This has been going on for a few days now, since I tried to log in in for Brew Days. I get to the login/play page, but after I select a character and click the play button, *Has detected an unrecoverable error and must shut down* If I miss Brew Days there will be hell to pay! *Shakes fist*
Have you tried the simple stuff? (1) Start the Launchpad. If you don't select a character, does it log you in and take you to the Character Select page? If so, pick a character, and it should work properly next time you crank up Launchpad. (2) If you get to Character Select and se eno characters, try hitting the up arrow a bunch of times, repeat with the down arrow. This sometimes forces it to redisplay. (3) Shut down the game, shut down your computer, reset your modem and router. Then turn it all back on. Start the Launchpad, and click the Advanced Tools button (crossed hammer and wrench icon). Ask it to validate files. Did that help? (4) Close the game, then try opening your EQ2 folder and deleting your logincache-us and/or logincache-eu folders. Start the Launchpad again but don't select a character in the Launchpad, let it go to the Character Select screen. If you're still having problems after all that, you will probably need to open a Support Ticket.
I shut down and restarted my laptop (sat through 45 minuets of unavoidable updates from windows10, *kicks w10*) that seems to have helped, but the lag is making it nearly impossible to play right now.
If you have updates hanging for either Windows or your browser, it can lag EQ2. A few months back, I had a Windows update cause me such bad lag that the game was totally unplayable <1fps! Windows Update had installed an Xbox Game Bar app that egregiously slowed me down. I found this out because I hit some key combo that engaged the overlay, which I couldn't get to go away. That prompted me to Google to find out how to get rid of the [deleted][rude] thing. I followed the Powershell removal instructions at https://win10faq.com/how-to-remove-the-xbox-app-from-windows-10/
Same update you're talking about helplessly crashed my computer install ( by losing write access in the middle of the patch if I got the various errors right) and I had to reinstall win10 on a new drive (only time I had a major unsolvable bug with it tbh, the other one was when it borked my profiles). I will definitely be using your tip to remove all those applications that I will never ever use. And symptoms before patch was a major lag in game (which prompted me to restart computer and lose access to it for a couple of days). So yeah, windows updates can really slow you down. Make sure it's not downloading another one now that you got the first unavoidable one patched in.