Stuck on the loading screen for Microsoft Flight Simulator? Here's what you need to do

With Flight Simulator 2020 receiving glowing reviews and a full roadmap for the year ahead, many players are now trying to get to grips with the many aircraft available, or just taking a relaxing flight from Heathrow to JFK Airport.

But there has been a slight discourse in the huge-file size of the game, which hovers around the 120GB mark. For a game with huge landscapes and 4K graphics, it’s understandable on one hand, but for those with slow internet speeds, a struggle to try and have it download in a timely fashion.

It’s also why some suspect that it’s because of this, that the game is freezing for some players out there; with the splash screen appearing when someone launches the game, but staying on the splash screen.

With that, here’s some background into the issue some are having, and how to fix it in the meantime before Microsoft brings out an official fix.

A Freeze on Loading

Currently, there is a growing issue where someone downloads the game for the first time, whether if thats on GamePass or Steam, and as soon as the game is ‘ready to play’, the game freezes on the first splash screen.

This renders the game totally useless, as the only way to get out of the game would be to close it through ‘Task Manager’, with the traditional ‘CTRL + ALT + DELETE’ method.

As of the time of writing, Microsoft haven’t recognised the issue as yet, possibly due to the game only coming out on Tuesday of this week to everyone.

But thanks to the power of that World Wide Web, players have been able to figure out a short-fix to alleviate the issue, which has been known to fix the issue for some, but not all.

READ MORE: When will Flight Simulator 2020 appear on Xbox One?

How to Fix

First of all, thanks to this Reddit post, there are now three methods in fixing the issue, which we recommend to carry out in the order that the post dictates.

First, make sure to run the game in ‘Administrator’ mode. This can be done by right-clicking the icon on the desktop, and selecting ‘Run as Administrator’.

Second, if a controller is connected during the loading of the game, you may need to disconnect it, and only have it connect to the PC before you even launch the game.

Third, delete your packages folder, uninstall launcher, and delete all folders and files in ‘C:\Users\USERNAME\appdata\roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\’ then load up the game again.

For now, these fixes are known to help the freezing for now. Some suspect it’s due to the fragile nature of the massive file-size that’s required to run the game. At 120GB it’s a huge download, but it’s a fix that seems easy to solve, so if the above three fixes don’t work, do follow the Reddit post in case other solutions appear in the meantime.

READ MORE: How to download and install Flight Simulator 2020.