Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Bugs & Technical Problems Black screen after coop character creation

Short version(PC version):
1) I host a coop game.
2) I set game to allow Friends, or Invite-only. I send Invites to three other friends with good/great computers.
3) We all create custom characters and then Start Game.
4) Once the last person finishes, the game screen goes full black, with no intro movie playing. Only a game-mouse-arrow.
5) We let it sit there for 5+ min and nothing happens.
6) If you hit Escape button, you can hear the menu or shuffling of a bag occur. You can actually hit the menu options like Quit game if you click the right spots.
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We started testing with me hosting a game with one person at a time. It works for everyone except one friend. He appears to be the factor.
He lives overseas, but has good Internet connection, and we can launch a Divinity Classic Edition game with him with no issues.

We got it to load one single time during our tests between myself(the host) and my friend that we had narrowed issue down to, but...
When we finished random charactor selection and Start Game, it sat on black screen for @45sec and then suddenly started playing intro movie, which I then Escaped out of, and it suddenly started to load game on both our machines.
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Extended info:
I play alot of coop with friends, and we recently had this issue playing with one friend when launching a Definitive Edition game for our first time with him.

We have no current or past issues launching the Classic Edition.

1) First, I host the game due to best connection the group.
2) We all have updated video drivers, Windows 10 patches, updated Divinity patches
3) Windows Defender Firewall is set to allow game. We have even removed Divinity from allowed apps and readded it when prompted.
4) We all play Steam version of game and we all Verified File Integrity in Steam.
5) We uninstalled Antivirus/software firewalls(except Windows Defender firewall).
6) We rebooted PCs.
7) All our PCs have SSD drives, but we still sit for 5+ minutes to give it loading time, just in case.

I should also add that I(the host) and the other person we have narrowed it down to, have no Mods installed.

We can also start solo games in Definitive Edition without any issues.

I found a semi-reliable work around.

I had narrowed this past blackscreen issue to a specific friend it was occurring with. All my other coop friends did not have blackscreen issue.

I am not in front of that computer at moment, but I navigated to the Larian Studios folder that had my config settings/user profile. (My Documents folder?) I then renamed that folder(added a "2" at the end of it) and relaunched game. It created a new folder that still had the name of my profile in it, and my saved games, but it reset all my controls and other Options/Settings.

I am now able to launch coop games, BUT....
I still get the black screen, but you have to let it sit there anywhere from 1min or longer, and then the intro movie starts to play. When the intro movie starts, just hit Escape to skip the movie and get the game loading as fast as possible. You should be able to load in and have no further issues.

You also might get another blackscreen that just never loads. But After extended testing, this method works the majority of the time. But see the next factor below, that might also play a role:

One possible additional factor, or perhaps an issue in my headed that I did not get further testing on:
When all your friends are creating characters, do not let any of them hit the Start Game option at the bottom. When everyone is ready, the Host should hit Start Game, and once Host is on waiting screen, everyone else should hit Start Game immediately.
My friend that was causing this blackscreen issue, would always eventually get Disconnected From Server(I think was the verbage) on the blackscreen if he hit Start Game button before the Host was ready.

Hope this helps

I found a solution to play with my friend, i think it work 100%.
Create 2 profiles then close the game and start it in controller mode. In the main menu press start to join the other profiles.
Now that you are running multiple profiles with the same controller host a multiplayer game and reach the character creation.
In character creation everything you do with the controller you will do it in both the split screen, so disconnect and reconnect the controller and work on the first character.
When you have finished the first one press start again and rejoin the second profile, now you will still have the shared commands but the left side of the screen can be controlled from the keyboard too so did the second character and start the game with more player slot.
Now make a save, restart your game without the controller and your friend can join the second character that you have created.