Perma Loading, and then game Perma paused

Ok so, this is starting to get really annoying, as I'm trying to play with my friends and this is negatively impacting all of our experiences. We all did First Jump mission as single player so everyone could learn the ropes. Now we try to play together, I try hosting, and my friend said he gets stuck in the loading screen 100%. He restarts and nothing. I tell him to host instead, I join him, and I got the problem as well, at this point it starts getting annoying and I start looking for solutions online, I saw something about deleting shaders folder, I did that, and it worked, I managed to log and play with him. Fast forward 1 day, We're about to play and now, whenever I connect to him, it says the game is Paused, when it isn't. And yes I know there's a pause button, but pressing it does nothing. So I try hosting, he connects, get's stuck on 100% again, restarts the game, and then manages to get past the 100% loading screen only to be stuck on paused game as well. So yeah. I really need a fix for this as i'm about to give up on the game if it keeps throwing bugs after bugs like this. And no we're not using any mods, it's completly vanilla.