Stuck on the first loading screen

I start up the game, select my character, and the game just gets stuck in the first loading screen like less than 5 seconds into loading it. The gears are just stuck and whenever I click on the game of alt+tab to chrome for example, I just get the "path of exile is not responding" error.
I tried some solutions like --waitforpreload/-nopreload, I tried to run it as administrator, I reset my pc, I uninstalled the game, nothing works. My drivers and windows are all updated as well.

I have no idea why this is happening but I know it wasn't happening a few days ago and nothing about my pc changed in those few days so I can't tell what I should do to get rid of this issue.

I'm having the same issue as well. Sometimes when I switch from full screen to windowed before loading my character I can make it through the first loading screen. Sometimes.

Crashes at char selection otherwise getting server down server down server down server down server down server down server down server down server down server down server down

Same issue, if I'm lucky, the first camp loads, after that - loading screen, gears stuck, stays forever frozen.

Tried:
- drivers
- verifying game files
- Exitlag
- Different internet connection
- Antivirus off

Anyone?