@Ubi-Raziel
I'm sorry, but whoever determined that everyone who has a freezing on splash screen problem uses MSSD clearly did not read the reports people have posted in the threads reporting the problem. SOME of us use MSSD, and were able to resolve our problem by moving the game off of our MSSD drive. However, many people pointed out that they do not, and many people spelled out the troubleshooting steps (often linking to the pages they referred to) they attempted before reporting the problem.

I'm used to this level of customer support from Bethesda, but Bethesda makes it possible for (and, in fact, relies on) the player community to solve their bug problems by filling it in with mods and utilities. As far as I can tell, Ubisoft doesn't provide that option, so unless you all step up and actually DO something about these bugs (starting with reading what the players are reporting), you're going to end up with a game that could have been fantastic, but instead ends up being known a failure for being as buggy as a Bethesda product with no options for fans to pick up the ball the devs and QC dropped.

In my case, I discovered a solution that made my game work:

1. Uninstall game from any hard drive managed by Microsoft Storage Spaces.
2. Create an Ubisoft directory on drive (even if it's an SSD) OUTSIDE OF PROGRAM FILES.
3. Install game in the Ubisoft directory you just created.

This both avoids the game's incompatibility with Microsoft Storage Spaces and the well-known problem with WIndows and games installed in the Program Files directory.

No, I do not know why any modern game would be designed to be incompatible with Microsoft Storage Spaces, but @Ubi-Woofer recommended this as a solution, and when I tried it, it worked.

@crazydonkey88
Sure looks like it. I checked my logs and saw something similar. Meanwhile, Task Manager and Cacheman were both showing that the executable was loaded in memory, but using zero CPU while taking up about 630MB of RAM. So just based on the logs, it looks as if Ubi Connect is disconnecting the game after it loads, but before it gets far enough for the game to start, but at the same time, it's leaving it in memory so the player is expecting it to DO something, instead of realizing that it's crashed until the splash screen doesn't proceed to the start menu.

@zydrate_addict

Yup. Same problem here.

Workaround for bug:

As so many other people have found, the only way to resolve this problem seems to be to drop the quest and restart it from an earlier save.

@fov_way
Weird thing is, I had to move my game to an SSD to make it work.
That's what's so weird about this start screen problem. There's no telling what causes it or what fixes it, and customer support fixating on the MSSD thing as the cause is not helping all the people who don't even have MSSD installed on their systems.

After the initial attack rush by the jotnar, they stop attacking. The circle remains red. And you wait. There are jotnar patrols in the woods far enough outside of bow range that you can die trying to climb any of the cliffs to get close enough to shoot them, but none of the jotnar come close enough to attack. So... your'e stuck waiting.

...and waiting

...and waiting

...and waiting.

The circle remains red, the jotnar don't attack, and the quest doesn't progress.

@Ubi-Raziel
I'm sorry, but whoever determined that everyone who has a freezing on splash screen problem uses MSSD clearly did not read the reports people have posted in the threads reporting the problem. SOME of us use MSSD, and were able to resolve our problem by moving the game off of our MSSD drive. However, many people pointed out that they do not, and many people spelled out the troubleshooting steps (often linking to the pages they referred to) they attempted before reporting the problem.

I'm used to this level of customer support from Bethesda, but Bethesda makes it possible for (and, in fact, relies on) the player community to solve their bug problems by filling it in with mods and utilities. As far as I can tell, Ubisoft doesn't provide that option, so unless you all step up and actually DO something about these bugs (starting with reading what the players are reporting), you're going to end up with a game that could have been fantastic, but instead ends up being known a failure for being as buggy as a Bethesda product with no options for fans to pick up the ball the devs and QC dropped.

@crazydonkey88
Sure looks like it. I checked my logs and saw something similar. Meanwhile, Task Manager and Cacheman were both showing that the executable was loaded in memory, but using zero CPU while taking up about 630MB of RAM. So just based on the logs, it looks as if Ubi Connect is disconnecting the game after it loads, but before it gets far enough for the game to start, but at the same time, it's leaving it in memory so the player is expecting it to DO something, instead of realizing that it's crashed until the splash screen doesn't proceed to the start menu.

@hawkse
In other words, there's more than just its incompatibility with MSSD that's at play. I already knew about how Windows doesn't play nice with games in the Program Files directories, which is why I created an Ubisoft directory to install it in, but it sounds like there's as many launch bugs with this as there are total bugs in a Bethesda game.

In my case, I discovered a solution that made my game work:

1. Uninstall game from any hard drive managed by Microsoft Storage Spaces.
2. Create an Ubisoft directory on drive (even if it's an SSD) OUTSIDE OF PROGRAM FILES.
3. Install game in the Ubisoft directory you just created.

This both avoids the game's incompatibility with Microsoft Storage Spaces and the well-known problem with WIndows and games installed in the Program Files directory.

No, I do not know why any modern game would be designed to be incompatible with Microsoft Storage Spaces, but @Ubi-Woofer recommended this as a solution, and when I tried it, it worked.

Tell me if I understand this right?
Valhalla is incompatible with Storage Spaces?
So anyone who has configured a gaming system using Storage Spaces in order to have enough room for all their game files, can't run Valhalla unless they dedicate a conventional drive for its installation?