A large volume of Diablo 4 players are attempting to log in after the launch of the game’s first major update, Patch 1.1. Unfortunately, many players have encountered a frustrating error code that says ‘Start Game Pending.’ For those seeing this message, it does not appear to go away or change its status simply by waiting or relogging in.
Unfortunately, I encountered the error code whenever I first logged in shortly after the update hit, and it was incredibly frustrating. All my friends managed to log in and create their Diablo characters and pick a class while I was stuck staring at this troublesome error.
In my experience, there has only been one way to fix it. It’s a straightforward and obvious solution, but it doesn’t work all the time; it comes down to trial, error, and a bit of luck.
Solution for Diablo 4’s ‘Start Game Pending’ issue
It’s perfectly normal for ‘Start Game Pending’ to pop up on its own after you’ve selected your character and started up Diablo 4. It means the client is trying to start the game, and it usually moves on pretty quickly. It’s only an issue when it’s stuck there and doesn’t go away, no matter how long you sit there waiting.
Related: Here are all the Diablo 4 classes and abilities
This typically occurs whenever the Diablo 4’s servers are overloaded due to high amounts of players attempting to log in at once. During the beta, launch, and ensuing updates, queue times and error codes will increase.
Sadly, there is no outright solution. The best thing to do is wait for things to die down and try to queue at a later time. It could take anywhere between a few minutes or a couple of hours, but eventually, the strain on the server will subside and you’ll be able to hop back in.
If you’d like, you can cancel the queue and re-queue. I tried it a few times and managed to bypass the issue without having to wait on two occasions, but it doesn’t work all the time.
There are a number of other errors too, including the ‘Drivers Out of Date’ error or the ‘Unable to Find Valid License’ error, the latter of which is also tied to the Diablo 4 server overload happening at launch. In time, they should go away.
