Originally posted by bmoores
No there is not but it can be avoided.
What you need to do is impose discipline. Alot of your problems I have had and you need to get tough. There is a little need for these problems to happen and they can be avoided. 95% of the times this happens to be is because of newbies and idiots. To avoid loading locks follow the suggested pattern.
Exchange files via ICQ. Direct load is unstable and can be interupted by newbies jumping in and out of the load page.
*CRITICAL* Do not alter any of the countries in the available list until everyone has loaded and joined. After this point do not let anyone else join, if you do, rehost.
When you are about to start type 'READY' and get everyone to respond in kind. Then you know everyone is there and ready.
Ensure your players do not alt-tab out when you are loading.
If you have any newbies or idiots jumping in and out explain that they are ******** your game up and tell them to stay still or leave for good. Send me the details of any player that refuses to comply.
If you have any doubts at all, at all, then ask everyone to leave, then you leave and then rehost and get everyone to rejoin. I have drastically cut my load lock rate back from about 40% down to about 5% by following these simple instructions.