ARK freezes upon loading main menu screen and/or loading save/new file

[DJRockateer12]

I wanted ARK to run better so I moved my game from my PC to an external SSD (327GB of data). After a week of having THAT trouble, it finally transferred. I now have an issue launching the game. Whenever I launch ARK, the loading of the main menu is fine. However, when I try to load host/local or online, the game either A. Is unresponsive immediately after I click any button, or B. loads a save/new game but freezes at some point during "PrimalGameData_BP". When it becomes unresponsive (via task manager), I am unable to close the application (tried task manager and AltF4) and have to wait an upwards of 20 minutes for it to crash itself.
**The game is stored on an external SSD (2TB)

Here is what I have tried so far:
- Restarting PC (so many times)
- Restarting the game
- Restarting Steam
- Uninstalling and re-installing steam
- Uninstalling and re-installing the game
- Verifying game files
- Clearing download cache
- Repairing drive through steam
- Unsubscribing and re-subscribing to mods
- Deleting mods folder
- Deleting save game
- Updating ALL drivers (All are up to date)
- Installing new ram (from 8GB to 32 GB)
- Cleaning the inside of my PC (i was hopeless at this point)
- Checking internet speeds (seems to have no issues at all)

Here are my specs specified by Steam:

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Model: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected
Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: AuthenticAMD
CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Quad-Core Processor
CPU Family: 0x17
CPU Model: 0x1
CPU Stepping: 0x1
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3094 MHz
4 logical processors
4 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Supported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
Operating System Version:
Windows 10 (64 bit)
NTFS: Supported
Crypto Provider Codes: Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0
Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
DirectX Driver Name: nvldumd.dll
Driver Version: 31.0.15.3623
DirectX Driver Version: 31.0.15.3623
Driver Date: 6 8 2023
OpenGL Version: 4.6
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x1c82
Revision: 0xa1
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 18.74" x 10.55" (21.50" diag), 47.6cm x 26.8cm (54.6cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 4095 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x
Sound card:
Audio device: Speakers (2- INSIGNIA NS-2810BT
Memory:
RAM: 32700 Mb
VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
Media Type: DVD
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 959692 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 120702 MB
OS Install Date: Nov 06 2020
Game Controller: None detected
MAC Address hash: f239f8e0aea226a76f208b70d771b96c48203f40
Storage:
Disk serial number hash: 2466982d
Number of SSDs: 0
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

If anyone has any ideas that would be wonderful. Thanks!

[Pipinghot]

1 hour ago, DJRockateer12 said:

I wanted ARK to run better so I moved my game from my PC to an external SSD (327GB of data).

**The game is stored on an external SSD (2TB)

I would never run ARK on an external drive, you get better response times & better data throughput with an internal drive. I can think of plenty of games I would play on an external drive, ARK is not one of them. Just my opinion.

Having said that, I'm guessing that you moved from and internal HDD to an external SSD, thinking that you'd get better performance that way, so it's understandable that you tried it. But even with an SSD I would only play ARK on an internal drive.

[DirkInSA]

On 6/22/2023 at 6:42 AM, DJRockateer12 said:

Number of SSDs: 0
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

This is weird - Steam thinks you are running completely in memory  - or maybe directly from a CD/DVD drive????????

Is that external drive write enabled? (In other words has dodgy windows defender or some such "blocked" access to it). Or even, is windows sat doing a massive "scan" on the drive for either virus or indexing purposes?

Other thoughts. Is steam installed on that external drive, or is it still on your main boot C drive, but "pointing" to a game library on F: (or whatever your external dive letter is). I have had success moving the WHOLE steam installation to a different drive from my boot drive. But that was internal, not external. Trying to get steam to have "libraries" on several drives drove me to distraction! (So yeah I feel your pain at your weeks worth of effort to do the move!).

I think it is possible to run the game without intervention of steam. So as an experiment (because you will not be able to play online - single player only), from a command window, change directory to the place where ark binaries exist and try shootergame -epiclaunch . This will pop a web window wanting epic login - just close it - and see if the game now runs OK or still freezes. If stuff works here, the you have confused steam beyond redemption and need to re-look at your weeks effort  If it still don't work - I am kinda out of ideas, other than windows is messing you around because this is a removable drive and it is doing dodgy stuff in the background?