Just reinstalled TSWL direct from the Funcom site after a year away, on my new PC. Able to launch, configure, log in, see my characters on the character select screen, etc. But when I press “PLAY NOW”, it just hangs at the “Logging in character…” popup.
I originally played secret world on Steam but converted to Funcom when SWL came out
I’ve tried full screen vs. windowed. I’ve tried “REPAIR BROKEN DATA”. I’ve tried downloading the “Full Client”, I’ve tried DX9 vx. DX11. Any other suggestions?
I wish I had an answer for you, because I’m in the exact same boat you are in. I haven’t been able to log in since 5:30 last night. Before the game went completely off the rails, I was having run issues (as in, I couldn’t run until I was killed) which was fantastic running e9 dungeon content. Then later on, I had a couple of crashes. Logged off to come back on later in the evening, I sent agents out, was trying to teleport to the docks and then was told I had ‘Lost connection to the server. Do you want to go to another instance?’
‘Meh. Sure.’
I got the splashscreen for Scorched Desert (totally NOT where I was planning to go at all) and then the game completely lost its mind on that screen and refused to load. I exited out of the game, and have been stuck in Load-in Limbo eversince.
So, best of luck to you, BadHandle; you’ll need it.
Hanging on the “Logging into character” or especially “Authentificating server…” step is often caused by one of the steam servers going down. I had the same issue myself yesterday, cancel if it doesn’T continue after 2 seconds and try again until it assigns you one of the working servers (there are four…normally only one has issues if any)
“Lost connection to the server. Do you want to go to another instance?” is caused by even smaller breakdown of connection between the server and you. When it happens: Check your connection. If it is down you wait until it’S up again else you can get issues or the game closes completly on you. If that is not the case it should reload you into the instance.
There is however some old bugs with the loading screen from like past years that I personally haven’t seen again…concerning these they are more than bothersome and can be due to who knows what…repairing data, changing dx version and rerolling nvidia versions are the go to checks if they do something.
Not the most assuring things to say…but I still hoe it helps. D:
Thanks guys. I should have mentioned, whatever is going on here also kills the Cancel button. The only way out of “Logging in character…” is Quit 
And now suddenly it works…
Glad to hear it resolved!