Dixho

Well… I finally fixed it.
And of course, after everything I went through, the problem was the savegame.
Back in January, after trying basically everything I could think of and still not being able to fix it, I decided to go for the nuclear option and reinstall… the entire operating system.
I switched from Windows to Linux thinking maybe that would somehow solve it.
Spoiler: it didn’t.
I then spent months trying pretty much every possible way to run GTA V on Linux — WINE, Proton, UMU, etc. Vanilla GTA V would still freeze on the loading screen, and I never even managed to get RAGE Plugin Hook working properly.
After months of fighting with it, this week I finally went back to Windows. I thought that with a completely clean Windows install, a fresh GTA V installation, and a fresh LSPDFR installation, surely it would finally work.
And… nope.
Still infinite loading.
After a lot more troubleshooting, searching around, and asking AI for ideas, I eventually thought: “What if the save files are corrupted?”
So I deleted the original save files and replaced them with another save just after the Franklin and Lamar mission.
And that was it.
The game finally loaded.
Months of troubleshooting, changing operating systems, reinstalling GTA multiple times, trying Linux compatibility layers…
…all because I needed to delete a save file.
Pain.
Anyway, thanks a lot to everyone who tried to help me troubleshoot this <3