Update: Live Battle works fine now. I reduced my friends list to about 25 from well over 100. Connected to PVP server and played about 10 races. Game loads through the opening titles very quickly now too.
Hi OoCantStopoO, thanks for posting your update and workaround on this.
Hopefully our other players who are being affected will follow suit and remove some friends off their friends list in order to play the games Live Battle modes without issue.