FIX: Fortnite Stuck on Connecting Screen Bug

Experiencing a frozen screen when attempting to connect to Fortnite is often caused by outdated graphics drivers on your system. When GPU drivers are not up-to-date, it can lead to game textures failing to load preventing you from entering the game and leaving you stuck on the connecting screen.

In addition, if your game files are not loaded properly or they are corrupted. Fortnite won’t be able to verify and initiate your game session resulting in getting stuck on Fortnite connecting screen.

We have many solutions down below to ensure that your game files are loaded properly. Let’s start troubleshooting this issue.

1. Disable your Antivirus (Temporarily)

Antivirus programs can often interfere with the Fortnite process running on your PC which preventing game files to load. 

Such scenarios often occur due to a false positive or security policy of the antivirus program. BitDefender has been notoriously known to cause this issue with Fortnite.

Regardless of the security program on your computer, go ahead and disable it temporarily and see if the problem persists.

In case the problem goes away after you disable the security program, you can add Fortnite to the whitelist in the antivirus to prevent the issue from occurring in the future. 

2. Run Epic Games Launcher as Admin

If the Fortnite process does not have the required permissions to run in your PC, it will face issues, which include getting stuck on the Connecting screen. 

To resolve this, you will need to run the Epic Games Launcher with administrative privileges. Follow the instructions below to do this:

1. First, close the Epic Games Launcher completely on your PC.
2. Then, open the Start Menu and search for Epic Games Launcher.
3. After that, click the Run as administrator option on the right side.

   

4. Click Yes on the User Account Control box that appears.
5. Finally, see if the problem still occurs. 

3. Update Graphics Drivers

The graphics drivers on your system can be another culprit for the connecting issue with Fortnite. This happens when the game textures do not load in time, which can often be caused when your video drivers are obsolete. This can often cause various compatibility issues with the game.

If this case is applicable, updating the video drivers on your PC is the right course of action. To do this, you will need to uninstall the current graphics drivers and perform a fresh installation of the latest version available. 

To uninstall the drivers, we will be using the Display Driver Uninstaller utility. If you have an AMD graphics card, you can also go with the AMD Uninstall Utility to remove the drivers.

Follow the instructions below to reinstall your video drivers:

1. First, you will need to download the Display Driver Uninstaller utility. Do that from the official source here. 
2. After that, extract the file and open the Display Driver Uninstaller executable.
3. When DDU opens, click Continue on the General Options pop-up.

   

4. Now, select GPU as the device type.

   

5. Then, choose your GPU manufacturer from the Select device option.

   

6. Finally, click the Clean and restart option. This will uninstall the drivers and restart your PC.

   

7. Wait for your PC to boot up. 
8. Then, download the latest drivers for your GPU from your manufacturer’s website.
9. Install the new drivers and see if the problem persists. 

4. Disable Cosmetic Streaming

Skins are a major part of Fortnite, which are referred to as cosmetics in the game. Due to the large amount of cosmetics in Fortnite, the game allows you to stream the cosmetics in-game. This means you download the cosmetics that are in your lobby as you play.

This saves additional disk storage on your PC as you do not need all of the cosmetics present on your drive prematurely. However, the cosmetic streaming option can, in some instances, prevent you from joining the game.

This can happen when the game is unable to download the cosmetics in your lobby, thus preventing you from joining the game altogether. To mitigate this, you will need to disable cosmetic streaming in the game options. This will download an additional 24 gigs of game data on your PC containing all of the cosmetics. 

Follow the instructions below to do this:

1. First, open the Epic Games Launcher.
2. Then, click on the three dots under Fortnite and choose Options from the menu.

   

3. On the Options screen, tick the Disable Cosmetic Streaming option.

   

4. Finally, click Apply.

5. Use DirectX11

The latest versions of Fortnite leverage DirectX 12 to enhance game optimizations. However, if you’re utilizing an older graphics card, you may not see significant performance improvements, and this advanced technology could even lead to connectivity issues. In such cases, switching back to DirectX 11 might resolve the problem.

To configure Fortnite to use DirectX 11, please follow these steps:

1. Start by opening the Epic Games Launcher on your PC.
2. After that, click on your profile icon in the top right corner.
3. Select Settings from the menu.

   

4. In the Settings menu, expand Fortnite and tick the Additional Command Line Arguments option.
5. Enter d3d11 in the command line arguments.

   

6. After that, open the game and see if it gets stuck on the connecting screen. 

6. Perform a Clean Boot

Background applications can sometimes interfere with Fortnite, leading to connectivity problems. When this happens, you can verify the issue by performing a clean boot.

If the problem goes away in Clean Boot, this indicates an interference from a background application. In such an instance, you can find the culprit by turning on the services one at a time. 

Follow the instructions below to perform a clean boot:

1. Start by opening the Run box with the Win + R keys. 
2. Then, type in msconfig and press Enter.

   

3. In the System Configuration window, go to the Services tab and tick the Hide all Microsoft services checkbox.

   

4. After that, click the Disable all option to block third-party services on startup.
5. Save the changes by clicking Apply. 
6. Then, switch to the Startup tab.
7. There, click on the Open Task Manager link.

   

8. Disable the startup apps in Task Manager by highlighting them one by one and clicking Disable.

   

9. Finally, restart your PC to perform a clean boot. 

7. Reinstall Fortnite

Finally, if the above methods do not circumvent the issue on your system, you will need to reinstall Fortnite. In some situations, the problem can be associated with the game files on your device which prevent the game from connecting you to the server.

Reinstalling the game should isolate all of these issues and you will be able to play Fortnite without any further problems. To do this, follow the instructions below:

1. First, open the Epic Games Launcher.
2. Then, click on the three dots under Fortnite.

   

3. From the menu, select the Uninstall option.

   

4. Once the game has been uninstalled, start downloading it again.
5. After that, see if the issue is present. 

You should be able to get rid of the connecting screen issue in Fortnite with these methods. In case the problem still persists, we recommend reaching out to the support team for Fortnite. The customer support team will be able to further help you in isolating the problem.