The reliable workaround is to play during off-peak hours when possible. If you have flexibility, a Tuesday afternoon session has near-zero queue.
"I closed the launcher while preparing — did I lose my time?"
No. You haven't been charged because the session never reached Stage 3. Reopen the launcher, the dashboard usually offers Resume on the same in-progress session, or you can start fresh — either is fine.
Refunds for stuck sessions
If you got past Preparing your PC into a Connected session that was unusable (frozen, broken streaming, repeated disconnects) — that's a normal refund case, see "Refunds — when we issue them and how to request one".
If you never got past queue or preparing, no time was charged in the first place — there's nothing to refund. The cost was your time, not your money.