Apex Legends “Party Member Preloading” error: How to fix, possible reason, and more

Apex Legends seems to be facing a new bug in recent weeks, which does not allow players to queue up for matches with their friends or a pre-made lobby.

While over the patches, Respawn Entertainment has addressed several bugs and system issues that the game has been facing over the years; a few have slipped through the cracks and often resurface every now and then.

One such error is the “Party Member Preloading” issue which some in the community seem to be facing when trying to enjoy a match with their friends.

It’s one of the more frustrating errors to deal with as it does not have a permanent fix, just a few solutions to temporarily skirt around the problem.

However, even if it’s a temporary solution, it allows players to enjoy matches with friends. Today’s guide, in particular, will go over how you can deal with the “Party Member Preloading” in Apex Legends.

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Fixing the “Party Member Preloading” error in Apex Legends

The “Party Member Preloading” in Apex Legends primarily stems from issues around the shooter’s servers themselves or if there are corrupt files in the game in your system. Hence, to be able to deal with the problem, there are a few things that you can do.

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1) Restart the lobby or even the game

The first thing you can look to do is restart the pre-made lobby to check if the preloading error with your friends is still persisting. In some cases, it seems to have solved the issue. Hence, it’s worth a shot to try it out.

If restarting the lobby itself does not work, then the next viable solution would be to restart the game. If a faulty game boot is a problem, restarting it on your console or from Steam might be the solution that fixes it in your system.

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2) Updating Apex Legends

Mismatch in the game version can also be the root cause of the “Party Member Preloading” issue, so one of the best ways to counter it would be to update the game to the latest version.

On the console, or even on Steam for PC users, you can check for the latest version of the game. If a new update is available, you will be able to patch it to match the latest version that everyone else is playing on.

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3) Re-installing the game

While it might look like a rather drastic step on the surface, many in the Apex Legends community have attested to the fact that re-installing the game on their systems has fixed the issue.

Hence, uninstalling and re-installing the shooter on your system is worth a shot, as it will weed out issues with corrupt game files.

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4) Checking the game servers

It’s likely that the “Party Member Preloading” error stemmed from the game’s very own servers. Hence, you will be required to check the servers before starting the game and wait for them to come back if they are down for maintenance.

You can even wait it out for Respawn to patch the issue or even submit a ticket to EA Help for additional support.